Forum:CT Archive/Force powers capitalization

As far as I know, all Force powers in various sources have always been treated as a general noun rather than a proper noun. This means that Force powers are always written in the lower-case (besides "Force") with the exception of powers with unique names such as Morichro and Malacia or specific "arts" such as Art of the Small and Art of Movement. Otherwise, Force powers have, as far as I've known, been treated as a general noun. Of course, as is the habit of Star Wars sources, Force powers are always capitalized when being used as a title or subtitle, so that doesn't count. However, nearly all our Force powers articles uses upper-case and treats them as proper nouns, which likewise seems to go against canon, which appears to say otherwise. Now, honestly, I have only the Jedi vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force as a reference, but I have yet to find a source that establishes otherwise, and I think The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. A few users have pointed out that we should just change each individual Force power article depending on what a canonical source writes it as. However, some Force powers have practically only been named as titles for its corresponding section without ever appearing elsewhere. Moreover, I don't think the issue is actually whether a Force power is canonically supposed to be written capitalized or not on an individual basis, it's whether Force powers are canonically treated as general nouns or proper nouns. This is in addition to it being nearly obvious that they are general nouns (you're not going to have to find out whether its canonical for every blaster weapon on an individual basis to be written as either E-11 blaster rifle or E-11 Blaster Rifle if at least 10 other instances writes it as DL-44 heavy blaster pistol, DC-15A blaster rifle, etc., you'd go for the obvious consistency)

So far, I've seen mind trick, Force speed, burst of speed, alter mind, Force lightning, Force push/pull, Force camouflage, Force choke, battle-meld, Force leap, Force healing and a bunch of others. Now, if you scan the articles, most of them still use them as proper nouns, although I've attempted to correct most of them (particularly the stated ones above). In any case, this has really, really been bothering me, and I'd like to get some help on correcting this, but I'm not always willing to take the initiative because 1) I'm not sure if everyone in the community agrees with me and 2) it's just too tiresome and I've been very, very busy lately.

But I really want all these to be actually consistent. It doesn't make sense, for instance, to have Force push and all the others listed written lower-cased when we have Force Scream, Force Weapon, Force Sight, Force Sense, Alter Environment and all the others written upper-cased. It just isn't consistent. Cyfiero 05:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Treat all Force powers as general nouns (with exceptions of ones with unique names)

 * 1) Per my comments above, unless someone can provide a source that says otherwise. By unique names, I also mean including Art of the Small, etc. alongside the ones named Tapas, Malacia, etc. Cyfiero 05:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 2) Master JonathanJedi Council Chambers 07:17, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
 * 3)  Mauser  Comlink 07:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Determine each Force power individually

 * 1) Let canon dictate capitalisation. Use whatever the source says. SoresuMakashi ( Everything I tell you is a lie  the truth  ) 07:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments

 * By the way, if my proposal comes to pass, do you think someone can assign a bot to change all the incorrect capitalizations of Force powers? Cyfiero 05:13, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

To SoresuMakashi

 * The problem with that, though, is that not every source sorts these stuff out. A primary example of this are the Force powers from the KotOR games. Energy Resistance, Breath Control, Force Confusion, are all, of course capitalized as titles when you read their description. But other than that, their names are found no where else. So how can we determine whether they're supposed to be capitalized or not? They're canon alright, but still. A few other Force powers such as burst of speed, Force push, battle meditation, Force camouflage, and mind trick for instance, are present in the KotOR series and written as capitalized but established as lower-case in the dialogues and other official sources. But Force powers such as energy resistance have only been present in a title, and as titles are always capitalized (except on wikis themselves), this can't be accurate. But that's the only instance we can find, so are we going to just say, canon established it as capitalized even if it was in a title and countered by many other instances? Or are we going to make common sense to determine that Force powers are in fact general nouns? Actually, most of the capitalization mistake comes from KotOR(II) itself, I just wanted to point out. I mean, I get what you're saying because there are Force powers such as Tapas or Alchaka and the Art of the Small in which we can't just assume whether it's capitalized or not. But at the same time, I can't just go through every single source only to find either no way of determining the right way of capitalization or that it's lower-cased. I simply don't have that time and resources nor is any other user going to bother doing it, as we can see it has been left uncorrected and unchecked for quite some time. I should probably change this so that instead of automatically counting them as general nouns, it should only refer to the ones with Force as a make-shift prefix. Cyfiero 07:52, 6 June 2009 (UTC)