that the more "hardened" and "experienced" reviewers and writers here
There's a lot of us? *shot repeatedly*
Now, we agreed that the "Bulbapedia Method" was not going to be an acceptable name for the first method, but nobody else could come up with one that works.
Canon method. The reason why is because the argument in support of this method is usually that it's the way it's done in canon.
Alternate that I personally use: meta method -- because it's done from a meta perspective. (As in, it's unlikely that people
within the Pokémon universe would capitalize things like "pikachu" if it's not being used as a name; the only reason why it's done in canon material is because everything is under a copyright or trademark. Capitalizing things like that is just a means of denoting what would be special items or creatures to readers or players beyond the fourth wall.)
As a side note, yes, I've noticed the discussions on Serebii about the names for these kinds of things, and all I can say for advice is that usually, you'll want to dig a little deeper when it comes to names. Not to be biting or anything, but sometimes, you really can find a pretty simple name just by asking yourself why the method exists in the first place, not where it's found or who came up with it. I, for one, have been calling this method the meta method for years because it was the best way to describe it without getting too wordy.
To answer the question, I personally use a variation of the fourth. All Pokémon-related words and phrases, for the most part, get a lowercase letter if they're not being used as names. For example: it's Ash's pikachu, but it's named Pikachu. Ash is a pokémon trainer who goes to gyms to earn badges.
The exceptions (besides species names being used as words) are these:
1. Moves are always capitalized for the most part if they're actually being used as moves. This is because the ones that are actually being used as moves are considered, in my fic universes, to be the names of techniques -- sets of smaller moves that are bundled into one particular action. For example, if a Pokémon bites something, they're just using their teeth in a pretty straightforward manner. If a Pokémon
uses Bite, they charge their teeth with Dark-type energy to deal damage or simply bite down harder than they would normally, depending on the Pokémon and circumstances. A tackle is just a Pokémon jumping on an opponent; a Tackle is the Pokémon bracing itself first, followed by putting a good amount of energy into the leap and throwing all of its body weight into the opponent to knock it down. So, basically, context-dependent meta method at work here.
1a. The same logic goes to special abilities, like Static and Blaze.
2. Special items also get capitalized due to being the names of particular items. Example: Brendan might own a pokénav and the Red Orb. "Red Orb" is the name of the particular item; pokénav is just the name of that type of item.
3. Names of particular places in general, due to being proper nouns. For example, the Mauville City Pokémon Center is completely capitalized because it's actually the name of that particular place. I could also say that Mauville City
has a pokémon center or that the characters are
at the pokémon center, and these wouldn't be capitalized because I'm referring to the place by what it
is, not by its name.
4. Outside of fanfiction, I capitalize almost everything for the sake of not having to explain why I'm not capitalizing those words. Certain things I get away with, however. For example, I never capitalize things like "badge" or "gym."
But beyond that, yeah, pretty much everything that serves as a common noun isn't capitalized in my writing because it just makes grammatical sense to me. I've considered going back to the meta method (or a variation thereof) because of the number of times I've had to explain my capitalization methods to someone who's only seen the meta method or to people who have something against Farla on FFNet for one reason or another. (Yes, that last comment is relevant.)
Beyond that, I'm going to have to ask if you're aware of how restrictive these four categories are. Not to be biting or anything. (I know that came off as rude, but I just can't really phrase it any other way.) I'm just saying there's actually a lot of different variations on these four groups and that capitalization methods in this fandom, from what I've observed through years of reading fic, seems more like a spectrum than something that can be grouped into four neat categories. There's, of course, the two opposite ends of the spectrum (the meta/canon method and the common noun method), but there's a lot of people who do a variety of different things in between. I've seen people who capitalize only Pokémon names and moves, people who don't capitalize anything but certain items, people who don't capitalize types (e.g., Pikachu is an electric-type Pokémon, Pidgey is a normal/flying-type) or species (e.g., Pikachu is the mouse Pokémon, Bidoof is the plump mouse Pokémon, et cetera) but capitalize everything else... and, of course, yours truly, who just uses a crapload of different rules for no apparent reason besides it made sense at the time. None of these are incorrect, of course, so long as they're consistent, so I'm thinking that maybe there's no real categories when it comes to this kind of subject besides the two extremes.
Anyone else's thoughts?