25, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

 "Myth of 'Flat Earth' belief"? 

The titling of this article has been difficult, as the "myth" it is about is not about the false idea that the Earth is flat (see Flat Earth), but of whether there was a general belief in that false idea in Europe during the Medieval Period. I invite comment on whether "Myth of 'Flat Earth' belief" would be a better title.  ~  (talk) 

Russell calls it the “modern Flat Earth Error” or just the “Flat Error” in Inventing the Flat Earth (1991). In a 1997 conference he then refers to it as “the myth of the flat earth” (no capitals anywhere). None of these variants convey what the actual error is, and of course the reason Russell doesn’t try is that a literally accurate name would be quite long, something along the lines of “the modern misconception of a medieval European belief in a flat earth”. “Myth of a 'Flat Earth' belief” isn’t horrible, but it’s still not likely to mean anything to someone who doesn’t already know what it’s supposed to mean, in which case we haven’t achieved anything by changing. Russell’s book title works better than any of these other attempts. Something along the lines of “Flat Earth concoction” would give less chance for someone to mistake the article as a description of the belief that the earth is flat, something that has already happened twice in just the call for a capitalization change.   
 Comment: We don't care if Russell likes to overcapitalize in ways that MOS:CAPS doesn't sanction (and the source cited above suggests that there's a "myth of Russell's capitalization" at work here. Heh.) WP has a convention of not capitalizing such labels, even for universally accepted theories.  "Modern flat earth error" is a good start toward settling on a WP article title that makes sense. This article is about a modern belief about pre-modern belief in a flat earth. How do we address that most clearly? Two previously mentioned possibilities were "Modern misconception of prevailing Middle Ages' belief in a flat Earth" (which has a possessive usage error), and "Modern misconception of prevailing belief in a flat Earth in history".  I think I'd go with: '' (with precisely that capitalization; see above RM, which can and should proceed in the interim to comply with WP:MOSCAPS, since this "what should this  be titled" discussion could drag out for who knows how long, if it ever gets resolved).  —  ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09: