Talk:Marty Saybrooke

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Susan Haskell

Call it a personal preference if you will, but I really think there ought to be at least one picture of Susan Haskell on this page if we're going to have the unfortunate Christina Chambers on there. I'd do it myself if I knew how. What say you, Wikipedia?--Jbt1138 (talk) 12:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll put in in myself if you can find a decent screen capture; they are preferred over publicity photos, which are considered replaceable because they're owned by individual photographers. — TAnthony^Talk 16:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I found something serviceable, give me a few minutes ... — TAnthony^Talk 17:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I long felt that we needed a picture of her. But I couldn't find a good one the first and only time I searched for one a little while ago, so I delayed getting one. Anyway, now that we have a picture of her, all this article needs now is expansion. By expansion, I mean a Character creation section, a Cultural impact section, etc., things like that. I'll do all of that one day. She has notable impact, just like Todd Manning, and I won't repeat too much of what is already in Todd's article. Flyer22 (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, NOW we can swap the pictures out to put Susan on top? :) She's confirmed returning. Jbt1138 (talk) 03:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Picture

I realize this is obnoxious to ask since I have no capping skills of my own, but is there any chance we can find a more recent shot of Marty from 2008? The one we've got is a bit grainy and looks to date back to the 90s. Jbt1138 (talk)

LOL, that image was indeed from the 90s, I put it in while Chambers was still in the role ... but as you can see, I've just uploaded a new one from yesterday's episode. — TAnthony^Talk 23:01, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Some pictures from 90s do not look too dated, mostly pictures from the late 1990s do not, though. The 1990s Marty picture TAnthony had up there was from the early 1990s and did indeed look dated, and not just because Susan Haskell has aged, but rather due to how the film looks dated from back then. I mean, really, she hardly looks any different.

I like that vintage picture of Marty, but given that Haskell is now back in this role and we have more recent images of her as Marty, it only seems logical and fair to use one of those most recent images. TAnthony has picked out a good picture of her (both times). Flyer22 (talk) 06:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks ... I think the problem with that 90s image was just that it wasn't super clear; I had grabbed it from a YouTube video, the quality of which was questionable.— TAnthony^Talk 16:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tabula Rasa

Two things: One, I felt this part of the storyline was too crucial and incendiary to not warrant its own specific section (incidentally, for anyone who does not know "tabula rasa" means "clean slate"). Secondly, on a personal level the Todd and Marty "romance" utterly disgusts me. Therefore, I have tried to write about it here as clinically as possible for Wiki purposes; I do not want to make it seem reasonable, but I also do not want to get called out for editorializing. I hope others feel I have found a reasonable medium that draws attention to Todd's actions while also showing Marty's feelings "in the moment." I would much rather have it explicitly stated that Todd has raped Marty a second time, but I think we'd be in for an edit war on that. Jbt1138 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 15:54, 8 November 2008 (UTC).[reply]

Age

So...Marty is 33 with a 17+ year old son, eh? I have a feeling that the rape, in soap time, was probably about 20 years ago. It makes no sense to calculate Marty's age as 33. It's a silly estimation. —The Real One Returns (talk) 22:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The rape happened in '93 and she was in college; the age is just about right, it's the rapid-aging of Cole that makes it weird. Technically, Cole couldn't have been born before 1997 when Haskell first left the show. But all we can do is go by the "facts" as they are presented to us. — TAnthony^Talk 07:43, 8 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, the show recently said that Marty was 18 at the time she was raped by Todd in college (they had John McBain state that, and I doubt that they had him state that for nothing). Unless they changed the year of the rape (which happened in 1993 in real time), then she is 33.

I just clarified this retcon in the infobox, for people who might not read the references. Flyer22 (talk) 22:28, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In addition, not too long before that, as TAnthony also knows, the show stated that Todd was age 20 back when he and Marty had sex (consensual sex, of course) in college (which was 1992 or 1993, though I'm currently going with 1992). Flyer22 (talk) 22:32, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think citing Marty's age as thirty-three is a bit inane. If she's thirty-three, then that means she was fifteen when her eighteen year old son was born. Which means that Cole would have already been born when a college age Marty was introduced in 1992. We all know that isn't true. The episode that specifically cited her birth date as being June 1968 IMO is more noteworthy than the passing comment John McBain made about her being 18 when Todd raped her, because it was more specific. John's comment was ambiguous and vague. Furthermore, I also think that the Wiki-retcon of Todd's age on his article is silly as well. During the storyline revealing him to be Victor Lord's son, he was specifically noted as having been born in January 1970.

IMO, taking vague comments about how old characters supposedly were during past storylines and applying it to the year the storyline happened, and trying to deduce an answer from it tends to be futile. Unless they specifically say what year the event happened in their universe. Soaps tend to be indistinct with timelines. In real time Marty was raped in 1993. For all we know, in the OLTL universe, it could have been the late 1980s. I say Marty’s age should be reverted back to the previous June 1968 date. Just makes more sense overall. NineElevenSevenNine (talk) 04:37, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As we all know, ages get changed back and forth all the time, kids are rapidly aged, etc. I think the 1968 and John's comment are equally "reliable," but a prop guy presumably decided on the resume date, whereas the writers came up with John's line. And putting her birthdate at 1968 means she was a 25-year-old college student when she was raped.

However, I don't think we can factor Cole's age in at all. As I noted above, if you're going to go by real world dates, he had to have been born after 1997, which means he couldn't be 17 at the moment. Obviously, the character was created and aged to meet Starr and create the conflict. SORAS is a unique situation that screws up any realistic timeline, so there are plenty of other characters on the show like Jessica and even Starr whose ages don't quite fit. I think I'd rather just strike the age altogether rather than have original research and speculation which will never be correct anyway.— TAnthony^Talk 06:02, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I just boldly removed the age altogether; the various "facts" we have in the case really do contradict each other and rely on original research and editor speculation.

I am thinking that ages for most adult characters are basically irrelevant; they are only trivial in purpose, years of birth and ages are rarely noted onscreen (intentionally, I'm sure), and the SORASing of their kids renders age meaningless. I would say the only case where some clarification might be helpful is the case of some SORASed characters themselves. Starr for example; the casual reader might note in the article that the character was born onscreen in 1996 and be confused that she is in high school and not 13. The show has obviously established her age as 17 so the story makes sense (and rendering the 1996 birthdate inaccurate). Same for Cole, who is 17 and yet couldn't have been born before 1997. As the SORASED characters reach their 20s and 30s, are recast, and have their own kids, the age discrepancy is less obvious and problematic, and can even "catch up." — TAnthony^Talk 06:59, 2 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As for saying, "Soaps tend to be indistinct with timelines. In real time Marty was raped in 1993. For all we know, in the OLTL universe, it could have been the late 1980s," I disagree with that. Soap operas often acknowledge years. It was definitely stated that back then it was 1993, just as at the dance Starr and other teenagers attended today, it was shown to be 2009 with a banner. I find it inane to say that mentioning Marty's real/original age is inane...when it's clearly just as inane to consider Cole as 18 this year (as TAnthony has wonderfully pointed out).

I do not feel that it's original research or speculation whatsoever to state Marty's real/original age (she will be 34 in June of this year), seeing as the show recently went out of its way to mention it and Todd's age without any regard to Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome (SORAS). But I'll concur with Marty's age not being mentioned in this article (for now, anyway); it's all kinds of screwed up, as we know. And while Todd's age is a little off due to Starr's current age, I am not as willing to remove his age from his article. Soap opera fans are obviously aware of SORAS, and some of them obviously need to stop taking soap opera ages so seriously. Flyer22 (talk) 22:42, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also want to say that I have no problem with thinking that someone could be 24 or 25 in college. I mean, some people are that age in college, but Marty certainly was not either of those ages in college. She was fresh out of high school. However, I would go with the retcon of Marty being 24 or 25 in college when Todd raped her...if not for Todd's current age of 37 (which I do not want to currently change or remove from his article). I doubt that Marty was/is a few years (or any years) older than Todd.

And in regards to Marty being 15 when she gave birth to Cole and us knowing that "that isn't true," I point out that we all know it's not true that Todd and Blair had Starr in 1992 either (but given Starr's current age, we are supposed to pretend that that's the case). It's the same in pretending that Marty had Cole at age 15 or at some other time before 1997. Flyer22 (talk) 00:54, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A section about this

In case I or anyone else ever decides to add Marty's 30-something age back to this article, I would suggest creating a well-sourced section about this character's age and SORAS to help readers better understand this matter, sort of like the Kendall Hart Slater section about age and SORAS does, and why soap opera ages should especially not be taken seriously. Flyer22 (talk) 01:05, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Improper comma usage

As seen here, here and here, Cebr1979 is insisting on improper comma usage in the lead. In a different discussion, that this type of comma usage is wrong was explained to him, including by SMcCandlish. Despite this, he is still using these types of commas in Wikipedia articles. SMcCandlish, do you mind explaining to Cebr1979 why this type of comma format should not be used? As you've seen, Cebr1979 and I are like oil and water when it comes to interacting. While, in the past, you and I have disagreed, and have had heated words at one point, it never became the case that we could hardly interact with each other. If you take the time to weigh in on this, and Cebr1979 still does not listen, I will start a WP:RfC on it and/or take the matter to WP:ANI; I am significantly tired of Cebr1979's disruptive behavior. Flyer22 (talk) 21:48, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That comma insertion is incorrect, according to all grammar and usage guides for English. A construction like "Marty Saybrooke is a fictional character from the American daytime drama, One Life to Live..." implies there is only one American daytime drama in existence, or that a previous sentence has already identified which one we're talking about. Most grammar books illustrate usage with an example about offspring, and it's helpful to do so here: "Her son, James, is a pilot" means there is only one son, and the ", James," interpolation is an optional parenthetical insertion (an appositive, featuring non-defining additional information); "Her son is a pilot" can stand alone as a complete and accurate statement. "Her son James is a pilot" indicates she has two or more sons, and the disambiguation between them is required for the statement to be complete (or an alternative that is intentionally vague can be used, e.g. "One of her sons (I don't know which) is a pilot." If "James" were omitted from the second example, we'd have "Her son is a pilot" in a circumstance in which there are two or more sons, begging the questions "which one, and why aren't you saying which one?" If there are two+ sons, naming James is not an appositive parenthetical, but defining. (Among other possible ways to define, e.g. "Her eldest son is a pilot".) Failure to internalize this rule of English is among the most common punctuation errors, and probably the second most common one to do with commas (after omitting them after "However", "Therefore", "In 2015" and similar sentence-introduction clauses).

More details ...

The variation with the comma can be used in cases where there are two or more possible qualifying things to which it can apply, but only when the preceding material has already indicated we're only talking about one of them, and has already identified it in some way. E.g., to return to the previous material, it could read something like "Marty Saybrooke is a fictional character from a daytime drama. The drama, One Life to Live, is an American production ..." This would be crappy writing in this case, but grammatical.

A construction like this is sometimes preferable. For example: "Ann O. Nymous has written 17 short stories, a novel, and two plays. The novel, The Unlightable Being of Bareness, won the Scooby-Doo Mystery Prize in 2016." In a completely different construction, we'd write "Ann O. Nymous is the author of the novel The Unlightable Being of Bareness." We'd never, ever write "Ann O. Nymous is the author of the novel, The Unlightable Being of Bareness", unless a previous sentence had said something about a novel to which this clearly refers, e.g., "Only one South African work won the Scooby-Doo Mystery Prize in 2016. Ann O. Nymous is the author of the novel, The Unlightable Being of Bareness." And, yes, that's still crappy writing. Basically, the comma construction for one-of-many, when used after previously clarifying material, is not used except when it would be more awkward to avoid it, and this is usually when the preceding material includes the one thing we want to talk about in a list of other things we don't [yet], as in the "17 short stories, a novel, and two plays" list.

If it's still unclear, see any major style guide like Oxford Style Manual (a.k.a. The Oxford Guide to Style a.k.a. New Hart's Rules), or The Chicago Manual of Style, on appositive treatment of non-essential words/phrases, versus restrictive use of defining words/phrases. If it's still not clear, consider the difference between "visiting her brother, who lives in Zimbabwe" and "visiting her bother who lives in Zimbabwe". The first indicates there is only one brother, the latter that there are two or more brothers (then change "brother" to "mother" to see why it matters; unless the subject came from some science-fictional lab for gene splicing, she only has one actual mother, so the comma-free construction would be irrational).

I rewrote the lead sentence to avoid putting two different links back-to-back (easily mistaken for a single link), and it moots the particular comma-usage cases, though I found more (see below). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 13:53, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Where did you learn English? "Her son, James, is a pilot" means there is only one son" is just not true! There could easily still be another son, Mike, who is a teacher.Cebr1979 (talk) 23:30, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No, then it would be "Her son James is a pilot". See Apposition and, well, every English style and grammar guide every published in the history of the language. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 21:54, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And if you don't weigh in on it, I will start a WP:RfC on it and/or take the matter to WP:ANI anyway. Flyer22 (talk) 21:50, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Taken to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Adding commas to "the [so and so] show" type of sentence. A WP:Permalink for it is here. If a WP:RfC is still needed to settle this after that discussion, I'll start one there. Flyer22 (talk) 04:32, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For now, I won't participate in that discussion, but restrict my commentary to article talk space, and to general English-language usage as externally sourceable. But I'm hardly the only person on WP to understand proper comma usage, so me not personally weighing in over there is not likely to matter much. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 13:53, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed a double case of the same error here:

Old: Marty was conceived as a short-term role. The series had just scripted the death of character Megan Gordon Harrison (Jessica Tuck), by the life-threatening disease, lupus.
Fixed: Marty was conceived as a short-term role. The series had just scripted the death of character Megan Gordon Harrison (Jessica Tuck) from the life-threatening disease lupus.

The first of these commas is just unnecessary, the second is outright wrong, and implies that there is only one one life-threatening illness. Also, people die from diseases not by them, as a matter of conventional English usage. They die by external causes (death by blunt-force trauma, by car crash, etc.) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 14:15, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That supposed "fix" of yours is just not right. There is a comma needed between "disease" and "lupus." This is just how the English language is. A comma needs to be before the name. Ex:

Jim had supper with his parents, Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
This is my dog, Bingo.
Phyllis Summers is a fictional character from the American CBS daytime soap opera, The Young and the Restless.
The series had just scripted the death of Megan Gordon Harrison from the life-threatening disease, lupus.

Cebr1979 (talk) 00:38, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

SMcCandlish, thanks for weighing in. Since others still have not yet weighed in at the guideline talk page, and since you've explained the grammatical aspects so well, I'd say that, despite you hardly being "the only person on WP to understand proper comma usage," your absence at that guideline talk page regarding this issue does matter much. Considering that you are one of the few editors to take the time to thoroughly help out in the way you have above, it should not be surprising that anyone calls on you to help. I'll note at the guideline talk page that you helped out on this matter. Even after what you stated above, Cebr1979 re-added the incorrect comma usage to the Phyllis Summers article, and I reverted again. So it seems he does want me to escalate this minor dispute to WP:ANI. I also thank you for helping out with other parts of the Marty Saybrooke article. Flyer22 (talk) 20:42, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Flyer, as I've told you numerous times now... You do whatever it is you need to do.Cebr1979 (talk) 00:41, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and the WP:SEAOFBLUE issue is an issue I commonly worry about as well. Flyer22 (talk) 20:51, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I responded to you guys here. I also fixed the Sharon Newman page. Oh, and Flyer22: Don't you ever tell me what to do.Cebr1979 (talk) 23:28, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I made the issue moot at the other article by rewriting its lead in the same way, rearranging it to avoid a "river of blue" (I think that's a good term for strings of unseparated links in a row :-), along with some other lead cleanup. I doubt this will address the underlying problem of certain editors continuing to add this incorrect comma, but so it goes. PS: I would recommend avoiding ANI on the issue at least for now, and let the other discussion play out. ANI tends to be a hostile kangaroo court when it comes to matters like this, and often just devolves into a editor popularity contest. @Cebr1979: "Lighten up, Francis." Everyone tells everyone what to do on WP. LOL. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:35, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

SMcCandlish, regarding Cebr1979's behavior, I will hold off on WP:ANI right now, but it looks like this matter will still have to go there. Cebr1979 is almost always unable to see when he's wrong, and he is almost always unwilling to acknowledge when he's wrong. Take, for example, this exchange he recently had with Liz, when, at his talk page, she was trying to explain to him that images can be reverted (under certain circumstances anyway). Skimming down and looking at the history of File:Victoria Newman.png, one can see the revert options. Before that image's previous files were deleted, one could indeed revert to a previous version of that file. Cebr1979 must have realized his mistake soon afterward, and deleted the discussion from his talk page.

Thanks for this and this edit, which obviously avoid Cebr1979's incorrect comma usage. Flyer22 (talk) 04:29, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Flyer22: Now, now, Flyer! If I've told you once, I've told you a bajillion times: get your facts straight before you try and discredit me with a bunch of untrue statements. Anyone can easily look up and see that you are wrong. I was not wrong, Liz was. That's a fact. Users Arre 9 and Livelikemusic had to re-upload the photos because reverting is useless. It does nothing. I'm also not wrong about the commas.Cebr1979 (talk) 06:09, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Don't care about your inter-personal bickering, or your history with Liz or with images; it's nothing to do with this page or with the usage point. You're demonstrably wrong about comma usage, as pretty much every other English-language user understands, and as any English-language guide book will explain to you. If you persist in doing provably non-standard things with punctuation against multi-editor opposition, Flyer22 is right: a noticeboard will eventually require you to stop.

I've already gone over the Oxford material on this, above, but just so there can be no further doubt in your mind, here's The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). University of Chicago Press. 2010. ISBN 978-0-226-10420-1:

Details...

Chapter "Appositives: 5.21. Appositives defined; use", p. 208: "Commas frame an appositive noun or noun phrase unless it is restrictive—for example, compare Robert Burns, the poet, wrote many songs about women named Mary. (poet is a nonrestrictive appositive noun) with the poet Robert Burns wrote many songs about women named Mary (Robert Burns restricts poet by precisely identifying which poet). A restrictive appositive cannot be removed from a sentence without obscuring the identity of the word or phrase that the appositive relates to. See also 6.22.}} [Definition elided; our own article Appositive covers it. Also, I'm using WP's {{xt}} example text markup template here, for clarity; the original uses block indentation.] Sections 6.22–6.23, on pp. 314–315, cover restrictive and nonrestricitve clauses in more detail, including the difference in usage of (and comma usage with) that (or who/whom/whose) versus which, as well as providing more general advice, which is in agreement with any other style guide you care to examine (I own most of them, so I can do this all day, or could if I didn't have better things to do than correct the same error with 30 different takes on the exact same punctuation rule).

I'll quote some more from this source: "A word, abbreviation, phrase, or clause that is in apposition to a noun (i.e., provides an explanatory equivalent) is normally set off by commas if it is nonrestrictive—that is, if it can be omitted without obscuring the identity of the noun to which it refers. K. Lester's only collection of poems, An Apocryphal Miscellany, first appeared as a series of mimeographs. • This year's poet laureate, K. Lester, spoke first. • Ursula's husband, Jan, is also a writer. • Ursula's son, Clifford, had been a student of Norman Maclean's. (Ursula has only one son.)"

It continues: "If, however, the word or phrase is restrictive—that is, provides essential information about the noun (or nouns) to which it refers—no commas should appear. O'Neill's play The Hairy Ape was being revived. (O'Neill wrote a number of plays.) • The renowned poet and historian K. Lester scheduled a six-city tour for April. • Caligula's sister Drusilla has been the subject of much speculation. (Caligula had more than one sister.)"

Given that both Oxford and Chicago – the world's two leading style guides – agree on this, it is clear that Marty Saybrooke is a fictional character from the American soap opera, One Life to Live cannot possibly be correct on either side of the Atlantic, for the obvious reason that there is more than one American soap opera (just as Caligula had more than one sister, and O'Neill had more than one play, in the Chicago examples above). Although Marty Saybrooke is a fictional character from an American soap opera, One Life to Live (note change of the to an) would be correct, one probably would not introduce an article this way (in any publication) except in the odd case in which the character were important but the show somehow were not (e.g. if there were a wiki devoted to an actor, with an article on every character he/she ever portrayed, even in shows that never made it past the pilot stage).

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 15:20, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dude, if you don't care about something, don't comment on it. Plain and simple. You also need to stop with your long and drawn-out half-quotes! "Ursula's son, Clifford, had been a student of Norman Maclean's. Her other son, Mike, studied art." There's some perfect English for ya!Cebr1979 (talk) 08:43, 20 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Cebr, they're direct quotations from the cited source. I have no idea what your issue is, but I'm hardly going to falsify quoted citations to keep you happy. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 21:32, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

SMcCandlish ☺: You really need to look up proper comma usage, as you are so totally wrong about everything. You stating "A construction like "Marty Saybrooke is a fictional character from the American daytime drama, One Life to Live..." implies there is only one American daytime drama in existence, or that a previous sentence has already identified which one we're talking about." is absolute BS and implies nothing of the sort. I'm going to continue on with making my correct edits and completely disregard this nonsense conversation you took part it. You've offered nothing but your own nonsensical ways of wanting things done.Cebr1979 (talk) 12:11, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We've been over this many times before. No one agrees with you, not on WP, and not in off-WP style guides. It's time for you to drop this and move on. I've sourced this to authoritative grammar guides, and you have nothing backing you up on this. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 15:43, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Cebr1979. Here's the thing: all of us who are native speakers of some language, English in this case, feel that we have an innate sense of what is right and what is wrong in that language, and are therefore qualified to rule on what is grammatical, and what is not, from a very gut or core feeling inside of us. Some things are just "obviously" wrong or "obviously" right, even if we can't name the "rule" about it. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about; you have that feeling, I have that feeling, everybody has that feeling, and it really grates sometimes when someone disagrees with us on some point. Linguists actually have a name for this concept, it's called "native competence" or linguistic competence and figures large in some of Chomsky's theories about primary language acquisition.

Now, it seems clear to me that on insisting on the "correctness" of the comma you wish to use, you are relying on your "native competence"—that is, you feel like you don't "need" a rule to support you, it's just "obviously correct"; please correct me if I'm wrong about that. That's a very powerful, innate feeling inside which is hard to dislodge; it's as if someone told you the sky is orange, there's just no point arguing about it, unless you want to redefine orange. Am I correct in assuming you're feeling something like this?

There are a couple of different points to talk about here. First, "English" is not just one thing with one set of rules, there are different rules about words and grammar in different countries, and to some extent, even within countries (e.g., double modals in the American South). Which is correct: "She's in the hospital" or "She's in hospital"? The answer depends chiefly upon whether you're in the U.K. or U.S. (If you're in the States and you doubt that, consider why "She's in church" goes one way, and "She's in the hospital" goes the other.)

So far, so good; what I'm trying to do here, is to see if you can accept that there are some rules about English which are regionally correct— they work in one place, but not in another. English Wikipedia actually has to deal with this all the time, you've probably seen articles which use British English or American English for one reason or another. Either choice is normally okay, as long as the usage is consistent within one article, and not flitting back and forth; so it's either "color" or "colour" in one article, but not both.

Secondly, whereas things like spelling, syntax, and other aspects of grammar have somewhat strong national ties and are independent of any one publisher or source, the situation with punctuation is quite different. Use of punctuation is considered for the most part a stylistic component of writing and not one of grammatical usage; punctuation doesn't affect spoken language, after all, and humans spoke for thousands of years before writing was invented. Different publishers have historically provided their own style guides for authors. There are many style guides within each country, and to get published in the very highly respected New Yorker magazine you'd better spell it coöperate and reënter and you'd better respect their use of serial comma (a.k.a. the Oxford comma) as well, even though most equally well respected publishers disagree with them on many points and publish their own style guides.

As with color/colour, you can argue till you're blue in the face about which one is "right", but in the end, which spelling to use or whether to use a comma or not (in some cases, but not all) comes down more to a question of arbitrary choice and internal consistency, i.e., picking one set of rules, and sticking with it. This is very much the case with Wikipedia in English, and there are Wikipedia style guides and policies about this sort of question.

With respect to your stylistic comma preference, there are other, stronger factors in play here imho, but for the time being will you concede the point at least that in cases where there are multiple sets of rules that might apply, in order to avoid chaos and to present some kind of consistent appearance within an article, we should stick to one set of English grammar and style rules? If so, and if the article is already written in one national language variety (or the other) then guidelines militate for the retention of that variety when making additions or changes to the article. This would imply that the comma changes your are making are inadvisable, not because they are inherently "wrong" but because they violate Wikipedia guidelines about consistency within articles written in English. Just like driving on the left side of the road or on the right, we don't insist here on "our way" of doing things being universally correct, we mainly require that everybody do it the same way in a given place and follow existing convention.

Can you agree to that much? What I'm asking you is, can you agree to leave existing articles alone with respect to your preferred comma style for the sake of internal article consistency, and restrict your preferred usage to new articles that you create, or to articles which already predominantly use your preferred style? What do you think? Can you drive on the left around here, for everybody's peace of mind? ;-) Mathglot (talk) 21:29, 3 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mathglot, thanks for weighing in.  SMcCandlish has discussed, or tried to discuss, grammatical matters more than once with Cebr1979. You can check Cebr1979's talk page history for the details. I see that you also left him a message on his talk page about the above dispute. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:10, 6 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, which I only meant it as a friendly heads-up, but I guess it's a (minor?) faux pas to address someone here, and notify them on their talk page as well for the same thing, and if so, I apologize to Cebr1979 for the double notice. I hope he comes back to respond to my comments above. On the plus side (I always try to look for the plus side) while some might say that nobody cares about grammar or punctuation anymore, look at all the words that have been spent here arguing about some commas! I see that as a good thing, even if there's a disagreement about it at the moment—hopefully to be resolved in due course—because at least folks care enough about it to engage. Mathglot (talk) 04:46, 6 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How Cebr1979 feels about language matters is a topic for that editor's talk page; it's off-topic with regard to the Marty Saybrooke article, as is further debate about how commas are used in English generally or on WP in particular. For the former, Cebr1979 can try to change Comma#Uses in English, with reliable sources (and will fail, because they do not support his position); for the latter, he can try to get consensus at WT:MOS to change the Manual of Style (and will fail, for the same reason). What Cebr1079 wants to do with commas here is not "regionally correct" in any dialect, and is not accepted in any field's jargonistic English either (medical English, business English, etc.). It's just that editor's personal idiolect, combined with a stubborn refusal to listen to anyone else, abide by consensus, or admit failure to prove and convince, and an assumption that his version is obviously correct (i.e. everyone else is stupid). All the hallmarks of the Dunning–Kruger effect running at full capacity. If Cebr1979 keeps editing to insert incorrect comma usage, just take him to WP:ANI to put a stop to the disruption. We cannot have a discussion like this on the talk page of every article he tries to insert his non-standard punctuation into, or a single editor could grind WP to a halt simply by making an afternoon's worth of comma alterations in a long string of articles. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 16:49, 6 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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