This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
This discussion was listed at Wikipedia:Move review on 25 June 2022. The result of the move review was overturn to no consensus.
The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The result of the move request was: moved. As I noted with my relisting comment, the entire crux of this RM is based on the following in MOS:CAPS: only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia.
It does not matter whichever !voters opine is correct usage. I am noting this as many voters !voted based on what they personally believed is correct usage. This line of reasoning does absolutely nothing to resolve the main question posed by MOS:CAPS.
These considerations lead to two possible scenarios, which have been recognized by both sides of this debate:
A substantial majority of reliable sources use the capital C. In this case we also use the capital C to match.
A substantial majority of sources that use the capital C cannot be decisively proven to exist. In this scenario, we default to the lowercase C.
It is Scenario 2 that has borne out in this RM, as there is no consensus on whether a substantial majority of sources that use a capital C can be found. This is a classic case of a debate where one side has an emotive majority but the other side has the much stronger arguments. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 01:21, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Indus Valley Civilisation → Indus Valley civilisation – Descriptive name, not proper name. Though there's a recent trend toward more capitalization of "civilisation" here, likely due to authors following Wikipedia, sources are still not close to the MOS:CAPS threshold of "consistently capitalized". Dicklyon (talk) 15:03, 8 June 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 15:10, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Statistics from books show tons of lowercase (even valley sometimes): [1] and [2]. Dicklyon (talk) 15:07, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
Wrong representation. The first link (Goggle Books NGRAM viewer) shows that "Indus Valley Civilization" is the most common, followed by "Indus Valley civilization". Chaipau (talk) 11:25, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Sure, but that's not the point. The point is that it's not consistently capitalized in sources, the requirement in MOS:CAPS. Not even in a majority if you look. Dicklyon (talk) 00:05, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Support. Although you could definitely argue that this is a proper name, interpreting it as a noun/descriptive name is also acceptable, and I feel that when both are acceptable we should go for the noun interpretation as it's less restrictive of the scope of the article (and also it makes things easier to read!). Dr. Vogel (talk) 15:09, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong Oppose You tried an undiscussed move, which was rightly and promptly overturned. The "trend" is anything but "recent", and you need good, firm evidence of your claims that "sources are still not close to the MOS:CAPS threshold of "consistently capitalized"", which you will find harder to demonstrate than you evidently think. Scholarship, after the first paras, normally and routinely calls this the "IVC", demonstrating a proper name. Johnbod (talk) 15:10, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
You KNOW that isn't a valid argument. Please stop injecting nonsense into these discussions. ATM is written all-caps, but everyone here knows it stands for "automated teller machine", not "Automated Teller Machine". Cf. MOS:ACRO. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:34, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Strong Oppose as per Johnbod. E.g., here Gregory Possehl uses "Indus Civilization" throughout. Chaipau (talk) 15:51, 8 June 2022 (UTC)
Support—per Dr. Vogel, but more: where there's doubt, downcase. That, in effect, is what MOSCAPS says. Tony(talk) 08:38, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Support The evidence is quite clear as is the guidance at WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS. Initialisms are routinely capitalised regardless of casing of the full term. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:43, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose Apologies for the crankiness. I have just woken up and the coffee is still cooking, and I have a dental appointment soon ... but for now: How does someone who has made no edits to the article walk off the street, start a page move, which is their right by some cockamamie WP rule, but then have the gumption to think that Tim Dyson, the author of A Population History of India, OUP, 2018; Wendy Doniger, the author of The Hindus, An Alternative History, or British Museum have all been reading Wikipedia? If we are going to dicker about capitalization, why not the "Indus valley civilisation?" Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:17, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Every element of that is a fallacious argument. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:34, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
There is an old saying in mathematics: "Everyone knows what a curve is unless they've have studied enough mathematics to be confused by the exceptions." So, have you read any book on the Indus civilization? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:58, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
We are talking about an article's title, analogous to a book's or article's title or a section's or subsection's title. We begin the second paragraph with, "The civilisation's cities were noted for their ...," not "The Civilisation's cities ..." In the third section, we say, "The southernmost site of the Indus valley civilisation ..." In other words, we are aware that "civilization" is not like "the Raj"— Hindi for rule, but a common noun turned proper— used in naming Crown rule in IndiaFowler&fowler«Talk» 18:25, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
And what title does Tim Dyson, the foremost historical demographer of India, use for his section on the Indus valley? It is "Indus Valley Civilisation." Does he capitalize every word of every section title, come what may, noun or interjection? Of course not. The very next section is: Settling the Ganges Basin and Beyond A verb in present continuous and an adverb have been promoted to upper-case; there are only two nouns, one proper and one common, and the latter is also capitalized in Wikipedia's Ganges Basin. But, while I'm riffing on "basin," there's also Amazon basin but Orinoco Basin and Nile Basin but Columbia River drainage basin, there's Darling River hardyhead, where the Darling River has been very reasonably used in naming a variety of organism; there is also Darling Riverine Plains, where by some mysterious official pronouncement its riverine plains have been used in naming an area.
So, is there a hard and fast rule to be observed? Of course not. Some of us though have enough respect for the process by which WP's content is created, by all sorts of editors, speaking all varieties of English, that we don't go barging into an article after 16 years, a former FA no less, and quote silly rules in the aid of inconsequential changes. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:24, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
At the very least we propose something on the talk page first. I have to go now and do something productive. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:30, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Um, that's what we're doing. This is the talk page, and the proposal. I had previously moved it an non-controversial, since most of the uses in the article were lowercase already, and since we go by policy WP:NCCAPS, but that was reverted, so per WP:BRD, we are discussing. Are proposing that something different or better should happen? Dicklyon (talk) 00:12, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Comment: I support the suggestion that if at all lower cases are preferred, the name should be "Indus valley civilisation", not "Indus Valley civilisation". I do not understand why "Valley" should have capitalisation if WP:NCCAPS and/or MOS:CAPS are applied. Chaipau (talk) 19:23, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
A case could be made that "Indus valley" is not a proper name, but its capitalization in sources have been approaching 80% or so in recent decades, so that puts it within what most editors would argue is "consistently capitalized in sources". I avoid proposing to downcase such items, but I would not object either. Dicklyon (talk) 00:05, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Bogosity: The argument is not just fallacioius, it's flat-out counterfactual. Citing Dyson in support of capping when he consistently uses "Indus valley civilization" and "Indus civilization" in the cited book (so obviously, he didn't get that from Wikipedia). And Wendy Doniger does cite Wikipedia in a couple of places, and uses "Indus civilization" in a few places and "Indus Valley civilization" in at least one place. As for the British Museum, who knows why they use lowercase in only a few places? Their style is not ours. Dicklyon (talk) 02:37, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
What is factual is that in both the Ngrams statistics you have provided "Indus Valley Civilization" is higher and trending upwards whereas "Indus Valley civilization" is lower and trending downwards. Chaipau (talk) 04:04, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
That's right: recently higher and trending upward. But that's irrelevant to the criterion in MOS:CAPS, and the "trending upward" is likely influenced by WP's over-capitalization. Here is a better n-grams comparison showing that only in the last couple of years do caps cross over, and that's without discounting for the frequent uses in title and headings and such, as in this book, or this one where all 12 occurrences of the capped terms are in citations to titles. Dicklyon (talk) 05:38, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
This article has been called "Indus Valley Civilisation" since 2001 the year it was created. So you are claiming that WP has suddenly started influencing the Ngrams in 2010, ten years after? This is weird.
Yes, there have been some books that have used "civilisation". Wheeler is too old. But Possehl, who actually worked on the site, uses capitalization (link above). So does Kenoyer [3]. Chaipau (talk) 15:05, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
What is it you don't understand? We don't capitalize "civilization" everywhere. We do, ideally, only in the page title or section titles. That's exactly what Dyson, Doniger, and the British Museum do. Please don't be so arrogant as to assume these authors have been influenced by WP for silly style issues.
I who have known Wendy (from the days she was O'Flaherty) and Mark Kenoyer from the late 1980s, and have written the lead and sections on the geographical extent and discovery, have no such silly fantasy about WP's place in the grand scheme of things. They might be influenced about content, for example, why the civilization died out and so forth, a la Giosan et all, "Fluvial landscapes ..." PNAS, and they might have seen it in this article's lead, but not matters of style they have been following for most of their careers. Wendy presumably has several editions of the Chicago Manual of Style on her shelves.
And what is this nonsense about Mark K. lower-casing "civilization" (and "downcasing" is that a new WP buzzword that has not made it into the dictionaries?) after some epiphany 10 years ago. He hasn't written that much in the last 10 years. Well, let's see what I have on my shelves. I'll be back in 10 minutes. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:01, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
a) All the 25 occurrences of "indus valley civilization" are uppercase i.e. "Indus Valley Civilization." But this may not be that important as they are all references to Mark Kenoyer's book.
b) of the 397 occurrences of "indus civilization" 10 are "Indus civilization," but 387 are "Indus Civilization," many are in the prose passages, not names of books or articles at the end.
c) of 65 occurrences of "harappan civilization," five are "Harappan civilization;" the rest are "Harappan Civilization." So, as far as MOS:CAPS etc is concerned, the leading Indus scholars of the day have spoken. Uppercase is preferred for both "valley" and "civilization." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:56, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Since you have the book, and you've seen that all the capped "Indus Valley Civilization" are citations to titles, which are completely irrelevant to the question here, can you at least check also for the contexts of "Indus Civilization"? Mostly titles and citations? Is there something else to distinguish the contexts where they are lowercase? Also, note that if you were to count sources that capitalize, this would count as one, not 40, since the papers all follow the same editorial style (I presume). Since n-grams counts occurrences, these capitalizations are probably greatly over-counted. Dicklyon (talk) 00:16, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
Statistics for capitalization of "civilization" in "Indus Civilization" in the Kenoyer Felicitation volume Of the 397 occurrences, a total of 197 are in prose passages (which includes the main text, the abstracts, and the figure captions; most though, some 90% were in the main text); 30 were in keywords; five were in titles, three in subtitles. Of the ten occurrences of "Indus civilization" (i.e. "civilization" in lowercase), the first in the main text was on page 393 of the 636-page book in an article incidently by Heather Miller and Mark Kenoyer, but elsewhere in the paper they do capitalize, the next article by Heather Miller alone does capitalize.
I went back and checked the first paper and it had a footnote:
I (Miller) included Mark as an author of this paper due to the importance of his experimental contributions to this discussion, although he did not see the paper before publication of this volume, which was hopefully kept as a surprise. I hope he will not mind the use of his name to give him credit for his work on this topic. There was general agreement among the editors, however, that somehow it was very fitting that Mark would be an unaware co-author of a paper in his own Felicitation volume.
Three other lowercase occurrences in the main text are in one author a few pages later. So there are four; the others are in the bibliography. 197+30+5+3+4=237 and 397-237=160. So 160 occurrences are in the bibliography, i.e. most occurrences, 197, are in the main text. Also it doesn't seem that there was a directive issued to capitalize, as at least two authors, and perhaps three did not observe it. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:24, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
This is the trouble with relying excessively on ngrams - there is a vast literature by a cosmopolitan crew of climatologists & such like, whose English is sometimes less than ideal in all sorts of respects. Better to focus on the usage of the major specialists, who are mostly from archaeology. Johnbod (talk) 02:38, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, ngrams are too opaque. I was quite surprised by the near unanimous capitalization of "civilization." And it seemed to be employed by English (first-language) speakers, and French and Italian as well, all archaeologists or anthropologists, though. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:14, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
When I have time, I'll quote some passages in which "Indus Civilization" in found, i.e. "civilization" is capitalized. My rough gleanings showed quite a few contexts, abstracts, introductions, analyses, conclusions, even footnotes and acknowledgements. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:05, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
Support per WP:NCCAPS, MOS:CAPS. Not consistently capitalized in reliable sources. Ngrams show that capitalizing the "civilization" part has never been the dominant practice except for very short blips (probably the result of multiple books in the same year or so from the same author)[4] . A quick tour through Google Scholar results shows lower-case is dominant except in titles [5]. This is a descriptive phrase like "Hallstatt culture" and "indigenous peoples of the Americas", not a proper name. You'll find both of those phrases capitalized in some sources as well [6], but it is not a dominant practice and mostly happens in titles not running prose. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 15:34, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose Civilization is not a modifier of Indus Valley but is a part of the name (the actual civilization extends well beyond the valley). Uncontextualized google ngrams results are a lazy way to argue for a move and, as it clearly says at WP:MOS, its recommendations are "best treated with common sense". Looking solely at ngram numbers as a reason to move almost always leaves common sense behind. --RegentsPark (comment) 22:28, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
Are you saying that there are contexts where books use "Indus Valley civilization" to mean something different from the topic of this article, or different from when they say "Indus Valley Civilization"? I've been looking, but haven't found such a thing. I don't think it could account for stats you're referring to. Dicklyon (talk) 00:10, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
@Dicklyon: All I'm saying is that your move request is solely relying on a set of graphs generated by google ngrams. Context arises from reading articles and figuring out where the C is capitalized and where it is not (since, clearly, both situation exists). In that sense, a move request (the argument) that relies only on google ngrams is lazy. As also are the various MOSCAP arguments that merely throw up the blue link without explaining why this article title violates that guideline and, assuming it does, why this isn't a common sense exception. --RegentsPark (comment) 14:49, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
OK, I grant that my proposal was a bit "lazy" in using a link to the capitalization guideline instead of quoting what it says that this title gets wrong. I usually assume (not always correctly) that people participating in RM discussions about capitalization have read the relevant guidelines, or will follow the link, rather than just state the opinion or preference. I have quoted bits of it here, but here it is more clearly from the lead at MOS:CAPS: "Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is conventionally capitalized; only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia." The capitalization here is not consistently found in sources; not even a majority. And yes I did look into sources to see if I could find contexts requiring different capitalizations, and the only thing I find is that a lot of title-case contexts account for a lot of the capping. WP uses title case for citations to work titles, but sentence case for article titles, per WP:NCCAPS, which says: "For multiword page titles, one should leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence." Please say if you don't understand or agree now with the proposal in light of this policy and guideline. Dicklyon (talk) 17:47, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
You are quite right RegentsPark, "civilisation" does no modify "Indus Valley" (or even "Indus valley"). "Indus Valley" is a noun phrase (an attributive noun phrase) that modifies the appelative (common noun) "civilisation". It is a descriptive noun phrase that describes a particular civilisation - the civilisation from|of the Indus Valley. It is specific to a particular civilisation because of the modifier and (more particularly) the use of the definite article ("the"), which intrinsically has a specific referent. Grammatically, there is nothing to lead to the conclusion that it is a proper name. Capitalisation is not a matter of grammar but of orthography. While a true proper noun|name may have a "derivation", it is largely an "arbitrary label". The meaning is understood in writing (and speech) without the need for capitalisation. Mayan, Aztec and Sumerian are widely recognised to refer to civilisations without the need to explicitly state such - ie we don't need to state "X civilisation" for the meaning to be understood. They can be considered to be true proper nouns. IVC is not. However, because editors have many different perceptions of what constitutes a proper name|noun or what should be capitalised (there is no consensus), the consensus is to rely on empirical evidence of capitalisation (per MOS:CAPS). N-grams draw on a large corpus. They also obviate user bias. That they are quick, is just an additional advantage. While you might lable their use as "lazy", I would think this to be a case of working smarter, not harder. Just for the fun of it, I ran n-grams for Harappan Civilisation and Indus Civilisation. They aren't going the capitalisation way either. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:52, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
@Cinderella157:, Although you could make the case that "Indus Valley Civilization" is formed by the compound noun "Indus Valley" premodifying "Civilization," (the head), it is not so much a noun phrase as a compound noun.
In compound nouns the stress is on the final noun (as in New York City LIBrary, or Indus Vally CIVization); there is a slight stress on INDus, of course, but the major stress is on CIVilization. This usually means that the structure has become institutionalized, i.e. become a compound noun.
(If we are trying to disambiguate IVC from other civilizations, of course, we will stress INDus.)
It serves as the head of a noun phrase and takes determiners, modifiers, and complements, such as: the (determiner) very large (pre-modifier) Indus Valley Civilization (head) of ancient South Asia (complement)
The whole thing is a noun phrase and can be the subject of a sentence as in
The very large Indus Valley Civilization of ancient South Asia (subject) existed (intransitive verb) during the Bronze age (prepositional phrase complement).
All this is consistent with IVC being a proper name, just like the New York City Library. Whether it has become a proper name is a question that will not be settled by the rules of grammar, but by usage. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:37, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
"but by usage." Exactly. Usage stats make it clear that it has not approached the threshold of "consistently capitalized in sources" that WP uses to decide whether to treat it as a proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 23:48, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
Compound nounsare noun phrases (i.e. nominal phrases) that include a noun modified by adjectives or noun adjuncts. You appear to be making a distinction where none exists. "New York City Library" is not a true proper name. I could write either: I went to the New York City L/library or I went to the library (where context conveys that I went to the "New York City L/library"). Both convey the same meaning even though the former more specifically describes which library I went to. When written or spoken, there is no distinction resulting from the casing of "library". Similarly, while one might write The Indus Valley C/civilization existed during the Bronze age, one could also write The civilisation existed during the early Bronze age. A grammatical argument that this is a "unitary" or indivisible noun phrase fails as indeed do arguments based on a equivalence between proper names (grammar) and capitalisation (orthography) in cases such as this. While it might be convenient to label capitalised phrases such as this as proper names it is a misnomer. Capitalisation in such a case is editorial choice. However, we appear to have come to a common ground, in that capitalisation is determined by usage and this is consistent with the guidance of MOS:CAPS. Apart from the evidence presented by the OP, I find this version of the article before the RM was notified particularly telling - that editors working on this page aren't consistent in the capitalisation. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:25, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
@Cinderella157: As I stated in my first post, we have always used IVC for the page name. In the text, we have tended to use IVC, or IVc, rarely Ivc, and often "the c." The Kenoyer felicitation volume was an eye-opener as the major Indus archaeologists seem to be capitalizing both V and C, as also I have painstakingly shown above. About the noun phrase issue, you are talking through your hat. As I have learned my grammar from the works of just a few people, Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum, Ronald Carter and McCarthy, I'm sure I can easily find some quotes. I haven't thought about these issues in a while, and I have to run now, but when I return in a couple of hours, I will find them. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:52, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
I found one right away in Carter and McCarthy's Cambridge English Grammar. "Proper names may consist of more than one word, ... The Lord of the Rings, Shannon International Airport. When proper names consist of more than one word, the words work together as a single unit." That is what I meant by being institutionalized. I'm pretty sure they use it somewhere. More later. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:56, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
As you will notice in the article itself, people use "the library." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:59, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Unlike English, most European languages (including those that don't use Latin script) are fairly rigid in their application of capitalisation such that they pretty much only capitalise true proper nouns and only when they are used as nouns - ie not when they are being used attributively and function as an adjective (except the Germanic languages which pretty much capitalise all nouns). Hence, while "San Francisco International Airport" is universally capitalised in English, it is lowercased in French (links to ngrams see also the French article and the Swedish article). In the sentence I went to the Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles and/or International can be omitted without changing the meaning that I went to a specific airport (because of the definite article). Removing these "adjectival" terms only means that I am being less specific in describing which particular airport I went to. It is no different from removing one or more adjectives from any noun phrase (eg the ugly big old wide red pick-up truck). The same can be said of New York Public Library. While Carter and McCarthy would state: the words work together as a single unit, the unit is not indivisible and for that matter, the words in my truck example are also functioning as a single unit. As an explanation that would make some sort of distinction, it fails.
I have never said that a proper name cannot be more than one word. Indeed, the distinction between a proper noun an a proper name is that a noun is a single word while a name can be a phrase (ie of more than one word). Phrases like those examples above are not true proper names even though they are almost universally capitalised (see n-grams: Shannon International Airport and New York Public Library). There is a deficiency in gramatical explanations that would try to rationalise the relatively liberal use of capitalisation in English purely in terms of "proper names", since it is based on the false equivalence between orthography and grammar. You have already said that this is not a case to be be settled by the rules of grammar, but by usage. The rules of grammar fail because they are premised on this false equivalence. Instead, we can consider the conventions of orthography. In the cases above, capitalisation is a form of distinction that sets the phrase apart and would distinguish it from other text as a unit. This is an editorial decision. When this is done almost universally, the capitalisation can be said to be "institutionalised". This institutionalisation is a matter of empirical evidence. Having said that, IVC fails to rise to the level per MOS:CAPS that it can be said to have become institutionalised particularly if compared with other phrases like New York Public Library or Shannon International Airport.
Personalising an argument with pejorative comments isn't particularly good form. I take such comments to be a mark of incivility and a sign of weakness of the case being made. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:51, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
No one is personalizing anything. I was losing my patience because your argument was not to the point. "Noun phrase," "adverb phrase," and other classes of modern "structural" grammars mostly didn't exist a 100 years ago when IVC was discovered. Traditional grammar, the kind that went from noun to interjection, the parts of speech, that is, was what most people learned in middle school or high school. But they still knew what to capitalize and when.
What was the point of the discursive bit on compound nouns being noun phrases, using "noun adjuncts" and so forth? Noun adjunct is not really a widely used term for noun premodifiers, see here, in my humble view, although WP uses it. "Adjunct" is generally used for adverbials, i.e. adverb, adjective, or prepositional phrase but sometimes a noun phrase, as in "We will return to London this Sunday/Sunday evening" but in the old days they would have said "on this Sunday evening," preferring the prepositional phrase (an adverbial) for the noun phrase.
Anyway before my reply also turns into a discourse, let us note that we agree on the idea that usage is what counts. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:50, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
The OP of this sub-thread started with a grammar based argument. The point is that any argument based on grammar and would assert that the term is a proper name as a grammatical concept fails. As to noun adjunct, this was a quote. Perhaps attributive noun would be better (per here) but nothing sinks nor swims on the semantics of this particular term. As you say: let us note that we agree on the idea that usage is what counts. But further, this discussion serves to show why it is usage that counts. Thanyou, Cinderella157 (talk) 01:59, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose. RegentsPark has said it correctly. "Indus Valley Civilisation" was a proper name when it was coined, and it should remain so. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 09:36, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Who coined it, when? Sources suggest it started out lowercase and capitaization has gradually crept up, but there no "coining" event I can find. If you mean when the WP article title was coined, then that's the problem we're proposing to fix. WP is not in the business of coining proper names, or of dressing descriptive titles up to look like proper names. Dicklyon (talk) 17:37, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Archaeological Survey of India coined it. Sir Mortimer Wheeler is the authoritative source on it. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 20:04, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
I see quite a few older sources using the term, with and without caps. Where can I see that a name was "coined"? Wheeler mostly uses "Indus Civilization" and "Indus Valley", but just a few "Indus Valley Civilization", not like he thinks that's the name. Dicklyon (talk) 00:16, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't think a name was coined as such by the ASI. The foundational volume, Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, edited by Sir John Marshall, London: Arthur Probsthain, 1931, does not capitalize "civilization" except in the titles of the individual chapters. It has contributions by the major early IVC-ologists, including, including off the top of my head, Ernest J. H. Mackay and Daya Ram Sahni, the first Indian director general of the ASI.
But the point here is that Mortimer Wheeler was very influential. He was the DG of the ASI at the time of the Partition of India; responsible for the division of spoils, as it were, between India and Pakistan; the Advisor on archaeology to the Government of Pakistan thereafter; a major force behind Mohenjo-daro becoming the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in South Asia in 1979; and the author of an influential (text) book Kautilya3 has quoted from. He capitalizes throughout there. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:44, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
I'll grant you that Wheeler has been very influential. But his tendency to capitalize has not really caught on, according to the stats. As for it was "a proper name when it was coined, and it should remain so", no, that's BS. Dicklyon (talk) 04:11, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
Not true. Possehl and Kenoyer both have used this capitalization, as shown above. Chaipau (talk) 11:38, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
"Stats," of course, is the issue. Do we count some guy who has made a hurried obligatory mention of IVC or IVc or Ivc in an article on Water Shortage in the Darjeeling Hills? Or an author who mentions IVC (so the capitalizer's heart lightens) but then goes on to say "was 4000 years old; in contrast our Vedas, which are 10,000 years old, ..."(the usual Hindu nationalist line). That, of course, is HM (equine excrement) for everyone knows that the archaic Sanskrit-speaking Indo-Aryans who composed the Vedas (the roots of Hinduism) galloped into the subcontinent sometime after 1400 BCE. That is why I think limiting the search to archaeologists, anthropologists and scholars from related fields is best. We don't want hoi polloi to be our exemplars. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:58, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
Generally, we prefer to see how a term has caught on in general usage, since specialists have a tendency to cap things important to them even when others don't. See WP:SSF. Dicklyon (talk) 23:48, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
Even this does not get you anywhere. The Ngrams are trending IVC not IVc. Chaipau (talk) 00:06, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Support As proposer and SMcCandlish. Neither RS nor reason support capitalisation. Cambial — foliar❧ 13:55, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose I support retaining the status quo and refuse to partake in this exp(silly) discussion. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:41, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I was echoing Fowler&fowler. My point was that this was a halfhearted and inconsistent effort to weed out capitalization. Neither Ngrams nor a consistent application of policies support this. Chaipau (talk) 11:43, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
An argument of argumentum ad populum is to argue the ignorance of the plebs and the counterpoint is argumentum ab auctoritate. If one wants to know about the IVC, one should consult the experts in that field who would be archaeologists or similar. If one wants to know about capitalisation one should consult the experts in that field. Per our discussion above, capitalisation of a term such as this is a matter of orthography and an editorial choice. It would be non sequitur to assert that an expert in archaeology is ipso facto an expert in orthography. Equally, it would be fallacious to assert that the editors/publishers that determine editorial style are of the ignorant populace. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:38, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Note on status quo ante: Almost all the uses of "civilisation" in the article were lowercase before I proposed this move, which is part of why it seemed non-controversial in the first place. After the move was proposed, they were all changed to Uppercase in this edit by Kautilya3. I've reverted back for now, while we discuss. Dicklyon (talk) 00:10, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
If you go back less than a year, say to this diff last August, "almost all" uses used "C". Obviously some capitalization warrior has been along in the meantime to change them, I can't be bothered to work out when. We should have consistent usage, that reflects the title for the time being. Edit-warring to preserve a mixed position (with added typos) is almost as absurd as your claim that you thought this RM was non-contentious. Johnbod (talk) 17:36, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
At that time there were only 4 instances of "Indus Valley civilisation" and 12 "Indus civilisation"; now there are 5 and 13, respectively; no case-changing compaign can be found in the intervening edits, until the attempt to cap them all after I proposed the move. All this shows is that nobody has ever been paying attention to the capitalization here; this is not unusual with Wikipedia articles, as the subject matter experts and the style experts are often disjoint groups of editors. Dicklyon (talk) 03:05, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
What are you talking about? In that diff from last August, counting the various synonyms (Indus/Indus Valley/Harappan etc) thereare by my count 41 civilisations with "C", vs 8 with "c". I suggest you look again - you're not searching on "civilization" are you? Johnbod (talk) 03:43, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
I was talking specifically about the lowercased "civilisation" counts in "Indus Valley civilisation" and "Indus civilisation". You had suggested that someone had converted a bunch of capped instances to lowercase, but that's contradicted by the counts. I agree that there were many more total and capped instances, and still are. Dicklyon (talk) 04:32, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
My count is 19 IVC and 5 IVc in the main text and captions. I searched for "indus valley civilisation". Chaipau (talk) 13:15, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Oh, we know about style. I have books on style on shelves going back to the turn of the 20th-century and everything in between. It is just that I for one am not particularly moved about being the policeman. I tend to cut a lot of slack in matters of style. This is after all a global encyclopedia in which editors who speak dozens of different regional varieties of English add content. The IVC, moreover, is in Pakistan, mostly, that is, and to a lesser extent in India. How do we know what the prevailing style of English is in those cultures, whether they capitalize or not? Style is the wrong this to worry about beyond the basics that is. As long as the text is intelligible, and consistent, I don't see any imperative to push further. You do have a point about the C/c not being consistent, but that is a separate issue for which a page move is not required. Anyway past my bedtime. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:25, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Yeah, bedtime. I don't want to be policeman either, but I don't mind being a style gnome, and page move discussions are generally the most effective way to arrive a consensus for things like capitalization (doesn't always work though). We don't really need to know or care what the prevailing English capitalizatin style is in Pakistan, since WP has its own style guidelines. Dicklyon (talk) 04:32, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose for consistency. I distrust proposers who feel they have to keep arguing the toss after every edit. Sweetpool50 (talk) 20:43, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
I'm sorry you don't trust me, but do that's not a relevant reason to oppose here. And "for consistency" should mean consistency with guidelines, not with the pack of other opposers. Dicklyon (talk) 18:16, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Final Comment: This quest for changing an old article's name, a former Featured Article's to boot, began on June 8, 2022. As of today, it seems to be going nowhere, making circles in the desert sands of dead habit: seven opposes, mostly by editors who have long edited this article and have appealed to the convention among the major archaeologists, anthropologists, and historians that have studied the civilization, are lined up against seven supports, mostly by editors who have appealed to general principles, most well-meaning, but a few impolitic and discourteous. I have other things to do, but as the editor who has edited this article for some 15 years, may I recommend that when the 7 days are up, some neutral admin should end this futile quest. I don't discern any consensus for a change. May I also recommend to the proposers and the knee-jerk page movers that they read my post on Talk:Tongba before they get the urge to waste more time on other old pages, brimming with the arrogance that they know better, so much better that they feel unconstrained by any common courtesies. This incident also speaks to Jimbo Wales's original pronouncement to be bold being misinterpreted by the quantitative culture to which WP has fallen victim, without pointing fingers at anyone in particular, only to the culture (much written about in the NY Times and elsewhere). This page is not that sort of a page. The study of the direction and implications of empirical research in the IVC does not dwell on quantitative methods. The Kenoyer Felicitation Volume is a testament. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:43, 12 June 2022 (UTC)
Arbitrary break
Oppose Any editor so foolishly obsessed on such an unimportant matter that they edit war and get blocked deserves to have their efforts thwarted. Chris Troutman (talk) 14:05, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Profoundly ad hominem yet valid. Drmies (talk) 15:06, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose per RegentsPark, Sweetpool and Christ Troutman. Doug Wellertalk 15:18, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Support - disregarding chit chat about the conduct and subsequent blocking of the RM's proposer, and WP:ILIKEIT style !votes in opposition, relying mainly on the fact that we've "always done things this way", the evidence and MOS:CAPS do seem to favour the sentence case variant. Although the bald title leads a bit in ngrams, when you add "... was" on the end (to highlight usage in running prose rather than in book titles etc) we find that the sentence-case variant is in the lead. Thus the MOS:CAPS requirement for a substantial majority of usages in sourcing being title case is clearly not met. I hope that whoever closes this discussion will focus only on that key evidence and the adherence to Wikipedia's guidelines, rather than the unevidenced opposition we see above. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 16:32, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
Thanks @Amakuru:, I had no idea ngrams had such a range of choices. Here's what I get:
As the IVC was discovered in 1923, changing the lower bound gives a better spread.
First things to check are the different spellings,
-sation, (the British (non-Oxford; or Chambers', I like to say) and Commonwealth spelling)
@Fowler&fowler: thanks for the detailed analysis, that's interesting and shows it's far from a settled question. The point is, however, that our bar for capitalisation isn't a tie or a narrow lead for the title-case variant, MOS:CAPS requires a "substantial majority". Now I know that is contentious in many instances, and perhaps there might be a community decision to change it at some point, but for now it seems like that "substantial" bar could not be said to be met in any of your examples above. That's the main point here, as I see it. I don't have a major skin in this game, but I do like to see our guidelines followed absent good reason not to. Cheers — Amakuru (talk) 19:18, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
I wonder whether we can boil it all down to MOS:CAPS. Because, isn't WP:CONSENSUS more fundamental? And right now we don't seem to have a consensus for the move. Chaipau (talk) 22:04, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
See WP:CONLEVEL. There is a strong consensus to follow the MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCAPS guidelines and policies, and that's not supposed to be ignored or overridden by a local consensus of editors who want their articles to have a different capitalization style. Dicklyon (talk) 01:40, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
We have agreement that usage is the determining factor which is the basis of MOS:CAPS and appear to have agreement that usage in prose (how it is "conventionally capitalised" per MOS:CAPS). The present issue is the threshold of usage to determine whether the term has become institutionalised (to quote from our above discussion) in the capitalised form. For the three examples your raised, there is near universal capitalisation over a substantial period up to the present (Shannon International Airport, The Lord of the Rings and New York Public Library). IVC is nowhere near the these examples. MOS:CAPS expresses the threshold qualitatively: consistently capitalized in a substantial majority. This is quite clearly much more than a simple majority (or "leading"). It sets a fairly high threshold or confidence limit. If one wanted to clearly distinguish from "average" or mixed usage, then one standard deviation or 85% would be an objective basis. DL has indicated 80% on raw data that does not distinguish use in prose from title case uses and one might nominally allow 10% for such cases. In this case, there are two uncapitalised forms that both contribute to the total. IVC is not a particularly common term, so even in an n-gram context, the sample set is relatively small. Looking at a very narrow date range narrows the sample set even more. It would therefore be statistically imprudent to read too much into a short-term trend and there are objective advantages to using a larger smoothing factor. As Amakuru says, that "substantial" bar could not be said to be met in any of your examples above.Cinderella157 (talk) 06:31, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
That's not true. Indus Valley Civilisation is used as a proper name in numerous sources. Doug Wellertalk 16:39, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
I don't think anyone has denied that it's "used as a proper name in numerous sources". But that's not enough to reach the threshold of MOS:CAPS, which is "consistently". Dicklyon (talk) 03:01, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose I don't have strong feeelings about MOS arguments but I trust the reliable sources we use on this subject and it seems from what I've read that has been presented in this argument, while not unanimous, they support capitalization. My own subjective opinion on what would be appropriate is not consequential. LizRead!Talk! 23:16, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
not consequential, i.e. not of consequence, importance, moment, or weight, as opposed to the inelegant inconsequential. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:38, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose. Generally seen as a proper name. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:42, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose. Reliable sources treat this as a proper noun. -- Vaulter 15:54, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
Note: all these claims that sources treat this as a proper name are based on a handful of favorite sources, not an any kind of survey or statistics. The data from n-grams, on the other hand, while not perfect or always easy to interpret, shows a majority lowercase (counting all the variants with lowercase civilization against all those with capitalized: see); and n-gram stats are well known to bias toward the uppercase, relative to what we'd find if we could limit to sentence context, which is what our guidelines clearly say that we go by. So the claims are bogus, just WP:IDONTLIKEIT opinions of history editors against guidelines. And the minor trend of the last decade toward more caps is already certainly influenced by Wikipedia's long capitalization; we're not supposed to do that, but are unreasonably effective at influencing writing. How should we fix this mess? Dicklyon (talk) 03:39, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Tally A full week later, there are 14 opposes and seven supports.
Editors looking for dedicated policing work could go to the British royalty pages.
Importune the British royalty pages. A cornucopia of grandiloquent "names" awaits your vaunted ngrams. By what and whose consensus, local or global, have their conceits survived on WP? Practise your Wikilawyering skills there my friends, dicker there over what is "substantial" and what is not; otherwise, I will come away thinking that the Western Anglosphere gets the easy passes, but the Eastern or Southern does not.
Will some uninvolved admin stem the rot here and end this benighted quest? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:44, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
The history makes it clear that there was never a time when the capitalization in the article was consistent, and therefore never a time when it was looked at or considered. There's no precedent in that. Dicklyon (talk) 02:56, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
It's funny, too, that you're citing a provision from the most recent edit there, probably never reviewed, since it still conflates precedents with precedence and has grammatical errors. I'll bring it up at the talk there and see what's the best way to fix it. It's not for 21 years, but since Dec. 21. Dicklyon (talk) 03:09, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Relisting break
Relister comment The crux of this RM is whether sources use a capital C consistently enough. There is no consensus on whether the sources demonstrate a consistent-enough use of a capital C. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 15:15, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Is the consistent majority usage of the last 20 years with a smoothing of 10 no less to account for local outliers of no value? What does that tell you @Mellohi!:, please tell me?
Has been leading is not the question, not the criterion. The question is whether sources consistently treat "Indus Valley Civilization" as a proper name, and a more correct view of the n-grams makes it very clear that they do not:
"is" makes the tiny majority almost disappear. Not done
"of the" makes the tiny majority disappear. Not done
"in the" makes the tiny majority almost disappear. Not done
There's no way to slice the n-gram results to show anything approaching evidence that sources consistently (or even in a bare majority except in very recent years after Wikipedia influence) treat this as a proper name. Dicklyon (talk) 18:40, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Concur with Dicklyon. F&F simply doesn't know how to read N-grams correctly and doesn't understand the guideline. If source usage is wildly mixed, which is the case here, WP uses lower case. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 19:15, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
Which is exactly what Amakuru tried to tell him the previous time he posted his flurry of green ticks. Dicklyon (talk) 19:35, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I bow down to the superior wisdom of Amakuru+Dickylon+SMcCandlish, which shines gloriously at Hudson Valley
... but will all three be planting the name change at Mississippi River Valley amongst the slippery catfish? Please keep me posted on the progress. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:44, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I am not able to discern what you are trying to show with those distractor n-gram stats. They support that Hudson Valley is right already, and there's no article at Mississippi River Valley, so nothing to do. Let's stick to the current question instead. Dicklyon (talk) 00:03, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Why so long @Dicklyon:, it is ten minutes, I replied in one. Again which of the downcase doozies will you be choosing for the successor page? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:14, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
So, which of the downcased doozies will We be changing it to? The left with single downcase or the right with double downcase, @Cinderella157:Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:36, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
I'm aware of that of course, but let me rephrase it for all to see: will you be choosing case (a) "Indus Valley civilisation" or case (b) "Indus valley civilisation?" If you chose case (a), how will you live with this ngram? If you chose case (b), how will you live with this ngram. So why are you wasting our time by letting the downcased doozies tag team as "Indus Valley civilisation+Indus valley civilisation" in the ngram? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:00, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Because by your own admission that choice of page name would be nonsense. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:04, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
I don't mean you personally Cinderella157, I mean the generalized you, the we, the us, the powers-that-be, the movers-that-would-be, and much else. It is time for me to withdraw from this discussion. It is not going anywhere. All the best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:21, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
I thought we had already established that "Indus Valley" is consistently enough capitlized in sources; over 70% for over 50 years; see here or here. What I'm proposing is that you stop pretending that we put names up to a vote by sources, or by editors for that matter. Let's just go by our own style manual. Dicklyon (talk) 02:29, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
@Dicklyon: The Ngram you are displaying for is "Indus Valley Civilization+Indux Vally civilization,Indus valley civilization+Indus valley Civilization". What is "Indux" and "Vally"? Chaipau (talk) 03:10, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
That's what I call Generalized Fumble Fingers; I had noticed and fixed the Indux already in the link above, but missed the Vally. Here is the corrected link. It pushes the > 70% capped Valley back to 90 years or more. Thanks for noticing. Dicklyon (talk) 03:18, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Fowler&fowler, "Indus Valley civilisation + Indus valley civilisation" was redlinked as if it were an article title and I was saying that that would be a nonsense. You have clarified that you are actually meaning one or the other of the alternative casings of valley. Posing the question: will you be choosing case (a) "Indus Valley civilisation" or case (b) "Indus valley civilisation"? is a red-herring since the proposed target is without question Indus Valley civilisation. However, I will address the rest of what you ask. If you chose case (a), how will you live with this ngram?here Looking at the very last year, it is capped just over 60% of the time but as we both know, this does not distinguish deliberate use of title case v use in prose. So for prose, the figure is going to be less and probably closer to 50%. Per my comment above, your ngram is showing mixed or undecided usage, it does not evidence a "substantial majority" and the high threshold set by MOS:CAPS that the capitalised term has become institutionalized as you have called it. However, there are two terms that don't capitalise civilisation and considering all three here, it is even clearer that the capitalisation of civilisation in IVC is nowhere near the threshold set.
If you chose case (b), how will you live with this ngram?here (ie IVc v Ivc) Firstly, looking at the end year, IVc just exceeds the nominal 80% threshold (per above) for raw ngram data that doesn't distinguish prose usage. IVc satisfies that test. Secondly, in the phrase IVC|c, IV is a noun phrase that modifies civilisation. That noun phrase consists of the proper noun Indus and the common category noun valley. We can then look at the capitalisation of Indus V|valley to see if it reaches the threshold that it has become institutionalised. This ngram for Indus V|valley also show that IVc also exceeds the 80% nominal threshold. Incidentally, the percentages by both routes are quite close (<3%). In short, the case for Indus valley civilisation is weak. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:29, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Where do you draw the line? Going by your Ngrams arguments IVC is preferred over IVc because IVC is higher than IVc both in percentage as well as recent trend (IVc is going down whereas IVC is going up). Chaipau (talk) 03:40, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
The line per MOS:CAPSis consistently capitalised in a substantial majority of source. See also my comment here. The threshold is clearly not a simple majority but something significantly higher and to the matter of trends, WP is not a crystal ball, though it would be interesting to revisit the data in a few years (if the RM is successful) and see what effect WP has on the trend. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:57, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
If you want to be qualitative, then you need to take many other factors into considerations. The people who have edited this article substantially have said that Ngrams is not a proper measure. And that most of the authors who have made this their life's work have used IVC over IVc. And most of the people who have participated in this discussion have, by a 2/3rd majority voted to keep the title as it is. When you use something like "substantial" then these come in too. WP:CONLEVEL was mentioned, which says: Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. So, which group sounds like a wider community to you-the 1/3rd or the 2/3rd? The issue in this discussion is move IVC to IVc. If the situation was so clear, what is the need for discussion and votes? Why was this extended? Chaipau (talk) 04:40, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
I (as are others) am actually arguing from a semi-quantitative basis in that we would attribute a value to the quality (nominally 80% for raw ngram data that doesn't distinguish prose usage). Neither quantitative nor qualitative measures are inherently limited in the factors or scope of what they might consider. MOS:CAPS defines the scope. I can see no cogent argument that ngrams are not a proper measurement. DickLyon has addressed that there doesn't appear to be other contexts that might use the phrase IVC. Argumentum ab auctoritate has already been addressed by me. There is also WP:SSF. Consensus is not a vote. Consensus is determined by strength of argument. Statements like "Support - many sources uses it as a proper noun" are offered without actual evidence and carry little weight. The argument made wrt WP:CONLEVEL is, at best, novel. It clearly misconstrues the quote in its fuller context. A discussion is needed because it has been contested. Per my discussion with F&f this is clearly not a true proper name. It is a noun phrase which has at its head a common or category noun. The only justification for its capitalisation is one of distinction. If capitalisation is so important, then why has the degree of mixed usage in the article persisted for so long? The counter question is, why is it being contested? Cinderella157 (talk) 10:21, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
Sorry for my late reply (RL). I think I did not state it well---let me restate.
We are discussing here the request: "IVC -> IVc". Are you claiming there is a consensus to move forward on this request, after the first round? Clearly there isn't, and that is why it has been relisted. It has not been rejected either, giving us an opportunity to restate our cases.
You seem to be arguing that MOS:CAPS, and other policies are clear. Prima facie, this might look so, but Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. You cannot go just by the letter of the policies. Your arguments might look very clear to you but a majority of those who have voted here do not agree with you. What is clear from the 14-7 vote is that 2/3rd here do not support the "IVC -> IVc" request.
Argumentum ab auctoritate is not always negative. It is negative only when it is used to support something false. On the other hand Wikipedia has WP:DUE and WP:WEIGHT, etc. and we defer to stronger reliable sources all the time---we do accept and give weight to more authoritative sources. The authority comes from the initial coinage of IVC and the usage by major authors.
WP:SSF addresses the situation when a local group of editors uses the "specialized style" argument. You cannot claim this is a specialized style since this article was created decades ago, and this style was maintained when this was a featured article. Furthermore, how could this be a specialized style when the Ngrams shows it is the dominant style both in absolute value and trend since 2014.
I have not edited this article in the past (at least in the last decade if I am not mistaken). I do not see the violation of any Wikipedia policy or convention if status quo is maintained. On the other hand I see definite long-term harm if fly-by editors are able to enforce the letter of selected policies without attention to the spirit of these policies and against the opinion of the community of editors who bring content to Wikipedia. Chaipau (talk) 17:03, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
I would like to point out that the correct comparison in Ngrams is between "Indus Valley Civilization+Indus Valley Civilisation" and "Indus Valley civilization+Indus Valley civilisation", where we account for both the UK/India and US spelling styles. If we did this [without any smoothing] then the latest scores are (from 2019):
IVC: 0.0000052002%
IVc: 0.0000021291%
Normalizing these to 100, we get the following scores:
IVC: 70.95%
IVc: 29.05%
Thus when we look at the scores head-to-head, IVC comes up ahead with an overwhelming majority. Chaipau (talk) 17:40, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
I have not made a statement of where the consensus lies but I have commented that "Consensus is not a vote". Many that have !voted here have made broad statements with little or nothing to evidence assertions made. WP:NOTBURO would state: [WP:P&G documents] already-existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected. While Wikipedia's written policies and guidelines should be taken seriously, they can be misused. Do not follow an overly strict interpretation of the letter of policies without consideration for their principles. If the rules truly prevent you from improving the encyclopedia, ignore them.MOS:CAPS opens by saying: Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. This and the balance of the lead represent the principles of the guideline. Per discussion with F&f, IVC is not inherently a true proper name and its capitalisation is an editorial decision. We would only cap it if it has become institutionalised in language. It certainly does not show the same degree of capitalisation as the institutionalised examples given by F&f. Argumentum ab auctoritate would be a valid argument here for a matter of archaeological fact but the question here is editorial and draws on a different field of expertise (as I pointed to above). WP:SSF would reinforce why argumentum ab auctoritate is not a strong argument in this case. The take-away information from WP:SSF is that specialist tend to unnecessarily over-capitalise terms within their domain for emphasis or distinction, which we don't do (see MOS:EMPHCAPS). This also brings us back to the principles of MOS:CAPS, that we avoid unnecessary caps and that unnecessary caps do not improve the encyclopaedia.
Smoothing is used to reduce the effect of statistical noise. Choosing a "particular" result without any smoothing because it is particularly high (or low) and tends to support a particular outcome is not objective methodology and falls to observer bias. The particular question we have here is the capitalisation of civilisation in the phrase IVC. There are 3 practical permutations to be considered in respect to the capitalisation of civilisation yet your methodology would ignore one of these (Ivc). Also, the methodology does not consider or allow for ngrams over reporting capitalisation (ie that it does not distinguish usage in prose from title case uses). From this ngram, one can determine the value for Icv and incorperat this into your calulation to yield a value of 62.5% for IVC (ie capitalising civilisation) allowing for title case uses, this would certainly approach 50%. We can also apply a smoothing factor of 10 to your ngram (noting that it was F&f that first suggested factors of that order). This shows that the usage of IVC and IVc are nearly equal over time. This is without including usage of Ivc or making allowance for title case usage. With respect to the guidance at MOS:CAPS (and any other WP:P&G that has been mentioned) I can see no strong case for retaining capitalisation of civilisation in the subject phrase. Cinderella157 (talk) 03:06, 20 June 2022 (UTC)
I asked you a question @Mellohi!:. I'd like an answer. You do understand, right? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:53, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
I think I have addressed all your issues with MOS:CAPS, WP:SSF etc that you mentioned in the first paragraph and I will not repeat here. But we shall have to ask Fowler&fowler to restate their position on whether IVC is a proper noun or not. In this context I would like to point out that IVC has been listed as a proper noun in Wiktionary since 2008.
As far as the smoothing goes, if you increased smoothing the difference would naturally go down, but IVC-IVc does not go below 52.86-47.14. IVC maintains its dominance in the year 2019 irrespective of the smoothing used. In other words, the latest dominance of IVC over IVc is not just a statistical blip. Though smoothing does away with statistical fluctuations, it sometimes wash out possible signals. For example, if you looked at the peaks at 1936, 1946 and 1951, you would see peaks both in IVC and IVc, though of different sizes. But the IVC "peak" in 2019 is qualitatively different. This was a peak in IVC with a valley in IVc. This indicates a net movement away from IVc to IVC. Chaipau (talk) 00:16, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
While you may have addressed MOS:CAPS etc, it is another matter as to whether the case you make is cogent. Wiktionary is not a WP:RS. IVC maintains its dominance in the year 2019 irrespective of the smoothing used is an error of fact. Try a smoothing of 20 (where the difference is imperceptible) or 30. It would be a game person who asserts that the results for 2019 are statistically different. The 53% result however, considers neither the two uncapitalised forms of "civilisation" nor allowance for title case uses. It certainly does not meet the criteria of usage in a substantial majority of sources. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:58, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
F&f's answer to whether IVC is a proper noun is given below. Your smoothing out is removing the signal which I pointed out. It makes no sense to me. If you were to smooth the night sky there would be no star left! Chaipau (talk) 12:31, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
To clarify, if you kept on increasing the smoothing window it makes less and less sense to talk about 2019 or any year for that matter. At its extreme, if the soothing window is as wide as the entire series, we completely lose all time information. Even 10 is too big, if we are to look for signals here.
Second the argument made is that the signal has opposite derivatives at 2019. This is not true for either of the 3 other large peaks we see---in 1900, 1936, and 1951. The signal around 2019 looks different for this reason, and I am suggesting that some of the peak in IVC in 2019 is fed by movement away from IVc. You may see this by using a smoothing window of about 7 when the contrast becomes clear [7]. If you were to look at the Ngrams for the sum of the two cases, you will see a steady or a slight decrease in recent years [8].
So what is the claim that was being made? Let me repeat. The claim is that IVC has not just seen higher usage of late, but that IVC has seen an increasing trend as opposed to IVc which has seen a decreasing trend. Therefore, this is a particularly bad time to ask for a move from IVC to IVc, when both the count as well as the trend are against it. Chaipau (talk) 15:25, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
You stated: irrespective of the smoothing. It is a false statement which I have evidenced to be so - no more, no less. Though I walk through woods on a moonless night the path can still be seen. While smoothing might make the source of light less discernable, the evidence of star light is undeniable. A slight lead does not demonstrate a substantial majority or (per F&f) that caps have become institutionalised. As to a trend - WP:NOTACRYSTALBALL. What may be in the future is speculation. However, you have continued to ignore that there are two uncapitalised forms of the trigram IVC. One can compare ngrams for the combinations of IVC with the corresponding bigram for "valley civilis|zation" - VC, Vc and vc. One will observe that in all three cases, the trigram closely parallels the corresponding bigram, albeit that in the case of Vc and vc, the bigram is slightly higher and by a fairly consistent margin, at least in recent years. The conclusion that can be reasonably drawn is that almost all instances of the bigram are associated with the trigram and, that the small proportion of instances that aren't can be adjusted for with a good degree of certainty. While the character size limitation of the search field has limited a direct comparison of the three capitalisation variations and the two spelling variations of the trigram. We can however directly compare the the bigrams with a high degree of confidence that the comparison is a sound reflection of what would be seen for the trigrams - here (noting that I have used a smoothing of 7). As of 2019, the raw data shows VC is 47% of the total and, correcting for the slight difference between the bigram and the trigram IVC would be 49%. This, of course is without allowance for title case uses, so the figure is more likely to approach 40%. The other thing that is quite noticable is that the two curves fairly closely parallel each other except for a broad spike centred on about 2002 for Vc+vc. The rate at which VC is changing since about 1980 has been roughly constant (ie close to linear). It does not of itself suggest a change in the proportion of the capitalised form (IVC) but a steady change in the number of publications overall. My ngram for VC is imperceptably different from your ngram for IVC (ie those two specific lines). Since 2002, the line for the two uncapitalised forms (ie Vc+vc) has been returning from its spike to something like how the uncapitalised forms (Vc+vc) have previously paralleld the capitalised form (VC). Whether it does level out or continues downward would be impossible to predict. Regardless of how you try to slice it, your two assertions don't hold water. A fundamental error in the analysis is that it ignored the full data set (ie including both uncapitalised forms) without sound reason to do so. Your case does not establish the criteria of usage in a substantial majority of sources or that IVC has become institutionalised. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:32, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for your comments and the serious consideration you have given to this issue. I don't think I can further add to this without repeating what I had said earlier. Let us wait for the closure. Chaipau (talk) 09:22, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
@Chaipau: As you have asked, allow me to state my final position, after much careful thought given to the matter.
The civilization that flowered in the alluvial plain of the Indus in the middle Bronze age had a name. Even if its inhabitants didn't give themselves a name, others did.
The Sumerians stylus-pushers wrote the name down as 𒈨𒈛𒄩𒆠 Later scholars have transliterated it as Meluhha, a proper noun.
The civilization that came after Sumer also had a name. The Sumerians stylus-pushers wrote that down as, 𒀀𒂵𒉈𒆠 It has been transliterated and translated as Akkadian Empire, another proper noun, not "Akkadian empire."
The Akkadian Empire was replaced by two civilizations.
The stylus pushers of the second wrote down theirs as 𒆳𒆍𒀭𒊏𒆠, which we today write Babylonia, both proper nouns.
So the question arises: what is the name that the stylus pushers of today will write for the Bronze-age civilization that flowered in the alluvial plain of the Indus?
It is not Indus Valley, for that name had been around before the Indian Plate crashed into the Eurasian Plate and uplifted the Himalayas whose silt the Indus river thereafter began to deposit in the form of its alluvial plain.
This is a subtle point. It bears explaining. The Indus is an ancient Eurasian river. It rises in what is today southwestern Tibet. The river existed some 40 or 50 million years ago when the Indian Plate—after moving north from Gondwana—began to collide with the Eurasian Plate. It had a valley then. It was called the Indus Valley. (But that was before there were any Homo sapiens, i.e. behaviorally modern humans, well before. It was before there were proto-humans. It was before gorillas chimpanzees and proto-humans had begun to separate in the primate family tree in what is today Africa.) After colliding with the Eurasian Plate, the Indian Plate began to subduct under it and uplift the Eurasian plate in the form of rock, mud, fragments of the mantle, and whatnot that we now call the Himalayas. The Indus had to alter its course to avoid the Himalayas, moving northward, then west, and then south. The more the Himalayas rose, the more the Indus skirted them, carrying the silt with it. It is a muddy river. The Indian Plate moreover created a trough as it went under. That trough gradually filled with the silt the Indus river carried and also other ancient rivers such as the Ganges. It is called the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It is in the western margins of that plain, the alluvial plain of the Indus, that an urban culture arose ca. 3300 BCE
Whatever is that name in Modern English, by virtue of it being a name, has to be capitalized just like Akkadian Empire
Therefore it can't be "Indus Valley civilisation," for whereas that might be naming a WP page, it is only describing a civilization, not naming it.
Not all names are proper names. There are common names. True proper names are not descriptive (or if rarely they are, it is incidental). Common names can have a specific and even a unique referent, through the definite article and modifying attributes. Meluhha, Assyria and Babylonia are true proper nouns, they are not descriptive and they are consistantly or universally capitalised per here. Akkadian is a denonym (as are Babylonian and Assyrian) and are not actually "proper names" since they can take many determiners even if they might be referred to as such. They are however, consistantly or universally capitalised per here. It does not follow ipso facto that if a proper name (capitalised) modifies a common noun, the complete name is capitalised (eg the Washington navel orange). "Empire" is a class noun. Per yourself, Akkadian Empire would only be considered a proper name if it has become institutionalised. For most of the last 150 years, Akkadian E|empire has clearly not been treated as a proper (per here). Whether it can be considered to now be institutionalised is as debatable as this case (IVC). It certainly doesn't show the same degree of capitalisation as the other examples you cited that have risen to the level of being considered a proper name because they have become institutionalised. The demonstration is non sequitur. It is an invalid argument whose conclusion is not supported by its premises. Not all names are proper names regardless of how specific or unique their referent is. I think the appropriate term is quod eo modo non demonstratum est or quad erat is not so demonstrandum. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:03, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, I agree. "Indus Valley Civilisation" is a proper noun. It is the modern English equivalent of "Meluhha". Irrespective of Wiktonary and the ridiculous grammatical hairsplitting. Chaipau (talk) 12:07, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
Ridiculing that which cannot be cogently countered is an argument without strength. It appears to me to be clutching at straws. Cinderella157 (talk) 11:21, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
F&F, you wrote nearly a week ago "What is it you don't understand? We don't capitalize "civilization" everywhere. We do, ideally, only in the page title or section titles. That's exactly what Dyson, Doniger, and the British Museum do." This displays a profound misunderstanding of Wikipedia title style. Have you even read WP:NCCAPS? It says leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence. It's OK that Dyson, Doniger, and the British Museum have a different style. They provide evidence that this term is not always capitalized mid-sentence. Dicklyon (talk) 02:40, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
@Dicklyon: In light of my renewed understanding described above. I would approach the capitalization issue in the following manner. Rewrite the article with "Meluhha" as its name. So, we would proceed: "Meluhha was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ... it was one of three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia, ... Its sites spanned an area from northeast Afghanistan, through Pakistan, to western and northwestern India. The civilisation flourished both in the alluvial plain of Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.[2][4] The cities of Meluhha were ... Meluhha is also known as ..." Once the article has been rewritten in such fashion, change Meluhha ---> Indus Valley Civilisation. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:36, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
If the Sumerian had it right and the name was indeed Meluhha, I will be the first one to propose that we change this page's name to "Meluhha." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:45, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
Meluhha already has a separate article. You would have to propose a merge which would require an extensive rewrite in order to make the combined content cohesive. The section on Meroë and Ptolemaic Egypt would have to be split, as otherwise you can't make a case for it being same topic. I expect such an extensive change would probably be shot down on the basis of WP:COMMONNAME, which would just lead us back to this argument over whether to use IVC or IVc. If you still want to go for it, such an extensive change would be better discussed separately after this discussion has been closed. – Scyrme (talk) 13:46, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
Did you read what I said? It begins with an "If." It meant that if the Sumerian name is found to be correct by archaeologists or epigraphists, for example upon decipherment of the Indus script, or some other data not hitherto available, then ... Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:17, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
So it was an insincere suggestion and I should've just ignored it. Cool, thanks for your help. – Scyrme (talk) 23:58, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
It was not an insincere suggestion at all. You still have not understood a thing. But this is as far as I go in engaging people who walk off the street and play Wikilawyer on a page where they have not the foggiest notion of the content. Goodbye. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:36, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
Comment@Mellohi!: Tomorrow two weeks will be up for this benighted enterprise to have been in existence, a disruptive waste of time for productive editors. Even you must have realized it is dead in the water. No one has voted in a week. The tally still stands 14 opposes and 7 supports for changing the name of an article after 20 years, a former FA as well. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:47, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler please stop pinging and demanding answers or actions from Mellohi. They did not argue in favour or opposition of you. They evaluated the discussion and decided it could benefit from more. They are not obligated to come back to this discussion, nor close it. It would be helpful to the process if you didn't keep saying when the discussion should be closed or what the outcome of the close should be. You are welcome to make a neutral request for closure at WP:CR but know that WP:RM is hopelessly backlogged (already has a list of requested moves needing closing), and potential closers are likely to be dissuaded if it appears closing the discussion could drag them into a dispute they would rather avoid. Regards! Usedtobecool☎️ 02:02, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
Well, I'm just telling them that they made the wrong decision in their evaluation and they should set it right tomorrow. Better them than others. You don't need to recite Wiki rules. This is simply a question of finishing what someone began. Such frivolous page moves create a major disruption for the content creators on a page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:10, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
The page exists because of us, the content creators, not the arrogant self-righteous policemen who traipse through a page they know nothing about. Without us there would be nothing here. Without them, it would be exactly the same. We knew how to write long before there was MOS, to which most of us pay no attention. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:14, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
I respect Tony1 who has helped people from the time I appeared on WP 16 years ago, sometimes patiently explaining errors in a poorly written articles. I don't respect people who memorize some rules and stick their noses where they don't belong. I am angry because the silly interrupters, the showboaters, have no idea how much work it takes to create content. The anger is directly proportional to the effort I and others have put in. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:28, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
Next time you get the urge to tell me whether RM is full, half full, empty, or overflowing trying drawing File:HeadwatersGanges1.jpg by hand. It is a different river valley, but you'll get the idea. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:37, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose. First off, from anecdotal experience, I've always seen this capitalized. As Johnbod noted, it's abbreviated "IVC", which is a good indicator that it's part of the proper name. Secondly, I'm not sold there was any significant recent change, or that F&F is misinterpreting the n-grams. SmcMcCandlish's own cited n-grams show that "Indus Valley Civilis(z)ation" is more popular, and while Wikipedia influence is a legit worry about niche topics, I don't think we can be vain enough to claim much influence over major ones like this. Now, per the lede, if this was a proposal to move to "Indus civilisation", maybe (have not consulted whether that style is capitalized or not, but the lede claims it isn't, at least the current version), but that's not the proposal on the table. SnowFire (talk) 21:29, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
Also, as a side procedural note, I know Dicklyon does tons of moves without full RMs and many are even fine, but let me state that this particular title absolutely should never ever have been "technical request" material, and the TR should have been declined. This is a major civilization with lots of scholarship on it - you wouldn't make a move of Olmecs or Minoan civilization to some other title without a full RM somewhere, even if you thought you were 100% right, because the article is too big/important. SnowFire (talk) 21:29, 21 June 2022 (UTC)
Oppose The term Indus Valley in itself can't represent the civilization and the term Civilization must be concatenated after Indus Valley. Thus, the term Indus Valley Civilization uniquely identifies the civilization. The term Civilization is no less important than Indus Valley. Northeast heritage (talk) 08:02, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
You have expressed some emotions (as copied again below) in one of above comments, I am positively interested in rational part of the same as philosophical part of encyclopedic building. Can you elaborate rational part of your argument by drawing parallel (in parlance) to Historians and Curators building a museum together.
a) How would you differentiate in historians role and curator's role, where one's begins and where one's ends
b) How far a historian really need to be too concerned about writing style of the museum's name?
You might think am I taking potshots, but sincerely that is not the case usually I would prefer historian's say to have more weightage over curators and Wikipedia need to have better system to incorporate more value to the say of article expanding editors.
".. I respect Tony1 who has helped people from the time I appeared on WP 16 years ago, sometimes patiently explaining errors in a poorly written articles. I don't respect people who memorize some rules and stick their noses where they don't belong. I am angry because the silly interrupters, the showboaters, have no idea how much work it takes to create content. The anger is directly proportional to the effort I and others have put in. .." ~ User:Fowler&fowler from the discussions above
Really it is that cut and dried? Nothing in the endless ngrams and citing of chatty grammar books written by lawyers-turned-dubious-grammarians (and using the new-fangled "noun adjunct" for pre-modifier) was chatty? All was strictly in the nature of improving this article? What is the process called whereby using the excuse of broaching existential questions and tossing in our wake Wikirules 13 to a dozen, we stall real progress on the article, that we abuse the process so much so that I am the only person who has improved the lead during this immaculately law-abiding interlude, the only one who has responded to Doug Weller's post about improving the Indus script? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:51, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
I can understand that, many times I also feel like that. In fact I was quite surprised just here itself some one (experienced user) could show rule book to me without understanding the context! And where they displayed the rule book? just below comment that included your sentence ".. people who memorize some rules and stick their noses where they don't belong. I am angry because .."
Wikipedia is encyclopedia and this discussion is absolutely for betterment of Wikipedia and it's policies. (Indirectly it has reference to above discussion, but one needs to understand context of the questions raised properly) Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 12:08, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
This is not the place to discuss historians and museums. The topic is not pertinent to improving Wikipedia. We should discuss Wikipedia rules elsewhere, where this article will be one data point among others. As F&f has pointed out this move request has already gummed up the work. Let us not bring in additional distractions. Chaipau (talk) 13:02, 22 June 2022 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
This discussion was listed at Wikipedia:Move review on 25 June 2022. The result of the move review was overturn to no consensus.
Will someone please fix the talk page
As Google ngrams show "Indus civilisation" to place higher that "Indus Valley civilisation," (see here)
I moved the page to "Indus civilisation," which is also the title of John Marshall's 1931 book, the first formal announcement of the discovery of the civilization. Could one of you please fix the talk page which I forgot to move. Best regards, @Johnbod, Doug Weller, Abecedare, and RegentsPark:Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:12, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
I undid your move and asked the closer to follow through. It sounds like you have an alternate move to propose now. Go ahead and make a new RM if you like. Dicklyon (talk) 02:25, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
I was actually trying to follow through, but I crashed into the exact same move protection Fowler did. This page absolutely needs an admin to pull the trigger for any moves. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 02:33, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
I'm not proposing anything. We had already discussed this once. It was not preferred to IVC, but is preferred to IVc. The ngrams show simple majority and the MOS:CAPs is meaningless.
No discussion is needed unless people are looking to challenge the closer's move.
And even then this is a better temporary page than IVc. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:33, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Closer tells me (on this talk page) that he has filed a request at WP:RMTR since the talk page was move protected; admin help is needed. I haven't looked to see which move the closer proposed, but whatever it was, let's wait and it should execute along with the talk page. Dicklyon (talk) 02:35, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
For once I agree with Dicklyon. This would require a new RM, which I think I would oppose. Johnbod (talk) 02:39, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Hmm. By the logic of the closer, one should support Indus civilization. Though, I'll probably sit that one out because this is just another example of the time wasting that MOS mavens force upon the rest of us. --RegentsPark (comment) 13:01, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
I am a bit surprised by the closer's rationale. In general a proposer will frame the issue in a way most favorable to the proposal. The overwhelming majority (14-7, and 2-0 post-relist) indicates that this framing is wrong/partisan. Much of the discussion, pre- and post-relist also focused on this and showed how Alternative 2 is wrong. Yet the closer chose to limit themselves to the proposer's framing. Usually the closer is expected to look for larger or more comprehensive policies and principles while closing in the spirit of consensus.
I would like to move on and not dwell on this. But this is a bit concerning to me. Chaipau (talk) 13:42, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
The POVs of the male western Anglosphere with quantitative backgrounds have a stranglehold on Wikipedia. They have been elbowing out the POVs of the female Anglosphere and the Eastern Anglosphere for 20 years now. They actually believe their imagined world with its concocted rules. I see it all the time, at FAC discussions, at MOS discussions. They say with a straight face, "But we don't say that in article X." And I'm thinking, "So you must believe article X is ... not garbage?" That is why WP will never become a reliable reference. Too many boys playing Dungeons and Dragons, steeped in a solipsistic world. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:18, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
By they I mean the POVs, the ideological gene pools, not real people Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:18, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Where but in the world of males (starting with Jimbo) would the injunction to be "Bold" become the cardinal principle of clapping together an encyclopedia? I can think of "wise," "knowledgeable," "rigorous," "comprehensive," "honest," "fair," "uncompromising in fairness," ... and quite a few more before I would get to "bold." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:52, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
There is a good reason that females never stick around in WP. One in ten would be reason to celebrate. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:53, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Name vs description
The Indus Valley Civilisation is a name, not a description. Wendy Doniger, for example, says in her book The Hindus: An Alternative History, "The material remains of this culture, which we call the Indus Valley Civilization or the Harappan Civilization (named after Harappa, one of the two great cities on the Indus, the other being Mohenjo-Daro), present a tantalizing treasure chest of often enigmatic images that hover just beyond our reach, taunting us with what might well be the keys to the roots of Hinduism." She's naming the civilisation, not describing a culture of the Indus plains to be an urban one, i.e. a civilisation. You can choose MO:CAPS to choose a page name but you cannot misquote an author to describe a name to be a description or vice-versa. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:03, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
I've added a POV tag. Also a citation would be needed that the name Indus Valley civilisation is abbreviated as IVC. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
... (p. 173) the settlement at Lothal ... along the east side was a brick basin. It is claimed by its excavator to have been a dockyard, connected channels to a neighbouring estuay. ... On its edge the excavator discovered several heavily-pierced stones, similar to modern anchor stones employed by traditional seafaring communities of Western India. This interpretation, however, has been challenged, and indeed the published levels of the basin and its entrance relative to the modern sea level seem to argue against it. Leshnik has cogently suggested that it was a tank for the reception of sweet water, channelled from higher ground inland to an area where the local water supplies were anciently, as still today, saline. We regard either interpretation as still unproven, but favour the latter. ... (p. 188–189) The discussion of trade focuses attention upon methods of transport. Several representations of ships are found on seals and graffiti at Harappa, Mohenjo-daro (Figs. 7.15–7.16], etc, and a terracotta model of a ship, with a stick impressed socket for the mast and eyeholes for fixing rigging comes from Lothal. We have already seen above that the great brick tank, interpreted by Rao as a dock at Lothal, cannot yet be certainly identified. The evidence of sea trade and contact during the Harappan period is largely circumstantial, or derived from inferences from the Mesopotamian texts, as detailed above. (Figure 7. 15 had caption: Mohenjo-daro: representation of ship on a stone seal (length 4.3 cm) (after Mackay). Figure 7.16 Mohenjo-daro: representation of ship on terracotta amulet (length 4.5 cm) after Dales)
Yet, user:Pat has been using to cite this as evidence of sea-going trade and of the two birds in the boat as direction-finding birds. A book of Matthews on early modern trade and the Portuguese, is cited, but that book has no pictures. It says only:
The sailors used animals and birds to find the direction of the vessel. Two seals (c.2500-1750 bc) discovered from the DK area of Mohenjo Daro and one graffiti have representations of sea-going ships. There are two birds, forward and aft which seem to be dishakaka used for finding direction ‘It was common to carry such birds aboard, because their infallible flight towards the land when released helped the mariners in locating the direction of the land’.53 The Biblical Noah kept a raven and a dove in his ark and let then out at intervals to find out dry land.54 Crows were carried in the ships in the past to find the direction. They were called disha-kaka. ...A monkey (known in Malabar as Kuttithevang) found in the forests always sits facing the direction opposite the sun. Monkeys of this type were carried on ships as pet animals.
The reference 53 it cites is a book: The Maritime Heritage of India by Sadashiv Gorakshkar, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command, Indian Navy, published in 1989. It has 90 pages. In the introduction on page 8, it says:
It may sound surprising that in the entire conspectus of material excavated from various Indus culture sites, only Mohenjo Daro and Lothal have yielded seals , graffiti and models having representations of ships. From the DK area of Mohenjo Daro, two terracotta seals and one graffiti with representation of a ship have been found. The representation on the seal shown here is distinctly of a sea - going vessel judged by the even size and height of its prow and stern , as against the high prow of a riverine boat . But though a cabin is seen in the centre , there is no indication of a mast.
There is no mention of any direction finding birds. And even that of a sea-going vessel is tentative. On the basis of this, I am removing the image. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:11, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
What about McIntosh, 158-159? Add a "possibly" if you like, but I think it should stay. The image I'd question is the male dancing torso, whose Harappan date I think is dubious. Johnbod (talk) 14:27, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, didn't see this. McIntosh is not reliable. Popular, yes. Reliable, no. If there were hard evidence for the interpretation of captive land-homing birds, it would have been in every IVC book.
Agree about the Harappan Greek, if we are thinking about the same statue. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:12, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
(next to the photograph of the seal in question) One of the Mohenjo-daro illustrations shows two birds on the boat deck. Birds may have been kept for navigation: in recent times, birds have been released from boats at sea so that their flight could indicate the direction of land. Many other natural clues, such as the type of fish and coastal alnd animals, and the shape of land and rocks, must have been utilized to help navigation.
McIntosh is not reliable. A science popularizer, not a serious archaeologist that is cited by other archaeologists. The book was panned by Kenoyer and others. It is published by ABC-CLIO, the same publisher, whose book on famines has a long article by a University of Kansas professor copied verbatim (not a word changed) from my Indian famine articles, eight or ten of them. See discussion here. Please don't be silly. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:33, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
McIntosh has not even been cited in Kenoyer and Heuston's middle-school book, Ancient South Asian World, OUP. You'd think middle-schoolers might be interested in popularizers. Please don't play this game with me Pat. You have selectively misquoted Allchin and Allchin and then Daniel Potts, and you have the nerve to throw McIntosh at me? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:36, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
They are boats. Yes. They are interesting seals. Yes. They belong to the seals section. The international trade interpretations are dubious. The trade on the high seas itself uncertain. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:41, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
And even with McIntosh, you are quoting selectively. She says, Two illustrations, on a clay tablet and a stone seal from Mohenjo-daro, show a flat-bottomed boat with a cabin on its deck, resembling modern Indus house boats. It has a high stern, high bow, and a pair of steering oars or paddles.Although the illustrations are too schematic for certainty, it would appear that these vessels were constructed of bundles of reeds lashed with cords. The material used may have been baru grass (Sorghum halepensis), which grows in Gujarat and is used today for boats in the region. The cabin appears to have had four outer posts of reed bundles within which was a flatroofed structure, possibly of fabric, supported on four thin poles. Such boats could have been used both on the rivers and at sea, and they had the advantage of being able to operate in shallow water, making them easy to load and unload without a quay or dock. Their life expectancy, however, would be limited to a few months. This could be extended by caulking with bitumen, which was available to the Harappans from sources in the Kachi plain and possibly on the upper Indus; however, traditional South Asian ship construction in recorded times did not use bitumen
Do you see the althoughs and howevers? So what is the game here Pat? Cram your images any which way you want by selectively quoting from any which publisher you can? Are you seriously trying to add anything of value to this page? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:56, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: The interpretation of this tablet as given in the caption above is very widely accepted, like it or not. Even Kenoyer, whom you seem to consider as the ultimate reference shares the interpretation, complete with a photograph of the tablet:
"This molded terracotta tablet shows a flat-bottomed Indus-boat with central cabin. Branches tied to the roof may have been used for protection from bad luck, and travelers took a pet bird along to help guide them to land"( in Kenoyer, Jonathan M.; Heuston, Kimberley Burton (2005). The Ancient South Asian World. Oxford University Press. p. 66. ISBN978-0-19-522243-2.)
Contrary to you, Kenoyer does seem to think that this exact picture is very appropriate to illustrate the subject of Indus Valley Civilization trade, as does User:Johnbod. That's all the approval I need. Please stop edit warring (you are already at 3 reverts), and let's move on. पाटलिपुत्र Pat(talk) 16:38, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
It is a flat-bottomed Indus boat, not a boat with mast used on the high-seas. It suggests only river travel. As for the trade, he also says for the middle schoolers:
Imagine a sea captain from Dholavira, on India's northeaster coast, making the last preparations for his annual winter voyage to Mesopotamia. The northeast winds of the retreating monsoons were picking up, and he was anxious to roll the last big pottery storage jars into the hold of the ship. Although no boats from this period have survived we know from seals and clay models that his boat was probably made of wood and included a mast, said, and central cabin. Shallow-bottomed riverboats, which did not have masts or sails, were also made of wood or of reeds waterproofed with tar ... Our captain's crew set up a small kitchen in ...
Seriously, you will be using that in the trade section? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:55, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Here is Irfan Habib, one of India's great historians, writing in This Indus Civilization 2015:
Rather surprisingly, we have no models of boats. One drawing scratched on a potsherd shows a vessel with a mast carrying furled sails, with a steersman rowing with an oar. This is our only evidence that Indus carpenters were making vessels that had sails. A seal carries the picture of a river-boat with timbers lashed by ropes, a large two storied central cabin and high prows on which the steersman sits while rowing. This was perhaps the common river boat of the times that survived like the bullock cart until modern times.Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:02, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Of course, but we should not do WP:OR and second-guess our academic sources. Again, if Kenoyer does think that this exact picture is very appropriate to document the subject of Indus Valley Civilization trade (including trade with Mesopotamia [9]), as do many other academic authors (above), then who are we to overturn them? They are knowledgeable and they know what they are doing. My understanding is that they believe that these depictions do provide some idea about IVC ships, and that the birds may suggest that these sailors had the capability to travel at least some distance from shore, the birds helping them to find their way back. These depictions are considered as another clue that they may have had the skills to engage in maritime trade. पाटलिपुत्र Pat(talk) 17:55, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
That whole section is mostly nonsense whosoever wrote it. I've removed the reference to Lothal cited to the Indian nomination of Lothal for UNESCO's World Heritage List. It has been languishing there for years probably because respected archologist such as Allchin and Allchin did not believe it. (See their long quote above and in the section.) Every sentence of that section has issues. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:38, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
>>> "Of course we should not do OR and second-guess our academic sources," you say, and then promptly misinterpret said picture caption. What does it say? It says, "The molded terra-cotta tablet shows a flat-bottomed Indus boat with a central cabin. Branches tied to the roof may have been used for protection from bad luck, and travelers took a pet bird along to help them guide them to land." It is a flat-bottomed boat used on the Indus-river. Even today, flat-bottomed boats are used for riverine travel. It says travelers. It says pet bird, not an albatross? So where is the evidence that this is trade on the high seas or even in coastal waters.
I see this sort of relentless sloppiness in that section, whosoever has added it. I have to congratulate the authors of that section for proving that even Wendy Doniger is sloppy. A sentence cited to her says, "There is some evidence that trade contacts extended to Crete and possibly to Egypt.[147]" (cited to page 67 of her book.) Says she on page 67, "Yet the Indus cities were stunningly uniform and remarkably stable over this wide range, changing little over a millennium, until they begin to crumble near the end. They had trade contacts with Crete, Sumer, and other Mesopotamian cultures, perhaps even Egypt.5." Footnote 5 in Chapter 3 of Doniger's is: 5 McEvilley, The Shape of Ancient Thought. (no page number).
That leads to: McEvilley, Thomas. The Shape of Ancient Thought: Comparative Studies in Greek and Indian Philosophies. New York: Allworth Press, 2002. That book has two references on Crete relate to South Asia (minus Sri Lanka) (a) p 68 WANDERING SEERS FROM INDIA Burkert, referring to the Homeric passage in the Odyssey, speaks of “craftsmen of the sacred” “the spread of a Mesopotamian practice … across the Aegean linked to the emigration of craftsmen to Crete around 800.” (obviously not relevant) and (b) page 239 Mesopotamian input of some kind; Herodotus associates the mechanistic form with Egypt. Egypt and Mesopotamia of course influenced each other greatly, and by the Late Bronze Age their traditions moved out into the surrounding world in conflated and eclectic mixtures. Cultural interchange in the area bounded by Greece on the West and India on the East was complex, elements combining and recombining as they flowed in a variety of directions. The multicultural, layered formation of Orphism contains elements possibly derived from Thrace, Scythia, Egypt, Crete, Lydia, India, and Persia. In the widespread culture-mixing, Mesopotamian influence was pervasive. ... Though they accepted the innovation of early release, both the pre-Socratic and the Upanisadic versions of the doctrine of reincarnation still involve rendering the transmigrating entity from the status"
And we are supposed to deduce trade during IVC of Indus with Crete and Egypt. Obviously I will now be removing the Wendy D. nonsense as well. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: I don't know about the textual content of the paragraph, to which I don't think I ever contributed. There are probably things to improve indeed. But the subject you started here is about the image of the IVC boat and its caption. The caption says "Boat with direction-finding birds to find land." nothing more... it doesn't say anything else (not "albatross", nor "trade on the high seas" nor even "trade in coastal waters".). It is used precisely in our article to the same extent and in the same context that Kenoyer uses it in his chapter on "Trade with the near East" [10]. So, frankly, your argument does not stand. It is just a good, and academically-supported, illustration for a paragraph on IVC trade. I will add Kenoyer to the references of the caption, per the attached, and restore the image to the paragraph, as also approved by User:Johnbod (except if you are gracious enough to reinsert it yourself of course). No need to waste more time on this. पाटलिपुत्र Pat(talk) 04:31, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
On the same page there is a picture of "a clay model of a flat-bottomed riverboat" that looks like chopsticks rests I bought in Taiwan years ago. So what river was taking them to the Near East? Please don't waste my time with continuous harping on the same irrelevant point. When I find time tomorrow or the weekend I will rewrite the section in an NPOV, reliable, and due manner. I've had Kenoyer and Heuston's book from before it was published. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:45, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Please don't write slimy sentences such as: "I will add Kenoyer to the references of the caption, per the attached, and restore the image to the paragraph, as also approved by User:Johnbod (except if you are gracious enough to reinsert it yourself of course)." to threaten edit warring. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:55, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
It is a middle school book for heaven's sakes Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:59, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: You say "I've had Kenoyer and Heuston's book from before it was published."[11] So, by your own admission, you already knew very well about this image and its caption/interpretation from Kenoyer's work (he writes "travelers took a pet bird along to help them guide them to land"... in the caption to the photograph of the very same object [12]), as well as its usage in his chapter "Trade with the near East". Not only did you know about it, you've known about it in detail for a very long time, since even before publication... So why all the fuss in this thread? It is a very straightforward and well-known image, with a well-sourced caption, routinely used by academics to illustrate IVC trade. पाटलिपुत्र Pat(talk) 05:02, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Do you know how many books I have? Thousands upon thousands. How long have you been editing this section, adding OR in your inimitable manner, four years, five years, six ...? I began to edit the ludicrous section yesterday and you have suddenly woken up? You cite Allchin and Allchin, but are unaware that they think the evidence for sea-trade is circumstantial and that Lothal is not a port. You cite Matthews, but gloss over the fact that he also mentions Noah's ark and the raven and the crow.
You don't read comprehensively, only citing selectively to cram your pictures in. Most of your edits on WP are UNDUE. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:50, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
I have demonstrated in detail above how your removal of the photograph and caption was indeed WP:UNDUE, given the number of academics who actually support it, including Kenoyer whom you claim to know so well, but whose interpretation [13] you seem to so conveniently forget when it suits you. Fortunately, on Wikipedia only sources matter: no amount of verbal abuse or grandiloquent temper tantrums will change that, not even the claimed dimensions of your personal library. Have a nice day Fowler&fowler. पाटलिपुत्र Pat(talk) 16:12, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
I will not say anything now, but when I start editing the section tomorrow with the "inuse" in place, if you interfere, as you had despicably done in the past, I will take you to AN or ANI so sick I am of your spamming OR with images on Wikipedia and your relentless rudeness and cultural chauvinism including xenophobia. Be amply warned to butt out during my editing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:33, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Fowler&fowler accusing others of "relentless rudeness" is the ultimate irony... :) पाटलिपुत्र Pat(talk) 17:41, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Like I said, @पाटलिपुत्र: if you interfere while the "inuse" sign is up this weekend, I will take you to AN or ANI. Be warned. You've edited this section without interference from me since March 2019; it is my turn to edit it. This page is being watched by quite a few people right now. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:58, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: You write "You've edited this section without interference from me since March 2019": this is essentially false since I don't think I have ever edited the body of the section you are alluding to ("Trade and transportation"), I only provided images with their captions and references. So your warnings are meaningless: I have zero intention to interfere with improvements which I'm sure you will be able to make (I have no reason to object to your edits when they are reasonnable). पाटलिपुत्र Pat(talk) 18:26, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
@Fowler&fowler: I adopted [14] your sentence and reference about the questionable seaworthiness of these boats (from the Meluhha article). It is useful. Still, not so sure about the reliability of W. Andrew Robinson (is he a trained historian or archaeologist?), but his statement seems rather uncontroversial and common-sense anyway. पाटलिपुत्र Pat(talk) 05:47, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
^Kenoyer, Jonathan M.; Heuston, Kimberley Burton (2005). The Ancient South Asian World. Oxford University Press. p. 66. ISBN978-0-19-522243-2. The molded terra-cotta tablet shows a flat-bottomed Indus boat with a central cabin. Branches tied to the roof may have been used for protection from bad luck, and travelers took a pet bird along to help them guide them to land.
The current image caption says time=c. 3300–1900 BCE[1][2] with pretty useless sources, one just the media, the other still almost 2 decades old. I see in the body of the text this[15] also just the media. Thanks. Doug Wellertalk 08:34, 19 June 2022 (UTC)
Table 1 in page 10 lists 3300 BCE as when "earliest writing/graffiti on pottery from Harappa, Ravi phase" appeared. Chaipau (talk) 14:42, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
I was wondering if Northern Black Polished Ware ought to be capped thus. It turns out to be a pretty darn good example of what we mean by "consistently capitalized" in sources: See n-grams. So different from the variations being discussed above. Dicklyon (talk) 04:45, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Please post at WT:INDIA. This is irrelevant to the Indus Valley Civilisation. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:41, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
User:Fowler&fowler, your pls see link is quite unclear as to what should be seen. Pls clarify. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:57, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
I did not write "please see." I wrote please "post" at. This is a culture of a much later period. The Indus Valley Civilisation had long disappeared by then. So why are they posting on this page? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 09:11, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, my point was not clear. It's not about that culture, or about India, but about WP's capitalization style, relating to discussions above, since several people there didn't seem to understand the relationship between our title policy and guidelines and n-gram stats and such. No response needed; it's just a random example I stumbled across. Dicklyon (talk) 15:09, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Civilization vs civilisation (z vs. s)
I find it odd that editors have no problem with following WP:RETAIN in keeping to the minority spelling with s, when most sources use z, though many of these same editors don't see case styling guidelines and title policies in the same light. Personally, I'd use the z, to make things more consistent across articles that talk about this topic, but I respect the guidelines enough to not push that. Has the z vs. s thing even had a serious discussion here? It looks like it was moved in 2015, and again in 2016, from z to s, with no discussion; so was RETAIN violated at that time? Or did WP:STRONGTIES win out without discussion needed? Is this ancient history worth examining? Or are we generally comfortable with the current styling? Dicklyon (talk) 05:11, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
I will bring these issues up at the MRV. I recommend that people not respond to this post. It will further muddle the picture. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 08:38, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
The z/s thing is a WP:ENGVAR matter. And no it should not be brought up in the move review, which is not a venue for introducing new naming proposals, only for examining the judgment of the closer. In short, we by default use whatever (British, American, etc.) spelling system was first present in the article when it ceased to be a stub. This can be overridden by a consensus discussion (e.g. to switch to z to be WP:CONSISTENT with other articles, or whatever the rationale is). If a consensus does not emerge from that discussion, it remains at the status quo ante (the s spelling). Now, during a move review, is not a good time to raise such a spelling-tweak proposal. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 23:10, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Reason (for the move review) by Fowler&fowler
Please do not edit this section. Comment instead, if you must, at the move review. OR you may start a Discussion section below.
The Indus Valley Civilisation was a Bronze Age urban culture which flourished in the alluvial plains of the Indus River and its tributaries. It was discovered and large parts were excavated in the period 1923–1932, during the British Raj in India. The three successor states of the Raj are India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The standard Englishes of the three countries use the "s-variant" (non-Oxford spelling)
There are six major English language newspapers in India—including the three newspapers of record that are listed in Britannica: The Statesman (founded 1817), The Times of India (founded 1838) and The Hindu (founded 1878), all of which have existed during the second life of the Indus Valley Civilisation, from 1923, the year of its re-discovery, until now. The three others are: Hindustan Times (founded 1924), The Indian Express (founded 1932), and The Telegraph, Kolkata (founded 1982).
A binary search in these six for: "specialisation" OR "generalisation" OR "organisation" OR "rationalisation" OR "realisation" OR "utilisation" OR "authorisation" OR "civilisation" yields 2,760K news stories, though be warned these numbers keep changing, whereas the z-variants, i.e. specialization etc yields 410K stories. The Pakistani and Bangladeshi newspapers also show a similar preference for the s-variant in their standard Englishes.
Pingali Sailaja, Professor of English, University of Hyderabad, says in her book about Indian English (IE), Sailaja, Pingali (2009), Indian English, Dialects of English Series, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 117, ISBN978-0-7486-2594-9, With regard to the spelling of English words in IE, in general, it is British. Thus the overall preference is for colour, sympathise, fulfilment and so on. But, with greater American influence it is not unusual to see sympathize, fulfillment and other similar words. This influence is particularly seen on the more common center, labor and program.
The number of articles on the Indus Valley Civilisation in South Asian newspapers (especially the Indian) is staggering. Even I—who have edited this article for nearly 16 years—was not aware of this until a few days ago. Nowhere else in the world has IVC become topical news. In other words, South Asia constitutes the metaphorical playing fields of Eton with consequences for the Battle of Waterloo.
The s-variant, -isation, has been in use in the IVC page from its start in 2001. There may have been times when someone moved it to IVC (with -ization), but it was soon reverted to -isation.
It is my contention that:
an article that has relied on
MOS:TIES for its language of orthography (which includes the spelling "-isation," in contrast to "-ization") and on
MOS:RETAIN for retaining the spelling for 21 years in the face of monthly attempts to change it to -ization.
must also sample in the corpus of the language of MOS:TIES for capitalization.
In other words, we cannot change midstream in the big river of Standard Englishes from the South Asian Standard English to some other(s) for the purposes of determining capitalization.
I would not employ this argument to change a page name that had existed for 21 years in the lower-case "civilisation" to the capitalized "Civilisation." But I think this statistic is sufficient for retaining a page name in its uppercse "Civilisation" of 21 years.
The RM was initiated by user:Dicklyon. After a week, it had 14 opposes and 7 supports. It was relisted by user:mellohi! for another week at the end of which there were 16 opposes and 7 supports. The opposers offered a variety of reasons. Indeed many had not considered this issue and their opinions evolved during the two weeks. I am in this latter group. I am an academic. I have a Ph. D. Lord knows I have written and I've written, and I know about house styles, which I respect. But this is not a little-known page. IVC is not a little-known civilization. There were other experienced WP academics, editors and/or admins such as user:Johnbod, user:RegentsPark, user:Kautilya3 and user:Doug Weller who opposed it.
The page was then moved by user:mellohi! with a short summary that ended with, "This is a classic case of a debate where one side has an emotive majority but the other side has the much stronger arguments. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 01:21, 23 June 2022 (UTC)
Before initiating this MRV, I posted on the closer's talk page. Later I had a discussion on the article talk page to which the closer also contributed
Beyond this, I think the process has been disrespectful to the traditions of this page and those of South Asian Englishes. The arbitrary nature of the RM, of an editor unfamiliar with the literature of the civilisation to walk off the street and start a page move without any previous talk page discussion, has been deeply disrespectful. To chalk up the opposition to 16 cases of WP:IDON'TLIKEIT-itis and generally dismissing their diverse views, and of the support to seven voices of reason, has been disrespectful. In my view the page move has disregarded MOS:TIES and MOS:RETAIN. Not changing the page name back to "Indus Valley Civilisation" will hurt Wikipedia's claim to be a global encyclopedia. Without any disrespect meant to the supporters, this move must be reverted. Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:49, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
PS Disclaimer I should add that in my own writing I use American English. On Wikipedia, in pages on which I am the major editor, I have used MOS:RETAIN to keep the American spellings in Pilaf and Pajamas. I've used MOS:RETAIN and MOS:TIES (to Bangladesh) to prefer the international spelling Ganges to the Indian Ganga, [the Pakistani Shalwar kameez, to the Indian Salwar kameez, the English Himalayas to the South Asian Himalaya, and, although this is not an instance of orthography, the earthy British/Indian British Raj, to Crown rule in India or the British Indian Empire. In other words, there is no discernable pattern of my being personally attached to any regional variety on WP. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:54, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Again, Please do not edit this section. Please comment if you must in the Move Review discussion Or you may start a discussion section below
@Northeast heritage: You should probably state your case at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2022 June. Overturn (the closure) and Endorse (the closure) are used there instead of Oppose and Suppport. Having it there ensures the discussion is logged properly. The opening argument is here because it's long, I don't think the intention was to have the review discussion here. – Scyrme (talk) 22:48, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Move reviews do not take place on article talk pages; see WP:MRV. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 23:06, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Yes, @Northeast heritage: (or anyone else who might be wondering about where to post your review), user:Scyrme and user:SMcCandlish are correct. You should post your review at:
If you think the page move from "Indus Valley Civilisation" to "Indus Valley civilisation" was wrong, and should be reverted or undone, you should begin your review with Overturn (as, for example, RegentsPark has done there). If you think the page move from "Indus Valley Civilisation" to "Indus Valley civilisation" was correct and no further changes are needed, begin your review there with Endorse (as user:Dicklyon has done there). Best, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:38, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Again, Please do not edit this section. Please comment if you must in the Move Review discussion Or you may start a discussion section below. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:19, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Discussion of the above
F&F, your n-gram stats show that "civilisation" "plummeted" from about 50% for many years to about 40% after Wikipedia promulgated the capped version (this is before correcting counts for things like citations to titles, which you acknowledge already are numerous, and other non-sentence contexts); and this "trend" was already stipulated and considered in my original move rationale, if you want to go back and look. If you review our title policy, you'll find "leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence" (my emphasis). But you know all this, as it was all covered in the RM discussion, so why are you acting like you've got new info for us? Dicklyon (talk) 22:23, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
More informative n-gram stats suggests, via corrrelation of the curves, that a lot of the uptick in caps after 1998 is from citations to Kenoyer's 1998 book; he used the "z" in his title Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, but many books cite it with the "s"; so we can't say how many of those "Cities of the Indus Valley" 5-gram are overlapping with the "Indus Valley Civilisation" 3-gram, but probably a bunch. Other books like the 1979 Ancient Cities of the Indus don't contribute here. So, it appears that there's at least some measurable effect from citations to Kenoyer's popular book, and likely still at least some small effect from other authors (not the academic experts so much as the general-audience writers) following Wikipedia. Dicklyon (talk) 23:14, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
But your argument fails when we consider only the "z" version. The preference to capitalization is repeated here much later than the "Wikipedia promulgation" in about 2015. And in a more dramatic fashion.
So in summary, both -sation and -zation versions are predominantly capitalized today, and have been increasingly trending towards capitalization for about a decade or so. Even if the capitalization is due to "Wikipedia promulgation" (I don't think this is so because academics and writers are not beholden to Wikipedia style) it is true only partially---it is not at all true for -zation versions. Chaipau (talk) 13:30, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Are you arguing that a writer who spells it with z instead of s would be immune to influence from Wikipedia's capitalization? That far fetched at best. And I'm not claiming any particular explanation for the little blip up in caps since 2017, just noting that WP is likely at least a small part of it. You can see some of that influence in this book search. Dicklyon (talk) 23:06, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
I am arguing that you cannot explain the capitalization in the Ngrams as Wikipedia influenced. Why is it showing up with "s" and not with "z"? I am claiming that you are making the classic cum/post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy and that too with partial and selective data. Chaipau (talk) 23:38, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
I agree that I have no proof that Wikipedia influences writers. But does anyone seriously think it does not? Dicklyon (talk) 01:08, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
In this case, absolutely (and seriously). Johnbod (talk) 01:23, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a tertiary source at best. If a writer wants to be a quaternary source, then sure! Chaipau (talk) 01:29, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
You've brought it up at the closer's page, but you haven't even give any reason so far, to the closer or anyone else, why you think the close was incorrect. The close is entirely correct given the way MOS:CAPS is written and the evidence of usage from sourcing, and this looks to me like a failure to WP:DROPTHESTICK and WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument, but I'm happy to hear otherwise... — Amakuru (talk) 12:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
The closer apparently thinks we are distinctly and irremediably at odds, that I should start the process. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:44, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
There is nothing in WP:MRV, Amakuru, that states I need to engage an editor other than the closer, such as you, who is looking to debate the move outside the move review process. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:49, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
As you must have seen, the closer has said to me: "We fundamentally, and immovably, disagree about closing criteria, with our rationales already argued explicitly in the RM itself. I don't think a conversation here will get either of us to change our minds." So, please read the RM itself if you are looking for my rationale(s). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:58, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Please read the Jonathan Mark Kenoyer felicitation volume with contributions Asko Parpola, Iravathan Mahadevan, Monica L. Smith, Rita P. Wright, Richard Meadow and an earlier bibliography of Kenoyer compiled by George F. Dales, all of which capitalize "Civilization." That the more than 40 contributors, among them the major Indus archaeologists of the last 30 years, overwhelming capitalize C, was painstakingly tabulated by me during the move. The capital C was not any house style of the volume. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:11, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
What does it tell you? That the use of "Indus Valley civilisation" has been precipitously and disastrously plummeting for 25 years, and you for the sake of some hitherto unexplained notion of "consistently" and "substantial" in "only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia," are happy to turn the page into a monument to ossified archeology. How far are you looking to go back for evaluating the "substantial?" 100 years, when RD Banerji frist struck his in geological hammer at Mohenjo-Daro?
And then you have the nerve to insult me, the major author of this page, and of a large number of South Asia-related pages, including the FA India by reducing whatever it is I am doing to easy judgements such as I DONT LIKE it. Really? Have you contributed anything to South Asia? Please list. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:36, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
I never said you can't start a move review discussion, that's your prerogative of course, but my point was that the "discussion with closer" is supposed to be a constructive and collaborative attempt to reach a conclusion, not just a box-ticking exercise. I also get that you don't like the way the RM turned out, you voted oppose and so you're not happy with the outcome and that's natural. The discussion here and at MRV is to focus on the merits of the close, however, i.e. whether the closer misinterpreted the discussion as a whole. Given the overall evidence presented (and your ngram with the -z- variant included is far more evenly matched) the burden of "substantial majority" necessary to declare a proper name, I still don't see how the closer could have closed it any other way. I'd be interested to hear your views from the point of view of a closer as to why there was an error here. But alternatively if you just want to go straight to MRV then go ahead. — Amakuru (talk) 14:02, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
WP:TITLE says that Article titles are based on how reliable English-language sources refer to the article's subject. There is often more than one appropriate title for an article. In that case, editors choose the best title by consensus based on the considerations that this page explains. Article titles should be recognizable, concise, natural, precise, and consistent. Indus Valley Civilisation is WP:COMMONNAME. The term Civilisation is no less important than Indus Valley which in itself can't represent the civilization. MOS:CAPS is fine for article content but WP:TITLE is specific for article titles. Northeast heritage (talk) 14:04, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Actually, WP:TITLE is in agreement with MOS:CAPS on this point. If you look at WP:TITLE#Use sentence case, it tells us that the default is to use sentence case. It then links to WP:Naming conventions (capitalization) for more specific guidance and that page in turn tells us "For details on when to capitalize on Wikipedia, see the manual of style sections on capital letters". So in fact, the rules that apply in the MOS to running prose also apply to article titles when it comes to capitalization. — Amakuru (talk) 14:14, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
WP:Naming conventions (capitalization) says that For multiword page titles, one should leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence. Like the United Kingdom or UK, the Indus Valley Civilisation or IVC is proper name. Here we are not inventing new name. Majority editors have selected the WP:COMMONNAME used by masses. Northeast heritage (talk) 14:35, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Well, where does it say in MOS:CAPS that a page that uses the Commonwealth spelling for its lexicon needs to include the (chiefly) American spelling in determining its capitalization? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:31, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Thanks @Amakuru: about the z-variant. My question above has to do with MOS:TIES. In other words, how does MOS:TIES jibe with MOS:CAPS in what to include in determining a substantial majority? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:03, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
I've had discussions with many editors, including Johnbod and Mathsci, on the collapse of the spellings of Indian English after the arrival of the internet there, but that is a separate issue. How stable it is is not clear.
I'm still curious. If there are MOS:TIES related to orthography in a Wikipedia article, then does MOS:CAPS require us to sample books published in all other forms of orthography in determining the capitalization of its title? And if so, why? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:29, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
The ties by the way are not Indian. In my view, they are those of the British Raj, in this instance, primarily Pakistani and British and secondarily Indian and Bangladeshi. But those spellings might have been infested as well by the rapid Americanization via the internet. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:34, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
OK then, although if we're deferring to the language of the British Raj, does that mean we should use 1858 to 1947 as the range for our ngram searching? 😀 Re the TIES vs proper name question, I don't know the answer to that. I suspect it isn't formally codified, so we probably have to use some common sense. As an aside, it's interesting that something can be clearly a proper name and also have different spellings dependent on the locale... Contrast North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in the UK vs North Atlantic Treaty Organization in the US... — Amakuru (talk) 15:42, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
If we don't consider Civilisation to be part of the name representing the ancient civilisation of Indus Valley, Indus Valley civilisation becomes similar to Western civilisation which represent present-day culture.Northeast heritage (talk) 16:03, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
😀 yes, especially, as the IVC was discovered in 1923. The spellings in the wake of the internet are in a state of flux. I just copies the links for the major Indian newspapers and for "organis/zation" they prefer the s spelling by 1230k to 377k. But for "civilis/zation" they prefer
So it is partly word-dependent, but still, the Commonwealth non-Oxford/Chamber's spelling might be seeing good use in the Indian newspapers. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:12, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
And they seem to draw the line at "honour," which is preferred over "honor,"by 2350k to 203k and half the honors are Chinese-made smart phones! Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:22, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Abortion in India remains legal. It was good talking Amakuru. As usual, you've given me stuff to think about. Have to go now. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:38, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Yes, thanks Fowler and likewise, enjoy your evening. And apologies if I seemed to be insulting you earlier, I wasn't intending to launch a personal attack, it's just that I've seen it too many times where people object to a move closure because they !voted the other way and that option wasn't chosen, without actually addressing the close itself. I still maintain the close was correct, but I can also see where you're coming from and I guess we'll see what the MRV-voting public make of the whole mess! — Amakuru (talk) 16:48, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
No, no. No hard feelings at all on my part. I was blowing off steam, I guess, after which the brain took over. You've given me much to think about. My MRV will need to be very nuanced, respectful and clear. That much I have garnered from this conversaton with you, and likely much more. Thank you. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:59, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
@Amakuru and Fowler&fowler: I think we should use both spellings, as done here. The issue here is not spelling, but capitalisation. Chaipau (talk) 17:23, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
@Amakuru: I support the review proposed by Fowler&fowler. I have stated that this closure made me uncomfortable here. I don't want to dwell on this but if there is a review, I would like to support it, because of the manner it was closed. The closure did not take into account the arguments made by 16 against the 7 (more than 2rd super majority). The main arguments were:
Indus Valley Civilization is the proper name of a civilization. It is not the civilization of just the Indus Valley but a much wider area. "Indus Valley" is used just as often "Harappan" is used. This point was extensively made by many editors, and this was not taken into consideration.
As F&f has pointed out, and I had shown above that the IVC against IVc weights in at 2/3rd majority in Ngrams. And the usage of IVc is falling precipitously. This is precisely not the time to move away from IVC to IVc. This fact was not considered at all.
When the closing persons says they are "immovable" on this issue, I have a suspicious that this RM has been ambushed by a small minority then it becomes important to review that decision. (revised/edited 16:45, 24 June 2022 (UTC)) There is, therefore, sufficient grounds to ask for a review. I hope the reviewer will seek higher and more comprehensive policies and principles in settling this. This sort of ambush closing (edited 16:50, 24 June 2022 (UTC)) is not beneficial for Wikipedia in the long term.
I must admit I was a little puzzled by the closer's response to Fowler. At the least, since F&f did not give any reasons, they should have asked for why Fowler thinks the move was incorrectly closed. Instead, we get "immovable"? I don't agree with Chaipau's "ambush" remark, I've seen too many of MOS anal arguments to be surprised, but a closer does need to show openness to being wrong. --RegentsPark (comment) 15:49, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
I take back my ambush remark. Thanks for pointing out that it is too strong and most likely not correct. Chaipau (talk) 15:58, 24 June 2022 (UTC)
Basically I wanted to get fresh eyes on the issue, so I said stuff like that to encourage Fowler to speed up opening the review if he wanted to start it. As we see over here, not expediting the move-contesting to the move reviewers in this case devolves into just back-and-forth with nobody budging. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 01:40, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that. I think Amakuru and I have had a fruitful discussion. I appreciate your clarification, and I will file the MRV tomorrow. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:33, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Fowler&fowler, you have indicated that the MR you proposed might be based in part or full on a distinction in capitalisation between the is and iz forms. I would refer you to Wikipedia:Move review, which states: Closer did not follow the spirit and intent of WP:RMCI because in closing this requested move discussion and/or Closer was unaware of significant additional information not discussed in the page move discussion. In my observation, arguments specifically to "is" and collectively ("is" + "iz") have been addressed in the RM and would not fall to the closer being "unaware". There are also your own posts that reflect upon this matter. A MR based on this EGNVAR distinction is (IMHO) therefore likely to fail and may be construed as WP:Tendentious. Up to you of course. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:40, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Thank you for your observation. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:51, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
@Mellohi!: are you referring to the relisting with this comment? Chaipau (talk) 13:51, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
I was trying to give permission to waive the "ask the closer first" step of the move review process. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 17:15, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Comment; As this discussion doesn't seem to reach any consensus, I will apply simple reasoning -
Combining WP:AT and WP:NCCAPS says There is often more than one appropriate title for an article. In that case, editors choose the best title by consensus based on the considerations that WP:AT page explains. Article titles should be recognizable, concise, natural, precise, and consistent. Do not capitalize the second or subsequent words in an article title, unless the title is a proper name.
Per Cinderella157, "Indus Valley" is a noun phrase (an attributive noun phrase) that modifies the appellative (common noun) "civilisation". Per WP:NCCAPS, Capitalize the second or subsequent words in an article title if the title is a proper name.
Academics have used both "Indus Valley civilization" and "Indus Valley Civilization". Both terms mean represent the same thing civilization with different grammatical properties but why should we compare them using n-grams to cancel their grammatical properties?
The term "Indus Valley civilization" satisfies the explanation of Cinderella157. Proper names are capitalized in "sentence case", implies "Indus Valley Civilization" was used as a proper name by academics. (I mean to say based on observation of academic works that Academics have been using the commonname "Indus Valley Civilisation" as a proper name because a proper name is capitalized in "sentence case".)
Therefore, We have a noun phrase "Indus Valley civilization" and A proper name "Indus Valley Civilization".
In my opinion, we should use the proper name "Indus Valley Civilization" because the term "Indus Valley" in itself can't represent the civilization. (ignore 'z' vs 's') Northeast heritage (talk) 20:11, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
The fact that many objectively do use the noun phrase demonstrates that it can and is used as such. Repeating that you think it "can't" doesn't make it so. Perhaps you think it shouldn't be used, but just brings us back to what the closer said: "it does not matter whichever !voters opine is correct usage". – Scyrme (talk) 20:44, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Hi! I don't think MOS:CAPS takes care of article titles' issues. There is a separate article WP:AT. Northeast heritage (talk) 21:20, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Both are relevant. WP:AT explicitly refers editors to the guidance at WP:MOS in numerous places, notably to MOS:CAPS regarding applying sentence case, particularly what to do with proper names; WP:AT § Use sentence case links to WP:Manual of Style/Proper names which is a redirect to a section of MOS:CAPS. Regardless, I didn't vote in the discussion and I don't want to argue with you over whether the guidance was applied correctly. My point was that you were going in circles, restating a case that had already been addressed by the closer. If you want to dispute the closure you should participate in the move review, but you should do so by making the case for why you believe the discussion was improperly closed (not using it as a continuation of the move discussion by restating arguments from that discussion). – Scyrme (talk) 22:34, 25 June 2022 (UTC)
Northeast heritage, WP:AT gives specific voice to WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS. WP:NCCAPS also gives specific voice to MOS:CAPS. Therefore, determining what should be capped is determined by usage in a substantial majority of sources. There is no ambiguity or inconsistency in the guidance. Your argument is very similar to that by F&f here and fails for much the same reasons per here the premises of the argument are not all established. Firstly, there are both proper names and common names and a common name can have both a very specific and even unique referent. The argument would assume that a name phrase is ipso facto a proper name because it is capitalised. That is a false premise demonstrated in this discourse with F&f. The conclusion, for which there is agreement is: this is not a case to be be settled by the rules of grammar, but by usage and, what might otherwise be considered a common name is considered a proper name when the usage of capitalisation has become institutionalised. This in turn leads us to the guidance at MOS:CAPS, of usage in a substantial majority of sources. Your conclusion would be: we should use the proper name "Indus Valley Civilization" because the term "Indus Valley" in itself can't represent the civilization. (ignore 'z' vs 's'). Yet you would acknowledge: Both terms mean the same thing. Why then would we represent the term as a proper name unless usage would determine it has become institutionalised? Your argument is not cogent. Your opinion is not supported by your argument. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:50, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
You have thrown numerous links but ignored the fact that MOS:CAPS hands over article tittle related issues to WP:AT. I said Both terms mean the same thing but why should we compare them using n-grams to cancel their grammatical properties? to mean that they represent the same civilization with different grammatical properties. I stick to my claim based on observation of academic works that Academics have been using the commonname "Indus Valley Civilisation" as a proper name because a proper name is capitalized in "sentence case". I didn't invent any premise which needs to be refuted. If you wish, you may try to disprove that Academics use it as a proper name. Northeast heritage (talk) 05:09, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
I have not ignored what you only just now raise - that MOS:CAPS has hatnotes to WP:AT and WP:NCCAPS. It creates no inconsistency or ambiguity. The WP:P&G should be read in order of precedence. Please be aware that I have used common name in its grammatical sense, while you appear to be using it as an antonym for prevalent. Also, there is a true proper. The distinction is explained above. You would state: but why should we compare them using n-grams to cancel their grammatical properties? This is an undefined term or expression since, if they mean the same thing, how can they be semantically different? The only difference is their capitalisation which, as explained above, is a matter of orthography rather than grammar. I also note that in spoken language, there would be no difference at all, yet true proper nouns are recognisable in speech. Your assertion appears to be that ICV is a proper noun because it is capitalised and because it is capitalised, it is a proper noun. At the very least, that is a circular definition. It also ignores that phrases may be capitalised for significance or distinction and not because they are proper names (see MOS:SIGNIFCAPS and WP:SSF). Further, you state: I stick to my claim based on observation of academic works. This is an unsubstantiated claim. Demonstration would require a randomly selected sample of some significance. The WP:BURDEN is to show that capitalisation is necessary. Your case is not cogent and lacks weight. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:35, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
PS If you are going to make any edits to your posts after the fact (when they have clearly been read) that might be of consequence then these should in every case be clearly identified. You have done so in some but not all cases. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:40, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
PPS "Indus Valley" clearly refers to the Indus Valley (the valley of the river) and not a civilisation broadly construed as being based about this valley. It inherently needs to state "Indus Valley C|civilisation" if it is to refer to the civilisation. It is therefore non sequitur to claim this as a justification for capitalisation of civilisation in the fuller name Indus Valley C|civilisation. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:11, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
Words and phrases of a sentences implicitly carry their grammatical properties. What you call "circular definition" is a simple way to indentify proper names in sentences.
Does ngrams-comparing-hyperlinks not substantiate my claim based on observation of academic works ? If you need more evidences of "Indus Valley Civilization" being used in "sentence case", you may ask major contributors like F&f and Johnbod. Northeast heritage (talk) 13:03, 26 June 2022 (UTC)
If I capitalise the Ugly Big Old Wide Red Pick-up Truck per your definition, is it now a proper name? No. While above, you would dismiss n-grams you would now rely on them to evidence your claim. Your case leaks like a sieve. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:40, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
You first question is unrelated as your example isn't from any academic work. An n-gram is a contiguous sequence of n items from a given sample of text or speech. Google Books Ngram Viewer is an online search engine that charts the frequencies of any set of search strings using a yearly count of n-grams found in printed sources. Purpose of Ngram viewer isn't to cancel usage of different words and phrases.
I use Ngram viewer for right purpose. Northeast heritage (talk) 03:51, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
So you are saying that a circular definition of a proper name only applies to academic works? And what do you mean when you state: cancel usage of different words and phrases or why should we compare them using n-grams to cancel their grammatical properties? As I have said before, your meaning is unclear to me. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:14, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
You cropped the lines and these are from different comments.
Please read again.
why should we compare them using n-grams to cancel their grammatical properties? is a question to Dicklyon and his supporters.
Purpose of Ngram viewer isn't to cancel usage of different words and phrases. is what Ngram Viewer is not.
In Ngram Viewer, we can search anything. In our case, We search "Indus Valley Civilization" vs "Indus Valley civilization" and get some statistical result but its result doesn't claim to prove that "Indus Valley Civilization" isn't a proper name.
But the result clearly proves that Academics use "Indus Valley Civilization" and "Indus Valley civilization".
I have already explained why the "Indus Valley Civilization" is proper name.
I didn't invent any definition. I just indentified the proper name. Northeast heritage (talk) 04:52, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
Just ask yourself. How do you identify a proper name? Northeast heritage (talk) 04:53, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
Your If I capitalise the Ugly Big Old Wide Red Pick-up Truck per your definition, is it now a proper name? clearly shows that you are showing WP:IDNHT behaviour because Capitalisation isn't a personal choice and academic works clearly follow Grammar rules and MOS. You are throwing nonsense question. Northeast heritage (talk) 05:16, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
Northeast heritage if you truly wish to understand the grammatical issues, I would point you again to the discourse between F&f and myself under the !vote by RegentsPark that concludes with this post. We (F&f and I) would both agree that the issue of capitalisation of IVC cannot be resolved by a grammatical argument and that whether IVC might be considered a proper name depends on [the degree of] usage. F&f would describe this as whether the capitalised form has become institutionalised. What does institutionalised mean? I suggest it pretty much means near universally applied or, per MOS:CAPS, a substantial majority of usage. As you state, ngrams allow us to assess the usage of the capitalised and uncapitalised forms. Consequently, they allow us to determine if a capitalised form has become institutionalised. Cinderella157 (talk)
My last reply, Cinderella157, Neither you prove the "Indus Valley Civilization" isn't a proper name nor you prove the "Indus Valley Civilization" is an institutionalised name. You only throw links and ask questions. Like NATO, UK and USA, the IVC is a proper name.
Apart from what are clearly rhetorical questions (because I also answered them), I asked questions because your meaning was not clear to me and I was seeking to understand the case you were trying to make. As for links, they serve to confirm that I am not just making shit up. This particular thread started with you proposing a "proof" that IVC was a proper name. It fails as a logical proof because it invokes a circular definition (among other things). I have not proven that "Indus Valley Civilization" (ie capitalised) has become institutionalised nor can I. If it were, we might consider it a proper name. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:37, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
No interest in illogical arguments. Circular definition doesn't apply here because i didn't define anything. I just used well-defined grammatical and MOS concepts. Please learn the purpose of grammar rules and MoS. Northeast heritage (talk) 15:16, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
Academics have been using the commonname "Indus Valley Civilisation" as a proper name because a proper name is capitalized in "sentence case". Sounds pretty circular and illogical to me. It is a well-defined MOS concept that proper names are consistently capitalised in a substantial majority of sources - in other words (per F&f), the capitalisation has become institutionalised. Cinderella157 (talk) 00:01, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
There is no point going down the grammatical rabbit hole on this. IVC is a proper noun that defines one and only one civilization. Though rivers (Indus, Saraswati), valleys (Indus Valley) or a village (Harappa) have been used to call this civilization, these numerous names refer to one and only one particular civilization. This civilization is not the civilization of a one river, or one valley or just one urban center. Unlike some other proper nouns, like "Cinderella" which could refer to more than one person, this name refers to one and only one civilization. This is as proper as it can get. Chaipau (talk) 12:35, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
The full name is Cinderella157 and is probably unique. It is a true proper name because it does not intrinsically tell you anything about me. The ugly big old wide red pick-up truck is specific as to its referent by virtue of the definite article. Indus Valley C|civilization takes the definite article in prose and is specific in consequence. It is also intrinsically descriptive of a civilisation from (but not necessarily confined to) the Indus Valley. While it is a property of a proper name that (in context) they have a specific referent, it is not a defining property since common names can also have specific and even unique referents. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:37, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
The Indus Valley takes the definite article. So does the Indus. Chaipau (talk) 05:50, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
I have not said that the cannot be part of a proper name, only that it intrinsically creates specificity of referent. However, proper names donot generally take an article or any other determiners. "The Hebrides" are such a case that does. They are referred to as weak proper names and are most often geographical names. As F&f acknowledges: Whether it has become a proper name is a question that will not be settled by the rules of grammar, but by usage.Deductive reasoning based on the "rules" of grammar will not resolve the question of whether IVC is a proper name and should be capitalised in consequence. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:32, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
Negation of Munda as a candidate of IVC
Geneticists (Arunkumar et al.) have to say that Austroasiatic speakers are late neolithic immigrants from Southeast Asia and Austroasiatic specialists/ Historical linguists(Sidwell and others) have refuted Witzel's claim or contradicted Witzel's claim.
Sources
Arunkumar, Ganesh Prasad; et al. (2015). "A late Neolithic expansion of Y chromosomal haplogroup O2a1‐M95 from east to west". Journal of Systematics and Evolution.
*Comment Sidwell(2021) incorporate Witzel's claim within Homeland(Punjab) Problem of AA and reject South Asian origin of AA in IVC/Punjab and Bengal. Northeast heritage (talk) 02:14, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
Austroasiatic scholars have combined genetics, archaeology and historical linguistics. Sidwell(2021) gives a chronology of Austroasiatic expansions. Actually, there are multiple papers, I am quoting from another paper by Rau&Sidwell(2019) A South Asian origin for Austroasiatic would put Munda at the geographical heart of the phylum, a view generally supported by scholars whose studies have been centered on South Asian matters. Van Driem (2001:289–303) reviews in detail the case for a South Asian homeland, although his synthesis finds much wanting in the arguments for a western Indian origin (especially Witzel 1999a,b) and he decides upon, “the area around the northern shores of the Bay of Bengal as the most likely location for the Urheimat of the ancient Austroasiatics.” (van Driem 2001:290) This view was subsequently endorsed by Diffloth (2005, 2011). Both these scholars take as their departure point the consideration that this approximates the geographical center of Austroasiatic phylogenetic diversity, as well as providing the kind of semi-tropical environment suggested by the flora and fauna of the supposed proto-Austroasiatic lexicon.Such considerations regarding the center of diversity and proto-lexicon, are subject to strong challenge (e.g. Sidwell and Blench 2011, Blench 2014) and now run against the current trend in discussions among concerned scholars in the Austroasiatic studies community. Ongoing scrutiny has not substantiated assertions of ancient Munda or Austroasiatic influence in Indo-Aryan languages/cultures (Osada 2009), such that there is no evidence of contact until Indo-Aryan languages expanded their influence into the direct vicinity of the Munda speaking areas in East India.
The quote from Rau & Sidwell (2019) doesn't mention the IVC. Is WP:SYNTH really that hard to grasp? Better cite scholars that actually address Witzel (1999).
And again, as long as scholars continue make claims about an early presence of AA in South Asia (as late as 2021, cf. Tagore et al.), we cannot declare Witzel (1999) as a dead end. –Austronesier (talk) 07:31, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
Arunkumar et al. makes no mention of Indus populations. So this will be hugely WP:SYNTH. Till someone makes a connection in RS we should not make use of this source here to draw conclusions. Chaipau (talk) 19:31, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
@NH, you're doing SYNTH, again? Try to get your ideas published, so we might eventually cite you. –Austronesier (talk) 19:43, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
I understand that genetics paper is not required but the fact is AA scholars have rejected Witzel's claim. The discussion you have pointed was an effort to make the poor article WP:DUE. Please do contribute there. Northeast heritage (talk) 03:16, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
If it is a fact then citing the reference where AA scholars have rejected Witzel must not be difficult. Else your claim is SYNTH. Chaipau (talk) 00:36, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
Sidwell(2021) incorporate Witzel's claim within Homeland(Punjab) Problem of AA and reject South Asian origin of AA in IVC/Punjab and Bengal. Northeast heritage (talk) 02:11, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
If Sidwell did not mention Witzel and the para-Munda hypothesis specifically your claim is still WP:SYNTH. Chaipau (talk) 02:54, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
Please no WP:BLUDGEON. Ofcourse, Sidwell mentioned Witzel, IVC, para-Munda and explained entire speculation made by Witzel. Please go through the article. Northeast heritage (talk) 04:30, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
BLUGEON? BOOMERANG! Anyway. You see, Witzel is too eminent a scholar that we shouldn't just remove his notable and oft-cited claim, even if it has been criticized and is probably untenable in the long run. And Sidwell is too eminent a scholar that we shouldn't attribute things to him which he has not written: Sidwell discusses Witzel (1999), but he does not explicitly address the question of the language of the IVC. To say so is simply wrong.
I will add later stuff from a reliable source that explicitly refutes Witzel's para-Munda IVC hypothesis. –Austronesier (talk) 11:00, 18 July 2022 (UTC)
Fine. Anway, i didn't use for your comment and it was for the "If" comment. Northeast heritage (talk) 03:36, 19 July 2022 (UTC)
Also, Witzel mentions para-Munda not proto-Munda. The current findings are that the Munda population is a sex-based admixture of a predominantly male AA population and a possible AASI people. The AASI population is also expected to have contributed to the Indus population. This means that the para-Munda name might not be the appropriate name for the substrate to which Witzel was referring to. Chaipau (talk) 19:55, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
In all fairness, I have to admit that there can be situations where the mention of an isolated proposal becomes egregiously WP:UNDUE in the light of current research, even if no RS explicitly refutes that proposal.
In the case of Witzel's (para)-Munda speculations, we could start an UNDUE-discussion if they were completely at odds with the full range of current ideas by geneticists, archaeologists and linguists about the AA-expansion, but obviously, they aren't (cf. Tagore et al. 2021, regardless of whether they're right of wrong). So we're done here, unless we want to violate WP:NOTFORUM. –Austronesier (talk) 20:28, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
"Unicorns"?
Why do the seal descriptions call the animals "unicorns"? To me, they look much more obviously like bovids, possibly aurochs, which would have been endemic to the area at that time. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 01:08, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
Done
Not done
