Forum:Policy in regard to the use of capitals for titles of production staffers

I was wondering where we stand in regard to the use of capitals for titles of production staffers. For example do we use "Visual Effects Supervisor" or "visual effects supervisor". It should be noted that the majority of the background resource material use the capitalized version as do the rollings of titles at the end of the feature films and tv shows and seems to be the more commonly accepted convention...Do we have a policy on this?--Sennim (talk) 13:28, June 29, 2012 (UTC)


 * I've looked into this in the past (see here), and it's not yet decided here. Since the majority of professionally-published writings about Star Trek use the lower-case method (therefore seeming to be the actually more commonly accepted convention), however, I would suggest using that. --Defiant (talk) 13:37, June 29, 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this, though I do not necessarily subscribe to your conclusion. While Cinefantastique does indeed uses the lower case option, Cinefex, American Cinematographer, Star Trek The Magazine, Star Trek Communicator (both uses), Star Trek Monthly, DS9 Companion and the various "making-of" books from Pocket Books consistently use the upper case variation, leading me to conclude the opposite of what you derived at, so I guess the jury is still out on this one--Sennim (talk) 14:33, June 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, you seem to have come up with a completely different conclusion than I have, as I remember finding that most of the magazines use the lower-case version. I'll endeavor to look again, though it may take quite a while.... --Defiant (talk) 14:40, June 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * I think it may be worth analyzing, more in-depth, how each of the above publications use lower and/or upper case, so I'll start with . A few of the early issues of that publication I have use upper-case (such as in issues 107 & 108), though they mostly use lower-case (with the magazine seemingly having changed to this format by issue #109, which describes Herman Zimmerman as a "production designer" and Michael Okuda as a "technical consultant", for example). --Defiant (talk) 15:31, June 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * The only copy of American Cinematographer I have (i.e., the April 1995, issue) also uses lower-case, describing John Knoll as a "visual effects supervisor" and John Goodson as a "model supervisor" (pp. 78 & 79), for example. --Defiant (talk) 15:36, June 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * also consistently seems to have used lower-case. Examples range from Robert Justman describing Edward K. Milkis as a "post-production supervisor" in (p. 11) and Steven Carabatsos being described as a "story editor" in  (p. 83), to Andre Bormanis being called a "scientific consultant" in  (p. 60) and "executive producer Brannon Braga [...] [and] writer and producer Michael Piller" in  (p. 9). --Defiant (talk) 15:57, June 29, 2012 (UTC)

Cinematographer and Cinefex (checked 2 of each), lowercase instead of upper, was wrong in that respect, so my bad. Communicator 105, lower case, 121 upper case, so mixed there. Star Trek Monthly 31 uppercase. Star Trek Official Fan Club 78 uppercase. Making of First Contact and Insurrection uppercase as well as DS9 Companion, uppercased. The Magazine checked a couple of those, lowercase, was wrong on that account as well (memory is apparently not what it used to be). I'm toning down my assertion to, "it's rather a mixed bunch"--Sennim (talk) 16:03, June 29, 2012 (UTC)

By the by, don't get me wrong though I didn't bring up the point to go to "battle" over this, I'm perfectly happy to go lowercase..It's just that it confuses the heck out of me sometimes when writing up my pieces while referencing--Sennim (talk) 16:12, June 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I suspected that your motives weren't just to "battle", my friend. :) I likewise get muddled up, using the upper-case method. Is there a community consensus for this? Do we have to decide on one specific format for the entire site, or can it be left up to each writer? --Defiant (talk) 16:32, June 29, 2012 (UTC)
 * Consistency is good, so I'd suggest we choose to use one or the other. You guys seem to have a good grasp on the literature out there to date, so come to a decision, back it up, and I'm sure that we can agree on that. -- sulfur (talk) 16:54, June 29, 2012 (UTC)


 * [edit conflict] - It might be best to follow this (see Titles - Personal). "Captain Kirk" gets a capital, while talking about a "captain" doesn't. If it's preceding a name, capital, if not, lowercase unless it's being used for that persons name. Oh, by the way, edit conflicts are broken. - 16:55, June 29, 2012 (UTC)

I actually like Duke's suggestion, it ties in with the use of ranks in the in-universe writings, so my preference would be uppercase when used in front of a proper name (or if used in citations)--Sennim (talk) 17:02, June 29, 2012 (UTC)


 * I like that way best, too. It keeps things consistent, both in-universe and real-world. -- Renegade54 (talk) 19:53, June 29, 2012 (UTC)


 * Well, it's actually the first method I ever considered (as can be seen by the talk page entry I linked to above). I'm more-or-less happy to go with this, as it also fits the method of most of the reference books and seems to be the consensus. However, my main problem with this method is that stating things like "[...] was created by Writer Brannon Braga" or "This episode was helmed by Director Jonathan Frakes" look weird! Even sources that usually use upper-case (such as ) don't use upper-case lettering for these specific titles. I'm sure there are more; it seems that, if we adopt the upper-case format, we're going to have to be more distinct about exactly which cases it can be used in, whereas the lower-case can be used for all production titles. --Defiant (talk) 20:25, June 29, 2012 (UTC)

That was something I've noticed also...My solution would be: first time use fully capitalized; lowercased, and if possible, abbreviated further down the article in question...for example, "Visual Effects Supervisor Gary Hutzel" while further down the article "effects supervisor Hutzel"--Sennim (talk) 20:34, June 29, 2012 (UTC)