Talk:Internet/Archive 8

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Should we keep capitalizing the word "internet" as a proper noun (Internet) in running prose? Popcornfud (talk) 17:26, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Pinging another previously involved editor, kbrose, as previous ping didn't work. Popcornfud (talk) 09:40, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Pinging another editor involved in previous discussion: Daveoh. Popcornfud (talk) 22:18, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

@Popcornfud: - it might also make sense to ping some of the editors who were involved in the discussion about the potential deletion (AfD) of the Capitalization of the Internet page, such as @AleatoryPonderings:, @Alvestrand:, @Station1:, @SD0001:, @Dicklyon:, and @Tercer:. Perhaps some of them may want to weigh in on this RfC - Dyork (talk) 00:58, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

• Lowercase. Reason #1: WP:MOSCAPS says: Only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia. This has not been the case with "internet" for several years. Sources: New York Times, the Verge, Associated Press.

Reason #2: The distinction between the global internet and smaller internets is now rarely recognised. Sources: Wired, New York Times. We write Earth and earth because this distinction is present in the majority of sources; this isn't the case with Internet and internet. Popcornfud (talk) 17:26, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

• The problem, of course, is that this is just a guideline, and your interpretation of it here conflicts with a policy. The lower-casing of the Internet as the internet is primarily a news-journalism style quirk, and WP:NOT#NEWS policy is very clear: "Wikipedia is not written in news style." I.e., where news style conflicts with more precise writing, MOS:CAPS basically is forbidden to include it as part of the frequency analysis. Second, no, we do not write "earth" and "Earth" in different contexts because the majority of sources draw the distinction (it simply is not true that they do; "earth" predominates). We write "Earth" in a specifically astronomical context because the distinction is important in that context. This is the exact same kind of case. The average journalist and news reader has no idea what "an internet" is (and is certainly in no position to lecture on the matter; NYT simply isn't a reliable source on computer jargon, especially when its reason for attempting to turn pundit on this is to defend a change in its own internal house style). But Wikipedia does know what an internet is and that it is not synonymous with the Internet, which is a proper name whether newswriters understand that or not. They are different topics, so this is not a style matter, it's a factual matter. By way of direct comparison, Internet Protocol (in reference to the primary protocol that the Internet, most internets, and most local-area networks operate on) is also a proper name, while "an Internet protocol", in reference to any protocol used by the Internet, such as UDP, is not a proper-noun phrase (proper name), but is not the same subject. Whether you or news publications you like understand the difference is irrelevant; the difference objectively exists. Whether you'd like to take the lower-case style that belongs on one topic and apply it to the other or vice versa is irrelevant; it remains, and remains only, a demonstrable error. PS: Wired is not a reliable source on style matters, either. Their own attempt at a style guide (Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age – self-serving promotionalism of their own in-house writing style, just as with NYT's widely ignored The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage) was excoriated by professional writers and reviewers (even after revision), sold very poorly even when it was recent, and the project was abandoned over 20 years ago (1999).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:09, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• Lowercase – since sources and guides are about equally split on this, the guidance of MOS:CAPS to avoid unnecessary capitalization should be followed. The cap-I Internet is a great thing, but as the internet it's no less great. Dicklyon (talk) 19:35, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
• Lowercase as per the discussion above above. Despite how technical evidence such as W3C RfCs etc capitalise internet (which themselves are user-generated content and therefore not reliable), we're an encyclopedia for the everyday. Anyways, I actually think that the majority of reliable sources would instead use lowercase as per The New York Times' style guide, The Associated Press', The Verge's, Chicago Style, and Monash. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 23:09, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

  And don't forget the Guardian, BBC, the Telegraph and Reuters! In fact I've yet to find an online news source with a publicly accessible style guide that uses uppercase, and I've been looking. Popcornfud (talk) 23:19, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

• Lowercase: Usage has changed. Wikipedia should follow. It's surprisingly hard to define exactly what a proper noun is around the edges, so we follow other sources and most sources are now using lowercase. SchreiberBike | ⌨  23:29, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
• Uppercase (do not change) - I'm still in the "leave it uppercase" camp for all the reasons I've cited previously on this talk page related to the proper noun form (i.e. "Earth" vs "earth", "Moon" vs "moon"). When we talk about the global, public Internet I still believe it should be capitalized versus an internetworked set of networks ("internet"). (See also long discussion on Talk:Capitalization_of_Internet.) - Dyork (talk) 00:33, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
• Leave it as-is There's still a useful differentiation betw. lower and upper case Internet/internet and the distinction (still) matters. Jessamyn (talk) 00:37, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
• Uppercase (for proper-noun use) – As I've stated before, I believe there is value in differentiating the proper-noun Internet. Immediately before the MOS:CAPS excerpt cited above is the phrase "In English, capitalization is primarily needed for proper names...". The article linked in that MOS sentence says:

  A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity, such as London, Jupiter, Sarah, or Microsoft, as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (city, planet, person, corporation) and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class (a city, another planet, these persons, our corporation).

  In the same way that "World Wide Web" ("commonly known as the Web", per the article) is used to refer to the global hypertext-based information system, "the Internet" refers to a single global entity, and I believe it should be capitalized, since it is being used as a proper noun. I would also point out that Wikipedia's aversion to capitalization, while a perfectly valid stylistic choice, is not shared universally. The sources cited above are accurate, but I don't see nearly enough evidence that they constitute "a majority" of reliable sources. This particular question is a tough one to answer, too, since what's really needed is some case-sensitive statistics, and search engines are, by and large, annoyingly case-insensitive. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 20:09, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

  UncleBubba, might I suggest you look at the guidelines again? You write: I don't see nearly enough evidence that they constitute "a majority" of reliable sources, but MOS:CAPS requires that a majority of sources do capitalize the word for us to follow suit, not that a majority of sources don't. In other words, unless a substantial majority of sources capitalize internet, we shouldn't either. Popcornfud (talk) 20:14, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

  UncleBubba I've struggled with the definition of a proper noun and I think internet fits into the same category as ground, atmosphere or environment. Following our definition "A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity", it seems like those things could be proper nouns, but obviously we never capitalize them. SchreiberBike | ⌨  20:24, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

  I'm sorry, but I disagree. Proper nouns have a pretty specific definition. You can bury Cousin Joe in the cold, hard earth, but the Earth orbits the Sun. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 22:47, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

  The point is that "internet" was once a proper noun and now isn't, as evidenced by sources above. Telephone and Television were both also once proper nouns and capped accordingly... and now ain't. Popcornfud (talk) 20:28, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

  As evidenced by the sources above, the sources above no longer treat it as such, but they are, by far, not the only ones. The term "proper noun" has a specific definition, and by the fact that there can be many internets (I help maintain one), but only one "global Internet" attests to that fact. And I've looked at the guidelines again, and they say the same thing they said when I looked at them the first time. ;-) But seriously, this is a request for comments, and I've commented. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 22:47, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

• Lowercase - Per the OP, there is an increasing tendency for it to be lowercased as evidenced in the style guides etc cited. There is also evidence of this n-gram also showing this trend (noting that n-gram searches do not distinguish usage in prose from headings and captions etc and consequently give an inflated result for capitalisation). A proper noun referes to a single entity but not necessarily a unique entity (there are many "Will Smith"s), as opposed to a class of entities and a common noun may also refer to specific instance through the definite article. The distinction has more nuance than the simplistic arguments being made that capitalisation of a common noun ipso facto makes it a proper noun (and that it is capitalised because it refers to something specific but also takes the definite article). The MOS resolves this by looking to the sources and the evidence indicates that "internet" no longer meets the threshold of being consistently capitalised. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:28, 7 September 2020 (UTC)
• Uppercase - per Uncle Bubba but also Vint Cerf: The editors at AP fail to understand history and technology,” Cerf told Politico on Wednesday (June 1). His beef is that there has always been a line between the public internet and a private internet that has no connection to the outside world, although it shares the same TCP/IP protocols. This, he warns, is simply daft. “By lowercasing you create confusion between the two and that’s a mistake,” he wrote.^[1]. The Internet is the global network, the capital I distinguishes it from other networks of more limited reach. Wwwhatsup (talk) 06:28, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

  A distinction that is now so far out of common use almost no one knows about it. Popcornfud (talk) 08:46, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

@Popcornfud: Hey, this is a Request for Comments. That means that a question is posed and interested users comment on it. It is not very WP:CIVIL for you to argue with nearly every one with which you don't agree (e.g. "now so far out of common use almost no one knows about it", "might I suggest you look at the guidelines again"). Please don't do that. People's opinions are valid, even if they differ from yours. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 23:01, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Vint is a friend of mine and I respect his opinion and his experience. On the other hand, he's not a Wikipedian and is not expected to interpret how MOS:CAPS applies to this situation. We don't need to assess the extent to which caps distinguish different uses of the term; rather, we need to assess the extent to which sources treat this as a proper noun when referring to the global capped Internet. They mostly don't, and it's not our job to lead in that direction. Dicklyon (talk) 03:58, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

• Neutral - To search for lower vs. upper case, consider Google's n-gram viewer. Of course, it has its issues: it only covers books; it is a few years behind; one would need to do some footwork to omit sentence-initial uses. Still, it could be informative. Kdammers (talk) 09:49, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

I have done the n-gram search already (see above). Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:19, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

PS: The Quarts article of 2016 quoted above in defence of upper case is even more interesting. It gives the data collected by the Oxford dictionary and basically reviews the matter of capitalising "internet" and as at 2016, it was close to 50:50. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 23:36, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Just as a comment with Google Ngrams, it might not be that useful since it doesn't give context. We don't know which internet sources are talking about. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 11:35, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• Uppercase - per User:UncleBubba and User:Wwwhatsup. --Coolcaesar (talk) 11:51, 9 September 2020 (UTC)
• Lowercase. People used to capitalize "telephone" and "phonograph" when they were new. Internet is no different, and given how many style guides now support de-capitalizing it, I don't see why we shouldn't. JOEBRO64 13:09, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

That is either a flat lie or convenient ignorance. None of the telecommunication literature of the first 100 years of telephone technology use a proper noun for the telephone, only in advertising specific telephone models are the names properly capitalized. And I don't think that is all that different for the audio and radio industry. kbrose (talk) 21:04, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

• lowercase. As discussed at Capitalization of Internet, the main style guides switched from upper to lower a few years ago. We should follow (and move articles to conform to the change, as needed). UnitedStatesian (talk) 06:30, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

• Uppercase - per Vint Cerf. Alvestrand (talk) 08:33, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

• Uppercase - per fucking Harald Alvestrand. An authority good writing. --50.201.195.170 (talk) 03:15, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

• Uppercase - not only has it been the standard for decades, but for a good reason. The industry still uses the common noun internet in many technical discussion of internetworking technology. So does Wikipedia. Many articles rely on the distinction between an internet and the Internet. In articles, such as internet protocol suite it is distinguished that the technology discussed refers to any internet, not just the Internet, and the internet layer is the layer that facilitates internetworking. It is not called that because it forms just the Internet. Now, I prefer that those terms should be used as proper nouns as well, because they are the proper names for what they stand for, and should always be capitalized to avoid confusion, but the lower-case-zealots of WP have managed to wipe that out against better-knowledgeable technical editors, and we had to revert many of these mistakes for protocol names. This should not not also be extended to the Internet, because many articles depend on or benefit from the distinction. Surely, it may not make much difference for the masses reading a newspaper, but technical literature such as an encyclopedia should be more accurate, just like WP still capitalizes Moon for the satellite of Earth. What general language style guides prefer is simply irrelevant here. Notable book publishers, such as Simon and Schuster and Random House, on the NYT Best Sellers List still have capitalized Internet, as recently as in the last few months, even weeks. kbrose (talk) 21:04, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Please be a bit more civil when talking about other editors, and be careful not to assume ownership of an article because of your technical abilities. Also, Wikipedia is for the everyday, not for technical audiences (I'd be somewhat concerned if a backend engineer was using WP to find out what the internet is). Also, the Random House style guide (as part of Bloomsbury) has used lowercase internet since 2016. ItsPugle (please ping on reply) 00:44, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

• lowercase this is the correct form because although there used to be multiple Internets, now these are very rare and called by other names. The internet is no longer a proper name, and should therefore be lowercase. --Investigatory (talk) 10:59, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
• Lowercase “Internet” and “internet” are now synonymous. There is no longer a need to differentiate between the two. Networking professionals now use many different terms to describe interconnected computer networks of various scales such as local-area and wide-area networks; I personally haven’t read or heard anyone refer to “an internet” in well over a decade. CThomas³ (talk) 17:54, 26 September 2020 (UTC)
• Uppercase when commonly used as a proper noun. There are uses for the lowercase instance, but they are specialized. Elizium23 (talk) 22:03, 27 September 2020 (UTC)
• Uppercase It's a proper noun... ~ HAL333 03:09, 29 September 2020 (UTC)
• Uppercase per UncleBubba et al - Proper noun. No different to World Wide Web. –Davey2010^Talk 20:15, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
• Upper case, obviously. The fact that various news publishers do not understand this is a proper name is irrelevant. WP knows better, and is not written in news style as a matter of clear formal policy. Lower-case "internet" is a word, but it is a different word. "An internet" is synonymous with "a wide-area network" (i.e., any network-of-networks, using any protocols). The Internet is the singular global WAN operating over TCP/IP and related protocols. We've had this discussion many, many, many times before and the answer never changes, because reality has not changed. PS: If you do a Google Scholar search on "the Internet", you find that capitalized usage dominates (even in journals that are not about computer science or telecommunications). Journals use a register of English much, much closer to encyclopedic writing than news writing. PPS: Lower-casing this also has implications for other topics, e.g. Internet of Things, which is also taken to be a proper name, but which would then need to be rendered "internet of things", despite that not even being the majority using in newswriting. It's more important for WP to follow consistent naming principles (that's why WP:AT is a policy not a guideline or essay) than to ape any particular offline publisher or set of publishers (e.g. American newspapers, which are not even internally consistent, giving "internet" then "Internet of Things" despite the latter being a subset of the former).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:50, 26 October 2020 (UTC); expanded 16:03, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  SMcCandlish, I am surprised that you have bigged up the WP:NICKNAMETHE policy at the discussion on wrestling names and yet disregard WP:MOSCAPS here. We can't have a policy that says only to uppercase terms that are "consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources" and then ignore it when we simply disagree with those sources.

  And this is the Associated Press we're talking about, not some bunch of halfwits who don't know what computers are. The sources cited above show that AP et al understand the logic behind the capitalisation and the historic distinction between types of internet. Language usage changes, and this is a well documented example of it. Popcornfud (talk) 13:59, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  I don't know what "bigged up" means. Anyway, see my more detailed post above. The problem here is that LC fans are engaging in two fallacies simultaneously: they do not understand that this involves a policy, which by definition has more weight than a guideline (and I note that you incorrectly refer to MOS:NICKNAMETHE as a "policy" when it is a guideline). That policy, WP:NOT#NEWS, forces us to discount news-style writing when it conflicts with more precise English. That is, the MoS analysis of what the vast majority of sources are doing with regard to capitalization of something can only take into account sources that are actually permissible for that analysis. (Similarly, we also ignore blogs and forums, because they are not valid sources at all, while here a news style guide simply isn't reliable as a style source when it comes to how to write in a completely different register of English). Second, they are confusing two different topics (the Internet, and an internet), trying to say that a style good for one is good for the other. It's not much different from saying that Chicago Bears should be moved to "Chicago bears" because "bear" is usually lower-case. Next, no one said AP Stylebook was written by "halfwits". It's simply a news-style guide for news-style writing, and has nothing to tell us whatsoever about encyclopedic writing, especially about technical topics where precision matters in an encyclopedia, but generally does not in newswriting, the central goal of which is expediency (both in production and consumption), not precision, clarity, or accuracy.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:19, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  "Big up" just means "vouch for" or "speak up for", etc. :-) Popcornfud (talk) 14:32, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  Ah so! I'm apparently deficient in my absorption of Jamaicanisms.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:56, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• Uppercase This is not a deeply technical article about the workings of the technology (the most is the IP transport layer section and even then that's very lightweight relative to the details). Thus this should be considered an article for a general purpose audience, and to that end, we should judge the styling based on mainstream sources over academic ones, which here appears to use capital I Internet. The terminology section should explain the lowercase form. On a more technical article such as discussing the details of IPv4, then that's where a lowercase version may be more appropriate. --Masem (t) 14:45, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  I'm a bit confused by this. The sources above show that material written for a general (non-academic) audiences tend to use lowercase, not uppercase. Have you got this the right way round? Popcornfud (talk) 14:54, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  Its basically the argument kbrose puts. There are multiple "internets" that any of the technical details like IPv4 would be appropriate to discussion using lower-case terminology, but this article is framed around "the" capital-I Internet, the one that most of the public and media talk about all the time. Now, whether media style guides conflict on that, that is a fair question but I feel that most still favor the capitalized version, and this also works in favor to distinguish the global instance of one internet, compared to the general principle of any internet. --Masem (t) 16:43, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• Lowercase. As Dicklyon aptly pointed out above, style guides are split on this, so we should default to lowercase per MOS:CAPS. Most of the opposition to the move seems to be based upon original research. You can't call it a proper noun, for example, when a vast majority of independent, reliable sources do not. Also, because one user has been canvassing with non-neutral messages explicitly mentioning WP:NOTNEWS I should point out that NOTNEWS does not actually say anything about using journalistic style guides to shape our decisions. News organizations are in fact reliable sources per WP:RS. -- Calidum 15:10, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  My notices are studiously neutral. This "canvassing" complaint is about the same as: 'I want to move HIV/AIDS to "HIV/Aids" because lots of journalists like to write it as "Aids" and pretend it's not an acronym; some of them even specify this spelling in their style guides. However, I don't want my preference in this regard or my "follow news style" rationale for it to be examined by anyone with a medical, scientific, or linguistic background. So if you neutrally notify WPP Medicine, WPP AIDS, WPP Microbiology, WPP Viruses, WPP English Language, or MoS talk, I'm going to accuse you of canvassing.' 👎  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:45, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  What do you think about people who pretend laser is not an acronym? You're placing too much value on specialist perspectives for what is a completely everyday word. Popcornfud (talk) 23:08, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  As the primary author of WP:Specialized-style fallacy, I beg to differ. There are contexts in which specialized terminology or orthography matters and is appropriate, namely when it does not conflict with the expectations of the average reader and thereby confuse them, when it is not near-impenetrable jargon, and when it is a more precise and accurate usage. This is one of the reasons we have so many medical and other scientific targets at precise terminology that isn't what's most common in newspaper (e.g. influenza and myocardial infarction instead of "flu" and "heart attack"). The most obvious case, of course, is about 90% of what's in MOS:NUM. It adheres closely to various international standards for unit symbols, date formats, spacing of measures from units, etc., etc. Very little of it bears any resemblance to the random mishmash of styles advocated by various journalistic style guides. Anyway, there are no competent readers of English who are not familiar with the fact that "the Internet" is often capitalized. There is no confusion potential in that. But there is confusion potential in lower-casing it and failing to distinguish between the Internet as a singular proper name, and internets as common noun. As for laser, scuba, radar, and similar terms, they have been re-assimilated into English as words; most people do not even realize they are (or originated as) acronyms. So they are not comparable cases. When every single dictionary of English gives them in those lower-case spellings, and few ever mention forms like LASER other than as obsolete or in etymology, then the lower-case forms are a norm, and no one is pretending or advocating anything. But I challenge you to find any reputable dictionary that does not give both "Internet" and "internet" as valid forms for the Internet. While you're looking for one, how much would you like to wager that you'll find some some of the larger ones drawing the distinction, and giving internet as a count noun referring to internetworks/WANs generally?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:30, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

  I'm a little concerned about the canvassing too. Editors of articles about computing are more likely to be sensitive about the distinction between types of internet. The point is that the distinction is now so rarely recognised as to be unimportant, at least when writing for a general audience. Popcornfud (talk) 15:20, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  These are all pockets of editors who are apt to be concerned about this topic and the outcome of this, and who are likely to have an informed opinion. The notices were neutral. So, see the definition of WP:CANVASSING, and note also that notifying relevant wikiprojects of RfCs is standard operating procedure. I also notified WPP Linguistics, WPP English (who may have input on the proper-vs.-common-noun question, and other usage matters), and two relevant MoS pages (one topically pertinent, and one apt to be affected by the outcome, since many of its line items do not follow "norms" from news style guides). As for NOTNEWS "does not actually say anything about using journalistic style guides": It cannot be clearer that WP is not written in news style. Obviously the source of news style is news style guides. No one and nothing is forbidding you from considering such style guides in helping formulate a decision, but the fact that this policy exists and says what it does is central to this discussion, and is a fact that many participants here have clearly been in the dark about. (That's not a fault of theirs, of course; WP is awash in policies and guidelines, and no one can memorize all of them. But in this specific discussion, that specific policy matters.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:53, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• Uppercase for reasons already stated. If this makes readers wonder why we distinguish between the Internet and an internet, we are advancing our mission to inform and educate. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:53, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Uppercase Google n-grams was mentioned above, and it clearly shows <Internet> as about 80% more common than <internet> as of 2019. <internet> is in fact becoming more common over time, but we have no way of knowing whether the trend will continue, and WP does not predict the future. If and when <internet> becomes more common, we can switch. This is different from the case of <the web> vs. <the Web>, where lowercase became more common in 2013. compare Internet:internet, the Internet:the internet, the Web:the web. --Macrakis (talk) 21:13, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

  Though that's another case to examine, along most of the same lines as raised here, because the Web is a proper name for a singular system, while web in lower-case (and web- as an LC combining form, as in website and webserver) refers more generically to technologies that are also used for intranets, including ones totally firewalled from the Web and the Internet. As with Internet/internet, the Web/web split is a distinction that both can be observed in careful and topically educated writing, and which has been written about by off-site sources. If sources that rely on AP Stylebook and other news style guides could be eliminated from n-grams, it is not clear that the web would in fact be more common (though just web would be). The adjective web (e.g. "web browser") is almost always lower-case, and has been since the late 1990s. There's very little that can have that adjective that cannot apply to http, HTML, etc. on intranets as well as on the Web. An arguable exception is "Web hosting company/provider", and you'll find that capitalized more often than "webserver" or "web browser", because plenty of people understand the difference.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:48, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• Uppercase Just as we distinguish between the moons of Saturn and the Moon that revolves around the Earth, and between (hypothetical) multiple parallel universes and the Universe, we should distinguish between multiple internets and the Internet. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 21:49, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
• Uppercase when doing formal training in this topic we were taught to use the Internet as upper case. But use as an adjective, eg internet protocol can be lower case. Use with lower case i is rare, and would be talking about a private network. This would be where academic and formal use by experts is "I". But ignorant people (probably including journalists) use "i". Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:55, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
• Uppercase - Editors of technical articles here don't seem have trouble distinguishing the Internet from a private internet or internet-related thingy. ~Kvng (talk) 12:46, 29 October 2020 (UTC)
• Uppercase per MOS:CAPS and WP:PROPERNAME, when used as a proper noun. I believe (per discussion above) that "substantial majority" of reliable sources use capitalisation. (Summoned by bot) Politrukki (talk) 14:19, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

At what point do we conclude this RfC? This RfC has now been open for over two months. By my count, the number of editors who have clearly expressed an opinion above are:

• 10 to change to using *lowercase* "internet"
• 19 to continue current practice of using *uppercase* "Internet"
• 1 neutral

That would suggest to me to continue the current practice of capitalizing "Internet" in text.

Are we ready to conclude this RfC? - Dyork (talk) 20:34, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

There's clearly no consensus to move to lowercase any time soon, so closing the RfC looks sane to me. Looks like Wikipedia will remain the last major online resource to use uppercase, to our embarrassment. Popcornfud (talk) 20:47, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

• Lowercase per NYT and the other RSes listed above, and the clear ngrams trend . Lev¡vich 06:01, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
• Lowercase, per Levivich, OP and others. I think that using uppercase is swimming against the tide. Laterthanyouthink (talk) 05:06, 20 November 2020 (UTC)