Template talk:Orthography notation

Invitation to comment

This template is not yet approved for general deployment to main space. There is a trial deployment at long s.

This section is to invite any advice, comment, observations or reservations, please. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 21:28, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Links

Linking to three articles doesn't seem user-friendly. A better place to link to is probably International Phonetic Alphabet#Brackets and transcription delimiters which also explains a few more similar conventions, namely {braces}, (parentheses), ⸨double parentheses⸩, ⟦double square brackets⟧, ⫽double slashes⫽, and ⟪double angle brackets⟫. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 23:01, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, that is really helpful.

Most 'ordinary' articles use just use these three, so am I right in believing that your suggestion is that I leave the three 'entry level' notations 'intro' as is but, rather than have three target articles, have just that single target? What I especially like about your idea is that it opens further concepts to visitors if they want to pursue. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:43, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Done. Is that what you had in mind? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:55, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes. How about converting that section into a well-arranged table with the symbols in the first column and their explanation in the second? I am not familiar with Wikipedia's table syntax though. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 00:11, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, which section? Do you mean the wall of text at International Phonetic Alphabet#Brackets and transcription delimiters, or this template? I hope you mean the former! I can do tables but my templatish is terrible. (FYI, the second header row of the Wikipedia desktop editing page has a line beginning Heading ﹀ Format. The last item in that row is a 'wizard' to make a table.) Let's first see what more feedback we get on this template proposal and when that is put to bed, I'll see what reaction I get to changing the IPA article. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:32, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

I meant section International Phonetic Alphabet#Brackets and transcription delimiters. I've converted that with the help of Help:Table. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 10:44, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

So I see, great job. It was clearly worth doing in any case, the article reads better now too. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:34, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Necessity

Why do we have to have this in addition to {{Contains special characters|IPA}}? That template, which was originally at Template:IPA notice until it was merged, already goes one step further than the other options and points to Help:IPA (see Template:Contains special characters#Languages). Someone at the now-deleted Template talk:IPA notice questioned the necessity of the template now that most devices support displaying IPA symbols, and my answer (which I never got around to actually posting) would have been that as much as readers may able to see them now, many of them wouldn't understand them, so the template was useful. So why not either expand the message in {{Contains special characters|IPA}} or make a new template that combines these templates? Cluttering articles with multiple boxes is distracting and seems counterproductive. Nardog (talk) 21:30, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

There might be articles which use the various bracket notations but not necessarily the more esoteric (i.e., non-ASCII) IPA symbols, in which case this template would be more useful than an IPA notice. How common is that situation? No clue, but I like this template in the abstract. That said, where this template is used in conjunction with an IPA notice, I think combining them is a good idea. — Wug·a·po·des​ 22:54, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

My motivation in creating it is to give naive visitors an entry point. How is anybody supposed to know the significance of a construction like ⟨®⟩ unless they already know about graphemes? The notation ⟨x⟩ is used in many articles that have no significant connection to IPA, indeed it is not even a kosher IPA notation. "Contains special characters|IPA" is of no help: again it presupposes knowledge.

If I were looking for a redundant template, it would be "Contains": are there any browsers still in existence that can't render IPA graphemes? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:38, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, let's merge them then. One remaining issue I have, however, is the name. "Linguistics notation" is too broad, as that would include syntax trees, phonological rules, Optimality Theory tableaux, etc. How about "Phonetics notice" or something? Nardog (talk) 00:51, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the name is not ideal. But it is not just about phonetics so that won't do either.

A merger also needs debate: if it is to happen then the obsolescent notice about rendering support would be very secondary. Are you ready for that yet? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 01:00, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by that? The only context I can think of in which this template may be used but that doesn't pertain to phonetics is one that discusses symbols in an orthography but not their phonetic (phonemic) values. But how common is that? Not to mention in such a context / / or [ ] wouldn't be used.

Of course I am. Again, we're already showing {{Contains...}} not for rendering support but for the link to Help:IPA. I don't even think we would have to mention rendering. Nardog (talk) 01:17, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Come to think of it, the vacant "IPA notice" is another option if it's going to link to International Phonetic Alphabet or Help:IPA at all, which both already do. Nardog (talk) 02:07, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

The name {{Contains special characters}} is highly ambiguous because the word "characters" on Wikipedia and elsewhere often refers to Unicode characters that are electronically transmitted "from device to device" using UTF-8 or some other Unicode encoding scheme, hence the above discussion of rendering support. A less ambiguous name like {{Uses expert notation}} might be better suited and prevent such discussions. Whatever its name, the template should accept parameters such as {{Uses expert notation|IPA}}, {{Uses expert notation|graphemics}} or even {{Uses expert notation|IPA|graphemics}}. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 09:25, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Making it possible to hide the mention of either phonetics or graphemics is a good idea, but using such a broad name could open a whole can of worms. I wonder if there's an umbrella term for phonetics, phonology and orthography. Nardog (talk) 10:27, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with the 'can of worms' problem, "expert notation" just exchanges a small can of worms ("linguistics") for a bigger one (I suspect that the chemists and nuclear physicists might object). I don't really mind what we call it, so long as we continue to provide an entry point where visitors who encounter an unfamiliar notation or mark-up can get a clue as to where to go to find out what it means – without getting bogged down in exceptional cases. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:15, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Whether we find a better name for the template or not, how about implementing another parameter that results in a link to List of glossing abbreviations? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 11:37, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

That doesn't really overlap with the articles in which the new template we've been discussing would be used. I think just a good-old hatnote will do for that purpose, just like {{Entomology glossary hatnote}}. Nardog (talk) 11:45, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

The frontrunner in my mind at the moment is "Symbols notice". Nardog (talk) 11:45, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

The Statue of Liberty, the rainbow flag, and the yin and yang symbol are symbols, aren't they? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 11:57, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

True. How about "Phonetics notice" with "Orthography notice" as a wrapper for the former but showing only the note about angle brackets? Nardog (talk) 12:00, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't pursue an debate about it but I kinda like the idea of exposing visitors subliminally to related notations. But to practical about it, that level of template writing is way above my pay grade, so if it is to be done I assume you are volunteering to do it? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:33, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

See Template:Linguistics notation/testcases. "Orthography notice" would be a wrapper for |phonemes=no|phones=no. Nardog (talk) 15:01, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

• (idk the right number to indent so I'm just replying in a new bullet) For the most part, this is a sufficient merger debate. The suggestion (as I understand it) is to add a new function to the template, not change an existing one. That's usually not controversial, and I wouldn't hesitate to implementing the merge based on this discussion. If we don't merge, I'd suggest the name {{Transcription delimiter notice}} which sidesteps the issues of graphemics/phonemics/phonetics that "phonetic notation" has and the syntax tree issue of the broad "Linguistics notation". — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:56, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

  But if we merged them, the main purpose of the template wouldn't be to alert the reader of the delimiters per se but of the IPA and Help:IPA. That said, taking a hint from your suggestion, "Transcription notice" might be a happy medium. Nardog (talk) 15:01, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

A different arrangement needed for the Help:IPA/ articles?

I wonder if the debate above arises from the experiment of using the template at the Help:IPA/ series of articles? It occurs to me that that this more specialist requirement would be better served by a normal-ish hatnote. [The problem with {{hatnote}} is that, depending on platform, it usually renders the delimiters in italic, which we don't want.] Combining the requirements is making the problem more intractable than it needs to be. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:23, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

I was going to bring this up. I think the message of this template (and {{Contains...}}) should be incorporated directly into {{IPA key}}. {{Infobox language}}, {{Infobox writing system}}, etc. also have the same message as {{Contains...}}, so I think the plain text of the message should be a template of its own (perhaps as a subpage of the proposed template) so it can be used in these other templates while maintaining consistency. (The problem with {{hatnote}} is... is a non-issue if you know how to use {{noitalic}}.) Nardog (talk) 12:38, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

That takes us back to the issue that we have two distinct requirements: (a) a very simple introductory box for visitors who are confronted by a new symbolic 'vocabulary' and so needs to be near the top of an article, versus (b) a full-on directory of relevant articles for experienced visitors. Two requirements, two solutions. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 16:22, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by "a full-on directory of relevant articles for experienced visitors"? Not sure if I follow you. I was just suggesting embedding the message of this template onto the {{IPA key}} banner instead of having multiple boxes. Nardog (talk) 15:03, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

{{IPA key}} is an infobar (sic?) that goes at the end of articles, giving a directory of related articles on the subject, organised by major topic. It does that really well. But to add this template to {{IPA key}} would defeat its primary purpose: to give naive visitors an entry point to the notation they are about to encounter. That has to be done near the top of the article (for same reason as we have been doing for years with {{contains special characters}}). By the time they get to {{IPA key}}, IF they even get that far before giving up in confusion, it is too late.

I thought your original idea was to merge with {{contains special characters}}, which at least is already sensibly placed in articles. But, given how different their purposes (explanation v rendering) I struggle to see how they could be reconciled into a single template. I will be very happy to be enlightened. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:27, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

No, {{IPA key}} is this: It goes at the top of IPA keys under Help:IPA/. Don't you think the three boxes at Help:IPA/Standard German are a little excessive? Nardog (talk) 02:47, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Why is "Linguistics" capitalised each time it occurs in {{IPA key}}? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 07:11, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Because this page is named "Template talk:Linguistics notation". Nardog (talk) 07:46, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I see. The wording "on this page" would've been easier for me to understand, but I don't speak English natively, so perhaps it's just me. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 08:23, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

{{IPA key}} isn't intended to be used on any page that's not an IPA key. It just takes the last fragment of the name of whatever page it's on and assumes it to be the name of the relevant language, e.g. "Standard German" in "Help:IPA/Standard German". I've modified the above sample so it's clearer. Nardog (talk) 08:35, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Whoops, I must have typed {{IPA keys}} with an s. My qualified apologies for confusion - qualified because original naming was unfriendly. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:18, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

(I don't know why one wouldn't just click on "IPA key". It's much faster than typing.) Nardog (talk) 19:31, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

(restart indent)
Sorry but I really can't see that as a credible option unless it were made a great deal shorter, in fact comprehensively rewritten – and then it would lose its significant value to the articles for which it was designed. IPA-key as it stands is perfectly fine for the help:IPA/aaaaaaaaa series of articles: it is the right solution for that context. For general articles, is far too big and confrontational, it is addressed at would be editors who may want to change the pronunciation to match local accents. It is not the right solution for other articles that include IPA but are not about IPA, let alone articles about orthography and typography. I really don't get it, clearly I must have misunderstood your intent because this doesn't make sense to me at all. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:34, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

What I was suggesting was incorporating the text of this template and {{Contains...}} into {{IPA key}} so that the pages that already have {{IPA key}} can have just one box instead of three. I'm not advocating for placing {{IPA key}} or a similar template on pages that don't currently have it and I don't know why anyone would because, as you said, it doesn't make sense. Nardog (talk) 19:11, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Ah, ok, that makes a lot more sense, I agree and am happy for you to update IPAkey accordingly (and revert/replace the edits I made to the help:IPA/Axxxxxxxx articles – indeed if you revise the IPAkey template, I will do the reversions myself.

Of course that still leaves us with the need for an 'intro to notation' box on orthography and typography articles, but there are only a few that need it. How does {{orthographics notation}} sound? Does that step on another wasps' nest? --20:43, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

I've never heard of "orthographics" as a discipline. The study of orthography is orthography, just like physics is the study of physics. I think "Orthography notice" will do. If I may be allowed, I prefer to take care of editing {{IPA key}} myself. As I said above, I want to create a subtemplate that consists of plain text so that it can be used in templates like {{IPA key}} and {{Infobox language}}. Nardog (talk) 22:03, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Nor have I, but then again I've learned a lot through this discussion and others have used 'orthographic' as an adjective so I guessed, mistakenly as it turned out, that there was such a noun. I am happy to be corrected and agree with your suggestion change of name.

So, unless there are any objections in the next couple of days, I will change the name to template:Orthography notation. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:56, 4 March 2021 (UTC)

Proposed new name: Orthography notation

Please add any observations or advice about the proposal here. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:27, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Incidentally, the page Orthographics exists and is a redirect to Orthography.

The sense of orthography that is intended here is actually a bit strange, as the word literally only refers to correct writing/spelling (Ancient Gr. όρθος 'straight; correct'). In common European languages such as French, German, or Italian 'correct spelling' is the only meaning the words orthographe; Orthografie; ortografia have. The English ambiguity was one of the reasons I used the word graphemics above, and because orthography seems to be a term that evokes prescriptivist connotations. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 01:35, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I thought so too but the orthography article gives a wider definition that includes letter forms and thus needs a notation to describe them. More in my reply below to Nardog. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:47, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Aren't we talking about something like "linguistic/graphemic notational convention/'realm' identifiers" rather than letter forms, or the glyphic representation of letters in a font or in handwriting? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:30, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Wait, I was under the impression that "Orthographics notation" was a proposed name for a separate template that shows ⟨ ⟩ only and not [ ] or / /. My choices remain "Transcription notice" (as inspired by Wugapodes above) for the merged template and "Orthography notice" for the spin-off template. (I'm not a fan of "notation" either since it'd be pleonastic if we used it alongside "transcription" and "notice" is more descriptive of what the template does.) Nardog (talk) 02:22, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Again, the Orthography article describes how spoken words are transformed into written words, so inevitably articles about orthographic topics are going to need to use phoneme as well as grapheme notations. It costs nothing to add the two most related forms so it is not obvious why you would want to oppose it (and odd, since the target article remains the same IPA one). I suppose we could call it "Graphemic and related notations" but honestly, who are we trying to impress here? It is a mug's game to try to capture meaning in short titles and brevity is valued by most editors (hence templates like {{r}}, {{u}}, {{sc}}, {{tl}} etc. All that is needed is that the name be succinct, memorable and indicative of its content.

Wiktionary defines notation thus

1. The act, process, method, or an instance of representing by a system or set of marks, signs, figures, or characters.
2. A system of characters, symbols, or abbreviated expressions used in an art or science or in mathematics or logic to express technical facts or quantities.

So it is highly appropriate for the box content to use the word 'notation'. The template could be called 'typography notice' but it is not a 'rules of the road' notice like IPA key, it is just an information signpost for naive visitors: it is not about typography. So IMO to call it a 'notice' fails the 'indicative of its content' test (whereas your "Transcription notice" replacement for IPA key passes that test with flying colours). --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:47, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

articles about orthographic topics are going to need to use phoneme as well as grapheme notations But the reverse is not true. A lot of articles about phonetics and phonology don't discuss orthography but could use the new template. "Transcription" avoids that problem as it applies to all of phonetics, phonology, and orthography but is not too broad like "notation" as to encompass unrelated things like syntax trees.

I don't follow you. Are you saying the template is not a notice (but the "Transcription notice" replacement for IPA key—which I honestly don't know what you mean by—is)? I would expect a template named "Orthography notation" to be either a template that itself contains some kind of notation to be used within the bodies of articles, e.g. {{angle bracket}}, or a navigation template about notation as a topic, like {{Linguistics}}. The template is a notice about transcription, and "Transcription notice" would be succinct, memorable and indicative of its content. Nardog (talk) 16:27, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

We seem to excel at cross purposes! I agree completely that the reverse is not true, I don't understand why you would think I did? Maybe it would be best if we record our assumptions to make sure we are on the same wavelength because otherwise we will continue to go round in circles. This is my understanding:

1. "A notice" is a an information and caution-to-editors notice in the form of a very evident header band across articles like help:IPA/xxxxxxxx articles. It is deliberately confrontational because experience has shown that it needs to be so.
2. A "sidebar box" a low-key information box that tells naive users where to find more information before they begin, for example the {{contains special characters}}.
3. It is essential to have "a notice" on articles such as help:IPA/xxxxxxxx articles to discourage 'local accent' modifications. At present, {{IPA key}} does that. I understood you to say that you plan to extend it by adding note about notation, that it is not to encapsulate or contain my proposed template as such but only its message, formatted or worded as you wish. I also understood you to say that you planned to change its name to "Transcription notice", but now it seems not?
4. I consider it appropriate to have a "sidebar box" that tells naive users where to find an explanation of the ⟨ ⟩, | |, / / and [ ] notations that are being 'taken as read' in some articles. I believe that I have explained that it is identically my "Linguistics notation" as it stands today, but with its name changed to "Typography notation" and its first line changed to read This article contains othography notation.

Is that any clearer?

When you say A lot of articles about phonetics and phonology don't discuss orthography but could use the new template, which template do you mean? #3 or #4?

--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 17:56, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

1. No, there is no technical definition of "notice" on Wikipedia. So anything is a notice as long as it's a notice in general English usage. In fact, what is now achieved by {{Contains special characters}} was a separate template called {{IPA notice}} until it was merged last year.
2. I've never heard of a "sidebar box" (there are {{side box}}, which this template and {{Contains...}} use, and {{sidebar}}, which is a different template used by {{Linguistics}} etc. and doesn't appear on mobile, however), but no matter what you call it, that doesn't preclude it from being a notice at the same time. Again, "notice" being a non-technical term, anything can be a notice as long as it's a notice in the general sense.
3. Pages in the Help namespace are not articles; only pages in the main namespace (i.e. those without prefixes like "Talk:", "User:", "Template:", "Help:", etc.) are. {{IPA key}} is not intended to be used in articles, only IPA keys (which are pages in the Help namespace), as the name shows.
   I also understood you to say that you planned to change its name to "Transcription notice" I have no idea where you got that idea. "Phonetics notice", "Symbols notice", and "Transcription notice" have all been ideas for the name of the merged template (i.e. an amalgamation of this template—which is now at Template:Linguistics notation—and {{Contains special characters|IPA}}). "Orthography notice" was an idea for another template that would be essentially a shorthand for {{[whatever the new template would be called]|phones=no|phonemes=no}}. Again, see Template:Linguistics notation/testcases for what that would look like. I don't plan to rename or merge {{IPA key}} at all.
4. I agree it makes sense to clarify the meaning of, and the distinction between, [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩ in articles that have them, but then it would be inappropriate to say "This article contains orthography notation", as only the last (⟨ ⟩) constitutes "orthography notation". The others are phonetic and phonemic notations. What is enclosed within these delimiters is also notation (and is what is more usually referred to when someone says "phonetic" or "phonemic notation" than the delimiters), and is transcription. "Notation" can refer to a wide variety of things, including tables, schematics, etc., whereas "transcription" is narrower.
   This is the first time you mention "Typography notation". Did you mean "Orthography notation"?

As I said, {{IPA key}} is not, should not be, and will not be used in any article. Nardog (talk) 18:43, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

To answer the first question, no, I did not think you would not think the reverse is not true (did I get it right? lol). I just don't understand why you would want to name the template after something only a third of it is about. Nardog (talk) 19:36, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

<edit conflict> First, yes, I meant orthography notation and have gone back and corrected lest it causes any more confusion.

I tried to avoid using terms that have a restricted meaning in Wikipedia. By "notice" I mean a clear statement to editors at the top of article that says "if you intend to edit this article, you must recognise the following". For the same reason, I used "sidebar box" as a generic term because "side box" is the name of a specific template and I didn't want to compound the misunderstanding. This discussion is about principles not details.

Pages in the Help namespace are not articles: yes, this is technically true but if you click on an IPA string – take for example the IPA: [ɛsˈtsɛt] in the opening sentence of ß – you end up in a [[help:]] article, in this case Help:IPA/Standard German. To visitors, your nice distinction is invisible.

Your template merger plan: at least that is one misunderstanding cleared up. There shall be no further reference to {{IPA key}}. I will leave the merger with {{Contains special characters|IPA}} and its contents entirely to your discretion.

I think that you are being excessively purist about orthography. As I said, the Orthography article itself and many of the articles about graphemes refer to phonemes and thus phoneme notation. How is it possible to discuss a letter form without mentioning the sound it is intended to represent? Take Hangul for example: The letters for the five basic consonants reflect the shape of the speech organs used to pronounce them, and they are systematically modified to indicate phonetic features; similarly, the vowel letters are systematically modified for related sounds, making Hangul a featural writing system. Tell me how it is possible to describe a Hangul grapheme without mentioning a phoneme? As I said above, it doesn't cost anything to include three or four notations in the box.

Well again I think that you are 'working to rule' but if it moves us any closer to a conclusion, I will accept This article contains orthographic and related notation.

Are we any further forward? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 20:18, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

I still don't understand where your reluctance to use "notice" is coming from. Yes, a statement to editors is one kind of notice, but by no means is it the only kind, nor is it a term that "ha[s] a restricted meaning in Wikipedia". Until eight months ago, typing {{IPA notice}} would have yielded this:

which is now done by {{Contains special characters|IPA}}. There is also {{IPA-ga notice}}, another side box template that is a notice and bears "notice" in its name. So there are precedents.

Though it may not be for readers, for us editors the distinction between articles and pages is crucial, especially in conversations like this. You can see it could lead, and has led, to a great deal of confusion so I advise you to stop using them interchangeably.

purist about orthography I don't think that's what it is (though LiliCharlie seems to be—could it be the case you mistook his comments for mine?). I am utterly perplexed as to what whether articles about orthography also discuss phonology has to do with any of the conversation we've been having. Of course they do. Why would I think they don't? What I don't understand is: If the whole point of the template is to alert the reader of the meaning of and distinction between the different kinds of brackets, why name it after orthography, which is something only one of the three kinds of brackets (⟨ ⟩) is about? The rest ([ ] and / /) don't have to do with orthography, but with phonetics and phonology.

Using "orthography" would be even more of a strange choice if we merged it with {{Contains...}} not only because the articles that already have the latter template are about phonetics and phonology and seldom discuss orthography, but also because the main purpose of the merged template then would be to alert the reader of the article's use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, which again has little to do with orthography. Nardog (talk) 21:24, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

Come to think of it, this statement is also perplexing: I will leave the merger with {{Contains special characters|IPA}} and its contents entirely to your discretion. If you left the merger and its contents to my discretion, that would be to leave this template (the one currently named "Linguistics notation") to my discretion as well. A merger means a merger, i.e. having one template instead of two. If you meant what you said, then I don't even know why we're debating what to name the new template because you said it was up to me. Nardog (talk) 21:31, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

It is time to close this thread as it is just going round in circles. Your last remark is at best unconstructive. There are two distinct requirements that you continue to try to treat as one: doing so prevents progress being made.

• You want to update {{contains special characters}} to add a note about delimiters and call it a merger: fine, make a proposal at template talk:contains special characters to that effect, not at this this talk page.
• This template is needed at some orthography pages: there is no general requirement that it say anything about rendering IPA. I have responded to your concerns with a changed text and a changed name but you continue to raise the same objections in different ways. At this stage, it just reads to me as wp:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT.

--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:26, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

No, when I said "merge" I meant merge, in the sense defined in Wikipedia:Merging. I don't want to update {{contains special characters}} to add a note about delimiters and I never said I did. A merge between {{Linguistics notation}} and {{Contains special characters|IPA}} means creating a new template that combines the features of both templates and moving away the note about the IPA from the latter template. If I may be frank, most of our misunderstandings seem to stem from your lack of familiarity with what basic terms like "article" and "merge" entail on Wikipedia, or you attributing a site-specific technical meaning to terms like "notice" where there is none. I wouldn't expect a newcomer to possess that knowledge when I interact with them, but I certainly would a veteran with 27K edits and 15 years of site experience. But I've learned I shouldn't.

This template is needed at some orthography pages I never said it's not. But if it's going to mention not just ⟨ ⟩ but also [ ] or / /, it would be nonsensical to call it "Orthography notation" since, again, the latter two have nothing to do with orthography. We can create a separate template that just mentions ⟨ ⟩ and name it after orthography. Nardog (talk) 17:12, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

So here's what I've been proposing from the beginning. Currently, this message shows up when you type {{Contains special characters|IPA}} (this was done by {{IPA notice}} until eight months ago):

And {{Linguistics notation}} shows this:

Since the pages that benefit from these templates overlap, let's combine them into something like this and call it "Template:Transcription notice":

{{Linguistics notation/sandbox}}

Some articles might use only ⟨ ⟩ and not [ ] or / /, so let's create another template like this and call it "Template:Orthography notice":

{{Linguistics notation/sandbox|phones=no|phonemes=no}}

Meanwhile (now we move on to what I've been suggesting since #A different arrangement needed for the Help:IPA/ articles? above), there is {{IPA key}}, which is used in all of the IPA keys in the Help namespace. It looks like this:

Recently, John Maynard Friedman added {{Contains special characters|IPA}} and {{Linguistics notation}} to some IPA keys (see Help:IPA/Standard German for an example). Since having three boxes at the top is a bit unwieldy, let's incorporate the text of "Transcription notice" into {{IPA key}} itself and get rid of the other two boxes, like this:

Get it? What part of my proposal do you not understand or disagree with? Nardog (talk) 17:12, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I had already got it. As I said above, there are two requirements. We seem to have at least agreed that much.

• You have very amply explained the need for improvements to the IPA boxes (bars, sideboxes). I already said that I have no opinion to offer on that aspect, it looks convincing but that one is for you to take forward in another place.
• You have continued to push for removal of phoneme notation from this template. As I have said before and continued to say until I am thoroughly bored with going round and round the same circle, articles about graphemes often need to at least acknowledge the existence of the phoneme that the grapheme represents. What they don't need is all the other baggage. Letting visitors know that there are a few similar notations costs nothing since they all fit easily on one line. I can think of no good reason to hide them. I notice that you don't hide angle-brackets from your proposed revision to IPA key, nor should you.

The angle-bracket notation is not a "representation" of a grapheme. [Unlike IPA, which is indeed a representation into text of a sound]. The angle-brackets are delimiters and the technique of using them is a notation. Yet again

1. (uncountable) The act, process, method, or an instance of representing by a system or set of marks, signs, figures, or characters.
2. (uncountable) A system of characters, symbols, or abbreviated expressions used in an art or science or in mathematics or logic to express technical facts or quantities.

— Wiktionary

In linguistics and semiotics, a notation is a system of graphics or symbols, characters and abbreviated expressions, used (for example) in artistic and scientific disciplines to represent technical facts and quantities by convention. Therefore, a notation is a collection of related symbols that are each given an arbitrary meaning, created to facilitate structured communication within a domain knowledge or field of study.

— Wikipedia

Which part of this reply do you not understand. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:45, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Oh, so our disagreement is just verbiage/semantics. You call the template I've proposed to name "Orthography notice" "this template", whereas I've perceived it as a separate, spin-off template of the one currently named "Linguistics notation", and "Transcription notice" as the move target of this template. The result is the same either way, so I don't care which name this template will be moved to.

You have continued to push for removal of phoneme notation Oh, that's what your beef was about? I honestly had no idea. I haven't pushed it; I have no problem mentioning [ ] and / / in the orthography one. That said, I still fail to see the need for it. Anything enclosed within [ ] or / / is a phonetic transcription in the International Phonetic Alphabet, even if it's in an orthography-related article. So I'd place "Transcription notice", which alerts the reader of the presence of the IPA and Help:IPA, rather than "Orthography notice", as long as there is at least one phonetic transcription in the article. But I wouldn't really care if you placed the orthography one.

I agree with you, the brackets themselves are not representation, but notation. I think "orthographic and related notation" is too broad (I would phrase it more directly, as in "This article uses angle brackets to indicate orthographic representation"), but again, I don't care. Nardog (talk) 21:44, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

This is also neither here nor there, but I disagree with your assertion that what's enclosed in angle brackets is not representation. Orthography is indeed representation, of sound or word. See Logogram and Phonogram (linguistics), which uses the word "represents" to define each term. "Representation" is also the most useful term to use if you want to call attention to the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, since they enclose phonetic, phonemic, and orthographic representation, respectively. "Transcription" desn't work well for the last, and "notation" doesn't work well for the first. Nardog (talk) 21:56, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

For the record, by I don't care which name this template will be moved to I meant "Transcription notice" vs "Orthography notice". I still find "Orthography notation" overly vague as a name for this template and the overlap of its function with {{IPA notice}} problematic. Nardog (talk) 23:50, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Since John Maynard Friedman is intent on keeping this template separate from the notice about phonetics and IPA in general, we no longer need a template that caters to both phonetics/phonology and orthography. So I've decided to create the other template at {{IPA notice}}, where {{Contains special characters|IPA}} was formerly at (which has the advantage of allowing us to see the template instead of a red link when viewing an old revision). Nardog (talk) 23:50, 7 March 2021 (UTC)