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A fact from this article was featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the On this day section on August 11, 2004, August 11, 2008, August 11, 2009, August 11, 2010, and August 11, 2012.

Untitled

This article doesn't make sense, as it lacks a vital piece of information: was Marquette Frye black? Perhaps you all already know, and the events that followed indicate that was the case, but the article doesn't state it at any point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.86.246.228 (talk) 14:55, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

does anyone know how the city recognized the anniversary?

Additionally, the Watts Riot did not come to Watts itself until the 3rd consecutive day of rioting(by which time it was in multiple South Central neighborhoods). Though the initial event which sparked it occurred near to Watts, that too was not in Watts itself. Jill Edy argues in "Troubled Pasts: News and the Collective Memory of Social Unrest" that the naming likely had more to do with Watts' reputation as an enclave for lower-class blacks. I would further recommend the McCone Commission's report on the riots. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.8.135.184 (talk) 08:41, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Cause of Riot, Etc.

The information found at http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=19093 needs to be intergrated into this article. As is, it's not very informative.

MSTCrow 21:22, August 12, 2005 (UTC)

Ask these questions:

If helicopters were used by the entertainment journalists to follow the action, how can it be possible?

The answer is scary if it's true.

How did the city commemorate?

Please someone tell me. I think people in the city did. I doubt the city wants to remember. Thank God people here want to. Thank you whoever chose ::to put Hoover's secretary's article in the featured list. Read that and then tell me you don't think this is true. I'll give you more to read if you ::make me, with this silly battle I can already imagine the next round of. Can someone else please chime in on this? I feel like I'm in school again. ::Literally being forced to teach people how to behave, that were being paid (off) to teach me dogma. It so happens that I don't know how to convert ::an investigative journey into an encyclopedia article, but I thought we were all in this together.

Whoever wrote this needs to be clear, concise and understandable. Also needs to sign.

1 23:31, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

I have information as to the cause, that the history books, don't. The cause and the effect, that is

When someone deletes something added to an article out of good faith, is it not the right thing to do, to post it here, instead of removing it altogether??? I entered an eyewitness account that contradicted the official death toll. Rather than think for a second that maybe there are skeletons in the closet of this country, and not just Latin American dictatorships, the "administrator" that removed my comment, "without a trace," chose to take responsibility for continuing what I was lucky enough to find out through an unlikely series of investigative journalistic events, was in fact an actual cover-up. I was almost content to let those who choose ignorance, have it, but a dream I just woke up from, (it's 3:49 am here now) convinced me that it is too important of a discovery to let lie until I find a more receptive forum. In the dream I was the only witness to some information that implicated the perpetrator of the kidnapping torture and murder of a precocious orphan, and almost allowed the system to miss it. Ironically, I sat down at the keyboard to try again, just now, and saw the headline, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050811/ap_en_tv/making_things_up

I can assure you the account I now relate is true. It was reported to me by a conservative ex-californian, who was accepted into an elite unit of the coast guard reserves on the day his draft card arrived, and was thus witness to the following spectacle: "We had been training for the scenario for a year. The black militants in Chicago had been infiltrated before then, and we were being prepared for civil unrest. We were at camp for the onset of the Watts Riot. I was turning off the lights one night--everyone else was asleep already--when I saw a boat streak by in the darkness. It was filled with militants, so I woke everyone up and we set out after it, lights flashing. It headed to the armory, which was our post to guard. We fired our guns into the air, and they landed at a warehouse, got out, and ran into it. Fortunately, the tide was low, so the position of our ship relative to the sea wall kept us out of the line of their fire, because they shot at us from the windows. I radioed for help, and soon there were helicopters with machine guns, which killed at least 8 men who I saw fall from the windows. Because I was the leader, I had to go to the morgue the next day. There were about 400 bodies marked unidentified there. The official death toll was 21 I think." At this point I asked in astonishment, "How do you explain that?" I had spoken to him about other events of the era that he lived through, assassinations for instance, and I could not have been shocked to find out that a "riot" was actually a rebellion, but I was astonished that I was hearing a story that would change the course of history, being told. His answer was simply, "They covered it up!" This was the result of a series of unlikely interviews. I will not reveal my source at this time, but it is someone whom I judged to have absolutely no reason to make this up. Engage me on this, if you can. I have no agenda of my own, but to our children. "A rose-colored story, by any other name, smells just as stink"

The information that you added to the Watts riots article did not disappear "without a trace". It is still there in the article's history, where anyone can look at it (see this link: ). And no, I'm not a Misplaced Pages administrators—I'm just another Misplaced Pages editor.

FYI: The Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia with a series of Policies and guidelines on what goes into an article. One of those rules is that the information must be verifiable, and needs to be from a reliable source. The story that you've told above cannot be verified. Furthermore, I have major doubts about your story because there is no Coast Guard armory or other I.S. military service armory in either the Port of Los Angeles or the Port of Long Beach, nor are there any armories in the LA area that are close to the ocean (even the Seal Beach Naval Weapons station stores their munitions well away from the ocean). Also, where the LA Harbor Coast Guard facilities are there is no beach, so the info about the tide makes no sense. Unless you can come up with some information that I or any other Misplaced Pages editor can verify, then it doesn't meet the criteria for inclusion in the Misplaced Pages. BlankVerse ∅ 03:17, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

I didn't know I had to pass an approval process before I edited. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work. If someone who uses it less than I, made the effort to try, I would do my best to engage rather than dismiss.

My source was as reliable as I can imagine. Whether it is unverifiable is a matter of debate. One which I will win if I choose to have it with you. Obviously that would be at the cost of his anonymity. But that has been already offered up. I guess I haven't told you why I used the word elite, explicitly, so I don't blame you. Clearly the event is verifiable. I admit that I did not verify to the degree of researching the other men in his unit and questioning them, but I know the man well enough to a) want to protect his privacy, and b) know that if any aspect of the story is made-up, it would have to be the horrific detail, because the rest of the story is part of history. I wish I remember if he said the whole unit saw or just he, the leader. I could find out, perhaps, but only if I succeed in being sensitive with the relationship. As it is I'm afraid he will be hunted down for telling me. FYI: The tide comes in and out everywhere, and has the effect of lowering boats up against a wall where there is no beach when it is out. Thank you for the geographical info. He indicated it was "the" armory. That meant not Coast Guard. A branch of military with bigger or more guns than that. This was 40 years ago, so be sure there really was not one then, since you hold others to such a high standard. It so happens there is a debate going on now about removing bases in many states right now. I believe National Guard would have been the ones to have responded in this situation, and probably their armory as well. You tell me. Does that mean the Army wants me dead, or the President himself? If I told you one piece of information I am literally afraid to, you would really see the irony in it. I look forward to getting to the bottom of it without any assassinations of journalists or sources. -still as anonymous as is possible with limited technical know-how, in this day-and-age67.80.3.20 04:20, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Nikko Balanon?

Was the cop's name "Lee Minikus" or "Nikko Balanon"? I find no evidence for the name "Nikko Balanon" anywhere else on the web, apart from other sites posting this same article under a different banner.

N.W.A.

This reference should be edited out due to the fact this song came two decades after the Watts Riots. The seething tensions that stirred the earlier were involved in the latter but the song is definitely not from 1965 and as such is inappropriate in this article. If there are no objections to this discussion tab I'll edit it out later myself (if somebody else hasn't already). BronzeWarrior 21:15, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Seeing no ojbection, I went ahead and removed the N.W.A. reference. BronzeWarrior 07:16, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

It may have come after it, but if you know anything about the song you would know that its entirely based on the watts riots and it caused an entire new spark and flame, and a new trend in hip hop, its completely relavent because the song is all about the riots and what happend during the riots, pull up the lyrics and read some, you'll see - Afrand6 aka AFRAND X

• I'm not an expert on N.W.A., but after reading the lyrics thoroughly I don't see anything in there that indicates that the mistreatment the song describes is meant to be taking place in 1965. I understand the song to be making allegations about police activity around the time the song was written (the late 1980s) with no historical references clearly indicated. If I'm missing something, the lyrics are available at the Original Hip-Hop (Rap) Lyrics Archive, so please clarify why you interpret the song to be referencing the Watts riots. --Metropolitan90 06:37, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Because the group, N.W.A, discussed it in an interview, so please do more research before you insult me again. This song is one of the most famous rap songs in the world and everyone knows its as a result of the watts riots, remark removed by User:BlankVerse —Preceding unsigned comment added by Afrand6 (talk • contribs)

Please refrain from name-calling. In this case, Afrand6, the burden is upon you to provide some reference or citation to show that the rap lyrics are in regards to the Watts riots. Note also that the Misplaced Pages article on the song, Fuck Tha Police, makes no mention of any connection to the Watts riots. 14:28, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/lapd/race/racerap.html afrand6

There is NOTHING on that page that says that Fuck Tha Police was in response to the Watts riots. It certainly is in response to police brutality in both Watts and Compton, but unless you can find a better source, I that it is more in response to the Daryl Gates-era of LAPD policing, rather than having anything directly to do with the Watts riots. In fact, if you read the lyrics, there is nothing in the song about rioting or looting, etc. 11:04, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

the watts riots wasn't only looting and rioting remark removed by User:BlankVerse, it was a poweder keg that evolved from police brutality which resulted in looting and rioting, and in that site it uses the song Fuck tha police as a refference to the history of the Watts Riots, they don't just enter in random song lyrics at random times for the hell of it —Preceding unsigned comment added by Afrand6 (talk • contribs)

That page is not just on the Watts Riots. The quote from Fuck Tha Police is between the section on the Watts Riots and discussion of the Daryl Gates-era. I song is about police brutality, which is discussed on that page, but there is nothing that says the song is about the Watts Riots.

On another note, if you continue your insults, you will get banned from the Misplaced Pages. 17:01, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Inconsistencies

The introductory paragraph indicates the riots lasted six days and did $100 million worth of damage. The description of the riots says the riots lasted five days and did $200 million worth of damage. One of the external references at the bottom estimates damages from $50-$100 million. Could somebody who knows more about this topic try to clean some of this data up? I came to this page solely to learn more, not because I am an expert, and therefore I think I'm somewhat unqualified. I would be very interested to read this article if an expert could add some more concrete information. Thanks! BucInExile 22:15, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

________________________________ I have a real problem with this article. It states that "one in eight did not have a high school education" as one of the principal reasons why the Watts neightborhood was upset. This census.gov pdf ( http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/education/cps94data/tab-16.pdf ) shows that even in 1994 the figure was far, far higher, even for "whites". Not to downplay the emotional feelings but the facts are conspicuously out of line.

could this be added?

My grandfather, Joseph Thompson, was the third officer to arrive on scene at the initial arrest, could that somehow be worked into the article?--Acebrock 20:19, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

If you could get a source and make a well-written piece about the events of the arrest, it should be fine. Good luck! 69.115.70.39 (talk) 00:50, 31 March 2012 (UTC)

Leonard Deadwyler

Did this event happen in '65? Other sources I found says this happened in '66. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.119.191.219 (talk) 01:51, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,835704,00.html

http://www.pynchon.pomona.edu/uncollected/watts.html

http://www.biography.com/articles/Johnnie-Cochran-9542444

4.242.174.5 (talk) 19:38, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Unclear paragraph

From the background section, first paragraph. It mentions one police officer arriving, then the crowd getting violent with police officers, plural. When did more officers arrive, it goes from waiting for the impound to arrive to a group of hundreds.

The riots began on August 11, 1965, in Watts, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, when Lee Minikus, a California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer, pulled over Marquette Frye, who Minikus believed was intoxicated because of his observed erratic driving. Frye failed to pass sobriety tests; including walking in a straight line and touching his nose, and was arrested soon after. Minikus refused to let Frye's brother, Ronald, drive the car home, and radioed for it to be impounded. As events escalated, a crowd of onlookers steadily grew from dozens to hundreds. The mob became violent, throwing rocks and other objects while shouting at the police officers. A struggle ensued shortly resulting in the arrest of Frye, Ronald, and their mother. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KVND (talk • contribs) 09:14, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Sections Merged - Day-by-Day & Government Intervention

I integrated most of the information in the Day-by-Day Timeline and the Government Intervention section into The Riot section. None of the information in the day-by-day was cited and some of it was not very compelling (i.e. "rioting continued"). The information in the Government Intervention section was also not cited and it was very very specific about the national guard. I found the 50-page report that is probably the source of that information and I put it as one of the references in The Riot section so those that are interested in reading about the national guard involvement can do so. Please let me know if you think that was a horrible idea. Thanks!Rachel librarian (talk) 00:37, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

In the second paragraph, fourth sentence it states the following:

Backup police officers arrived and attempted to arrest Frye by using physical force to subdue him.

It isn't clear if the police are trying to subdue Marquette Frye or Ronald Frye.

I am assuming it is Marquette Frye.

Jroehl (talk) 17:06, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Capitalize Black, but not white.

This is a clear example of your liberal bias. With all the editing going on here, no one sees a problem with this? Do we do this so one group can feel good about themselves? So when people say Misplaced Pages lacks credibility, this is but one example. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.251.40.254 (talk) 14:48, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The article was using a mix of upper and lower-case for "black", with mostly lower case. I've lowercased it throughout, and reverted your upper-casing of "white". --McGeddon (talk) 15:15, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

It's up in the air. Article and article about why some writers capitalize Black and not white. I'm not sure that being sensitive about how groups describe themselves is an example of "liberal bias" or a lack of credibility. If you contemplate the parallel to Misplaced Pages's policy on biographies of living individuals, you might conclude that we are not careful enough about how we refer to whole groups. If Misplaced Pages were created 50 years ago we would be using the word "Negroes" (capitalized) instead of "Blacks" or "blacks"—yet we'd be using a lowercase "white" to describe European-Americans (if we were sufficiently conscious to mark their race at all.) The APA style guide suggests capitalizing Black and White when they are used as proper nouns, but not when they are used as adjectives; the CMS says capitalize when they're 'headings in a list'. The AP uses lowercase for both. Misplaced Pages has no centralized policy—here's a previous discussion at WP:MOS Black (people) uses mostly lower-case "black"—except in the United States, where "Black" is often capitalized. I have to say, thinking about the contents of this article, that capitalizing "White" (as well as "Black") makes sense to me—we're talking about a group that has group identity and acts as such, even if this identity is not often discussed. I think we should have a centralized discussion of the issue, but until then I'd beware systematic interventions to modify the capitalization. Peace, groupuscule (talk) 08:27, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

==============

This Watt's article is yet another example of wiki bias against the white population. Note how the Tulsa riot (1921) and the Rosewood riots (1923) are labeled "racially motivated" on wiki. Not one - NOT ONE- of the more than 200 racial attacks/riots by blacks on innocent white people and their businesses between 1964 and 1969 (including the racially motivated LA riot in 1991), is described as "racially motivated" on wiki. I wonder why? For any reader of American history covering this time, all of these riots initiated by blacks were in fact racially motivated. It was black racism and hateful violence perpetrated against completely innocent people. Result of all that hateful violence? White flight.

Oppression: Blacks were not an oppressed people prior to forced integration (1964). True, generally speaking blacks did not have integration rights into the white community (pre 1964). However, there was no Constitutional right to racial integration prior to 1964, nor were any laws created by Acts of Congress which required it (hence , the necessity to create compulsory integration with the Civil Rights Act 1964). I wonder why that isn't mentioned on wiki? Plessy vs. Ferguson was still the law of the land prior to 1964. Further, no people in human history had EVER granted another people across-the-board integration rights into "their" created political and economic arenas. So not only was there no US Constitutional right to racial integration ... but there was also no precedent for it in human history. Blacks, being a distinct people, were suppose to be separate and self-reliant. This was the mind-set of white people at that time, and throughout America's history. The logical reasoning behind blacks being separate and self-reliant (Booker T. Washington's agenda), was to encourage blacks to develop their own communities, culture and living arrangements, and thereby achieve a sense of self-importance and empowerment over the lives of their people. Blacks were in fact free to build their own towns, cities, industries, or colonize a place in the vast expanse of America's unsettled lands. Blacks, on own their volition, marched for - DEMANDED- what no people had ever marched for: integration into another people's living arrangements. Finally, no people being as oppressed as many people claim blacks were prior to 1964, would demand integration INTO all that brutal oppression (think about THAT). Instead, they would seek autonomy and self-determination. Blacks were not an oppressed people!

Regarding Watts: There is not one shred of evidence - on wiki, on the internet, in any documentary - of police brutality toward blacks in Watts, or in any of the other two predominantly black communities at that time (Central Avenue & West Adams being the other two). When black leaders met with the police representatives after the first night of rioting, there was no mention whatsoever of police brutality. Further, LAPD at that time used its black police officers to patrol the three black communities. Why isn't THAT mentioned in the wiki article?

Regarding Housing: Black males, unlike white males , Japanese & Chinese, simply did NOT build their own urban housing. White males did try to address the housing problem in LA for blacks, that was being caused by rapid black migration (from the South) in the 1950s. Almost one-third (over 9000) of blacks were living in rather new federal government provided housing projects that were only about 12 years old. And these housing units were not the imposing tower complexes common in other large urban centers, but were instead designed to be inconspicuous two-story structures i.e. Watts, with many palm tree-lined streets, was no ghetto. It was NOT White people's fault that blacks would not build housing!

Quote From Article (Police Discrimination): "Not only were the city's black and Latino residents excluded from the high-paying jobs, affordable housing, and politics available to whites"

This quote is biased as well as woefully inaccurate. As I already stated, there were NO compulsory integration laws prior 1964. It needs to be stated that the entire social stratification system in LA was created - in toto - by ONE male group (white Christian males). They created the tax base! Again, not only were there no laws to force integration into another people's social stratification system, it had never happened not only in the history of America, but in all of human history. Needless to say, blacks never once practiced diversity anywhere in America where they had the economic advantage (e.g. Pullman Porters- 95% black; Red Cap workers--85% black; Negro colleges --98% employees in 1955 were black). BTW, Latinos were less than 1% of LA's population in 1960. How and why did they get inserted into the Watts' discussion?

Also, blacks did not equal 750,000 of LA's population in 1970. In 1965, it was approx. 350,000. In 1970, it would have been apprx. 390,000 (at most).

Wiki continues to be used as a racially inflammatory site for those who want to incite blacks against whites; and/ or to make white males the scape goat for the ills that afflicted the black race at this time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.105.102.175 (talk) 01:21, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Suggest watching the TV series "Mad Men" to get a sense of the social position of white males in 1965. In the 21st century, now that other races and genders have joined white males in participating in public life, the situation of Watts in 1965 makes for an interesting challenge in historiography. Do you want to present this event from the perspective of the way it was viewed at the time, or from the perspective of today? There will no doubt be an ongoing discussion on this talk page.

One point on which we all agree: it is not the encyclopedia's role to provoke further civil disturbances, but rather to strive for a calm and factual description that contributes to public understanding of historical and current events. --Djembayz (talk) 13:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Unosurced passage

I'm moving the following passage from the article; it refers to a neighboring community, and may be the product of original research. Please restore that which can be supported by reliable sources. JNW (talk) 02:09, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

A forgotten factor about the riots is the housing aftermath. Few cities in Los Angeles County wanted anything to do with the refugee population of the events in 1965. One of the few cities that did was Pomona, CA. This is the farthest eastern portion of the county before reaching cities in San Bernardino County. The city of Pomona had a housing surplus during that year, so an invitation was made. Predictably, due to the large influx of African Americans and Mexican Americans, the local majority White population participated in "White Flight" and migrated to the more affluent cities nearby, seeking safety for their families and property. The existing local "minority" population began to feud with the newcomers, which led to "black on black" and "brown on brown" violence. Decades of gang development and increasing homicides cause the city to have one the highest murder rates in the county during those years. The city of Pomona is now majority non-White and has never truly recovered from the aftermath of the Watts Riots.

De-facto segregation

This was marked as unsourced in the article. I have first-hand knowledge but no sources. If my parents were still alive I would have sources. We moved from South Central Los Angeles in 1957 to Inglewood. Inglewood was a "whites only" suburb of Los Angeles. I also worked in the phone company office that served parts of Watts during the riots. Here is what I know. My dad volunteered as a Reserve Police Office in Inglewood as well as his "day job" where he had to drive from Inglewood to a 99% black area north of Watts. My mother sold real estate in Inglewood.

Along the Los Angeles-Inglewood border (Morningside Park part of Inglewood) there were signs along residential streets that no black (it probably said negro -- it's been a long time) were allowed on the streets after dark. The reason was that many people in the area had (black) maids and such and it was to say they needed to go home rather than live-in. I asked my dad and we looked this up. It was actually on the books as a traffic ordinance (because black people would be a traffic hazard).

On the north border between Inglewood and Los Angeles one street (as I remember, 64th street) was the dividing line. There were black people living on the LA side but not the Inglewood side. My mother had been told that she could not show houses to black people in Inglewood as "they were not allowed".

I don't have any sources but it would seem likely that someone would have a photo of one of the "traffic ordinance" signs. Nicafyl (talk) 14:25, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

Roots of black gangs, and cultural references

At the end of the "Racial segregation" section, it stated "The black mutual protection clubs that formed in response to these assaults became the basis of the region's fearsome street gangs." I have read that predictable allegation before and it is totally at odds with in-depth histories of black street gangs in Los Angeles. The same allegation has been made about Mexican street gangs in Los Angeles and, again, fails scrutiny. It's unsourced, and if someone finds a link where some professor states that it's true, I'm sorry; that's not enough. There is NO credible evidence that the above quote is true. The passage before that also described whites running around "firebombing", assaulting and harassing blacks which is un-sourced as well, although I'm sure someone will dig up a reference somewhere.

As to this, "The Joseph Wambaugh novel The New Centurions culminates in the Watts Riot and examines the negative impact of racist police in minority communities in the years preceding it.", I've read the book several times and it does NOT "examine the negative impact of racist police...". If anything, it does almost the opposite. The riots are shown as a breakdown of society, where black citizens are incited by radicals. The police are clearly portrayed in a sympathetic light, trying to uphold the law in a changing society. There's absolutely nothing about the "impact of racist police".

Requested moves

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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: withdrawn, different issues pertain to different pages in the multimove request; closing without prejudice against reopening move requests individually or in small groups as described below. Editors who contributed to this discussion should be pinged to alert them to any subsequent discussions. Dekimasuよ! 21:00, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Watts Riots → Watts riots
• Seattle Mardi Gras Riots → Seattle Mardi Gras riots
• Hough Riots → Hough riots
• Homestead Strike → Homestead strike
• Pullman Strike → Pullman strike
• Menai Massacre → Menai massacre
• Penn's Creek Massacre → Penn's Creek massacre
• Sugarloaf Massacre → Sugarloaf massacre
• Texarkana Moonlight Murders → Texarkana moonlight murders
• Keddie Murders → Keddie murders
• Shelton Laurel Massacre → Shelton Laurel massacre
• Lawrence Massacre → Lawrence massacre
• Villisca Axe Murders → Villisca axe murders
• Midnight Massacre (1945) → Midnight massacre (1945)
• Blackfriars Massacre → Blackfriars massacre
• Bisbee Massacre → Bisbee massacre
• Bellevue Massacre → Bellevue massacre
• Huntsville Massacre → Huntsville massacre
• Rosewood Massacre → Rosewood massacre
• Carnation Massacre → Carnation massacre
• Long Run Massacre → Long Run massacre
• Cicero Race Riot of 1951 → Cicero race riot of 1951
• Lager Beer Riot → Lager beer riot
• Illinois Coal Wars → Illinois coal wars
• Pana Massacre → Pana massacre
• Airport Homes Race Riots → Airport Homes race riots
• Fernwood Park Race Riot of 1947 → Fernwood Park race riot of 1947
• Englewood Race Riots of 1949 → Englewood race riots of 1949
• Detroit Race Riot (1943) → Detroit race riot (1943)
• Detroit Race Riot (1863) → Detroit race riot (1863)

– These descriptive titles of events generally do not get treated by sources as proper names, so per MOS:CAPS we should use lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 04:49, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Note: this discussion was listed at Template:Centralized discussion to allow a broader spectrum of editors to contribute RGloucester — ☎ 18:29, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support as nom, per clear evidence in books that these are nowhere close to our criterion of being consistently capitalized in sources. See books searches "Watts Riots", "Seattle Mardi Gras Riots", "Hough Riots", "Homestead Strike", "Pullman Strike", etc., where many (probably majority) lower-case uses in books are seen if you look past the snippets that show prior work titles, headings, etc. (Google prefers to show capitalized hits in snippets, so don't rely on the snippet to conclude that a book prefers upper case; click through and check for what a book's usage in sentence context is). Many of these had been done already as routine WP:MOS improvement to improve consistency in a few categories that still had a few inappropriate capitalizations (such as Category:Mass murder in the United States and Category:African-American riots in the United States), but then User:RGloucester reverted on his theory of "English-language failure" as described at Talk:Chicago Race Riot of 1919#Requested move 2; there are few more that didn't fit here, too. I checked each of these in books before moving, but I'm happy to have some rechecking in case anyone disagrees with my interpretation of "consistently capitalized in sources" per MOS:CAPS. Dicklyon (talk) 04:20, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

• Strong oppose – Where is this "clear evidence"? I see none. These are historical events with proper names. There is no justification for decapitalisation in MOSCAPS or elsewhere. The fellow above appears to enjoy looking at stylistically sloppy articles that have no semblance of coherence. These are not WP:NDESC titles, but instead, are common historical names for a given event. That's the definition of a proper name. Mr Lyon, as I presume that's this fellow's name, has just engaged in a mass decapitalisation campaign with no basis in sources or in policy or guidelines. He has done this unilaterally, and I've reverted him. He should be well aware that the last time someone tried this, all the moves were reverted. This was only a month or so ago. Instead of attempting to gain consensus for this failure of a change, he made a mess of many articles. That's why God has sent me here, to protect these articles from the ugly candour of minuscule letters. RGloucester — ☎ 04:39, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The general consensus for applying MOS:CAPS to these sorts of events can be seen at recent multi-move discussions such as: Talk:Villatina massacre#Requested moves, Talk:Rock Springs massacre#Requested moves, Talk:Potato riots#Requested moves. Dicklyon (talk) 04:57, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

That's not a general consensus of any sort. Please hush up, and let someone other than yourself or myself speak. RGloucester — ☎ 04:58, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

• Support—usage stats gathered properly, and WP's house style. Tony (talk) 05:08, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose. I see at least two dozen different requests listed here, including several added only after the discussion began. . As RGloucester noted, no evidence of any kind has been presented. These requests should be done separately, or through something else besides a multi-move request. -- Calidum 05:13, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

"Added after the discussion began" doesn't quite tell the story, as RGloucester was continuing to revert moves as I was trying to finish the list; it all took just a few minutes and did not add anything that he wasn't already aware of. They are all essentially equivalent, and equivalent to the three prior multi-move discussions that I linked, in the fundamental question of how to apply the guideline of MOS:CAPS. I'll be happy to supply evidence on more than the first 5 listed if someone challenges them on the basis of usage stats; so far that has not been challenged. RGloucester's entire case is based on his contempt for the WP:MOS and his preference for his own style, as he has so clearly expressed at Talk:Chicago Race Riot of 1919#Requested move 2. Dicklyon (talk) 05:19, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Are we going to see more cherry-picking? Yes, I was "continuing" to revert unilateral moves that had no consensus. "Continuing" to do something that should've been done, because you knew there was no consensus when we last had this discussion in October at WP:RM/TR. To be clear, MOS:CAPS does not support decapitalising the majority of these articles. That's your interpretation, and it is wrong. RGloucester — ☎ 05:25, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what October discussion you refer to. Dicklyon (talk) 05:36, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

• Observation. Believe it or not I'm neutral on the general MOS guideline as it is being applied to historical events, although I personally prefer the names we are accustomed to seeing in print. My primary objection is that the discussion of this sort of change before making wholesale moves has not been transparent and inclusive of the community. Very few are aware of this initiative until they see a page they were following suddenly move and change without adequate explanation and with no discussion. This is bold to the point of recklessness and looks like steamrolling isolated pockets of good faith disagreement, even if that is not the intent. It is the appearance of tactics that is problematic. I have suggested, and will continue to suggest that the explanation for changing historical event names be spelled out in the MOS. Because when experienced editors go there (the MOS), the explanation for historical event name changes is absent, so they naturally are inclined to revert. Red Harvest (talk) 06:47, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The multi-move discussions I linked were advertised at WP:RM and at each relevant article talk page for a week or more. How much more inclusive do you need to affirm that events are not exceptions to MOS:CAPS? Dicklyon (talk) 07:03, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Well for starters, you might want to begin by updating MOS:CAPS so that it actually addresses historical events. That way when you put it in an edit summary or discussion, half the question is already answered. And it wouldn't hurt to include the sourcing part as well as the criteria that says if usage is mixed, default to MOS:CAPS rather than what is most used--which effectively means no exceptions...well...except for a few where the expected outcry/backlash is not deemed worth the effort as in Boston Massacre. I could be mistaken, because I've avoided the behind-the-scenes of Misplaced Pages sausage-making as much as possible until getting drawn into it recently, but discussions/move requests of individual pages that are only noticed by a specialist like yourself and the editors following the individual topics don't constitute community consensus for broad acceptance of a policy. It is inherently a non-representative mismatch: an example of taking one side's key proponents, and having them debate a couple of random people on the street, then declaring the result a broad ranging victory. (That doesn't mean their argument was right or wrong.)

If the issue is not addressed clearly in MOS:CAPS, then I am inclined to oppose the whole list because of poor documentation of the guideline and questionable tactics for its implementation. Red Harvest (talk) 08:38, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. As a person who experienced driving through the areas impacted by the Hough Riots and the 1968 Chicago Riots, and possibly one of the few people in this discussion who has been to Watts, let me give a piece of input. American schoolchildren of that time period were told that it was "more respectful to capitalize proper nouns-- if in doubt, capitalize to show respect!" The decision not to capitalize will be viewed by many people raised in that time period as a political statement indicating that you have little sympathy for oppressed persons or their grievances. From personal experience, I can state that the decision not to capitalize the Hough Riots would most certainly have been reversed with red ink by Cleveland area high school teachers at the time.

Also please note that the Library of Congress Subject Heading, which may be considered an authoritative US source, has capitals: Watts Riot, Los Angeles, Calif., 1965 -- Djembayz (talk) 13:20, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

• Strong oppose Named events are capitalized. The titles are named events; they aren't descriptive. Battles are a good example of this and are somewhat related to the RMs here. Furthermore, the significant majority (even if not all) sources use capital letters, so WP:COMMONNAME applies and it trumps any local consensus. With regards to the Sugarloaf Massacre, I have an offline source that is the source for the vast majority of the article and uses capitalization on every page where the massacre is mentioned by name. --Jakob (talk) 17:15, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
• Strong oppose. The originator of this proposed change, per his/her own words, relies on MOS:CAPS. However this section is clear when it discusses military terms. It states:

Accepted full names of wars, battles, revolts, revolutions, rebellions, mutinies, skirmishes, risings, campaigns, fronts, raids, actions, operations and so forth are capitalized (Spanish Civil War, Battle of Leipzig, Boxer Rebellion, Action of July 8, 1716, Western Front, Operation Sea Lion). The generic terms (war, revolution, battle) take the lowercase form when standing alone (France went to war; The battle began; The raid succeeded).

At a minimum all of the listed articles relating to military "operations and so forth" (and those relating to massacres do fall into that category) should be eliminated. More important, the originator seems to be ignoring the lead of Misplaced Pages:Article titles which states:

Generally, article titles are based on what the subject is called in reliable sources. When this offers multiple possibilities, editors choose among them by considering several principles: the ideal article title resembles titles for similar articles, precisely identifies the subject, and is short, natural, and recognizable.

We definitely have "multiple possibilities" for most of these articles. All meet the second and third criteria so the only obstacle is do the titles resemble "titles for similar articles". A quick glance through List of riots and List of massacres in the United States show a serious inconsistency. My conclusion is that this entire proposal is inappropriate, as is even an article by article proposal. Policy changes are needed. What should wikipedia policy be regarding capitalization when words such as "massacre" and "riot" commonly follow a properly capitalized name? Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 17:24, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The section you link starts The general rule is that wherever a military term is an accepted proper name, as indicated by consistent capitalization in sources, it should be capitalized. I don't think that relying on "and so forth" to capitalize things that are not capitalized in sources is the intended interpretation there. Dicklyon (talk) 18:41, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

The section starts with the phrase you quote, but then provides a series of bullets that clarify different types of military terms. You misstate the actual circumstances when you claim that these names "are not capitalized in sources". In fact, sources list it both ways -- it is up to consensus when there are conflicting options to decide the appropriate title. Consensus discussions should take into consideration the weight to be given to specific sources -- all of your arguments are based on a simple count that mixes reliable and non-reliable (by wikipedia standards) sources. You also ignore the subsection of the guideline which states, "Proper names of specific places, persons, terms, etc. are capitalized in accordance with standard usage." The Lawrence Massacre, for example is a very specific event and, as such, should be capitalized per "standard usage" -- the guideline does not say "standard wikipedia usage". Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 13:17, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

North Shoreman, the starting-point is indeed your opening statement: "We definitely have 'multiple possibilities' for most of these articles." Exactly—the whole point is that there is no standard usage. That is why we have style guidelines in WP.

You write that Dick's post just above "also ignore the subsection of the guideline which states, 'Proper names of specific places, persons, terms, etc. are capitalized in accordance with standard usage'." I don't believe it ignores this at all. The question is whether they count as proper names; I suspect Dick would say that if they do count thus, they should be capped. I'd be with him on that. So what definition are you using to sort out whether a word string is a proper name? I've put this question to RGloucester at least once, but he avoids answering it. Yet this is critical.

NS, you write, too: "The Lawrence Massacre, for example is a very specific event and, as such, should be capitalized per 'standard usage' – the guideline does not say 'standard wikipedia usage'." Then what do you say to this ngram?note that a signficant proportion of the capped results there would be titles using title case. Tony (talk) 14:23, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Earlier today I posted my definition of proper names at Talk:Pottawatomie Massacre. I said, "The title of this article has all of the characteristics of a proper name -- it refers to a specific event at a specific time in a specific place. What else do you need?" I've tried to find a really good definition via Google and online dictionaries, but everything I found seems to equate it with proper nouns. I think the most informative article I ran across was a wikipedia article. This article recognizes the problem we're discussing, but doesn't present a solution. It states, "It is often indeterminate both whether an item qualifies as a proper name and whether it should be capitalized: "the Cuban missile crisis" is often capitalized ("the Cuban Missile Crisis") and often not, regardless of its syntactic status or its function in discourse. Most style guides give decisive recommendations on capitalization; but not all of them dwell on the indeterminate matter of proper names."

Our problem is that the wikipedia guidelines, on this subject, fall into the indeterminate category. Dicklyon rests all of his arguments on this phrase from the guideline lead, "Words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Misplaced Pages." The problem is that the guideline doesn't say what to do when the treatment is inconsistent. Note that "consistently" implies a much higher standard than even "majority". Lacking a clear unambiguous guideline and a difficult to establish measure, we are left with consensus in all situations lacking "consistency".

Ngrams are nice, but they're only a starting point. You want to eliminate capitalization examples in titles. Why? We're trying to reflect in wikipedia what the public will see if they research the issue and the public sees these titles. It's fine that wikipedia wants to put titles in sentence form, but the reality is that much of the rest of the world does it a different way. Dicklyon wants to eliminate eBooks. Neither of you has suggested that we eliminate books that don't qualify under wikipedia reliable source guidelines. Sure, this would be a lot of work for people who only want to spend a few minutes (if that long) in drive by editing of an article that they know little about, but folks who regularly edit in a subject field do recognize what the most reliable sources are.

I might like to eliminate circumstances (using Lawrence again as an example) when the author is clearly writing using period language based on primary sources. For example, an author might write, "Newspapers across the North were outraged by the Lawrence massacre." These newspaper articles were written well before the Lawrence Massacre became one of the more significant events of the Civil War and it would be misleading to suggest that it was a named event immediately after it happened. If this sentence is captured by an Ngram from a 2012 publication it is wrong to say this reflects 2012 usage when it actually reflects the language of 150 years ago.

The authors of reliable sources use whatever guidelines have been established by the schools they attended, the schools where they teach, or their publishers. By trying to find order in this pattern, we are creating a system that will guarantee inconsistency. If we want to capitalize or not capitalize words like riot and massacre that become part of proper names, then let's gain consensus and change the guideline. We don't base the style of our titles on reliable sources -- this is just about style, not substance, and we can do the same thing here. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 18:18, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. The guideline DOES tell us what to do when capitalization is inconsistent: avoid unnecessary capitalization. "...a specific event at a specific time in a specific place" is a necessary but insufficient definition of proper name. A thing can be very specific yet not have a proper name. "What else do you need?" General acceptance of the capitalized usage. On WP we need to be comfortable writing articles about things that don't have proper names. I share your discomfort with over-reliance on n-grams. Hugh (talk) 18:17, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

"this is just about style, not substance" I think there is a substantial content component to this issue. We do not expect our readers to keep our house style in their heads, so a naive reader seeing a capitalized article title is going to think, "Here is an article about a thing, and that thing is specific, and it even has a generally accepted proper name." And the reader might well capitalize in their own, off-WP writing, and be surprised to be corrected. In other words, when we capitalize, we are making the substantial claim that a thing has a proper name. The guideline asks us to try to avoid giving names to things that do not already have names. Hugh (talk) 18:41, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose Many massacres have the word "massacre" capitalized in books and articles, such as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. See the Penn's Creek Massacre, for instance, one of the articles explicitly nominated. These massacres were given an uppercase letter in reliable sources, likely to establish their place in history, along with battles. This mass move would be taken as consensus to make the word lowercase. Go to the manual of style and get consensus rather than picking a set of articles and moving them to different titles. Edison (talk) 17:30, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

Why not stick to the ones that are proposed for moving? Mountain Meadows massacre looks like it has been lowercase since 2005, without dispute; the phrase seems to appear only in one book by that title; hardly evidence for proper name status unless the article is about the book. And "Penn's Creek massacre" is lowercase in about as many books as it is uppercase; you can explore and count via the link before (be sure exclude the wikimirrors, and look for uses in sentences, not quotes of title of others). Dicklyon (talk) 18:41, 9 December 2014 (UTC)

• Comment. There is a relevant ongoing discussion taking place at Talk:Chicago Race Riot of 1919. Dekimasuよ! 21:01, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose I'm not swayed by the support argument. Capitalization makes more sense for Misplaced Pages. Chris Troutman (talk) 23:35, 9 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose for massacres. I'm neutral on the rest, but we rarely use that word massacre (in a non-figurative sense) unless it's in a proper noun. Red Slash 00:04, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
• Comment As the primary author of Seattle Mardis Gras Riots, I don't feel strongly either way. My brain sees it as a event to be capitalized but a quick review of the sources doesn't back that up. I also think the plural needs to be dropped. I can make that change after this closes out.Cptnono (talk) 02:20, 10 December 2014 (UTC)
• Oppose - Far too many things being proposed for change here; not seeing how this change necessarily reflects MOS or COMMONNAME. Indeed, from what I can see, this proposal may well fail the latter; looking for Lager Beer Riot (as a random example) finds plenty of sources using that capitalization, and pretty much none use the lower case form. Whilst some of these may have a valid case for a rename, I don't see how you can argue that they all do. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:31, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that Lager Beer Riot has the weakest case, and I plan to omit it when working these separately. It's probably above 80% caps in sources, and more like a named rather than descriptive title. Dicklyon (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose mass move... but I support examining these further on a case by case basis. Whether words like "massacre" or "riot" are considered part of a proper name for the event (or not) is not something we can determine en masse, in the abstract... sometimes they are, and sometimes they are not. It depends on the event and how the sources refer to them. If the sources capitalize, then we know the word is part of the proper name for that specific event (as is the case in Boston Massacre)... but if the sources do not capitalize, then we know it isn't. Blueboar (talk) 14:21, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Support—Where sources don't capitalize, we generally don't either. Let's move these and rewrite prose to be consistent and professional-looking. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:36, 11 December 2014 (UTC)
• Strong oppose mass move. The way forward is case-by-case consideration, including citing objective evidence from sources, with particular attention to each article's own reliable sources. Yeah, It's a lot of work. Hugh (talk) 16:57, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Data that supports the claim that these are proper names

Super-majority upper case per n-grams

• Boston Massacre (which is why nobody has proposed moving this one)

Data that directly refutes the claim that these are somehow proper names

Majority lowercase per n-grams

• Watts Riots
• Hough Riots
• Homestead Strike
• Pullman Strike
• Rosewood Massacre

50/50 or needing a closer look, but nowhere near consistently capitalized in books

• Shelton Laurel Massacre – most of the caps hits are citations to titles "The Shelton Laurel Massacre", "Shelton Laurel Massacre", and "The Shelton Laurel Massacre: Murder in the North Carolina Mountains", while most uses in text are lowercase
• Lawrence Massacre – Most capitalized uses are page headings and citations to "The Lawrence Massacre" and similar works. Most uses in text are lowercase, as can be seen by clicking through to book listings.
• Detroit Race Riot – most capitalized occurrences are book and paper titles; most uses in sentences are lowercase

Not enough hits in books to appear in n-grams, so look at book hits; none show evidence of "consistently capitalized in sources"

• Seattle Mardi Gras Riots lowercase in two books, upper case in 1, not counting wikipedia books
• Menai Massacre lowercase is several books; not commonly uppercase
• Penn's Creek Massacre plenty of lowercase in books
• Sugarloaf Massacre plenty of lowercase in books
• Texarkana Moonlight Murders not much mention in books except "The Texarkana Moonlight Murders: The Unsolved Case of the 1946 Phantom Killer"
• Keddie Murders shows lowercase in sentence in one, uppercase in quotes (title and otherwise) in a few, not much else
• Villisca Axe Murders shows plenty of books use lower case
• Midnight Massacre 1945 shows one article called "Midnight Massacre" and one capitalized "Midnight Massacre" referring to a 1977 event, and not much else.
• Blackfriars Massacre more upper, but not close to consistently so
• Bisbee Massacre more upper, but quite a few lower
• Bellevue Massacre one lowercase; that's all
• Huntsville Massacre one lowercase in sentence; no others in sentence
• Carnation Massacre - "carnation massacre" in sentence in one; that's about all other than wikipedia books
• Long Run Massacre lowercase in about half of books
• Cicero Race Riot commonly lowercase in sources
• Lager Beer Riot sometimes "lager beer riot", else quoting what newspapers called it, with caps; and lots of titles and headings
• Illinois Coal Wars lowercase "the bloody Illinois coal wars" in the one place it appears
• Pana Massacre not found in books; lots of wiki-mirror caps on web; appears as Pana, Illinois, mine riot and riot between whites and blacks in Pana and other descriptions.
• Airport Homes Race Riot is "Airport Home riot" in sources (race was added to make it more descriptive, apparently)
• Fernwood Park Race Riot found in one heading, that's all
• Englewood Race Riot no support in book, but "race riot" mentioned in connection to Englewood— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dicklyon (talk • contribs)

Further evidence of downcasing in the lit

Thank you, Dick. I get this result, too, for <the watts riot> in ngram. It is indefensible to argue that WP should surrender its house-style and go with minority usage in this case. Tony (talk) 00:48, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

The "house-style" favours capitalisation when it is necessary. It is necessary here for a variety of reasons. What you've provided isn't evidence at all, as many of those usages may be descriptive, rather than referring to this particular event. Britannica capitalises the Watts Riots. Per WP:UCN, "Other encyclopedias are among the sources that may be helpful in deciding what titles are in an encyclopedic register, as well as what names are most frequently used". We must write in the encyclopaedic register. Britannica uses capitalisation, and so should we. We're not writing a rag paper. RGloucester — ☎ 00:54, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Here is a more precise ngram, with lowercase "the" at the start, to more thoroughly weed out title-case titles. The evidence it shows is overwhelming. RG is now suggesting that "the watts riots" might contain a significant proportion of other Watts riots. Like which ones? This is clutching at straws.

No admin could sanely close this as a do-nothing RM given that the opposers offer no credible logic or evidence against the move. And Gloucester is now twisting MOSCAPS around to favour his agenda ... so that don't unnecessarily capitalise becomes capitalise when necessary. And he hasn't shown why it's necessary, aside from a series of "I am right, you are wrong" arguments above. Tony (talk) 06:52, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

The guideline says "avoids unnecessary capitalisation". That means that capitalisation is required when it is necessary. Per WP:UCN, as I cited above, we're writing in the encyclopaedic register. Britannica capitalises it, demonstrating that the capitalisation is more suitable to that register. Therefore, capitalisation is necessary to maintain our stature as an encylopaedia, and to coincide with sources that are referring to these particular events. RGloucester — ☎ 07:26, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Tony, as it stands, no sane admin would close this in favour of the move, because there isn't anything remotely approaching a consensus. Quite frankly, I'm shocked you'd even attempt to make that statement. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 08:33, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Luke, the first thing to say in response is that an RM is not a numbers game. It depends on what the participants are saying. This is why a closer is required, rather than an automatic vote-counting machine. Tony (talk) 14:03, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Correct, it isn't just a numbers game. However, there are two people in support, and almost everyone else who has !voted has voted no; and your dismissive comment of "the opposers offer no credible logic or evidence against the move" is utterly inaccurate and unhelpful. The fact that only one person so far has explicitly taken the same viewpoint as you should indicate that we who opposed may actually have a point, right? This discussion isn't filled with brand-new accounts either. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 14:18, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Well that's like saying it's not a numbers game, but then again, it is. Tony (talk) 14:23, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I hope you realise that interpretation of MOSCAPS is determined through consensus of editors at pages up for discussion. The only reason you succeeded in some of the moves you've mentioned is because they were little-watched pages with few contributors to the discussion. Per agreement with the initiator of this request, this RM was broadly advertised. Now we have a larger swath of the Misplaced Pages community participating, and it is clear that the decapitalisation cabal is not representative of mainstream interpretation of the MOS. RGloucester — ☎ 18:33, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• No, Tony, it isn't saying that. What it is saying is that consensus is that the existing setup does comply with the guidelines, and that your claim of "the opposers offer no credible logic or evidence against the move" is clearly bogus. IF that were the case, then there would be far more supporters. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 20:02, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose decapitalizing proper names in article titles. Individual RMs making the case that they aren't proper names could succeed in some cases (Carnation?). --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:46, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

I too would support decapitalising the "Carnation massacre". I think it is best that we decide here what articles are clearly at descriptive titles. That's one of them. RGloucester — ☎ 16:08, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

My personal analysis has found that the following articles are at descriptive titles, and should be decapitalised: Carnation Massacre, Seattle Mardi Gras Riots, and Keddie Murders. These are clearly descriptive titles that should not be capitalised, and which do not have capitalisation used frequently in sources. RGloucester — ☎ 16:11, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Proposal to split

Based on the feedback, it's clear that we are not going to get a consensus to move all these, but that if we split into individual article discussions or smaller clusters of similar cases, we might be able to resolve the issues. I am willing to do that, though maybe not all at once or right away, as it takes a lot of work. I'm open to suggestions about whether one-at-a-time or groups would be best.

It's also clear that some of the opposers will oppose moving even the ones that are overwhelmingly lowercase in sources, like Watts riots. I'm not sure what we're supposed to do in the face of opposition that runs so counter to our normal guidelines and precedents. We got around the problem most recently at Chicago race riot of 1919, which I urge people to review (Talk:Chicago race riot of 1919#Requested move 2), but we can't count on always having such a sensible closer.

If RGloucester had reverted my maintenance moves only on the ones for which sources are not clear, we'd have a lot less work to do at this point. If some of the above opposers would be so kind as to list which ones they'd be willing to support moving based on the clear evidence presented, we might be able to put those behind us and save us all a lot of work going forward. Dicklyon (talk) 22:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

• I'd agree strongly with going through the individual cases separately. That's one of the biggest issues of all with this; they simply aren't consistently all shown one way or another in sources. I don't think putting a rudimentary list of which ones need changing and which aren't here is much good; the WP:BURDEN is on you, as you're the one proposing the change, to evaluate which ones actually should be moved. Also, I don't think you have any right to criticize RGloucester for reverting a WP:BOLD series of moves, and your belittling of some of those who support the status-quo and what they believe is the correct form of the MOS isn't helpful either. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 23:01, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

You are not supposed to "get around" consensus. The only reason you managed to move the Chicago article was because there was such little participation that the debate had to be re-listed. Nothing here runs counter to our guidelines, other than your WP:BULLDOZERING through of mass decapitalisation across tons of articles. None of your moves were "maintenance". They were broad changes against consensus and against MOSCAPS and UCN. Please do not claim to have any kind of legitimate backing in policy. You don't.

I oppose splitting up this move across many pages where broad participation will not be possible, leading to a large amount of small changes over time that decapitalises our articles against the broad consensus found in our guidelines. You've already used that tactic on multiple other articles, having "discussions" so poorly advertised that they needed to be re-listed more than once. It is absurd that such a discussion can determine anything about what titles our articles should or should be at. What should be done is to ask participants to say what articles they think have a case for decapitalisation. I've already mentioned the ones I feel should be decapitalised. We can go from there, forming a consensus at a centralised discussion with broad participation.

By the way, "Watts Riots" is not overwhelming lowercase. You've not demonstrated as such. Please don't lie. RGloucester — ☎ 23:05, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, I lied: Tony showed the singular Watts riot. Here's the plural. Same result. It's singular about half the time; we can separately discuss whether to change that. Please summarize which ones you're OK with and we can see if others agree. Dicklyon (talk) 23:22, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Please see above. I listed them already. RGloucester — ☎ 23:31, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, RGloucester says that Carnation Massacre, Seattle Mardi Gras Riots, and Keddie Murders are descriptive names not normally capitalized in sources. Can we go ahead and move those on closing, cutting 10% off the no-consensus list at least? Any objections (besides Red Slash, who has a novel theory about the word massacre)? Dicklyon (talk) 23:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

If it is determined that Seattle Mardi Gras Riots should be moved I would love to drop the plural at that time. Also will the first line of the lead need to be rewritten or can it still be "The Seattle Mardi Gras riot"?Cptnono (talk) 01:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Google books finds the plural in 23 books, and the singular in only 2, so you might have an uphill battle on that one. It's off-topic enough here that I don't want to get into it, but you can take it up later. Dicklyon (talk) 02:09, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Weird. There used to be a really fun term for that. Something about Misplaced Pages influencing "sources". I can all but guarantee you there aren't 23 books discussing the topic but would love to see them if you got 'em. Feel free to throw them on my my talk page since it would be fun to get it to GA.Cptnono (talk) 10:14, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Add in Airport Homes Race Riots, which isn't a proper name because of the addition of "Race" for description, making it a constructed title. Also, Villisca Axe Murders, which is descriptive, rather than a name for a specific event. RGloucester — ☎ 00:14, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

If you want to go ahead and revert your moves of those, I can strike them from this proposal to simplify things. Dicklyon (talk) 01:07, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Please feel free to move them yourself. I shan't object. RGloucester — ☎ 01:09, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

As proposer of the open RM I would not dare; you might be able to get away with it as a self-revert (assuming nobody objects). Or we can just wait for a close. Dicklyon (talk) 02:11, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Waiting is perhaps the best thing to do, to see if there are no objections to the moves. RGloucester — ☎ 02:42, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

The proposal to split sounds like a good idea under the circumstances. Tony (talk) 00:38, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Unacceptable. No split by your cabal will be tolerated. RGloucester — ☎ 00:40, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Three of the opposing "cabal" wrote "These requests should be done separately, or through something else besides a multi-move request" and "Far too many things being proposed for change here" and "I support examining these further on a case by case basis." Other opposers objected to a few specific items or subsets. What's your proposal for how to sort this out then? Dicklyon (talk) 01:42, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

One must simply ask editors what specific moves they object to or support, and ask them to provide justification. Perhaps provide a note at the top of the discussion, and ping those that have already commented for further input. Any moves that are explicitly supported by the participants of this discussion should be carried out. Those that are not supported should not be. RGloucester — ☎ 01:47, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

You can try to organize that if you like; requesting that info was inherent in the original multi-RM though. If people need to look deeply and discuss all the evidence, as some seem to want, it could be quite a mess. Clearly, those not supported here will not be moved until such time as consensus says to. It seems you're saying that the usual processes of multi- and single RMs are inherently not OK. Dicklyon (talk) 02:04, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

No. I'm saying that I don't trust you to adhere to good practice, given your mass moves against consensus, use of discussions with no commenters to justify moving other articles, and making of a new RM within a few weeks of another RM. I expect you to adhere to the consensus result here. If you want to ask people about specific articles, ping them, and I'm sure they'll provide their PoV. RGloucester — ☎ 02:42, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, starting with you, do you have any reason left to not support downcasing Watts Riots now that you have presumably had time to notice the evidence presented? Dicklyon (talk) 06:33, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

The evidence presented supports it remaining capitalised to maintain the encyclopaedic register per WP:UCN and MOS:CAPS, as the Britannica capitalises it. WP:TITLECHANGES supports maintaing the present title, as it has been stable for years. There is consistent capitalisation in non-encyclopaedic sources, with roughly half using capitalisation. WP:UCN, however, implies that the encyclopaedic register is more important, giving weight to the Britannica. That means that this certainly must remain capitalised. RGloucester — ☎ 06:45, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

You surfacing your belief that "roughly half" constitutes "consistent" is actually progress in this. Hugh (talk) 17:03, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Observation. I'm opposed to continuation of this change process based on contested interpretation of MOSCAPS until it has been clearly addressed there and with discussion input from concerned editors. North Shoreman's expressed opinion is similar to my own on whether or not Dicklyon and Tony's interpretation of MOSCAPS agrees with their mass edits. It is time to take a step back, and get consensus guidance on how these should be handled...and put that in the MOSCAPS article. Does the wider editing community agree with the interpretation currently being employed? While I admire the amount of work Dicklyon is willing to do to evaluate these, I'm not a fan of the tactics employed. If I'm understanding the position correctly about the only thing off the table is the Boston Massacre, and with the current policy even that could change in a few years because the Ngram listing through 2008 Ngram viewer for Boston Massacre is starting to shift and as of 2008 stood at a ratio of 8.5:1 whereas it had been about 30:1 just a few years before. (Notice also that you can see that lower case usage was more mixed before 1900--something I've seen for the Lawrence Massacre as well. From my perspective a significant part of the debate is whether or not standard nomenclature capitalization shifted around 1900 on, and whether or not it is doing so again according to a preferred style guide.) At any rate, repeating the same requests like Groundhog Day until one slips past is unacceptable practice and I object to it. Red Harvest (talk) 06:36, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

I am not aware that any of these moves have been requested before; let me know if there is anything to what you are claiming. All similar previous requests to follow MOS:CAPS have gone the right way, except for that one on Chicago race riot of 1919 at which nobody thought to present data from sources while I was on vacation, so I re-opened, presented data, got more eyeballs on it and things got fixed. If your theory is that MOS:CAPS needs to be clarified or amended, please do bring it up there. But I don't see that as a reason to put normal processes on hold. Dicklyon (talk) 07:22, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, you started out by listing one that was, so congrats on negating your own argument. You are also proposing to do the same here. Continuing with your fingers shoved into your ears is not an example of "the normal processes." Instead you've claimed what appears a false consensus and have been reckless rather than bold. I won't support that and instead am shifting my position to: strong oppose. When the problems are honestly addressed and an actual consensus emerges I will honor it. You've made it clear that you won't wait for that and don't believe consensus is necessary. So the only option left is strong oppose. Red Harvest (talk) 07:59, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

"All similar previous requests to follow MOS:CAPS have gone the right way, except for that one on Chicago race riot of 1919 at which nobody thought to present data from source swhile I was on vacation, so I re-opened..." Talk:Chicago_race_riot_of_1919#Requested_move_23_October_2014 includes the post "I checked most of the article's RS and found a mix." Data was supplied. The capitalization is not consistent. The close was capitalize. You re-openned based on a false claim. You were corrected on this false claim in Talk:Chicago_race_riot_of_1919#Requested_move_2 yet you persist in this claim. Hugh (talk) 16:51, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

That still doesn't sound like data to me; and if it had been accepted as data in support of inconsistent capitalization in sources, the close should have been to lower case. Especially since as you clarified there, you found on 2 sources of 25 using it capitalized in a sentence, if I understood you correctly; data in the form of numbers would have made that more clear. Dicklyon (talk) 17:03, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

But above when you post "Cicero Race Riot - commonly lowercase in sources," no numbers, that sounds like data to you? Hugh (talk) 17:12, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Didn't I provide a link to the data at least? At a glance there you can see 7 of the first 10 book hits using lowercase, which pretty much seals it. For those who want to dig deeper, you can click through to the 3 that show uppercase in snippets, and see that 2 of those do not user uppercase in sentences. You can then move to the next 10 with one click if you think that's enough support to conclude that the term is not consistently capitalized in sources. I admit some are harder, especially since Google ranks capitalized phrases higher, so you often see mostly uppercase on the first page of hits even when a closer look at the data shows a preponderance of lowercase in sentences. But it's trivial compared to digging through article citations, and nobody would trust my numbers on those anyway if I tried to get more explicit; so I link the data. Dicklyon (talk) 17:20, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

As stated links were the refs section of the article under discussion. You are right, I did not copy them to the talk page. Now you are re-litigating your re-opening of a recently closed discussion on another talk page. In your interpretation of "consistent" 7 out of 10 is consistent? Hugh (talk) 17:32, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

MOS:CAPS does not provide a specific quantitative cut-off. As with many guidelines we editors are asked to form a judgement as to whether capitalization is consistently uppercase in sources. If not, we lowercase. Further, my read is that we should focus on the article's refs, as these have been accepted as reliable sources for the topic. I'm uncomfortable with n-gram arguments. Hugh (talk) 17:47, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

"...repeating the same requests like Groundhog Day until one slips past is unacceptable practice and I object to it." I agree. I disagreed with outcome of the first RM at Chicago race riot of 1919 but also with the re-open after a month. Hugh (talk) 17:52, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Move to close

Since RGloucester, who originally reverted these moves, no longer opposes 5 of them, and nobody else has provided any reason to oppose them, I suggest we go ahead with a split close to move these and no consensus on the rest, without prejudice; now 5 or 6 opposers have suggested breaking them them up and examining them more closely, along with more clarification of the underlying guidelines and policies: Dicklyon (talk) 17:20, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Seattle Mardi Gras Riots → Seattle Mardi Gras riots
• Keddie Murders → Keddie murders
• Villisca Axe Murders → Villisca axe murders
• Carnation Massacre → Carnation massacre
• Airport Homes Race Riots → Airport Homes race riots

• Oppose closure – Let this move run for the full duration, as appropriate. If no one objects, these can be moved as appropriate. Follow the process. Given that we know this is contentious, we should be taking our time here. RGloucester — ☎ 17:26, 12 December 2014 (UTC)
• I would suggest instead withdrawing the full nomination here (which is not headed toward moving the articles) and reinitiating a separate request involving only these articles, and then nominating the others separately as necessary. However, the large request garnered a lot of opposition, and the visibility of the individual requests is likely to be lower; I would suggest pinging participants here to the new nominations, as took place at Talk:Chicago race riot of 1919. If you withdraw the nomination, I will close it as no consensus without prejudice against renomination (NPASR). Even if no one objects down here at the bottom of the discussion, the overall objections above are hard to discount; editors who have commented above may not return to the discussion before it closes. Dekimasuよ! 18:16, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, I'll try to get to that. Is there a mechanism to ping a list of users easily? Dicklyon (talk) 19:01, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Use Template:Ping. RGloucester — ☎ 19:09, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Does that mean you'd like to withdraw the full request? Dekimasuよ! 19:14, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes; consider it so; though maybe wait and see if RG or someone has a comment on the two I add below. Dicklyon (talk) 19:17, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, does anyone see a reason not to put these two into the obvious easy batch?

• Fernwood Park Race Riot of 1947 → Fernwood Park race riot of 1947
• Englewood Race Riots of 1949 → Englewood race riots of 1949

(we could also remove the "of year" part as unnecessary; I might propose that if I hear no objection here).

Here's the data again: Dicklyon (talk) 19:17, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

• Fernwood Park Race Riot found in one heading, that's all
• Englewood Race Riot no support in book, but "race riot" mentioned in connection to Englewood

and more data that shows these are descriptive, not accepted proper names:

• Fernwood Park riot (lowercase) one place, that's all. Plural not found
• Fernwood Park Race Riot does not appear in books; the search above was actually "Fernwood Park Riot" by accident

I'll support decapitalisation of these two as well. RGloucester — ☎ 19:20, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

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