# Talk:Cobra Crack

Hi Aszx5000, thanks for this article.
In the Trotter quote "you're about 15 to 20 feet about your last piece of gear" - is this a typo from the source? It would make more sense if it was "you're about 15 to 20 feet above your last piece of gear" (Eg)?
If so, use MOS:TYPOFIX "insignificant spelling and typographic errors should simply be silently corrected (for example, correct basicly to basically)" without bothering with sic? (If not, I'm just showing my ignorance of climbing terminology!) JennyOz (talk) 10:35, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Very good sport @JennyOz. That should be "above" but Trotter's quote uses "about".  If have put [above] in to clarify it, and hopefully that works. thanks for that. Aszx5000 (talk) 11:17, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
That looks better, thank you. JennyOz (talk) 11:46, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Why is Cobra Crack written in italics? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:21, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

During the Dreamtime (climb) GA review, it was suggested that the title should be italic per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles of works, so I also applied it to this article for its GA review. Aszx5000 (talk) 19:11, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
What wording there applies to a Climbing route? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:12, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
A climbing route is not a title, therefore no italics seem called for. We don't put other geographic features into italics, why should we make an exception here? Gawaon (talk) 20:33, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
I can't find anything in MOS:TITLE that would apply italics to this article (or to Dreamtime (climb) either). Climbing routes are not works of art or artifice, which is what the guideline is about. Schazjmd (talk) 20:40, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
It is common for the main climbing media to also use italics for the names of climbing routes, such as here with Climbing, the biggest climbing magazine. Aszx5000 (talk) 21:00, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
But nothing in the MOS? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:07, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
The magazine and this project have different styles. For example, Climbing uses title case for headings; Wikipedia uses sentence case. Can you find anything in Wikipedia's manual of style that supports italics for the name of a climbing route? Schazjmd (talk) 21:10, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
Fwiw, here's 3 publications that doesn't use italics for this route:[1][2][3] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:15, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
I can find examples of the use of italic names - and the non-use of italic names - in all the best regarded climbing media (per WP:NCLIMB), although I now see that Climbing (biggest of them all) has become more standardized about using italic titles.
Personally, I don't have strong views either way about italic titles for Wikipedia articles on climbing routes, although it might be useful to distinguish it from any literal translation of the climbing route name, which is what I guess is behind the use of italic?
It is however very helpful to use italic names in the body of climbing articles as otherwise the name might need to be in some kind of quotes (" " or ' '), to avoid a confusing sentence? thanks. Aszx5000 (talk) 12:27, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
Personally, taking this article as example, I see no confusion added by de-italicizing Cobra Crack, it's not any different from other articles on geographical features. What was confusing to me when I saw the DYK (congrats, btw) was that it was italicized. As a WP:OTHERCONTENT comparison, is it confusing that Old Man of the Mountain doesn't italicize the subject name? Or Burma Road (Israel)? In this specific case, however, I think some "Cobra Crack", about 10 in-text non-quotes, should be replaced with "the route" of similar.
All in all, I see no WP-good reason to ignore the MOS in this context (climbing routes). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:54, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
I understand that in the climbing community routes are often italicized, perhaps because they are thought to constitute a work of art, or just for emphasis, but that is not the standard on Wikipedia. See WP:SSF. This has been discussed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting/Archive 5#Italics for names of climbing routes, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 157#Italicization of climbing routes and probably other places, but there has been no consensus for italicization of climbing routes on Wikipedia. SchreiberBike | ⌨  00:40, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
Ping @SMcCandlish who has commented on this before. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 06:53, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
Wow, I didn't realize that this had been a specific discussion point in the past.  See my response above (particularly about being helpful in the body of articles to avoid confusion, or having to use alternative methods). thanks. Aszx5000 (talk) 12:30, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
Capitalization of route names almost always solves that confusion, good writing eliminates the rest. SchreiberBike | ⌨  11:18, 26 August 2024 (UTC)
Don't italicize, per GGS, Gawaon, Schaz, and SB. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:44, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
I was pinged here by Gråbergs Gråa Sång. I have been collecting books about climbing and mountaineering since the 1970s and italicization is inconsistent. For example, Fifty Classic Climbs of North America italicizes names of routes, but books by Pat Ament about rock climbing history do not italicize. A funny quirk is that our article about the book renders route names in bold not italics, while our article about Ament italicizes his routes.It is clear that there is no consensus to italicize route names, either in mountaineering literature or on Wikipedia, so italicization should be discouraged, I suppose. I have no interest in going around unitalicizing or unbolding, though. Cullen328 (talk) 20:23, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
As before, don't italicize. WP has its own style guide, which spells out what purposes italics are used for here, and this is not among them. WP doesn't care at all what some other publication has as their internal house style. We don't follow their house style, they don't follow ours. This is not something near-universally italicized in reliable sources and subject to a published standard to italicize it, as is the case with (e.g.) the scientific bi- and tri-nominals of animal and plant species. WP has no reason at all to make some "magical exception" here and impose italicization to just make a couple of editors happy that they get to inappropriately emphasize something when real-world writers do not consistently do this. Cf. also MOS:SIGCAPS: the principle behind it (do not over-stylize as a form of "signfiication" emphasis) applies to abusing other style than capitalization, be that italics, or colored fonts, or ALL-CAPS, or whatever. Absorb the general MoS principles instead of trying to find loopholes and backdoors to sneak in excessive stylization that does not serve reader interests. The entire gist of MoS is "do not over-stylize", so by default there is no exception to apply; the default is to not do something special stylistically, unless and until it is proven to be a norm across English-language writing, and/or WP has a special need for it for WP-specific purposes. The burdern of proof is always on those who want to specially style something, and that burden has not been met here. Not now, and not the previous times this has come up.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:44, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
Based on the above discussion, I've suggested that WikiProject Climbing changes its Wikipedia:WikiProject Climbing/Article recommendations " Route names should be italicized" at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climbing#Suggesting_a_change_of_WP:WikiProject_Climbing/Article_recommendations. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:12, 26 August 2024 (UTC)