Board Thread:Wiki discussion/@comment-18014300-20170619050619/@comment-5088097-20170620203205

Sol Pacificus wrote:

So I couldn't tell by your response whether or not you already understood this, but essentially, the reason why "dynasty" isn't capitalized is because it serves in the same capacity as "period" or "era". With the Renaissance example, if we referred to the Renaissance as the "Renaissance era" or "Renaissance period", we actually do not conventionally capitalize "period" or "era".

The Chicago Manual of Style gives this. It specifies that Victorian era, for example, should be lower-case with "era" while Shang dynasty is treated as an era, not as a political state or division.

If the Shang is being treated as a political state or division, then it would be called the Kingdom of Shang or the Shang Kingdom, and "kingdom" would be capitalized as we do with "republic" in "Republic of India". It would be part of the polity's official name.

I think your response might show confusion that "era" should also be capitalized, but that isn't the convention. I think it's not necessarily illogical to capitalize "era" or not, and it's only a matter of academic convention.

Also, you make a case for "Ptolemaic era" over "Ptolemaic dynasty", and it's not a bad case, but I think we should just wait for Origins's database entry on the regime and base it off of whichever direction they choose since both are equally valid in my opinion.

Side-note, what were you referring to by "Shang Li Dynasty"? There was a Shang dynasty in China, but "Li" is never part of its name. In fact, their family name was Zi. I also do not know of any historical individual named Shang Li.

I don't know, I guess it's more a preference at this point than anything academic. I just think it's aesthetically pleasing to the eye, to say Renaissance Era, rather than Renaissance era. I would also still argue that capitalizing era would imply it's referring to that period of history. Of course, as with the examples of a political state or otherwise, when referring to a country under a rule, we would render it as the Holy Roman Empire (or Byzantine Empire). When referring to a country under a dynastic ruling body, I would still argue that rendering it as Ptolemaic Dynasty, or even better, the Ptolemaic Era would still be grammatically correct. 

So, from what I understand of your reasons, we are not treating it as a political State, wherein, we would capitalize it, as saying, Nazi Germany, or The Kingdom of France because these are/were political regimes. When referring to an era or a dynasty, we are not referring to a political State but rather that period in the country's history. 

That makes sense, and colloquially, it can be redirected as the Ptolemaic era, so if someone had searched on the Wiki using that rendering, they would be redirected to the article. Like how typing Connor on the Wiki redirects to Rathonhakedon. 

Oh, I just made that up to illustrate my argument, I vaguely recalled that there was a Shang dynasty in China, but I just typed Li because I was thinking of a fictional character from Marvel Comics.