I have a silly question that needs an answer! Whenever you ask someone how well is a company/stock doing they always throw out a %. But is that % consisting of dividends only or capital gain included too?

Here my silly answer:

this really depends on the person or company that calculates/publishes the answer and it should then be stated whether the dividends are included

also f.ex for the indices there are 2 types:

price index (only stock price) versus total return index (including also the dividends)

of course total returns should be the more important number

By default, the % gain should take reference of their current position so I would say excluding dividend yield unless the dividends were reinvested automatically. Usually, total return (capital gain + dividend yield) require separate calculation.