Talk:Dot the i

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Move? (1)

The following discussion is an archived 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: No consensus. Though the proposed title is supported by MOS:CAPS, there is concern about following the guideline "to the letter" in this case. Cúchullain t/c 20:06, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Dot the i → Dot the I – per MOS:CAPS BOVINEBOY2008 20:22, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. Enforcing the letter of MOS:CAPS would render the article title absurd, so I appeal to WP:IAR. Favonian (talk) 22:38, 6 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose; precisely the sort of case for which WP:IAR was written. Only lowercase 'i's have dots. Powers T 01:22, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose there's no dot on the I. WP:IAR -- 76.65.128.43 (talk) 07:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Good grief. Here we have a highly distinctive title, where the lowercase i is an important part of the title, sources give it a lowercase i... if MOS:CAPS actually says that this title must be changed to uppercase, then MOS:CAPS is broken; it should either be fixed or deprecated. bobrayner (talk) 11:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not only should this follow MOS:CAPS, every single external link we have included in this article except the Ebert review uses the same capitalization: "Dot the I". We need to follow the MOS for titling and not crossing the line to interpretation of the title. BOVINEBOY2008 13:29, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. While I fully appreciate the logic of the "oppose" arguments, it is still an intepretation of the title. There is plenty of precedence for the capitalisation including entries at the American and British Film Institutes; when two major film organizations render the title in a manner that is consistent with our MOS I am doubtful that a sufficient case exists to invoke IAR. Betty Logan (talk) 13:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per MOS:CT: "The first and last words in a title are always capitalized". --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:58, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support the guidelines and per Betty's linked entries. We can indicate in the lead sentence that it is stylized as "dot the i". Erik (talk | contribs) 14:11, 7 January 2013 (UTC) Realized I supported twice. More extensive support argument is below. Erik (talk | contribs) 23:21, 19 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support As per the above - SchroCat (talk) 14:22, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: It should be noted that the film title is officially "dot the i", all lowercase. So the current title is neither "official" (in terms of style) or in line with Wikipedia's MOS. Erik (talk | contribs) 15:06, 7 January 2013 (UTC) Okay, I added the {{lowercase title}} template to render it as "dot the i". Erik (talk | contribs) 19:55, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
No Erik, that's just a display version for promoting the film. And anyway, styling on Wikipedia follows recommendations in Wikipedia's manual of style. NoeticaTea? 01:16, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Is the lowercase "i" not part of the display version too? I think Betty's links from AFI and BFI make good cases for making this move. We can still write "stylized as dot the i" in the lead sentence. I understand the desire to preserve creative integrity here, but I do not think that is needed here. With the aforementioned lead sentence, readers will fully understand the filmmakers' stylized setup. Erik (talk | contribs) 14:42, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Has anyone seen the movie to see if the title is upper or lower case? My guess is that it is, judging from the promo. While we do avoid some stylized names in favor of plain English ones, we do also accommodate some. Apteva (talk) 19:32, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There is a YouTube trailer here, which appears to show the title in all lowercase letters, including a lowercase "i" in a title display at 2:01, and again in the formal credits at 2:13. This would appear to indicate that the formal title of the work is "dot the i". bd2412 T 16:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. This would be an occasion for application of IAR, but even that is not necessary. The letter "i" is mentioned (abundantly clear by the context), not used (see Use–mention distinction, which is linked at WP:MOS). It is mentioned in connection with the particular typographical details of the lower-case form "i". The general provisions at MOSCAPS do not discuss such an occurrence. NoeticaTea? 01:16, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In a literal sense, "Dotting the 'i', crossing the 't'" is a phrase for addressing formalities, and you would be correct if our aim here is to turn work titles into grammatically correct sentences. However, this is a film about a woman about to get married, so there is a potential metaphorical interpretation too: "Dotting the I" could simply be wordplay on formalizing her life, with "I" being used in a pronoun sense. This sort of wordplay is fairly common in fiction. To invoke IAR, you need to demonstrably prove that not following the guidelines would improve the encyclopedia, and I don't think it is possible to make such an argument here, since the appropriate rendering of the title entirely depends on how one interprets its meaning, and there are examples of both casings in independent secondary sources. In truth we can pick either based on usage, so we may as well go with the one that matches our MOS. Betty Logan (talk) 02:08, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Betty, I note your "potential metaphorical interpretation". I would be interested in whether that is supported in sources. Please note, in return, that I am not invoking IAR (though I think that would be acceptable). Nothing in MOSCAPS covers cases like this, and the common idiom itself mentions (but does not use) "i", meaning the lower-case letter. NoeticaTea? 02:34, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I actually thought of the use/mention point earlier and was going to make a comment much like yours, but then I realized that (as your comment shows) the proper way to represent "i" if it is a case of mention is to put it in quotation marks. So if the title were Dot the "i" then it would clearly be a case of mention rather than use and I would agree that it should not be capitalized. But without the quotation marks, it is not clear what is meant.
Then I looked at the title on the poster more closely. If you look carefully, you will see that the height of the "I" in the title is the same as the "d" and the "h" and clearly higher than the "o" and the "e". Put more simply, the "I" actually appears to be a capital "I" in the poster. Yes, the red blotch above the "I" seems to represent the dot on top, but the yellow letters on their own seem to indicate that the "I" is capitalized already.99.192.78.59 (talk) 03:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes the entire title is clearly lower case, not something that we are going to [could] follow [does not require a page move, just add lowercase], but my browser uses a font that does not distinguish between capital i and lower case el, and when I read the proposed title I thought it said dot the el, and could not figure out where the dot was supposed to go. BFI at least uses a font that unmistakeably shows it to be an i. With our current title, it is obvious – on the top of the i. Putting the i or upper case i in quotes would detract from, and change the actual title. Apteva (talk) 19:18, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per guidelines, per Bovineboy's statement that the external links do not capitalize "i", and per Betty Logan's statement that neither the American Film Institute and the British Film Institute capitalize it. It does look like some other sources use "dot the i", but I think that if "Dot the I" is also commonly used, we should do it that way. Like I said above, the stylization can be explained in the lead sentence. Erik (talk | contribs) 20:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - not per guidelines, which can be disregarded per WP:IAR, but because (a) The Video Librarian - Volume 20 2005 - Page 385 clearly has "Dot the I begins with a beautiful and willful..", Film Review 2003 Page 411 has "You'll see him soon starring with Willem Dafoe in The Reckoning and with Mexican superstar Gael Garcia Bernal in Dot the I." (b) the WP:PRIMARY for dot the i would be a REDIRECT to the phrase To dot the i's and cross the t's. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:33, 23 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose based on the usage in the formal credits at 2:13 of this video (and the title display at 2:01). These indicate the author's intention to deliberately use an all-lowercase title. bd2412 T 16:57, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:COMMONNAME states, "Wikipedia does not necessarily use the subject's 'official' name as an article title; it prefers to use the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources." I do not think that it is valid to consider the way the subject itself presents the title. We have reliable sources about this subject that we can review instead. It's a matter of determining which is the more common use by such sources. Erik (talk | contribs) 17:09, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    It can't possibly be "invalid to consider" the actual name of a work in the words of the author. Otherwise we run the risk of formalizing and solidifying things like typos, spelling errors, or misused homonyms disseminated by media outlets. In this case, substituting the apparent personal pronoun "I" for the intended lowercase "i" changes the meaning every bit as much as if we decided to change the title of "U-turn" to "You-turn". bd2412 T 18:05, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps a better way to state it is that it is invalid to consider only the way the subject presents the title. The policy clearly indicates that we should look at reliable sources about the subject, and your argument does not cover these. The u-turn argument is irrelevant here; it is not a work like this topic is, and reliable sources call it "u-turn" anyway. Erik (talk | contribs) 18:28, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    There are, however, two movies with that title: U-Turn (1973 film), and U Turn (1997 film). The latter, as you can see, has no hyphen. Suppose some reviewers and compilers were to accidentally insert one? Indeed, Here is one that has. Should Wikipedia then follow suit, and hyphenate the title? Here, by contrast, is the iTunes page for "dot the i", which also uses a lowercase "i". Here is a Washington Post review using the lowercase "i", and another from the Chicago Tribune using the lowercase "i". In short, the question of what the general population takes to be the title is arguably a split decision, and I would not give that enough weight to overcome the title given by the author, as evidenced by the writer/director's own website also using the lowercase "i". Cheers! bd2412 T 19:00, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 2

The following discussion is an archived 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: Not moved. Both sides have good arguments, and the guideline at MOS:CT might incline us to do the move. Still, there is enough of a gray area that I would not feel justified in doing this move in the face of a numerical vote that is at least 50% against it. Checking how third parties refer to this film gives a split result which doesn't decide the matter one way or the other. I don't believe that there is a Wikipedia consensus on whether the film poster ought to be decisive in cases like this. Neither MOS:TM nor WP:NCCAPS mentions movie posters so there is nothing that forbids people from referring to posters in move discussions. If we followed the style used in the poster, it appears that lower case would win. EdJohnston (talk) 15:39, 28 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]


dot the i → Dot the I – per WP:COMMONNAME, MOS:CAPS, WP:NCCAPS… From a quick Google search, while there are some reliable sources that call this movie dot the i, it appears that Dot the I and Dot The I are more commonly used, so our title should simply follow our MOS. If it’s here under WP:COMMONNAME, it shouldn’t be; the current capitalization does not appear to be prevalent in common use, and in fact many sources, including this article’s External Links, capitalize the letter. Relisted Tiggerjay (talk) 20:06, 14 April 2013 (UTC)Frungi (talk) 20:03, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. Dot the I looks like "dot the el". RightGot (talk) 21:26, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    That depends on the font, and I believe that's configurable in the user preferences under Custom CSS. Anyway, I don't think font problems should impact article titles. —Frungi (talk) 23:32, 27 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I am not going to try to change my browser font just so I can tell what the name of the article is supposed to be. Apteva (talk) 02:27, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    You wouldn't assume that a standalone letter in a film title was capitalized? That, and the fact that one letter typically gets dotted and the other doesn't, makes it kind of obvious. But changing the font was just a suggestion to work around any problems a user might have with the browser's default font, which is not and should not be an issue with this or any other article title. —Frungi (talk) 06:07, 28 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, per my argument above. This is a naming convention, why are we ignoring it without good reason? BOVINEBOY2008 15:53, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Looks like this has already been contemplated from every angle. LCS check (talk) 21:48, 29 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    I don’t understand your reason for opposing. Please explain. —Frungi (talk) 05:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Right side of the page there's a scrollbar. Moving up I see this same proposition made before, thoroughly talked over, finally decided against, for good reason. Agree with objections as raised in last try. LCS check (talk) 13:08, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Most of the objections last time seemed to be for purely aesthetic reasons, which seems kind of petty for encyclopedic titles. And it wasn’t “decided against”; it wasn’t decided. I started another RM because I thought I could make a stronger case than the last one, and so far the opposing arguments are, in my opinion, pretty weak again, and seem to ignore the fact that this is a film title and one that many sources capitalize. —Frungi (talk) 18:09, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Unconvinced. Some objections last time showed actual title with "i" LCS check (talk) 18:12, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Check the sources and links in the article itself. All but one capitalize it. And try a web search for the title; same deal, especially in page titles, and almost all capitalize the “D”. —Frungi (talk) 18:23, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    What's the author do? LCS check (talk) 18:37, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia generally doesn't specifically follow how creators style their titles. We lean more to how most reliable sources and the general public refer to things. See MOS:TM and WP:UCN, for instance. —Frungi (talk) 00:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. In English spelling, people should dot 'i's and not 'I's. And as User:RightGot wrote. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:12, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I believe !voters here may be missing the fact that this is a movie title, and that many sources (including those the article cites and links to) use a capital “I” in this title. I’m not sure if the former is the case, and I don’t know what to do about it if so. —Frungi (talk) 15:38, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename per our conventions and per it generally having the I capitalized in reliable secondary sources on it.John Pack Lambert (talk) 01:13, 31 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - WP:NCCAPS does not say that proper nouns are required to be capitalized. It says that all words of the title (except first), unless proper noun, should not be capitalized. However, the first is not always required to be capitalized, and the proper nouns do not have be capitalized. dot the i is a proper noun, and capitalizing them is not required for a film title, like this one. As for the "i" itself, the title is very logical, especially when the "i" is lowercased. And "i → I" would pervert or diminish the meaning of the title itself. --George Ho (talk) 05:52, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
George, I think you've completely misinterpreted the guideline. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:09, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
"In general, each word in English titles of books, films, and other works takes an initial capital, except for articles ("a", "an", "the"), the word "to" as part of an infinitive, prepositions and coordinating conjunctions shorter than five letters (e.g., "on", "from", "and", "with"), unless they begin or end a title or subtitle." --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Are they required to be capped by the guideline? --George Ho (talk) 00:15, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In general, yes, that’s what Rob’s quote says. That’s how titles (and other proper nouns) work in written English. There are exceptions, but I don’t think this is one of them—check the article’s cited sources. —Frungi (talk) 04:27, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Lowercase i's are dotted, not capital I's nor els. 4.238.7.202 (talk) 22:59, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    But this article isn't about putting dots on letters. It's about a movie. —Frungi (talk) 23:14, 4 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Umm.... he wasn't discussing the article. He was discussing the name of the film itself. This request seems as if the discussion is about a mere title itself, not the film and its notability. --George Ho (talk) 02:36, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    A film which many sources refer to with a capital "D" and "I". That, and common title-case conventions (like always capitalizing the first and last word, and capitalizing individual letters), are what's behind this request. What I meant here was that this, and several other !votes, could just as well be discussing the title of an article about dotting is. In fact, I believe yours is the only opposing !vote so far that's clearly about a proper noun. —Frungi (talk) 09:45, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    In this case, sources, 100 or 1000 of them, do not comprehend the rationale to have this title changed. Even sources can change spellings for their own non-financial, self-serving benefits. (I wished they changed Coach Ernie Pantusso to Coach Ernie Pantuso, but many oppose the change request.) Also, if there is an idiom phrase with the same name, the change would be logical. For now, I don't see change happpening. --George Ho (talk) 16:40, 5 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support per WP:TITLEFORMAT, WP:NCCAPS, and every other related guideline. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:07, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per policy and common sense. There's a lot of fuss about dotting (lowercase) Is, but if you want to be clever, i is dotted. If you want the title to be directive, I can be dotted. Unless you're trying to make a ï, i can't. --BDD (talk) 16:47, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: Changlng lt to Dot the L makes lt harder to lnterpret. Ieaving the L Iowercase does not cause readability or ldentificatlon lssues, capltaIizing the L does. (yes i am being cheeky, i know It Is an I and not an L. Ievity people.) Adherence to arbltrary ruIes shouId not take precedence over readabiIity, understanding, or ldentlflcatlon. lf a rule ls gettlng ln the way WP:lAR. Xkcdreader (talk) 19:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support to not do the poster-based fan-boy exception to our own styling and common usage in sources. IMDB and many books style it normally, as "Dot the I" (not the L as X says above). See MOS:CT (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Composition titles):
– Dicklyon (talk) 21:26, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Should the guideline force all titles to be capitalized? --George Ho (talk) 00:15, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Guidelines don't force anything, but they do encourage editors to capitalize certain things, and not others. Not sure what you have in mind by "all titles to be capitalized", but I think the answer is no. The guidelines are more nuanced than that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:18, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - it is all well and fine to quote IMDB and other sites but the image in the infobox suggests the correct name is "dot the i" which is the current title. 212.113.145.253 (talk) 03:58, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    As I’ve said above: Wikipedia generally doesn't specifically follow how creators style their titles, and we definitely don’t rely on movie posters. See MOS:TM and WP:NCCAPS for more on that. Besides, look at the size of the letters in the poster: it’s “dot the I” with a blood splat dotting the capital I. —Frungi (talk) 04:18, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You're unlikely to find a group of people more supportive of the reliability of Wikipedia, but arguments based on the forms used in an article are exceptionally weak (arguments based on the forms used in the references are perfectly cromulent). There is nothing to prevent any one of us from changing the capitalization of the letter in the infobox. Indeed, it isn't uncommon for an editor to edit an article to impose his or her naming preference prior to starting an RM. It's not necessarily an underhanded practice, but it's reason enough to largely disregard the article itself as evidence. --BDD (talk) 04:48, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The anon was referring to the image of the movie poster that's in the infobox, not any editable text. —Frungi (talk) 09:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
D'oh. Serves me right for editing past my bedtime. --BDD (talk) 15:13, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support because the British Film Institute and the American Film Institute both write the title as Dot the I. There is no obligation to go along with how the filmmakers stylized their work's title. It is more appropriate to follow the precedent that outside sources (in this case, the aforementioned institutes) set. It is straightforward to modify this article's lead sentence to reflect in text how the film title was stylized. Erik (talk | contribs) 15:01, 9 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The rationale for keeping it at "Dot the i" seems to be based on the poster, but most posters stylise their titles; this in itself is not unusual. The most relevant policies here are WP:COMMONNAME and our own styles guidelines, which recommend capitalising the "i". If you look through the sources used by the article and the external links attached, all of them capitalise the "i", so there isn't even a COMMONNAME based argument for invoking IAR against our own guidelines. This slavish adherence to the poster stylisation puts us at odds with our own MOS and how secondary sources document the title, not to mention the American and British Film Institutes as well. Consensus is determined by our own policies and MOS, not by a small but vocal minority who choose to disregard them. Betty Logan (talk) 19:58, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    Almost all (Ebert’s review lowercases the title), but yes, agreed. The only opposing arguments seem to be appeals to aesthetics. —Frungi (talk) 22:45, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support there is an overwhelming amount of circumstantial information to support the capitalization of "I" with very nominal information to support the lower case "i" - only a handful of websites use it, which are no more authoritative then those which use "I". To use the poster as authoritative is not sufficient because it is clearly stylized, and the existing precedent is that stylization does not necessarily transfer over to WP article titles. I would also say that such "logical arguments" regarding that "dot the I" does not make sense, is also irrelevant, since such grammar or logic need not apply to movie titles. Given that there does not appear to be any official information to support intended casing, and that the poster is clearly stylized, we should revert to the MOS as it relates to this specific article. Tiggerjay (talk) 06:18, 14 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose; the lowercase i is an important part of the title, and sources give it a lowercase i... if MOS:CAPS actually says that this title must be changed to uppercase, and in doing so lose an important part of its meaning, then MOS:CAPS is broken; it should either be fixed or deprecated. bobrayner (talk) 14:13, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The sources don't give it as a lowercase "i" though! The sources used in the article and most of the main film sources (AFI/BFI/IMDB/Allmovie) use an uppercase 'I'. Betty Logan (talk) 14:24, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reasons to oppose following the guidelines in this case

File:Dot the i.jpg

Collected from all the "oppose" remarks above:

  • Dot the I looks like "dot the el".
  • I am not going to try to change my browser font just so I can tell what the name of the article is supposed to be.
  • Looks like this has already been contemplated from every angle.
  • In English spelling, people should dot 'i's and not 'I's.
  • dot the i is a proper noun, and capitalizing them is not required for a film title, like this one.
  • Lowercase i's are dotted, not capital I's nor els.
  • Changlng lt to Dot the L makes lt harder to lnterpret.
  • it is all well and fine to quote IMDB and other, more reputable sites but the promotional image in the infobox suggests the correct name is "dot the i" which is the current title.

If I missed any, please add them.

We sometimes have arguments over whether to follow WP style guidelines or common usage in sources. In this case, however, there is no conflict there, so people are relying on a movie poster with a blood splat over a capital I for styling instead. Is this the most lame collection of RM arguments anyone has ever seen? Dicklyon (talk) 05:29, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You have yet to explain what makes "Dot the L" better than "dot the i" other than it abides by the internal MOS. It makes it harder to read. It makes less sense. The MOS is a guideline and commonsense should be applied first. Commonsense says not to make things harder to read just because it makes the legion of MOS enforcers happier. Xkcdreader (talk) 07:54, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Don't hold your breath waiting for Dick or anyone else to make an argument for "Dot the L." This is the very definition of a straw man, as no one is advocating a title with an L in it. The similar appearance of an uppercase I and lowercase l is no crisis worth ignoring guidelines over. --BDD (talk) 15:34, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, what was that pointy strawman about? Dot the L? We all oppose that, so let's move on. Dicklyon (talk) 16:32, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I should hope you know by now that I’m not one of “the legion of MOS enforcers”—I’ll choose what seems like the right thing over following the MOS every time. Common sense tells me that we should go with Dot the I, with the first and last words capitalized, as many sources do. If this weren’t the case and I had to hunt through reputable sources to find just one that capitalized it, then I would agree with you, especially if the capitalization possibly changed the meaning (which it doesn’t). But sources are all over the place on this one, and even the movie poster in the infobox capitalizes the “I”.
Apologies for offending anyone, but I honestly don’t think the name “Dot the I” is any harder to read unless you’re being deliberately obtuse. If you really have trouble telling the difference between “I” and “l”, then I recommend using a font that better distinguishes them, but that’s seriously not Wikipedia’s problem. Unless you want to propose that Wikipedia change its preferred font to one that does, which would be a reasonable request. —Frungi (talk) 16:40, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree with Dot the I if there happened to be a rule that orthography (standardized capitalization) were to be respected. Unfortunately we don't have such a rule. Some people have been adamant that common name does not include capitalization. Xkcdreader (talk) 22:27, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • This looks like a case for WP:IAR = "ignore all rules" on suitable occasions :: OK, the 'i' is a component word in a name, and not a preposition, but its ability to have a dot is relevant to this name, and lowercase i' has a dot and uppercase 'I' does not, except in the Turkish alphabet. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 08:13, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but this is a nonsense argument. It is irrelevant whether the i in question has a dot or not. It's just styling. We should be using our MoS to style the title, but even if you disagree with this, all of the sources bar one show "Dot the I", so to not follow the capitalisation would not just be ignoring all our own rules, but we'd be ignoring all the sources also. There is no case for an exception. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:51, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There was a similar situation with Star Trek Into Darkness. In that scenario, IAR was invoked on COMMONNAME grounds i.e. the majority of secondary sources capitalised the "I" in "Into", which was at odds with our MOS. Now, you are free to agree or disagree with the decision, but the IAR was invoked with respect to another naming guideline. However, I don't see the basis for invoking IAR in this case: our MOS says the "i" should be capitalised, and secondary sources (as per COMMONNAME) also capitalise it, so in what capacity is IAR being invoked? If we invoke it against the MOS then we defer to COMMONAME which still instructs us to capitalise it. If we invoke IAR against COMMONNAME, then we match up to a poster stylisation but are inconsistent with IMDB, the British and American Film Institutes, the MPAA film ratings body (that uses the title the distributor submitted it under: [1]), and all but one of the links and sources used in the article. There has to be a clear rationale for invoking IAR, but there isn't one in this case. Betty Logan (talk) 15:01, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Not even that. The poster uses a capital "I". Honestly, I think a lot of the argument to IAR is based on WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Now, that can be fine if there's a valid reason for not liking it, but I'm not seeing one here. —Frungi (talk) 18:52, 13 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. The poster uses a lower case i, with the i dotted with a flame. Apteva (talk) 06:07, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We’re talking about File:Dot the i.jpg, right? The “dot” is a blood splat, but it’s over a capital “I”. Forget the blood splat dotting it and just look at the height and width of the letter compared to the x-height and line widths in the rest of the title: it’s taller than a lowercase letter, but it’s the same width. It’s a capital “I”. —Frungi (talk) 06:21, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's best not to focus on the artwork. Most posters have a billing block at the bottom, and while our poster is too small to see it, you can clearly see that the poster styles the title all in lowercase: poster billing block. When we get down to the nitty gritty we have a MOS which mandates Dot the I, most of the secondary sources all record the title as Dot the I while the poster (a primary source) writes it as dot the i. Generally we go by our MOS, but there is precedence for invoking IAR against the MOS and deferring to COMMONNAME, which requires that we go by secondary sources; going by the poster stylization would itself require a page move. All three would be preferable to Dot the i, which represents a mish mash of all three arguments. What we need now is for an experienced page mover to review the arguments put forward and determine which one is in the best interests of Wikipedia. Betty Logan (talk) 06:50, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
We actually have it at "dot the i" with a displaytitle currently, and this seems supported only by primary (and a minority of secondary) sources and aesthetic arguments. —Frungi (talk) 07:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

References and External links

It looked like someone had styled all the external links like "dot the i" instead of the way the sources have it, which is "Dot the I" in all cases, but it turns out that's just the default behavior of templates copying the article tite. So I added "title=Dot the I" to all of those, so that we don't pretend it's listed our funny way at all those good databases. It's not. Some of the refs were a bit misleading, too, so I did some minor tweaks. Dicklyon (talk) 05:43, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Time to move?

So how do we get this RM discussion closed? Can we just move it? Do we have consensus? There are opposing arguments, but are they substantive? —Frungi (talk) 04:11, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You should really ask an uninvolved admin—and an experienced one at that—to close it. Opinion is evenly split, although I would say the the opposing arguments are not. The real question here is whether the "oppose" arguments are convincing enough to invoke IAR against WP:NCCAPS and WP:COMMONAME. I think everything that can be argued has been, so it may be worth dropping a requst at the acmin noticeboard and ask for someone with a background in move requests to come and close the discussion. Betty Logan (talk) 04:27, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
All right, I’ve posted on WP:AN. (I think it’s the first time I have, so please let me know if I didn’t do it right.) —Frungi (talk) 18:30, 22 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
That's fine, time to wrap this up one way or the other now and move on. Betty Logan (talk) 06:23, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Result of move review

I maintain that neither the closing administrator of the move request nor the closing administrator of the move review have correctly called this one. WP:TITLEFORMAT is policy and the title falls foul of this and guidelines WP:NCCAPS, MOS:TM and MOS:CT. Without compelling arguments and consensus to WP:IAR, of which there has been neither, this should follow both policy and guidelines and be moved to Dot the I. --Rob Sinden (talk) 18:04, 7 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • The close was good. There was no consensus to change the article, including no consensus to follow this or that policy. Binksternet (talk) 18:14, 7 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
But aren't closers supposed to evaluate the strength of arguments relative to policy and guidelines? They didn't do that here. Dicklyon (talk) 18:23, 7 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the closing admin seemed to put more weight on the promotional poster than he did with our arguments or policies. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:45, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
There was consensus that Wikipedia’s rules supported the move. There was arguably consensus that there were no rules that supported the current title. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but the arguments opposing the move were all variations of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. —Frungi (talk) 18:55, 7 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
More importantly, there is no consensus NOT to follow policy. Thus, we should follow policy. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:00, 8 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
You forgot WP:UCN (policy). In fact, I’m having a hard time coming up with any section of any policy or guideline that supports the current title, including WP:IAR—I have yet to see an argument that using a lowercase “I” here improves the encyclopedia. —Frungi (talk) 18:55, 7 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, so do we take this further, or WP:RM it again until we get a closing admin who realises that there is no consensus to ignore policy in this case? --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:07, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think you need another RM. Dicklyon (talk) 12:32, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Should we not get other admins to intervene? If nothing else to turn everything over to no-consensus, so it doesn't look like another WP:RM is WP:POINTY. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:40, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As there has been so much discussion already the article can't be moved without a community decision in an RM. However, I'd strongly encourage you to wait a good amount of time before starting a new one - at least a few months - so it doesn't look like you're just endlessly reopening the discussion and forum/admin shopping until you get the result you want. In the meantime there are plenty of improvements that can be made to the article itself.--Cúchullain t/c 15:03, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, as there is no consensus to ignore established policies and guidelines, and as there is no consensus to keep the article here (despite the incredibly poor close above, which actually was pretty much a consensus to move), and as a move review has failed to overturn the poor close, despite there being a rough consensus to overturn, I can see no other option, unless we take to some kind of mediation. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:18, 11 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

In case it comes up again...

Here are two reviews that specifically reference the lowercase "i" as a significant element of the title:

  • Ann Hornaday, "'Dot the i': Punctuated With Pretentiousness", The Washington Post (March 18, 2005): "A jejune version of "sex, lies and videotape," right down to its lowercase affectations, "dot the i" is a movie made by someone who's seen too many movies".
  • Jeff Shannon, "The bad-script-choice diaries", The Seattle Times (March 25, 2005): "But no, "dot the i" (lowercase title intentional, signifying whatever) has loftier ambitions, as we know when the movie's warm, digital-video palette switches to voyeuristic shot-on-Handycam menace, clueing us in to a third-party stalker whose intentions, we learn, are as sadistic as they are patently absurd".

Cheers! bd2412 T 23:42, 28 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 17 March 2015

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: no consensus (non-admin closure) -- Calidum 04:51, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dot the i → Dot the I – It's common practice for marketing materials for films to be in all lower-case, and it's common practice (in fact, policy) here on Wikipedia to ignore these stylings and use title case for composition titles. See WP:TITLETM, MOS:CT, MOS:TM (the reference to thirtysomething is particularly relevant), MOS:CAPS, also WP:NCCAPS, WP:NCFILM. The last requested move above seemed to be a poor close, as did the resulting move review, and maybe a couple of years later, now the heat has died down, it's time to revisit this. Rob Sinden (talk) 15:19, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Also, we seem to be pretty much alone in using a lower case "i". Look at what all the sources on the page do! BFI Box Office Mojo allmovie --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:04, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support though El punto sobre la i might be a more precise and informative title. "Dot the I" (song) from Hunting High and Low might warrant a hat note. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:26, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I think that given the title and what the title is saying, "i" is better than "I" since there is no dot on the top of a capital letter, thus making the title not make as much sense, I believe the creator/artist of the work intentionally used a lower case i and that should be respected here.WildWikiGuy (talk) 19:12, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: clearly a case where the "i" is being used in reference to the letter rather than the first person pronoun. Compare to the common phrase in English: 'dot the i's and cross the t's" where the letters are not capitalised. If the letter in question here wasn't an "i" then I doubt we would even be having this discussion. Ebonelm (talk) 19:56, 17 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Irrelevant. This is a film title, not a phrase, and as such should follow naming conventions for composition titles per MOS:CT. --Rob Sinden (talk) 08:52, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I would argue it is highly relevant as this film title is clearly making a reference to this phrase, both in English and in Spanish. There can be exceptions to style guides in special cases and this is clearly one of them. Furthermore MOS:CT even states itself that it is not a complete list. Ebonelm (talk) 11:48, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, Spanish Wikipedia has it at El punto sobre la I. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:54, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose WP:IAR per Requested Moves 1 and 2 from 2013. The "I" is not being dotted in the proposal, whereas this "i" is dotted. -- 65.94.43.89 (talk) 04:07, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. The title is about dotting an 'i', so the title should show the dotted or dottable (lowercase) version. This is a special case, such as WP:IAR exists for. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 09:46, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Besides the missing dot in a capital letter, capitalizing the "i" makes it confusing. It looks like a pronoun when it's capitalized. Normally, I'm a huge fan of the MOS, but I agree that this is a case of IAR. I understand where the proposal is coming from, and it's a decent idea, but I just can't support it when the title becomes confusing. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 11:23, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support As you can see from the poster artwork the title is all in lowercase anyway, so the lowercase argument does not hold much water; nor does the argument that it does not make sense if we capitalise the "i", since that is just an editorial interpretation. IAR exists to prevent policies and guidelines leading us to counter-intuitive conclusions; an example of such a scenario would be if reliable sources overwhelmingly adopted "i" over "I" putting us at odds with what other sources do but in this case the American Film Institute and the British Film Institute both use an uppercase "I". Are we saying that our opinion trumps that of those organizations? There is no uniform consensus on this in reliable sources and the film's presentation of the title is too highly stylized to draw any meaningful conclusions about how it should be written in print, but both versions enjoy widespread usage in reputable sources so I don't see an issue in selecting the version that is consistent with our naming guidelines. Betty Logan (talk) 11:43, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. We have discussed this exact issue several times previously ...and while consensus can change, I doubt it has in this instance. I agree with those who say that this is an exception to normal MOS rules. The lower case "i" is intentional, and Wikipedia should reflect the creator's intent. Blueboar (talk) 12:07, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
There has been no consensus on either of the last two move requests. If anything, last time consensus was falling on the side of the move camp, but it was inexplicably not moved. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:16, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose While I see the points being made on both sides of this issue, this is clearly a case where an exception should be made, due to the importance of the lower-case "i" in the title. Fortdj33 (talk) 12:20, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Who says it's important? As Betty points out above, not the BFI or the AFI, just us. That's WP:OR. --Rob Sinden (talk) 12:23, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Normally I'd agree about not giving in to marketing ploys, but in this case the title wouldn't then make sense, as an upper-case "I" isn't dotted! To use the upper-case letter would be pure dogma and not to the benefit of Wikipedia. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:59, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
To add another completely ridiculous argument, a lower case "i" is already dotted, and therefore it is the instruction to dot a lower-case "i" that doesn't make sense, as it already has a dot. On a more sensible note, using the upper-case "I" is not pure dogma, it's following not only our style guide, but every other reliable source. Making us at odds with the rest of the world is what doesn't benefit Wikipedia. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:07, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Not really, given what "dotting the i's and crossing the t's" actually means! -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:23, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I would also like to highlight that it is inappropriate for users (particularly if the user opened the discussion) to be changing "i" to "I" (or for that matter vice versa) in the ANY part of this article (including external links) while a discussion on the usage of "i" or "I" is taking place. Please refrain from altering the form used in the article when this discussion was opened, while the discussion is taking place. Ebonelm (talk) 16:00, 18 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – I don't understand how some users think Wikipedia should be so special as to ignore both the majority of sources and its own rules to interpret the blood splat in the poster as the dot on an "i" when it's clearly over a capital "I". The "I" is good enough for BFI Film & TV Database, Internet Movie Database, AllMovie, Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office Mojo, and Roger Ebert, as the references and external links show, so why wouldn't it be good enough for us? Dicklyon (talk) 03:36, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - A lowercase "i" already has the dot, and so to dot a letter "i", it is best to use the uppercase "I". Nahnah4 (talk | contribs | guestbook) 07:39, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • In that case, why not propose to move the title to "Dot the İ"? After all, it is possible to dot an uppercase "I" if one uses the Turkish İ; alternately, you could propose moving it to "Dot the ı", which uses the dotless "ı" (also from Turkish). On the other hand, perhaps it makes less sense to turn to an exotic alphabet, when the language in which the title is written provides the expression "dot the i" almost always being used with an "i" that does already have a dot. bd2412 T 02:21, 24 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - In English, it is correct to have an upercase I at the begining of a senatnce or a upper case "I" in "If", however, a lowercase "i" makes sense for the title, because a lowercase "i" has a dot above it, and the title says Dot the i. --CookieMonster755 (talk) 23:09, 19 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Support per requestor. The author's intent is irrelevant in light of our established guidelines and usage in outside sources. Xaxafrad (talk) 00:34, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: the logic of using the instruction of the title to decide how to capitalize the "i" seems absolutely absurd to me. If the title were "Cross the T", or "Silent K" how would such arguments look? Wikipedia has had long-established guidelines for the capitalization of various parts of the title of a work. The specific wording of a title is not reasonable justification to override such guidelines. I found this section of the MOS which seems the most detailed compared to other pages. It says to always capitalize nouns, which is what the "i" in the title appears to be, as acted upon by the verb "dot". It further says to capitalize the first and last words of a title (although I almost expect someone to make an argument that "i" is not a word). Xaxafrad (talk) 04:05, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, this is yet another example by which WP:MOS promotes nonsense. The dotless i (ı) when dotted becomes a dotted i (i). In regular language a capital I is not dotted. GregKaye 15:54, 20 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. It's not about presenting a lower-case "I" so the reader can understand that a lower-case "I" is dotted. That's common knowledge. This is common title case. Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:45, 22 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Retrieved from "https://mdwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Dot_the_i"