Talk:Prime minister/Archive 1

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Somebody without Unicode screwed up the translations box, so I tried to fix it. Note there are (at least) two ways to express the English term "Prime Minister" in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc. so there should be two entries on the side 218.103.132.85 15:20, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

And also, thhe entry about China in the table is wrong/misleading. The PRC only existed since 1949, but the linked article has info about (at least from a neutral perspective) two countries.218.103.132.85 15:29, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

To change the subject completely, does anyone have a point by point list of the constraints and powers of the prime minister. Trying to find out is a minefield!! Thanks

Er... do we really need these images of Prime Ministers? The choice of the current bunch shown on this page seems a bit arbitrary. I think everyone knows what a Prime Minister looks like. They usually look like some old bloke and occasionally looks like a woman that you wouldn't want to meet in a blind alley. Mintguy

I think it adds to text to have some visual images attached. It makes the text look less daunting, particularly if it is long or detailed. Unfortunately Wikipedia right now has no images of prime ministerial residences, cabinet meetings, and very few images of prime ministers. I went through almost all the prime ministerial sites to find some images to graphically illustrate the page, but there are very very few. I tried to get images that were of similar size. Some of the few that do exist would have 'taken over' the page because they are so large. Hopefully as Wiki gets more official images, the site can be adapted to include them. I'm not particularly happy that all we have really of countries like Canada, Australia and Britain but I could not find on Wikipedia any images of French, Japanese, Spanish or African prime ministers, so I was limited simply by the choice available. (I have since found one of Nehru, which I going to place on the page.)

Today I was in contact with the Taoiseach's office in Dublin to see would they supply images of Ireland past taoisigh. If you know of any images that would fit the page in terms of context and size, please me know. Most encyclopædias do use images to give a visual shape to text and make it more 'view-friendly'. Images, apart from anything else, give the page a more 'authoritive' rounded look and attract the reader 'into' an article, in a way that a long article without images doesn't. That reminds me, do you have any images we could use on football/soccer? It would I think add to the page, contextualising it visually. JTD 20:15 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

I agree. Whenever possible, articles should have small images. Not too many or too big, of course, for people with slow modems, but a few pics of some famous prime ministers would be nice. Tuf-Kat
I like pictures in articles too. I'm just not sure these bods are approriate. Perhaps a picture of the first prime minister ever. Robert Walpole would be appropriate. er.. can't really think of anyone else who would be NPOV. Mintguy

Actually the very first picture I looked for was Robert Walpole, but we have none and those on websites seem to be copyrighted. I deliberately checked sites to do with Japan, African states with prime ministers, etc., but the only I could find were these (apart from larger pictures of the likes of Wellington and Gladstone that wouldn't have fitted the page.) It don't think putting these ones on is expressing a POV. Nothing is said about them, just that they were prime ministers. And the choice of who is purely random, based on whose pics we have. It is just purely a case of using what was available. I'd personally love to have a wider range and I searched and searched and searched but was limited by what we have. JTD 21:54 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

JTD - Do you not have appropriate software to manipulate images? Are you using a Mac or a PC? I reckon you're a Mac type person. Mintguy

I think I'm with Mintguy on this one -- although I agree it would be difficult to find something relating to the article "Prime Minister" other than pictures of prime ministers. I think pictures of individuals really belong within the articles for those individuals. Deb 22:03 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)
Yeah it just seems wrong to me to put a random selection of PMs. Either all of them or none of them. Mintguy

To be honest, I cannot for the life of me understand what the problem is. With the greatest respect, Deb (and you know I do have a lot of respect for you), the statement that pictures of individuals really belong within the articles for those individuals strikes me as bonkers. No document is ever ever put together on that basis. Images are used (and in every publication ever produced) re-used again and again and again. That is done

  • to illustrate a person (on a personal page)
  • to illustrate a theme or issue linked to a person (this page is an example. You are writing about PMs so you plonk some available pics of PMs on the page.)
  • to break up over-heavy text to create a page that is visually inviting to readers.

The last two points are the whole reason for putting pictures on the page. As in any publication, if you have got illustrations and images, and you need some way to break up a page to make it more reader-appealing, you use the images. It is practically Rule No. 1 in layout design. Professional encyclopædia layout designers do it, graphic designers do it, people laying out freesheets do it (I have laid out four freesheets on my eMac in the last year as a freelance PR consultant - the things we historians do to double-job!), people designing text for CD-Rom do it. The worst thing you can give to a reader who is a bit daunted by a topic they don't know much about is a page of words, words and more words. What you try to do is break up the page by using illustrations. It doesn't have to be 100% relevant, but once it ties in, it gets there attention and gives them the courage to look at the text. If you have a page on queens and you plonk in a picture of Queen Victoria or Queen Beatrix or Queen Margrethe, you don't do it to highlight a specific point, you do it so that the person who is starting to read the page maybe can look at it, see Victoria and think 'That's yer wan, what's her name, oh yeah, Victoria'. And from that, having recognised the photograph, they feel more confident at actually reading the page. And if they don't reacognise anyone, it is no big deal. A page with pictures looks less daunting even if you haven't a clue about the meaning of the pictures than a page without.

There are damn all pictures of prime ministers on Wiki. (You could probably count them on the fingers of one hand.) Some were unsuitable because of size, shape, or quality. Others because it would be a bit much to illustrate a page with three British PMs. All I've done is what any properly laid out page of any properly laid out document or publication does, slot in a few available shots to break up the page. Professional graphic artists and people who lay out encyclopædias and reference books for a living would be laughing their heads off at this argument; no other publication of any sort would see a problem plonking a couple of available pictures to shape a page in a more visually appealing manner. In fact, they'd be wondering why Wiki doesn't have more illustrations and why doesn't make more use of the illustrations it has. This is such a bizarre conversation to even have to have. The mind boggles. JTD 09:19 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

Well I'm not going to argue with you, I'm not that bothered, but I just suspect that before long you'll get more and more pictures of PMs added to this page. The Gough Whitlam picture looks like it's the wrong aspect ratio. JTD you spoke of other images being wrong size etc.. Do you not have appropriate software to manipulate images? Are you using a Mac or a PC?
Yes, it's a terrible photo, Mintguy. Not that Whitlam has featured on too many "Top 10 best looking men" lists. :) Tannin
I just stretched his face out a bit. I hope I didn't make him look too pretty. Mintguy
I don't think you need be too worried about that problem, MG. I think you might take it a fraction further - compare with the faces here on Google. Tannin
Better?, I think it matches this image here Mintguy
Seems to be. But I've looked at it too many times now and am wondering how much of what I'm seeing is just my imagination. Tannin


I'm on a new mac, but I haven't yet got the software yet. I was on a much older mac (god I love using macs and hate PCs!) until recently. Sorry by the way about the tone above; I was very tired and I'm recovering from a back injury so I'm in regular pain that makes me extremely ratty! The pictures there right now were, as I said, picked at random from a very small choice. It dawned on me afterwards that they are unique in one way: Canada's longest serving PM, British's only jewish PM, the only Aussie PM to be dismissed, and now the first Indian PM. So they do have a unique value that can be justified on that basis in any case. I agree the Whitlam picture is a bit odd, but that is as it is on the Whitlam page. I haven't changed it at all. (Thanks for fixing it) I would love to have a picture of a PM 'contextualised', ie, at a cabinet meeting, or outside a residence, or being appointed. But unfortunately all we have are headshots. JTD 01:08 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

JTD you might want to look at some of the software here Mintguy
If we could get a picture of a meeting of commonwealth heads there would be lots of PMs in it, but other bods too unfortunately. Mintguy

That's an idea. I wonder would the Commonwealth Secretariat allow us to use a picture? If they could, it could be used for this page and the Commonwealth one. I'm currently chasing around photographs on Irish taoisigh and some historic photographs of Dublin so I am up to my eyes chasing photographs and images right now. Could you give the secretariat a ring on Monday and explain to them what we need, how useful it would be for them to have a good image on the Commonwealth etc? They might be able to email a jpeg or something. Perhaps even other images, 'logo' of the Commonweath, etc. It is a long shot, but it certainly would look nice. Thanks for the software info, BTW. I really appreciate it. JTD 02:28 Feb 23, 2003 (UTC)

Here's a photo from a recent Canadian gathering. I e-mailed the site it was on, and they said it was fine to use. But my question is, is it too big? Looks fine on my giant monitor, but some people might not have as high resolution, and thus be forced to scroll to see it all. user:J.J.

Could you cite the sources (on the Image description page)? I'm really interested in checking stuff from that site. --Menchi 00:28, Aug 9, 2003 (UTC)

Prime Minister or Prime minister? please comment in Talk:Lists of incumbents Docu

It is always Prime Minister when talking of the specific office, as in the title of this article (where we are defining a specific constitutional office worldwide), prime minister when talking in general terms about prime ministers. It is never ever written as Prime minister. STÓD/ÉÍRE 02:16 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

You're talking utter nonsense. "Prime ministers are different from presidents." There you see it: capital "P", lower-case "m". I wrote it as "Prime minister" only when it was the title of a Wikipedia article, following the usual Wikipedia convention that the first letter in the article must be capital (I don't think it's even possible to violate that one with the present software). The question is whether the "m" should be capitalized on this common noun. I believe it should not. One may write about "the Prime Minister" when referring to a particular prime minister, but when saying "A prime minister is not the same as a president", one uses lower-case letters. That is why I moved the article. Your accusations on my talk page are entirely misinformed. Michael Hardy 02:26 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

It may just be a confusion on how the Wiki system acts. I haven't seen an article that had a first letter lowercase.....

Complete rubbish. In the sentence you wrote, the P's capitalisation has nothing to do with being prime minister. It is to do with being the start of a sentence. If not, it would be a small p. As a title, prime minister is NEVER EVER half-capitalised, just as governor-general is NEVER EVER half capitalised. In double-barrelled titles on wiki, to avoid producing a grammatically incorrect form of name, where the first letter has to be capitalised because of software, the second word in a title is too. That is why we have Governor-General and why when someone tried to create a page called Governor general it was promptly redirected to the full double-barrelled capitalisation as Governor-General. The question of how to write Prime Minister here was discussed (twice) and both times there was near unanimity to use full capitalisation, not half capitalisation. STÓD/ÉÍRE 02:37 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

The Prime Minister of Canada is known only as William Lyon Mackenzie King, but in fact 99% of the time as Mackenzie King. Olga Bityerkokoff

There is a new reference table added to the article. It might be intended to add additional information but it has also split the listing of articles in to two differently styled partially overlapping sections. It also contains a number of unexplained columns of unclear value and information. I don't nessecarily object to the idea of implementing a table, but when it is I think it should be done thoroughly. I think the previous list was far better. (I presume that the year column refers to the inauguration of the office, and to preserve that it could be added to the simple list. The rest, if it should be completed, seems to belong more to some form of government or cabinet reference table.) -- Mic 05:11 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

To be honest I haven't a goddamned clue what the table means. If you want to remove it and replace it with the previous list you wo't get any opposition from me.Jtdirl

There is now a short note about the purpose and content of the table. If you prefer, it can be placed on a separate page. Docu 12:13 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC) Hope the note makes it clearer.

There any way we can get a picture of a Canadian Prime Minister back on the page? Snickerdo

Why??? The images here are meant to be illustrative, nothing more. They are not meant to be about anyone or any one place. But OK, since you want one I've put in Mackenzie King. (a) his image is the right size to fit in the spot that Disraeli was in; Trudeau's image is too big, (b) we have mid century and later century PMs. Someone who starts in the 1920s is better than Trudeau who is later. That OK? FearÉIREANN 04:40, 12 Aug 2003 (UTC)

King is fine. Thanks :) Snickerdo

Putting Prime Minister of the United States on this page is really misleading. -- Zoe

Grand Wazeer

Is there an entry on "Grand Wazeer"? The phrase means the same as "Prime Minister".—iFaqeer | Talk to me! 03:11, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

from the article: "direct election by the public (Example: Israel.)" The example is no longer relevant. Israel dabbled in direct elections for prime minister in the 90's, but since then the system has been rolled back (with minor changes)... The latest elections (2003) already did not include a direct prime-ministerial ticket. Consequently, I think the example should be deleted or clariffied. Any suggestions? --Lidless Eye 18:48, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I added the years in which this election system operated. However, it will be best to put another (currently working) example, if there is one. --Lidless Eye 23:01, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

I doubt there is, it would easily lead to cohabitation. Wouter Lievens 16:41, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Distinctions in the appointment of prime ministers

There are two categories that New Zealand can fit under:

  • by appointment by the head of state without the need for confirmation by parliament
  • appointment by the head of state after the majority parliamentary party nominates a candidate

I don't know what distinction is being made here. Surely, even in the UK it is constitutional convention for the monarch to appoint the leader of the party with the support of the House of Representatives. In New Zealand, as in the UK, the appointment is secured by a confidence vote in Parliament. I'd expect that this is true of Australia, Canada and India as well.

Ben Arnold 02:15, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

That is not the system in the UK. Parliament never votes on the issue. When an outgoing PM resigns the Queen commissions someone else. If someone has a clear majority then it is obvious who she is to ask to form a government. In the event of a stalemate, the outgoing PM either resigns (in which case the Leader of the Opposition is asked to form a government) or remains on until defeated in the Queen's speech, at which point they resign and the Leader of the Opposition is asked to form a government. Other than voting on the Queen's Speech (ie, to give or withdraw confidence to the Queen's government's legislative programme) the House of Commons has no role whatsoever. Ditto in Australia and in New Zealand.
In contrast the King proposes a nomination for president of the government to the Cortes in Spain, while the President of Ireland has to await a formal vote to nominate a candidate.
The former one above describes the systems in the UK and the Commonwealth, while the latter describes the system in Ireland and in other places.

They are two completely different systems. FearÉIREANN\(caint)

Style

Others dispute this however, especially in countries outside the United Kingdom where styles of address are not codified. It should also be noted that most media outlets refer to a Prime Minister using the job title and surname in conjunction.

I've removed this because I think it's incorrect on a number of counts
1. Extent of usage
The styles in place in the United Kingdom tend to be in place throughout the Commonwealth, and other parts of the world that have modelled their office of Prime Minister after the British system
2. Number of media outlets
I dispute that most media outlets refer to say "Prime Minister Blair" over "Prime Minister Tony Blair", at least Googling the two phrases returns are far greater occurance of the latter.
3. Ignoranc

Cardinal Richelieu

While the modern office of Prime Minister developed in the UK the first actual usage of the word Prime Minister and Premiere Minstre was for Cardinal Richelieu. That was his actual title in the council of state. Louis XIV and his decenants went out of their way to never allow that title to be used again.

In the 17th Century the high ranking ministers of the Council of State were all named as Prime Ministre, they were then numbered as Premiere Ministre, Second Ministre, Troisieme Ministre, and so on. Ahassan05 21:30, 30 May 2006 (UTC)ahassan05

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. -- tariqabjotu 00:32, 31 August 2006 (UTC)}}

Requested move

Prime Minister → Prime minister – I could theoretically perform this move myself, but I see this has been a point of contention in the past. The idea behind this request is that Prime Minister is only capitalized if it a) precedes a person's name (e.g. Prime Minister Tony Blair) or b) is referring to a specific prime minister (e.g. I talked to the Prime Minister). However, when referring to prime ministers in general, like in this article about prime ministers in general, the term is not capitalized. This is all outlined in the manual of style regarding capital letters in titles. Thus, this page, as it talks about prime ministers in general, should be at Prime minister (with Prime capitalized only because pages can't start with lowercase letters). -- tariqabjotu 01:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

  • Support, of course. -- tariqabjotu 01:31, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. --Usgnus 02:28, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support -- Beardo 07:11, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Support But I'd like to point out that the term is often not even capitalized when referring to a specific prime minister. American media tends to overcapitalize, and uses prime minister as a title, rather than a position (equivalent to 'Bus Driver Jones'). UK and Canadian media tends not to capitalize: "Cabinet office minister Jim Murphy suggested the prime minister would not set out his timetable for departure at the forthcoming party conference". BBC Online: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/5291912.stm -- Rattus 14:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Vote added in after RM closed, removed

The following vote was added in after the RM was closed and so is invalid. It was removed from the RM list of votes and placed here. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 20:57, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

  • Support - should be lowercase. Krugs 03:17, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Page move invalid

The vote does not matter. Under the Manual of Style and the Naming Conventions this office, and similar ones, can never be written by a combination of upper case and lower case, anymore than people can write about the United states or George bush! This issue has been discussed before. It has already been decided that for technical reasons we cannot do both words in upper case, both have to be in upper case. No RM vote can cancel that. Indeed if admins who deal with the Naming Conventions had spotted the vote they would have cancelled it instantly. Pages cannot be moved to a grammatically incorrect format, not least because if people saw us having an article on something called a Prime minister it would make us an international laughing stock, and the media would have a field day with it. It is an elementary error. The MoS and NC rules, and IAR in the context of wrong capitalisation, take precedence over RMs where the proposed name is grammatically correct.

In the past, when the page has been moved to a combination of upper and lower case, it has been instantly moved back. It is automatic.

On the basis of the MoS, NC and IAR I have moved the page back to the grammatically correct location. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 01:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

First of all, capitalization has nothing to do with grammar, so neither version is "grammatically correct". Secondly, all Wikipedia articles begin with a capital letter. Even K.d. lang, even EBay. This article is about the generic term prime minister but it has to be written Prime minister because of the way the software works. Wikipedia's naming conventions are that capital letters are not used (apart from the initial letter of the article which will be capitalized no matter what) except in proper names, which this isn't. And it simply isn't true that the phrase is never written "Prime minister". Consider the following:
     A: Isn't Dominique de Villepin president of France?
     B: Not president, no.
     A: What, then?
     B: Prime minister.
And that's a context where even k.d. lang and eBay wouldn't be capitalized. I've moved the page back to the version agreed upon both by Wikipedia's naming conventions and by the consensus established on this page. Do not move it back again. —The preceding signed comment was added by Angr (talk • contribs). 12:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, this is entirely correct. Standard naming policy for a noun is to capitalize it as it would appear at the start of a sentence; the generic term for a prime minister would have an initial capital and no others, like any other generic noun. Obviously the analogy made by Jtdirl to proper nouns aren't relevant. The Brittanica uses this style for its student encyclopedia, though to what extent this material is seriously edited I have no idea. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:01, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I have very little opinion on this move, but it's not up to any admin to decide to reverse a community vote. An action like that could cause chaos on wiki; ignoring wheel wars, it frees any user to ignore procedure so long as he or she can find any excuse. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 20:07, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Admins can, do and will, under the IAR rule laid down by Jimbo. And Angr is mixing up two different things. In a sentence or part of a sentence, the office is lowercased or uppercased, but the lowercased may see the first word uppercased if it is the start of a sentence or part thereof. Article titles are not sentences. In this case it is an office name. So it is either upper cased or lower-cased. It is never ever a mixture of both. Leaving it that way is not an option. If necessary Jimbo's IAR rule will be used to ensure the page is kept in a format that won't make WP an international laughing stock. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 03:00, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Ignore all rules does not merely apply to admins. If you do that, it will be a naked struggle of power and will, and given the numbers, 9 opposing (including one admin) and 3 supporting, how likely would it be that you'd win? Though I don't disagree with your view on the Prime Minister thing, doesn't really seem worth it. Have I missed something? Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 03:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
It would amount to such a shameful and collossal display of ignorance in terms of an elementary fact that I, and I strongly suspect others, would quit Wikipedia. We would not want to be associated with a psuedo-encyclopaedia incapable of getting the most elementary fact right. It is regarded as such a faux pas that in many universities it is what is called a nuclear mistake. If you write Prime minister (other than where the word prime is at the start of a sentence, which clearly is not the case here) in a political science exam you are automatically failed because the belief is that if you don't know how to write the name of one of the most elementary offices correctly you are unfit to be passed. The display of constitutional ignorance on display on this page in the voting just shows up WP's fundamental flaw: the idea that facts can be decided on by voting. One final point: I mentioned that putting the article in this illiterate format would make WP a laughing stock with both the media and academia. I discovered a few minutes ago that I have two emails from newspapers asking me to comment on "the fact that your encyclopedia cannot get 'Prime Minister' correct" [words of the email from a journalist with a British broadsheet]. (I hadn't checked my emails for 48 hours.) If I and others do decide to quit over a display of Wikipedia illiteracy it will be done publicly. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 03:46, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Seems like you have the same view about offices as I have about Scottish kings. Can I suggest not to be hasty. At the moment, in the voting process, you need a supermajority to move it. It doesn't look that likely you'll get that at the moment. If not, why not just wait the vote out, and hold another one immediately afterwards. As you seem to know a lot of people, you'll surely have a good chance of winning eventually. Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 04:05, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Jt, are you reading what the rest of us are saying? What makes this case any different from Vice president and Foreign minister? -- tariqabjotu 03:57, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I am reading it. It just shows a high level of ignorance of the English language (an all-too-common feature of Wikipedia). The three names, Prime Minister, vice president and Foreign minister are different completely. There is no constitutional office of "foreign minister". It is a shorthand term for an office variously called "Secretary of State", "Minister for External Affairs", "Minister for Foreign Affairs" and other variables. "Vice president" is in different contexts a constitutional office or an informal office title in NGOs. So in neither case is capitalisation a direct issue. There is no NGO title called "Prime Minister". It is not an informal version of a real office title. It is the real office title, and so follows different capitalisation rules, as people will have been taught from primary school level up.
Re Calg's point about the need of a supermajority. That is incorrect. The page was moved contrary to the MoS and NC through a vote of 4 people. Under WP that move was not correct. No supermajority is required to require an article to follow the MoS and NC. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 21:18, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was no consensus for the move. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:02, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

Prime minister → Prime Minister – proper noun and this is normal usage. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Survey

Add "* Support" or "* Oppose" followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

  • Support as per usage in the Telegraph and Times, either capitals or not, but not mixed. Since we don't do nocaps and a "technical reasons" template makes WP look amateurish, let's have Prime Minister. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:46, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Capitalize the first letter, leave the rest lowercase. This is standard for every other generic noun in the entire encyclopedia, and is perfectly good English. Similar articles include vice president, foreign minister, etc. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:08, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment. OK christopher parham - duly noted! You might want to also change your user name. --Mal 05:05, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Christopher Parham is a name, a proper noun, while prime minister, vice president, and foreign minister are not. -- tariqabjotu 12:21, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose The article talks about prime ministers in general, not a specific Prime Minister position. Christopher Parham has provided perfect examples of articles that suffer from the same both uppercase or both lowercase issue, and they follow the same kind of capitalization as this article currently follows. -- tariqabjotu 20:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I think we may have had this discussion before, a long time ago, and at that time I might have sided with Angus, but I've gradually come round to the idea that Christopher and Tariq's argument is the stronger one. Deb 21:20, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Tariq and Chris. Sam Vimes | Address me 21:51, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose as above. -- Beardo 00:10, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Tariqabjotu. Re alleged "mixed-capitals", see WP:AN#Prime Minister Move. Duja 08:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Chris and Tariq. the wub "?!" 09:20, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose, per my previous comment. It is not normal usage to capitalize. See: "Prime minister Jaroslaw was in Brussels on a "charm offensive" this week, much needed after his spring purge of pro-EU officials in the Polish civil service." Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/09/01/ccpole01.xml Rattus 13:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - as we can't have prime minister Prime Minister is the most consistent & non stupid looking option available. AllanHainey 15:03, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It seems to me that people have the wrong end of the stick here. I don't believe that anyone is suggesting that the entry be "Prime minister" because they believe that the "P" should be capitalized, but that due to Wikipedia's wonderful technical quirk, the "p" in the common noun phrase "prime minister" WILL be capitalized -- but only on the title page. So until Bob and Sue Minister's daughter Prime does something notable... --SigPig 19:17, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support Chronic constitutional illiteracy is no excuse for such a mistake, which would make WP a laughing stock among political scientists the world over. In any case WP rules do not allow RM votes to move pages to incorrect names. "Prime minister" is incorrect to a monumental extent. Therefore leaving the page at this page is not an option. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 02:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Please read the concerns by oppose !voters above regarding pages such as vice president and even pages regarding other two-word phrases, such as country music; I'm not sure why leaving the page here is not an option. -- tariqabjotu 04:20, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Nonsense. WP uses as its title case first letter capped, others lowercase except for proper nouns. Where journals, even in the field of political science, use the same title style, they capitalize the office in the same way as we are here. See e.g. European Journal of Political Research vol. 44 p. 721, titled as "Prime ministers' identity in semi-presidential regimes: Constitutional norms and cabinet formation outcomes." This example is illustrative rather than exceptional. Trolling through Google scholar, every article which uses our title style and begins with "prime ministers" (this used to avoid references to particular individuals) uses the same title capitalization as proposed here: "Prime ministers..." -- "Prime ministers, political leadership and cabinet government", "Prime ministers and presidents: A survey of the differing rhetorical possibilities of high office". More available via search. I personally think our title case is rather silly, but its not totally ideosyncratic. And "Prime minister" appears to be the common usage of other publications that share our title case.Christopher Parham (talk) 16:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
      • Rubbish. In English the first letter of a sentence is capitalised. Prime Minister can be written as all lower case or all upper case with one grammatical exception. If lowercase the P is capitalised if it is the first word in a sentence. Article titles are not sentences. Therefore that grammatical rule does not apply here. Writing a half-uppercased and half-lowercased in this context is illiterate and frankly ignorant in the extreme.
        • How are the title of this article and the title of those articles different contexts? Or are the editors of those journals just "illiterate and frankly ignorant in the extreme?" Christopher Parham (talk) 22:52, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Country music is not a proper noun. Prime Minister is a proper noun. This is both the correct and normal (i.e. everywhere else but here) usage The rules of English are your friend. Rebecca 04:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Just wondering, as you just moved the article anyways, why bother voting at all? Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 06:21, 2 September 2006 (UTC) Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 06:20, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Indeed, I wish you had waited until the conclusion of this discussion. Prime minister is not a proper noun either; that's why the term can be written, and exists in the dictionary, as prime minister[1]. A proper noun would be something like George Bush, which should never be written as george bush. -- tariqabjotu 10:37, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Wrong. Read the MoS and any dictionary. Prime Minister is uppercased or lowercased. It is not mixed except when grammatically the word prime in the lowercased version is at the start of a sentence, in which case the first sentence letter is always uppercased. How many times does this have to be said: an article title is not a sentence therefore Prime minister is illiterate, ignorant, wrong and breaks all the rules of capitalisation. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 20:53, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support absolutely. Prime Minister is a title, and therefore a proper noun. --Mal 05:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Prime Minister is a title and proper noun only when describing a specific individual; when the term is used to describe the office and concept in general terms (as in this article), 'prime minister' is correct. See my note regarding style guides in the discussion section. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:38, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support - either all or no capitals, looks amaturish in mixed case. Wikipedia needs a long term fix to these issues. Djegan 09:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per Djegan Bastun 10:26, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per TenOfAllTrades. The article currently starts "A prime minister is ..." If the article is at "Prime Minister", this should be changed to the (wrong) "A Prime Minister is..." for consistency. Kusma (討論) 11:58, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose Prime minister, when used in this context, refers not to a specific man, but to a general job-title. Like "Mary I was then the queen", "My brother, John, has been promoted to the rank of admiral" - Prime Minister should be doubly-capitalised when attached to Tony Blair or Maggie, etc, but not in this article's title. Not a proper noun unless it refers to a specific person // DBD 12:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep, as "Prime Minister" is a title whereas "prime minister" is the concept addressed by the article. Since all Wikipedia articles begin with capital letters, this becomes the present "Prime minister". David Kernow 13:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support --Kiand 16:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support This is the kind of Wiki-madness which drives potential contributors away. Capitalise both words and get on with writing articles - build the encyclopedia and don't make us all look like muppets to the outside world we are writing for (aren't we?). Ardfern 23:05, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. It's an article about a type of job, not about the job of the British PM. Zocky | picture popups 00:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment: The argument that article titles are not sentences, so capitalization of the first word doesn't apply is rather strange. In fact, almost every publication in the world capitalizes the first word in titles. When it's omitted, it's for visual effect, not ortographic considerations. Zocky | picture popups 00:59, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose as per Christopher Parham. -- Kjkolb 09:44, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per Ardfern - 'Prime Minister' is simply an exception to the general rule. When a reader goes to this article he/she will expect to see 'Prime Minister', even if the link that brought them there said 'prime minister'. Naming conventions are only conventions and should not be adhered to slavishly. Scolaire 11:13, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support This one is a no-brainer. PM is a proper noun, so lets use proper grammer! MelForbes 20:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
    Um... that's not my understanding of "proper noun". A proper noun describes a unique entity, whereas a common noun describes a type, of which many instances exist. There are many prime ministers, whether one takes that to mean the office, or the person holding the office. "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is a proper noun, because it refers to a unique office. It is one of many prime ministers that exist. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose' "Prime Minister of France" should be capitalized. Simple "prime minister" not. bogdan 21:19, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose "Prime minister" is a common noun, and should conform to our naming conventions the same way every other common noun does. Take ice cream, for example: a common noun, but when you look at the article, the title's capitalized, in accordance with our convention. -GTBacchus(talk) 21:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose in this context Prime Minister is a generic term and not about a specific person and therefor does not need the second word capitalised. Also terms such as Vice president do not capitalize the word president so I don't see why this is different. --My old username 04:20, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Wikipedia already has problems with overcapitalization (see e.g. an article like Rear Admiral), and moving this article back to Prime Minister would be one more instance of this. The current naming follows the MoS, so what's the problem? Fram 11:48, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per AllanHainey. --kingboyk 12:51, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose: as used here, this is not a proper noun. If it preceeded a person's name, it would be different. Jonathunder 16:49, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Lower case correct. Thumbelina 17:52, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Support The page name as it stands looks silly to me. If it can't be 'prime minister' then it should be 'Prime Minister'.Catchpole 09:55, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Vice president and similar titles. Bubba ditto 20:00, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

This is a ridiculous situation and one which sadly reflects society today. k. d. lang and eBay are both basically brand names. People generally write those names as their respective owners desire out of respect or whatever. That doesn't make them grammatically correct. Nor does it change the rules of grammar.

Are there actually any professionals adding their votes here? By professionals, I mean English teachers or Professors..? Perhaps we should get a request for comment from Wikipedians (or should that be wikipedians?) involved in the literature side of things. --Mal 05:26, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Would some of you clever people please write to the The Economist, the BBC, The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph to tell them that they have been writing 'the prime minister' (sic) incorrectly. Thanks. (BTW, I'd argue that unlike 'President', 'prime minister' isn't a title but a position; but is incorrectly applied as a title, as in the grotesque Americanisation 'Prime Minister Blair' instead of the correct, 'Mr Blair, the prime minister'.) Rattus 05:42, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

(added after edit conflict with Rattus) I am not a teacher of English, but I'm willing to take my cues from people who deal with these issues. I offer up the style guide from the Times (of London, not New York), which states [2]

Prime Minister cap for every country, but only in reference to a specific person, eg, "Tony Blair said that … the Prime Minister said that … "; "Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990". Thus lower case when using prime minister more generally, eg, "Being prime minister has affected many men's health"; "This is a prime minister with much still to prove". ...

The Guardian handles offices like president and prime minister in a similar manner: [3]. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 05:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

A similar statement is within our style guide as well. -- tariqabjotu 10:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
That's fine, I'll happily concede that some outlets do capitalize (needlessly, in my opinion). But even following the Times' guidelines the article still should stay as Prime minister, as it is not referring to a single person. Rattus 15:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
As has been said ad nausaum, the office can depending on context be written as upper-cased or lowercased. It can NEVER be written as a mixture of both. The only case where both are used is nothing to do with the office itself but to do with the elementary rules of grammar, namely that the first letter in a sentence is uppercased. So one can write
The Prime Minister, Tony Blair . . .
Successive prime ministers have noted that . . .
Prime ministers over the years have noted . . .
But only a complete illiterate would write
The Prime minister, Tony Blair . . .

That is what Wikipedia's ridiculous supposed naming suggests here is correct. It never ever is. For technical reasons Wikipedia cannot write the article name entirely in lowercase. Writing it in a mixture is illiterate bullshit, and would make WP a laughing stock, as article name are not sentences. So the only remaining option, given that there are only two (all upper and all lower) is to go for the all uppercase version. If an illiterate version is voted through here, the issue will be raised directly with Jimbo and others. Leaving an illiterate version is not an option. Wikipedia itself says that decisions are not taken by voting. And Wikipedia allows bad decisions to be overruled. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 21:06, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Fear - whilst chatting to Jimbo, why not get him to change the Wikipedia style so that all titles are written with every word capitalised ? It is not illiterate to write "Prime ministers over the years have noted . . ." - or do you think prime minister should become Prime Minister at the start of a sentence ? -- Beardo 21:39, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Jt, I don't care if you don't agree with the oppose !voters or this article ends up at Prime Minister when the dust clears, but please, show a bit of respect. There's no need to call a simple lowercase letter illiterate (especially four times in one comment). No one has ever suggested that it is correct to say The Prime minister, Tony Blair, so I'm not sure why you brought that up. Please take a deep breath, take a look at everyone's comments (particularly SigPig's), and respond to them in a more respectful manner. The kind of tenor and language you have persistently used to defend your position – illiterate, bullshit, international laughing stock, rubbish, ignorant, ridiculous, breaks all the rules of capitalisation, loopy, It just shows a high level of ignorance of the English language (an all-too-common feature of Wikipedia), It is like having an article on France and naming its capital as Berlin, or an article on George Bush and saying that he is a Democrat (or that he is the wife of Bill Clinton!) – is unnecessary and nothing short of insulting. I respect your opinion, even though I don't agree with it, and so has everyone else; I expect you to reciprocate that, as the admin and Wikipedian you are, and respect ours. -- tariqabjotu 21:43, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Just as a point of interest, what sort of facts could plausibly convince you that you are wrong? Political science journals do use the title format "Prime minister" despite your assertions that it is illiterate, as I've described above. Clearly that hasn't swayed you. Is there anything else I could dig up that might work? Otherwise I'll let the facts I've offered stand for themselves. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:46, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
I looked at a number of online style guides (granted, all U.S. based), and they all basically say the same thing about titles such as president, prime minister, etc: when speaking of a specific person, cap the title ("Primie Minister Joe Blow") but when speaking in general ("the government is headed by a prime minister") or in bulk ("the prime ministers met at the Foo Summit"), don't cap. These are the style guides:
--SigPig 00:12, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Early move

So the page has been moved, without waiting for the end of the proper process, and contra to Wikipedia style guide. Surely that can't be right ? -- Beardo 12:17, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I have reverted the move. Discussion is ongoing and there is no urgent reason not to wait until it has finished. Kusma (討論) 12:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. -- Beardo 12:44, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
WP's MoS and Naming Conventions make it quite clear that it is correct to have this office at the grammatically correct prime minister or Prime Minister but wrong to have it at the grammatically illiterate Prime minister. Please read the MoS and NC rules, Beardo. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 21:09, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, Fear, I disagree. The correct title of the item being described is "prime minister" (as are "foreign minister", "vice president" etc.). Just as, at the beginning of a sentence, the first letter is capitalised, so in all Wikipedia article names the first letter is capitalised. If you don't like that, you need to get them to change the software, not force moves to incorrect places. As it says in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters) - "In the case of "prime minister", either both words begin with a capital letter or neither, except, obviously, when it starts a sentence. Again, when using it generically, do not use a capital letter" - it is being used generically here, so "prime minister" is correct. Also see Meriam Webster - [4] Perhaps the MoS should be changed to read "except, obviously, when it starts a sentence or is used in the name of a Wikipedia article." -- Beardo 21:34, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
You have proved the point. Read back your words. either both words begin with a capital letter or neither, except, obviously, when it starts a sentence . . . That is the entire point. Article titles are not sentences. Either you use both words in capitals, or neither. But then I should know. I was one of those involved in writing the MoS and NCs on this issue. So under the MoS, this article has to be at prime minister (which it cannot be for technical reasons) or Prime Minister. Prime minister is not right and not allowed under the MoS. It is chronically wrong in that format. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 21:54, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Exactly right FearÉIREANN. It's "prime minister" or "Prime Minister". The latter is preferred in British/colonial English, and this is a term mostly used in those countries. --kingboyk 12:50, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
"using it generically, do not use a capital letter" -- Beardo 22:57, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Try reading it again and this time understanding it. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 23:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Jtdirl's Comments on User talk Pages

I was originally going to let one of Jtdirl's comments on the Irish Wikipedians' notice board go, but seeing some of his other contributions, I must say something:

I interpret this as Jtdirl vote stacking and being incivil at the same time. Comments from others, and Jt, are of course welcome. -- tariqabjotu 23:49, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

In at least some of these instances, the users messaged here are respected experts in this field. A message to 172 on a political issue is never out of place. Others on the list I am not familiar with. I would encourage him to limit his comments about illiteracy to describing content rather than users, however. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Christopher, for the comment. I deliberately contracted a particular set of users:

  • Users who are academics or apply academic standards to articles (172 and Adam) both of which are independent minded, regularly disagree with me and cannot be presumed to share my viewpoint. However as they are people who tend to know what they are talking about they are worth asking to contribute.
  • Users who are from countries with prime ministers and so have practical experience of the usage of terms. I believed that they might be able to offer an insight to language usage.
  • Users I know from 4 years experience here, and whose views, even though they often disagree with me, I am interested in hearing because I think they are valuable additions to the debate. Some of those users , for example, Jonto, El Gringo, Scolaire and Mal, I have strongly disagreed with (they can confirm that). So I could not in any way presume that they would agree with me. I asked them because as users who have contributed on political affairs they may have a useful perspective.

I can be sarcastic in my commentary. The fact that that sarcasm is tongue-in-cheek is not always understood. Irish people use a form of language known as Hiberno-English which makes much more use of sarcasm than say, American English or British English. The users I contacted know that is the way I express myself. However there are two clear facts

  • I did not say vote this way. They know my viewpoint but can get alternative viewpoints on the page.
  • The people I asked are all people I know from experience are independent minded. Every one of them has disagreed with me on some issue. So inviting them to participate is absolutely no guarantee that they will agree with me. Mal, Jonto and I have disagreed on British Isles. Mel and I disagreed, though less dramatically, on the issue. 172 and I disagreed on Robert Mugabe while Adam and I disagreed on various Greek royalty pages. On other pages some of us have agreed. Not one person I contacted could be described as someone who would "rubberstamp" a vote and do what I wanted. All are independent, and all contribute in the area of history or politics, and so have a knowledge that would be useful in this debate.

Telling independent-minded people that there is an issue they might be interested in, being descussed in an RM, is not vote-stacking. It is communication. I would be suprised if they all agreed with my vote here. They were asked because of their independence and knowledge. The debate would be better for their participation.

Finally, I deliberately told Mal not to tell people how to vote because IMHO to do that would be wrong. It is up to each user to read the debate and reach a conclusion. Whatever conclusion they reached would be respected by me, and they know that. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 00:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Since I posted this comment, Jtdirl has also posted the following messages:
The results of this requested move may be comprimised now. -- tariqabjotu 00:09, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

You are just clutching at straws to justify a renaming done contrary to the MoS and NC using a "vote" of four people, a vote none of the people who in the past have worked on this page were aware of. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 00:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Could you please back your assertion that not capitalizing common nouns in article titles is against MoS and NC with some quotes or links? From what I have read, exactly the opposite is the case. Zocky | picture popups 00:53, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Jt, I'm not clutching at straws. Before this move request began, I stated, I have no interest in defending Prime minister over Prime Minister; my goal is to determine which is more appropriate (given naming conventions) for the article title and I still feel that way. A second move request, as proposed here, is a perfectly reasonable way to determine which title is more appropriate, but I (and I'm sure others) would like this to be a calm debate with respect from and towards both parties. Informing a large number of users about this move request with statements that insult those who hold certain views does not help achieve that goal and could potentially influence the decisions of others. If you just wanted to notify users who you felt would have interest in this move request, you could have simply stated "There is a move request at Talk:Prime minister that may be of interest to you." -- tariqabjotu 01:35, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Apparent confusion between technical restrictions and grammatical errors

There seems to be a certain amount of confusion on the part of some editors – who probably ought to know better, being editors with long experience on Wikipedia – on the topic of case in Wikipedia article titles. For technical reasons, the first letter of the name of all articles on Wikipedia is capitalized, proper nouns or not. Though I've not asked a developer about this, I presume that this convention was established mostly for style reasons—it generally makes the title of an article 'look right' when it appears at the top of the page. Nobody asserts that baseball or marshmallow are proper nouns, yet those articles are filed under Baseball and Marshmallow.

Multiple-word titles only have the upper case enforced for the first letter of the first word. If you're writing about heart attacks, you know that you'd call it a myocardial infarction and not a Myocardial infarction—and yet our article's name bears the latter capitalization. There are even cases where the forced first-letter capitalizations are confusing, as with eBay and pH, which end up under the titles EBay and PH. Ya just can't beat the system.

Now, the Wikimedia software does acknowledge that the first-letter capital is frequently not what an article writer will want to link to. So for the first letter – and the first letter only – case is actually ignored by the software. Links to baseball, marshmallow, myocardial infarction, eBay, and pH all work automagically. It's accepted that the case of the first letter is not identified by our article titles and is ambiguous. (Note that this doesn't apply to any other letter in the word. Myocardial Infarction and myocardial Infarction are redlinks.)

In other words, arguing that applying the title Prime minister to an article is grammatically incorrect is decidedly off point. Many of our article titles are 'grammatically incorrect' because of the forced first-letter uppercase. What we should be doing here is deciding what the correct title for the article should be – prime minister or Prime Minister – and using the closest technically possible name. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

The first letter in all articles is capitalized because it allows us to have case-sensitive article titles, while being able to say both "Prime minister" at a start of a sentence and "prime minister" in the middle of a sentence without having to create a redirect. You can imagine it as a silent redirect from every non-capitalized title to the capitalized version. Zocky | picture popups 01:06, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Ten is quite correct in his statement "What we should be doing here is deciding what the correct title for the article should be – prime minister or Prime Minister – and using the closest technically possible name." The fact is that depending on usage there are two correct forms; prime minister (both lowercased) and Prime Minister (both uppercased). The usage of each depends on context and also on whether one is using American English, which opts for lowercasing of most things, or the other variants, Hiberno-English, Indian English, English English, Scottish English, British English, Commonwealth English and various other formats (the agreed format of English is called International English. Given that most forms share a similar structure, with American English, in terms of grammatical structure, spelling, capitalisation, etc the odd one out, International English tends to be closer to British English, Hiberno-English, Indian English et al. International English tends, like most forms of English, to use greater capitals.
While having both words uppercased or both lowercased are correct (though the question of which is used differs on context and form of English) the use of a mixture of both is 100% wrong in terms of title. The only time it is permissable to use a mixed upper and lower is in the context of a sentence where the word Prime is the first word and so, for grammatical rules separate to the term itself, the first letter is uppercased. That is a standard exception that applies to every word in the English language. The fact that in that one area there might be two different cases used is of no relevance to this debate, as it is to do with grammatical construction of a sentence, not the term itself.
Unfortunately for technical reasons we cannot write prime minister. As is made clear in our Manual of Style and Naming Conventions, Prime minister is wrong except in the context of the start of a sentence, and the name of an article obviously isn't a sentence. So that leaves as the only version closest to what is technically possible Prime Minister. And that is why it is used here. We have no choice.
If we were to use Prime minister we would look decidedly silly, to put it at its mildest. The MoS and NC make clear, as do all textbooks, that it is a case of, if I remember the term my lecturer used once, both up or both down. If we used Prime minister we would be a laughing stock among parents and academics. They would take one look at the page and decide that if a supposed encyclopaedia couldn't even get one of the most prominent titles correct it isn't much of an encyclopaedia and shouldn't be used. One user did suggest using Prime minister is the note explaining why we had to use a wrong version. That would be senseless. Why, when we had a perfectly valid version we could use, should we choose to use a wrong version, with a note attached saying "we know it is wrong, but there is a technical reason why we cannot get it right"! It would make no sense whatsoever.
The bottom line is simple. Both a full uppercased and full lowercased version is correct. A mixed case is only correct when used in a sentence. Given that our article title isn't a sentence, and for technical reasons we cannot do the lowercase version, why opt for a wrong version, and damage our reputation by coming across to outsiders as so ignorant of the topic we don't know how to write the name, when we have a correct version that can be done and carries none of the negatives, a version we have been using on the article for that very reason until a misguided renaming took place? FearÉIREANN\(caint) 01:48, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
But aren't most two-word subjects at locations with the first word capitalized and the second word lowercased? This article is about prime ministers, in general, not a particular prime minister, like Prime Minister Helen Clark. Likewise, the vice president article is about vice presidents, in general, not a particle vice president, like Vice President Dick Cheney. Likewise, the country music article is about country music, not something with capital letters, like the Country Music Awards. The ice cream article is about ice cream, not a particular brand of ice cream, like Breyer's Ice Cream. None of those four terms – prime minister, vice president, country music, and ice cream – are proper nouns in the way they're used in their respective articles and none of them have their first word capitalized and their second word in lowercase unless they exist at the beginning of a sentence, and yet their article titles are that way. That's not because people think it's correct to write I like Ice cream, but because technical limitations prevent us from putting an article at ice cream, with a lowercase i. -- tariqabjotu 02:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
The mixed case is also correct when used at the start of an article title, as in the examples provided above, and as it would be here. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:35, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Tariqabjotu and Christopher Parham are correct: the title of an article is like the beginning of a sentence, and it has long been our practice to title articles such as Ice cream and Vice president. I'm surprised this a controversial decision. -GTBacchus(talk) 08:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[De-indent.]Here's what I think, for what it's worth. I think GTBacchus is essentially correct, though I can understand the contrary argument - that it is not strictly the beginning of a sentence and so may look "wrong" to someone who thinks they know that the term is either "prime minister" or "Prime Minister" - except when the "P" is capitalised because it is the first letter of a sentence. What I can't understand is why this argument has frequently been put with such incivility or on the assumption that it is not understood. Clearly, those who want the article's title to be "Prime minister" believe that the term is a common noun which would ordinarily be "prime minister" except at the start of a sentence or where a publisher's house style is applied, requiring the capitalisation of the first letter in the title of an article. If it is agreed that "prime minister" is a common noun that would not normally have any capitals, the only question is about what Wikipedia's house style requires in such cases; this has nothing to do with anyone being illiterate or whatever. To put it another way, if there is some doubt about either (1) the house style requirement or (2) whether the two words form a common noun that normally has no capitals when it appears in a sentence, then this can surely be debated courteously.

BUT all that said, it may not matter who is strictly correct as a matter of usage and house style. Although I'm siding with GTBacchus on that issue, it's for a fairly subtle reason. It's possible that someone "out there" may not understand how we came to the conclusion we did, or why it is a logically correct application of our house style. Hence, there may still be a pragmatic reason to go with "Prime Minister". Perhaps that is what needs to be sorted out. I'm used to dealing with all sorts of odd-looking house styles, so it wouldn't worry me, but I can see an argument here. It's quite true that some people in the public are predisposed to assume stupidity rather than subtlety. But isn't there a way to consider that issue without the two sides just being dogmatic about it? If not, maybe there has to be a poll or something, since it is, in the end, a purely pragmatic decison if those are the grounds on which it is to be determined. Metamagician3000 09:46, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

This is not something that requires a new pragmatic solution. This question was addressed and decided 5 years ago (see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization)). It's one of those things that none of the options is inherently correct or incorrect, but consistency is imperative. People who have problems with that convention should complain on that page and try to change the convention, not introduce their preferred style article-by-article. Zocky | picture popups 13:04, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for that comment. So you favour "Prime minister"? That is what that page in question seems to drive us to. It confirms what I said above about Wikipedia house style. But it also seems to drive us to "Governor-general", which is intuitively not acceptable. Consistency is important, but I don't see how we can do without an element of pragmatism when applying a mere house style, as opposed to a core policy like NPOV. However, my point isn't to support one option rather than the other; it is merely to explain why I think neither "side" is being stupid, illiterate, unprincipled, or whatever. I don't have a definite view as to the best solution. Metamagician3000 23:13, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't care whether it's Prime Minister or Prime minister personally. Precisely because of that, I want it to follow the naming convention, which points to the latter. Zocky | picture popups 21:36, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

It remains 100% wrong and, as political scientists can confirm, would make Wikipedia a laughing stock. The facts are simple. Upper casing is correct (and used primarily in International English, Hiberno-English, British English, English English, Indian English, etc). Lowercasing is correct (and used primarily in American English). A mixture of both is wrong in both forms. The only time when one can mix the capitals and lower case is where prime starts a sentence. That is not the case here. Writing Prime minister is as nonsensical as writing Governor-general (though some individuals have tried to push that absurdity on WP on occasion), Attorney-general, United states etc. Writing Prime minister is regarded as a massive sign that you don't know what you are talking about in political science. Write that in an exam on the office and many examiners in many universities will automatically fail you, on the basis that if you don't know how to write it properly you sure as hell don't know what you are doing and aren't fit to pass. And yes, I'll repeat it again: if Wikipedia writes Prime minister it will be seen by thousands of people as a sign that Wikipedia is an illiterate joke. What is more many people will conclude that if WP cannot get some as basic as Prime Minister/prime minister right it isn't worth referring to as a source. There are only 2 alternatives that can be used in the title; all upper or all lower. If for technical reasons we cannot do the latter, then unless we want to make complete fools of ourselves (and show that we don't know about the topic) we have no alternative but to do upper the former. It is that simple. It is astonishing that some people do not know the basic grammatical rules. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 23:31, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Jtdirl, what do you think about the way the article ice cream is titled? I haven't seen you address that particular angle of this question. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:34, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
Jt, please read this again. -- tariqabjotu 23:34, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment

I have been asked by Jtdirl/FearÉIREANN to comment on this matter, but I Fear I cannot support his position. I look in the Britannica and I see the sentence: "The prime minister has no salary as such." This tells me that prime minister is a common noun which should take lower case. The title of an article on the office of prime minister should thus also be in lower case. We can't start an article title with a lower case letter, and nor indeed should we: we have an article called Elephant without anyone assuming that "elephant" is a proper noun. The article title should be "Prime minister," with a note explaining when the expression should be capitalised. (The Brittanica by the way gets around this problem by putting all its article titles in bold caps, thus PRIME MINISTER. This is a most elegant solution, although its adoption by Wikipedia would keep us all busy for some months.) Adam 13:25, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Comment on FearÉIREANN

While I have no problem with those people that want to move the article to Prime Minister, even though I disagree with them, I do have a huge problem with the continuing tone used by FearÉIREANN. When a whole bunch of otherwise quite literate and useful contributors don't get your point, it may be because you are wrong, not because they don't know the basic grammatical rules. Numerous examples have been given that support the move to prime minister. Noone in this thread has supported mixed case because they feel that it is the correct way (i.e. writing "Being Prime minister is a great job). That is not the position supported here. If you have a problem with the general, technical capitalization rules of Wikipedia (capitalizing the first letter of an article title), discuss that at some general page about this problem, but don't ridicule everyone else here.

As for your statements that keeping the current article title will make Wikipedia the laughing stock of the political scientists; they don't seem to have a problem with "prime minister", as can be seen here[5] (but then again, this association does not capitalize "American": I suppose they are now the laughing stock of the world as well?) or here[6] (to give an example from the US and one from the UK).

Even worse, the last site given also uses "Prime minister" (yes, mixed capitalization) outside of a sentence[7], in a resumé line.

Basically, not only is your reasoning flawed (confusing technical issues with correct usage issues) and your way of arguing highly uncivil, but your position is not supported by the outside world either. Fram 12:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Incivility is a matter of opinion. Ignorance is a matter of fact in this debate. If you don't understand the basic grammatical rules in IE and AE that is your business. Lack of knowledge is unfortunately all to common on this pseudo-encyclopaedia. FearÉIREANN\(caint) 12:30, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Agree with FearÉIREANN- it should be Prime Minister Astrotrain 12:36, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Jtdirl, you are indeed being incivil, but I'm used to that. But please, pretty please, pretty please with sugar on top, read Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization) (btw, do you notice the capital N and lowercase c in that title?) and report back what it has to say about common nouns. "Prime minister" is not a proper noun and there is no reason whatsoever for the title of this article to follow a different capitalization scheme than Subatomic particle or Medieval literature. Zocky | picture popups 13:56, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Prime Minister is a title of office and is always capitalised in English. Astrotrain 14:07, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
No it's not, and if you bothered to read the above discussion you would have known that. Zocky | picture popups 14:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Jtdirl, you are not exempt from Wikipedia:Civility. A form of Hiberno-English, as you claim, is not an excuse for being incivil. It has been said repeatedly here that you're being disrespectful and yet you persist. It seems like a step in dispute resolution (perhaps a request for comment?) is necessary, not at all for your position in this debate, but for your relentless incivility here. I look forward to hearing what others think about this suggestion. -- tariqabjotu 15:48, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree with the sentiment, and I too prefer not to be called an illiterate. Nevertheless, I'd prefer not to see this degenerate into the sort of circus that the Great Highway Naming Dispute of 2006 has become, with blocks and RfCs and arbitration and endless polls over what is really a very trivial question. I would suggest two points.
  1. Further discussion about the attitude and editing practices of specific editors take place on their talk pages rather than here, as we want to separate any conduct issues from content issues as much as possible;
  2. Formal dispute resolution be avoided as long as discussion here returns to being civil.
How does that sound? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:30, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm okay with both points although I have my doubts that they'll be successful. Complaints about Jt's comments as being exaggerated or incivil have been posted here, on the admin's noticeboard (prior to this move request), and on his talk page, with little change. Nevertheless, I will give this idea a shot; I agree it would be rather ridiculous for a debate over a letter to become something more than that. -- tariqabjotu 16:40, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
No problem for me! Fram 16:44, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
Concur with Ten (as another outsider called in to look at the issue). It would be simply ridiculous to bring in the big guns over this. Might it be worthwhile to list all the arguments for and against, somewhere on this page (no "support" or "oppose" allowed, just distinct reasons for each), and afterward take the discussion forward responding to those? There seems to be a lot of repetition of points being made here, and I don't think it's helping. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:11, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I added the section you requested below (and added two points of my own). The section, of course, is incomplete. -- tariqabjotu 18:00, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

[De-indent.] Good move. I won't be voting, since I don't really care about the result and can see cases for both sides (as above). We just need a way to take the heat out, and I wasn't doing a very effective job of that. Maybe what you've done here will help. Metamagician3000 05:42, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Move Points (For and Against)

For the Move

'Prime Minister' is an exception to the general rule. When a reader goes to this article he/she will expect to see 'Prime Minister', even if the link that brought them there said 'prime minister'. (Could someone flesh out this point, please? Is this really what an average reader "will expect"?) Naming conventions are only conventions and should not be adhered to slavishly.

Against the Move

  • Prime minister is not a proper noun in the sense it is being used in this article, as it's about prime ministers in general not a particular prime minister. -- tariqabjotu 17:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Similar two-word subjects that are not proper nouns, such as vice president, country music, ice cream, and ball lightning, are at articles where the first word is capitalized and the second word is not capitalized. -- tariqabjotu 17:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

How does it end?

To keep the 'for and against' points as just that, I am moving my comment/question and the response to it down here:

  • Comment/question: this whole process is getting really unwieldy. Does anybody have any idea what's supposed to happen at the end of it? Scolaire 18:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
    Yeah, at the end of it, we're all supposed to agree to some consensus position, having addressed everybody's concerns, and then we move forward with it. "Unwieldy" is right. I disagree about what the average reader "will expect", btw. -GTBacchus(talk) 19:04, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, but what kind of consensus position? As things stand, the 'oppose' half is going to say there is no consensus for moving minister to Minister, while the 'support' half is going to say (with some justification) that four votes (v thirty-odd in the current process) doesn't amount to a consensus, so there is no real consensus for moving Minister to minister. Unless all parties can agree on the action to be taken when this vote is closed, we're only digging ourselves deeper into an already deep and muddy hole. Scolaire 22:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
That's right: deep and muddy. Speaking of a big bowl of rocky road ice cream, I'm still waiting to hear from a big-M-ian about how they think the titles of other articles about common nouns should go. Until that question gets answered, we're certainly getting nowhere. -GTBacchus(talk) 22:54, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
If there is no consensus the article will stay where it is. That is the way it is usually done and I don't see any reason why this would be different. --My old username 03:51, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that appears to be where we are now, and most of us are ok with that. Anyone who isn't, has some convincing to do. -GTBacchus(talk) 03:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
In that case maybe you should close it now. The talking seems to be done. Scolaire 18:20, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
"Close it"? Close what? -GTBacchus(talk) 18:53, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
The request to more Prime minister to Prime Minister. --My old username 19:30, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Gotcha. It's done. -GTBacchus(talk) 19:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
You may want to add the {{polltop}} and {{pollbottom}} templates, or something similar, as well. -- tariqabjotu 19:55, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Oh goodness, what a lot of templates seem to be necessary. Isn't a moribund poll just moribund? Anyway, I've patched those in; if someone thinks {{pollbottom}} is in the wrong place, please feel free to move it, but be careful, I substed it. -GTBacchus(talk) 20:04, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

capitalization

Is it supposed to be capitalized when it is on its own? - IstvanWolf 23:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Depends on personal preference and style guidelines; I say no. —Nightstallion (?) 21:28, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
I have to disagree and say yes for it was established as a title. Neovu79 03:06, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
It depends if you're talking about the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, for example, which is a specific title and a proper noun, or about prime ministers in general. -GTBacchus(talk) 05:57, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Prime Ministers of the Russian Provisional Government

Sorry if I'm incorrect, but from what I remember of A level history, didn't Russia have its first Prime Minister in 1917 during the period of the Provisional Government? First Georgy L'vov and then Alexander Kerensky? Looking at the list of 'start dates' on this page I expected to see Russia's list start at 1917. So aren't they counted as real PMs? Blossom552 22:47, 1 February 2007 (UTC)


Preamble

I cite directly, "In parliamentary systems like the United Kingdom's Westminster system, the prime minister is the presiding and actual head of the government and head of the executive branch. In such systems, the head of state (the King, Queen, President, or Governor-General [de facto]), although officially the head of the executive branch, is a ceremonial position." This statement is just plain wrong. This may reflect Tony Blair's aspirations but in no way reflects the reality of the UK's system of government. The Queen will still sppoint a Prime Minister after an election and there is no guarantee that a PM will actually be the leader of the majority party in the House or even a member of it. All s/he has to do is to command the confidence of the House.

Just because a power is not exercised does not mean it ceases to exist. Nuclear weapons still exist, even though they haven't been used in anger since August 1945. In the same way the Royal Veto is a very real living part of the British Constitution and to imply that the First Lord Of The Admiralty has subsumed that power is both foolish and risible. Could we not go back to Bagehot for this article? Or split the 'actual' Westminster system from those other countries operating a 'Westminster type' constitution, instead of egregiously lumping them together. The PM remains subordinate to the Queen in the Privy Council and all delegated legislation derives from authority stemming from the Crown. This is not to mention Orders In Council, Treaty-making etc..

This is emphatically not "merely ceremonial" as stated in the article's preamble. I shall edit, after a suitable pause for further discussion, if there is no objection raised. Jatrius 11:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Germany's President

Is it correct to describe Germany's President as elected ? Eregli bob 06:48, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Prime minister to Prime Minister

May I move this page to Prime Minister - so as it's consistant with Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister of Australia, Prime Minister of Canada etc. GoodDay (talk) 18:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm fair sure this has been discussed before – PM refers to a specific man, whereas pm refers to holders of similar titles altogether. DBD 21:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
However, PM of UK (for example) is a position, not a person. The 'Prime minister' thing would call for Prime minister of the United Kingd etc. GoodDay (talk) 23:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
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