Template talk:Sic/Archive 1

Archive 1

Add parameter for nature of unusual matter?

Resolved

 – "|hide=" parameter makes this moot.

This is a very useful template. Sometimes it's been necessary, or at least seemed a good idea, to specify just what the element is that might be mistakenly thought to be a transcription error, like "duplication sic" and "punctuation sic" and "formatting sic". Think we could add an optional parameter for this purpose? -- Antaeus Feldspar 05:18, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I would love the above. It would be handy if an editor comment could show up on hovering over "sic". DCDuring 14:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The new |hide= parameter makes this issue moot, since the "unusual" material in question can be surrounded with this tag now. If it is somehow felt that it is important to specify whether it is spelling, punctuation, or whatever, the |reason= parameter can be added to any template which, like this one, does not reserve that for something special, and this will act as a comment-to-editors in the source code. PS: Popup tooltip code does not consistently work across browsers (many simply show the link that the text points to intead). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Template doesn't work well within cite templates

Resolved

 – "|nolink=" feature added to address this.

My first encounter with this template was with a web article title with a misspelling, which I was formatting with a cite web template. I attempted to do something like

{{cite web
   |url = http://spelmeister.com
   |title = I Kan't Spel!{{sic}}
   |accessdate = 2007-05-26
 }}

...and wound up with some weird funk where the "external link" pointer wound up within the brackets of [sic] .

This looks like it would work correctly if the <nowiki> protection of the brackets in the template were still there. Is there any reason why these were removed?--NapoliRoma 01:01, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I tried solving this by copying the contents of the current sic template in place and adding nowikis around the brackets. Didn't solve it. There appears to be an inherent limitation into how much formatting one can do within a cite web template.--NapoliRoma 01:18, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This isn't inherent to {{cite web}}, it's because you try to put an internal link ([[sic]]) into an external link, which isn't possible. Ms2ger (talk) 13:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Someone introduced the |nolink= feature to get around this problem and it seems to work fine. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

People use the wrong sic notation

Resolved

 – PEBKAC.

People often use things like [sic] instead of this template. That's okay, except that it has no external internal oops link. If, like me, you use wikEd (see the Gadgets section of your prefs), you can use this regex to find misuses:

[^A-Za-z0-9{-]+sic[^A-Za-z0-9}-]+

It won't find the following:

1. Basically (surrounded by at least one letter on at least one side)
2. 51C (written in numbers)
3. 0,1,2,4sic (surrounded by at least one number on at least one side)
4. <!--sic--> or <!--sic --> (but it will find <!-- sic -->, unfortunatly) (surrounded by at least one dash on at least one side)
5. {{sic}} (surrounded by at least one curly brace on at least one side)
6. The like (anything like the above. If you can read regexes, you should be able to figure out anything else that won't be detected. The regex article has syntax info for POSIX, which I think this is...)

I hope this helps. --Thinboy00 @902, i.e. 20:38, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Those who want an internal link can write [''[[sic]]''] to produce [sic]. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:19, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, this is not a problem with the template. Anyone is free to use a typing-aid template or to ignore it and format things manually. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:59, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

New features

Maybe I've tried to do too much with one template (see history and doc sub-page). Feedback is more than welcome. — CharlotteWebb 16:52, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Invisible version requested

Resolved

 – Implemented as requested, and documented.

I'd love to have a version of this template which was visible to editors but not to readers. I regularly trawl through WP, using AWB, to look for and correct "could of done", "was been considered" and similar phrases. A hard core of these are in quotes, song titles, etc. In the context in which they appear, "[sic]" would look unduly pedantic, and I wouldn't like to have it appear to the reader. But a template which editors could use, to label a word or phrase as "yes, this is the spelling/grammar used here, don't change it" would be great. It's a very neat idea to be able to split up an errant word, as in the "concensus" example, to make it invisible to search tools. Any chance of a version of {{sic}} with a "noshow" option? Or is there an existing template which does the same already? PamD (talk) 22:57, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

If you mean "visible to editors editing the article", one could use an html comment: <!-- sic -->. Or do you mean anonymous editors vs. logged in users? —EncMstr (talk) 23:12, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I meant visible to people editing the article. I'd like something as short and snappy to type as {{sic}} - I can never remember the codes for a comment, and using the button bar needs a bit of mousework. Perhaps I'll start to do that, nonetheless. Thanks. PamD (talk) 20:49, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok I put a hide option in. The idea that the "sic"'d text is inside the template, for two reasons.

1. Shows what is being sic'd e.g. Tab la doat - you "sic" all three "words".
2. What's inside templates is ignored by WP:AWB typo fixers.

Rich Farmbrough, 23:00 24 August 2008 (GMT).

Why superscript?

In WP, superscript phrases are tags, not part of our intended text. This should be inline, which it looks like can be done by removing the ^and tags from the source code. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:27, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

We also superscript reference citations and various other things. "Tags" is just shorthand for "templates", and this is an inline template. The inline templates (see WP:ILT) that indicate some kind of editorial commentary of any kind are in fact superscripted, quite consistently. The ones that are not are generally substitution-oriented (such as {{Frac}} and other formatters/converters, and shorthands of various kinds, such as {{Cuegloss|English|english}} in lieu of [[Glossary of cuesports terms#English|english]]). {{Sic}} is an editorial commentary, not formatter or shorthand, template. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:33, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

{{Editprotected}} Please restore to the superscripted version. Rationale:

1. The consensus at WT:MOS, cited in the de-superscripting edit summary, does not in fact exist. The discussion only existed for 4 hours or so before the change was made, and multiple parties object to the change, at least one before the change was made, and discussion is still ongoing.
2. The place to determine the content of this template is Template talk:Sic (or at worst WP:TFD), not WT:MOS, and this change was not discussed here.
3. The change was not been discussed with WP:ILT, who would be fairly likely to strenuously object if aware of it, having gone to many months of effort to bring the inline editorial commentary tags into conformity, with a consistent, editor- and reader-dependable style, form, and behavior.
4. The change ignored a recommendation at WT:MOS to create an alternative, non-superscripted {{Sic2}} (or whatever name). {{Sic}} is used quite heavily in WP and protected from random edits for a reason. It is highly unlikely that the de-superscripting has not had unintended negative effects in various places, because editors using it (often outside of articlespace) understood it to be superscripted and used it in contexts where this was the intended effect. If the consensus becomes in favor of non-superscripting of "sic" in main article text, then such a template might need to be created, but should not replace this one without consensus to do that here (or at TFD if necessary). Even then, ILT should be consulted, since not all reasons for inline editorial template superscripting and other consistencies are likely to be immediately apparent to editors of MOS, and ILT participants would otherwise be unlikely to know of MOS's decision and would thus routinely convert the new template to superscripted form when ILT eventually discovered it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:33, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm... a bit more discussion might not hurt, though I don't think reverting immediately is necessary. Critical path here is consensus, not the edit; I'd just as soon wait to see how the talk turns out. – Luna Santin (talk) 08:20, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedian process is important, as is consensus more generally. Admins should not misuse their technical ability to edit protected templates as a supposed entitlement to willy-nilly implement major changes to protected templates used on thousands upon thousands of pages. Much less when there were already out-standing objections to the change before it was made, and the change was not discussed where that discussion belonged. I won't even necessarily be opposed the change after the discussion plays out and those in favor of it find some way to convince me (hasn't happened yet), but I'm very opposed to moves, under color of administrator authority, that seem to invoke WP:IAR when the conditions of that policy have not been met (i.e. nothing about the situation before the change impeded the editor's, or anyone else's, ability to improve the encyclopedia). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 20:55, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I've disabled the editprotected request while discussion continues. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:30, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

And I'm restoring it, per WP:CONSENSUS, WP:FILIBUSTER, WP:PROCESS, and a broad interpretation of WP:FAITACCOMPLI (while the ArbCom were, in situ, addressing conspiratorial mass behavior, the underlying principle of fait accompli holds equally well here, to an admin changing something he/she doesn't like in a protected document under dispute, after nearly zero discussion, with the clear result if not intent of pseudo-resolving the dispute in his/her favor simply by virtue of the fact that others in the debate can't do anything about it, not being admins and thus denied the normal avenue of WP:BRD), which also brings up WP:ADMIN#Administrator conduct, point #1 (I allege no bad faith, just an error in judgement with regard to use of admin tools; WP:MOS is very, very fractious and this has made the situation notably worse and more polarized, the last thing needed there). I was fairly sure of an edit I made to WP:NCP a week or so ago, but it was reverted (with significant rancour, more than once), discussion ensued, I made my case, and the edit has been restored without (so far, after several days) any further reverts or disputes because communication happened and minds met. Normal, constructive, collegial, consensus-building process. Why sould that not be applied here? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:30, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

It seems a little too ironic to me that you've linked WP:FILIBUSTER. It appears your objections are purely procedural -- while I can sympathize, there's no point even having the discussion unless there is at least some content-related objection to the change, especially given there are amply mentioned content-related reasons for it. It's been nearly a week; have any such content-related objections come up, here? Not that I can see... – Luna Santin (talk) 20:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

PS: I'm perfectly amenable to mediation, of any form. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:33, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

PPS: On a more critical reading, I find WP:FAITACCOMPLI even more compelling now than initially, even when quoted directly but with redactions of the material relating solely to mass action: "Editors who are ... individually making ... edits ... [and] are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion. It is inappropriate to use [tactics that can result in a fait accompli] in order to present opponents with a fait accompli or to exhaust their ability to contest the change..." I am taking interpretational liberties here, but I'd bet real money that the principle would play out as I've laid it out. Consensus can change but it doesn't do so by the use of what amounts to force. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

1. Yes, I (User:Matthewedwards) may have been hasty in making the changes, but at the time no one "objected" to it being un-superscripted, just one comment that they preferred it that way, but there were five (maybe 6) (not including myself) who thought it would be better not superscripted. No one was to know the thread would continue. Like Wikipedia, User:Matthewedwards is not a CRYSTAL BALL! :)
2. Why isn't the discussion at WT:MOS relevant? Having it as superscripted or as normal text is a matter of style, though I agree that perhaps some discussion could have taken place here, too.
3. WP:ILT doesn't have {{sic}} listed at WP:ILT#List of inline templates, and {{sic}} is not related to that project's scripts because they deal with dispute, cleanup, and reference tags. In time those scripts are expected to be removed from the articles they appear on (once the cleanup has happened). {{sic}} would be permanent. Secondly, the cleanup templates can't be substituted by regular text, where as " [sic]" ({{sic}}) is interchangable with "[sic]" ([''[[sic]]''])
4. The suggestion for {{sic2}} didn't occur until after I edited this template.

I'm surprised by the accusation of WP:Tendentious editing. I read the discussions, made a judgement based on the comments and made the edit. I had no bias, and no POV to push. In fact, I still have not given an opinion on whether I think it should be superscripted or not. I speak English. I don't understand "fait accompli", nor what WP:FAITACCOMPLI points to, but it softredirects to this sentence "are apprised that those edits are controversial or disputed, are expected to attempt to resolve the dispute through discussion." I did that at WT:MOS. My questions went unanswered, but I'm expected to continue?

I'm completely offended that you think I've misused the admin tools. I edited the template based on what I saw as the consensus, and following my edit, User:Dank55 said "It's nice to get consensus here and then instantly be able to apply the consensus everywhere the template appears." so it wasn't only me who assumed a consensus had been reached. I've always thought that consensus meant an agreement of the majority not an agreement of everybody, and at the time I made the edit it was the agreement of the majority that it being superscripted was incorrect. At that time only one person thought it should stay superscripted. Even now there are only two editors who have said they think it should be superscript. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 23:26, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

BTW, for anyone new to this discussion, the direct links to the MOS discussions are WT:MOS#Superscript sic? and WT:MOS#Over 5 days later. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 23:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template.

Consensus has not been reached, either here or at the MOS discussion, to revert to superscript. When it *has* been reached, please feel free to re-request the edit. -- SatyrTN (talk / contribs) 03:09, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Doc overhaul

I've done a partial overhaul of the documentation to be a bit more readable, and to address compatibility issues that were never mentioned before. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:54, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Space inserted with nohide=y

{{editprotected}} This needs both an admin and somebody who understands complex templates, but I think I've spotted a bug in this template when using the "hide=y" parameter:

"{{sic|hide=y|europe}}"

Produces

"europe"

Note the extra space, as though it was "europe " instead of "europe". I imagine there's some whitespace in the template that's being output as-is, but I'm not familiar with all the syntax being used, so couldn't tell you where. - IMSoP (talk) 13:15, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. --- RockMFR 22:46, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Why the italics?

Why should the "sic" part itself be italicized? Here's what the template should be:

 < nowiki > [ </ nowiki > [[sic]] < nowiki > ] </ nowiki > 

(remove all the spaces.) And the result:

[sic]

Without needing to italicize. Is there a reason it wasn't like this in the first place? Tezkag72 (talk) 23:22, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

• I realize this edit is ancient by Wikipedia standards, but it's usually seen in italics in academic documents. I think the actual WP sic page has more information on this. If I succeed in getting this template unprotected, do you mind if I revert your changes and re-italicize it? Roman à clef (talk) 10:27, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

interwiki, german

Resolved

plz add interwiki to german template

[[de:Vorlage:Sic]] --Suit (talk) 17:54, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, not done, since it's been deleted. Amalthea 22:43, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Superscript?

Would it not be more appropriate to have this template superscript, like Template:Fact or Template:Clarify me? That way, the template would be slightly more discreet (). I understand that the reason these templates are formated this way is because they notify the editor more than the reader. Still, I thought it astute to mention my idea. ajmint (talk•email•contribs•subpages) 10:54, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

• I second this. I'm putting in a request now to move the page down to being semi-protected so I can make the appropriate changes. Roman à clef (talk) 10:21, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
• Oh, dear. It would probably help if I read the entire talk page. I didn't realize there was so much argument over something as small as this. It doesn't look like the discussion was ever resolved, either. I'll still leave in the request; if the non-superscript-y folks want to fight me superscripting it, they can come back and we can talk about it. Roman à clef (talk) 10:30, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

• • Have you had a look at the old discussions at WT:MOS? I'd suggest you do, and if you still want it changed start a small discussion here and leave a pointer at WT:MOS so that there can be a consensus before the change is made. As you say, apparently there was quite a bit of discussion on that already, boldly changing it unilaterally is guaranteed to lead to drama.
    Also, you don't necessarily have to get protection reduced, you can use {{editprotected}} once you think there is consensus for the change. Amalthea 11:32, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

• • • No, I hadn't seen that discussion at all. Thank you very much for pointing it out to me. I'll give it a read-over and try to figure out if I care enough about a silly superscript to try to get the style mavens to agree with me. ;) Roman à clef (talk) 13:37, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

I third this :) . . . It should be way more discreet; the way it is now (in most cases) often makes it look like we're trying to draw attention to disliked-sources foolish mistakes, though it may be intended otherwise. I would actually vote for subscript _(sic) (WITH round brackets to make it look less obtuse and more aesthetically-inline; I honestly think IAR no reader is going to differentiate between the square and round and think the subscript is actually part of the quote!). Discreet, the reader can read it fine (superscript would be less discreet, aesthetically displeasing, and is traditionally the location for temporary notes intended for editors, not permanent notes designed for readers).

Peace and Passion ☮  ("I'm listening....") 18:38, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

PS I came here to say exactly this, after seeing it for the nth time looking absolutely displeasing in an article and manually changing it myself.

Cancel italics

I'm thinking we don't want the [sic] to be in italics, even if it appears in the middle of an italicized quote, right [1]? Wrapping the entire template inside a <span style="font-style:normal;"> would take care of that. Would have done so myself but I seem to have been locked out of this template… {{editprotected}} — CharlotteWebb 18:06, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Not sure about this. I guess its style should be different to the style of the containing sentence, i.e. italic in an upright sentence and upright in an italic sentence. This change wouldn't achieve that. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:09, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm… I don't think I've seen [sic] commonly italicized in the real world. Regardless of how one feels about that, I doubt this change would negatively affect any existing uses. — CharlotteWebb 19:59, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not with you. All existing uses are in italic and you are proposing to remove that from all instances, so it would affect all existing uses. (Whether it's negatively is not for me to say.) So perhaps this needs more discussion? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:34, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

No, all existing uses inherit the format of the surrounding text, regardless of which it is my position that [sic] icon should not be non-italic (though obviously you disagree). What I'm saying is this:

• If the surrounding text is italic, this edit would make the [sic] icon cease to be italic, which we would agree is a positive change.
• If the surrounding text is upright/normal/roman/whatever, then this edit will have no visible effect.

Makes sense now? — CharlotteWebb 20:49, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

No, I don't think so. The '' in the template causes the italic. So in fact your proposed change would probably have no effect unless you removed these as well. I didn't say I disagreed - I just think that this needs a little more discussion before it is implemented. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:57, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Look at this -> [sic]. It's in italic. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:58, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

It would at least prevent the brackets from being italic.

xyz [sic] pdq

xyz [sic] pdq

Actually they might not show up that way in your browser. Sorry for the confusion but this is what I meant. — CharlotteWebb 21:02, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

It is a common convention in English typography to italicize words that are clearly recognizable as being non-English words. Our own Manual of Style states, under the heading Italics:

Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that are not commonly used in everyday English.

 --Lambiam 08:52, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Italics correction

{{editprotected}} I suggest adding a "thin space" between the italic word sic and the following non-italic square bracket to improve the typographical look. More precisely, replace the current

'']

by

'' ]

For visual comparison, before:

"unbeknownst to her, but knownst [sic] to us";

after:

"unbeknownst to her, but knownst [sic ] to us".

 --Lambiam 08:43, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

With my browser and settings, the 'before' is much better. Algebraist 23:11, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

 Not done as there is opposition to the edit. FWIW, I prefer before better as well. Hersfold ^(t/a/c) 23:50, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Can this template be used to show a correction?

The documentation seems to indicate there are four forms which are with no, one, two, or three parameters plus the named parameters nolink and hide.

What's not clear is what form I want to use when I want to show the correction. This came up on the Deshmukh article which includes 'got sahba' in a direct quote and I wanted to show that that the author likely intended 'got sabha'. For now, I did manually using {{sic|'got sahba'}}<sup>['got sabha']</sup> which generates “'got sahba' [sic]^{['got sabha']}”. Is this an appropriate use of sic and if so, is there a way to get the template to show the correct text? --Marc Kupper|talk 23:49, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Such a feature would be very useful, though I don't think the correction should be in superscript. Something like this would be better: "Dehli [sic: Delhi]". — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:03, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I second the request for this feature. I've had to get around it like this in the article Birthday (The Beatles song):

John Lennon said in his ''Playboy'' interview in 1980: "'Birthday' was written in the studio. Just made up on the spot. I think Paul wanted to write a song like 'Happy Birthday Baby' ({{sic}}, [[Happy, Happy Birthday Baby]]), the old fifties hit. But it was sort of made up in the studio. It was a piece of garbage."

yielding:

John Lennon said in his Playboy interview in 1980: "'Birthday' was written in the studio. Just made up on the spot. I think Paul wanted to write a song like 'Happy Birthday Baby' ( [sic], Happy, Happy Birthday Baby), the old fifties hit. But it was sort of made up in the studio. It was a piece of garbage."

TJRC (talk) 23:13, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Correct spelling/word parameter

Any chance someone can add a parameter for the correct spelling/word?

Ideally it would be:

• and city is the principle {{sic|principle|correct=principal}} consumer of toast"

Giving:

• "and city is the principle [sic:principal] consumer of toast"

Thanks in anticipation :¬) Chaosdruid (talk) 09:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I made the same proposal above last year but it wasn't acted upon. Perhaps when I have some time over the next few days I'll work on the code, then propose that the template be updated. That may be faster. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 10:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

I did read your comment above, but after reading it there didn't appear to be a request for change, rather just that you were asking if your usage was appropriate. After re-reading it I can see what you were trying to say, perhaps this request makes it a little more clear lol.

In which case, it makes three people requesting the change :¬) Chaosdruid (talk) 10:49, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Count me as #4. I was trying to do this just a few days ago, and was surprised to see it did not exist. TJRC (talk) 21:44, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Sry, I was already counting the two people from above, thats Jack and you, so we are still only 3 unfortunately :¬) Chaosdruid (talk) 22:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

As [sic] is used to denote a standing mistake in a title or quotation putting a correction inline with it would only serve to confuse the body of text / title quoted. The best way of doing this would be to use {{sic}}<ref>\corr.\</ref> (where \corr.\ is the correction and, if required, any explanation behind (whether misinformation, spelling, grammar, etc.) putting the correction in the footnotes (where they should appear in written texts).Angry Mustelid (talk) 04:13, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

typeface

[sic] is usually used in the same but smaller sized font as the normal text. This is to delineate it from the normal text (especially in scientific or instructional texts where [] may be used frequently). The template should be altered to reflect this - using <small> [sic] </small> should suffice in the majority of cases.Angry Mustelid (talk) 04:02, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

I have to say I've never seen this being done. But then I don't read many scientific or instructional texts. I'd like to hear from editors who are familiar with such texts as to whether this is an established practice. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 16:11, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Italics correction revisited

An earlier suggestion for an "italics correction" to improve the typographical look used a thin space. This was rejected because for some users it made things look actually worse. I suspect that was because some browsers render a thin space as a full space. The code for {{'}} has another approach; using it here gives this:

Before

"unbeknownst to her, but knownst [sic] to us"

After

"unbeknownst to her, but knownst [sic] to us"

How does that compare?  --Lambiam 07:01, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

In my browser (Firefox 7.0.1), the "before" example looks better than the "after" one, because in the latter there is too much space between the c and the closing bracket. Which browsers are having problems displaying these two characters? If this is a browser-dependent issue, then in my view no change should be made because what looks better on some browsers will look worse on others. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 11:51, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Then it is platform-dependent. In my browser, also Firefox 7.0.1, the "after" example looks better than the "before" one, because in the latter there is not enough space between the c and the closing bracket, which almost run together. (In [H], I see a real and pretty serious collision.) In the "after" version, the distance between the c and the closing bracket is just the same for me as between the s and the opening bracket. WYGIWYS. Oh well.  --Lambiam 09:53, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah. Well, frankly, I don't have any strong objection if you would like to change it to the second version. The space looks marginally excessive but it is so marginal that I can't imagine it is worth arguing over. (Yes, for me the gap between the H and the closing bracket is very narrow indeed.) — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 08:17, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Sic template for entire multiword quote?

I don't know if this is a good idea, but here it is. In some cases it may be desirable to mark an entire construction (phrase, sentence, paragraph...) as misspelt, but without leaving intact words in the source text to attract spellcheck bots. In that case it might be useful to allow multiple vertical bars. An example from The Chaser's War on Everything#Controversies and well-known stunts, "YouTube video removals" paragraph: we want "Australian Broddcasting Corperation [sic]" or ""Australian Broddcasting Corperation" [sic], and could use "Australian {{sic|Brodd|casting Corp|eration}}", but this doesn't work with more than one pipe, giving "Australian Broddcasting Corp [sic]". Pol098 (talk) 14:21, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Documentation change

FYI: I've just added "expected=correct word or phrase" to the documentation because I've been using it for months. I don't think it should be displayed to readers, though, so I'm not asking for any change to the template code, -- John of Reading (talk) 07:58, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Could be a tooltip? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:40, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi, User:John of Reading and User:MSGJ. I think making this a tooltip may be a good idea. Jason Quinn (talk) 00:45, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree. I also think it's strange that we have a parameter in this template that doesn't do anything (as far as I can see from the code, at least...). Calliopejen1 (talk) 07:00, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

propose banning use within link text

I propose to add to the documentation that the template not be used within a link. However, there's an implicit contradiction with what the doc now says. I'm happy to come up with language that meets all of the needs. The problem I found was that inserting the template into the middle of link text truncates the link. The effect is not exactly harmful but formats inconsistently with other link texts. What I propose to add is this:

Don't use the template within a link, because it will display brackets that will alter the link text and the brackets cannot be encoded for compatibility with links. Instead, write "[''sic'']" (producing "[sic]") or similar.

However, a contradiction is implied in this, from the present doc: "[The Sic template] links to the article Sic for the benefit of readers, but this is ... impossible ... in the displayed anchor text (right-hand visible portion) of an internal or external link." This implies that truncation does not happen. That was not my experience. Does anyone know how to resolve this? Or should I add my proposed sentence and edit the existing sentence to conform?

I'll wait a week for any response.

Nick Levinson (talk) 17:26, 10 March 2013 (UTC) (Corrected the quotation for compatibility with point: 17:32, 10 March 2013 (UTC))

Have you tried using the "nolink=y" option? See the Controlling display section of the documentation for an example. -- John of Reading (talk) 17:39, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

It looks like the parameter accomplishes that, so then the documentation needs to say that, not rely only on an example, since we have no reason to get to examples if the parameter description does not fit, in this case because linking to the Sic article was not my concern, but truncation of the enclosing link text was. So, instead of my proposal above, I propose to edit a sentence in the upper part of the doc to read: "In these cases, add the |nolink=y parameter to avoid linking to the Sic article and truncating the link text." Nick Levinson (talk) 19:45, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

I think the bullet point beginning "By default" already covers this adequately. Just adding "and truncating the link text" won't quite work, because an editor needs to add nolink=y in the "undesirable" cases as well as in the "impossible" cases. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:57, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

The problem with the "By default" list item is that it does not warn that truncation results (unless the parameter is applied). We could precede the last sentence in the point ("In these cases, add ....") with "The template also truncates link text to the right of the template." Or is there another wording you think would communicate the problem (and the solution) in the list item? Nick Levinson (talk) 15:06, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

I've had a go at rewording the "By default" paragraph. Is that better? You can edit the documentation page yourself, of course, as it's only the template that is protected. -- John of Reading (talk) 16:00, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

You got it well enough, and you already edited the doc, so I don't need to. I had asked, rather than do it myself, because of what appeared to be a contradiction, making my editing questionable, but now it's fine. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:41, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Requested edit

Please comment out the category, I hope temporarily, until the discussion at Help talk:CS1 errors#.7B.7Bsic.7C.3F.7Cnolink.3Dy.7D.7D is resolved.

Editors are currently "fixing" some errors by removing the {{sic|?}} template completely. If the template is modified so that it doesn't output a category, then no further articles will be damaged while we discuss how to resolve the issue. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:02, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I would be more comfortable if there was a little more discussion about this before making the change. I'll check back later. Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:53, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Done. Seems worth it to remove the ugly text from articles while discussion is ongoing. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{♪ talk ♪} 14:33, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

link=n?

I only use this template every 6 months so I can never remember the syntax nolink=y -- I always code link=n and then it doesn't work and then I have to google to find the template doc and then I have to scan through it to find the nolink=y syntax and then I have to smack my forehead remembering that I knew that already and by then I can't even remember what I was trying to do in the first place.

Can some wizard add link=n as an alternative for nolink=y? Thanks.

EEng (talk) 20:56, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I guess the answer is No. EEng (talk)

I guess we could put something together in the sandbox ... — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:54, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, O Wizard! EEng (talk) 15:02, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I have put some code in Template:Sic/sandbox which seems to do the job. I'm not sure I fully support adding this though, because while I agree that |link=no would have made for a more intuitive parameter than |nolink=yes, we are potentially making it more confusing by adding in this additional parameter. Let's see what others think? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:58, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Hmmmmm. Maybe nosuppresslink=n would be clearer. EEng (talk) 16:08, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Could you please just do this now? I'm sick of having to consult the documentation to remember why link=no isn't working. EEng 16:47, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

tagging inside a link

I was going to add that the {{Sic}} template should not be used within a link but I'm not sure that I know enough about how this template works and interacts to edit the documentation. I used it recently and the result was that it undesirably shortened the link text. That's because the template generated a closing bracket that obviated the one already present later in the string, confusing the link text. If someone knows how this should be documented, please add to the doc. Nick Levinson (talk) 18:02, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

It can be used within a link provided that you use |nolink=y --Redrose64 (talk) 23:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser

Sic is an important warning to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) to look for an inappropriate spelling change. For example, Analy High School should not be changed to Anally High School.--DThomsen8 (talk) 13:30, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Should not be used in lede paragraph

The last sentence of the first paragraph of The Gripping Hand describes an occasional misspelling of the title. That's important enough to put right there in the lede, but it creates a problem:

1. The wikicode of that sentence is

   In the [[United Kingdom]], it was released as '''''The {{sic|Moat|hide=y}} around Murcheson's Eye''''' (sometimes misspelled "The {{sic|Mote|hide=y}} around Murchison's Eye").

2. In the article it appears correctly:

   In the United Kingdom, it was released as The Moat around Murcheson's Eye (sometimes misspelled "The Mote around Murchison's Eye").

3. But in the hovertext preview from other articles, such as The Mote in God's Eye (to which The Gripping Hand is a sequel), it looks like this:

   In the United Kingdom, it was released as The around Murcheson's Eye (sometimes misspelled "The around Murchison's Eye").

The template suppresses the words in the hovertext rendering. It's bad enough here, but what if the "sic"ed word was a negation, such as "nevar", or a hedge, such as "posibly"? That would invert or seriously distort the meaning of at least part of the pop-up.

If this can't be fixed, I propose that this template should not be used in the first paragraph of an article. (Please {{ping}} me if you want to discuss this.) --Thnidu (talk) 06:17, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

@Thnidu: Do you mean the text in the popup box shown by the Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups? That omits all text from inside templates, so the popup text doesn't include text inside templates such as {{lang}} or {{convert}}, no matter how important it is to the meaning of the lead sentence. I think editors should strive to make the lead sentence as good as possible for ordinary readers, without worrying about the limitations of the popups. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:37, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with John -- the omission of templates by popups should not affect editing or display for non-popups users. In the case mentioned above, I do not think think that the misspelling is important enough for the lede, and even if it is, I don't quite see why you need "sic" in there at all (the "moat" versus "moat" is obvious; only "Murchison" might need a sic or a spelling correction). —Kusma (t·c) 15:23, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I yield to the wisdom of my more experienced colleagues...which is why I asked. But, User:Kusma, I will point out that it's"moAT" vs. "moTE", which you seem to have missed or typoed, so maybe it's not that obvious after all. Especially since the original NT expression so familiar, and there is much discussion here of the importance of preventing mistaken corrections --Thnidu (talk) 20:37, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that was a stupid typo on my part. But I generally think "XXX (often misspelled as YYY)" should be safe from accidental correction if XXX and YYY are both correctly-spelled English words. (Certainly bots and misspelling-hunters won't find it). —Kusma (t·c) 21:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Wrong word?

Should this be used in contexts where a direct quote has the wrong word? For instance, referring to Heartbleed as a "virus" instead of a security bug, or to a severed head as a "decapitated" head? DS (talk) 15:46, 4 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't see why not, though an explanation should be provided somewhere as it may not be obvious to the reader why it is a mistake. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 05:35, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Different link

Sort of following on from the wrong word question above, would it be possible to link to an alternative article, rather than or as well as to sic?

Given the bit in the article sic on the use of recte, a "recte" parameter could be the like the "expected" parameter, in taking "whatever it should have been" instead of the flagged word or phrase, but different in displaying it as [sic][recte whatever it should have been], or [sic whatever it should have been], or perhaps even as [sic][recte whatever it should have been] - though the last one seems a bit fussy.

Graham.Fountain | Talk 09:24, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

See the previous discussions above entitled "#Can this template be used to show a correction?" and "#Correct spelling/word parameter". This seems to be a request that comes up time and again and has some support, though no action has been taken yet. I would suggest that the use of recte is unnecessary, and that something like "sic: Delhi" would suffice. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 23:17, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

What if sic is already in the cited document

If the document being cited already has a word marked sic then if we quote it directly without making a note, it will appear to readers that Wikipedia has marked the word with sic, when in fact it was marked that way in the original journal/newspaper/book. If we then decide to point this out we would have a horrible "double sic". I propose not using sic at all but simply mention it in a footnote (perhaps we could call it a sic note!). This whole subject has given me many a headache so for the time being whenever I come across it I will ignore it and leave it for someone else to grapple with. Jodosma (talk) 19:48, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

hidden sic on non-error

I wonder if we can reach a consensus on where the hidden sic tag is appropriate. I've seen multiple arguments about this on article talk pages and it seems to me something that would better be decided on a global basis.

What I mean by hidden sic tag is a tag for the sic template with a "hide=y" parameter (e.g. {{sic|hide=y|lorem ipsum}}). This tag does not add "[sic]" to the article; it is invisible to the reader. The hidden sic tag has two purposes:

1. It makes it obvious to an editor that the tagged text is a direct quote, so the editor knows not to edit it. Copy editors moving quickly, perhaps assisted by automation, could otherwise edit the text without realizing it is a quote.
2. It is possible to craft a search for a phrase so that the search does not find instances of the phrase tagged with a hidden sic tag. A copy editor thus can look for all instances of a phrase that are not in quotes and, without the distraction of quoted phrases, get more work done.

I have seen a variety of arguments against using the tag in spite of these advantages to copy editors. The main objection comes about when the tagged text is not incorrect English, at least arguably so, and it takes the form that the tagging makes the statement that the tagged text is poor English and this disrespects the quoted source.

Here's a purely hypothetical example: World War II is sometimes called that and sometimes called The Second World War. No one thinks one of these is wrong, but a Wikipedia copy editor could conceivably believe Wikipedia is better off using one name consistently for the war, and that World War II is slightly better. That editor may undertake to find all instances of "Second World War" in Wikipedia articles and change them to "World War II". Except, of course, in quotes. To keep quoted instances out of the search results and to avoid accidentally changing them, the editor tags any quoted instance of "Second World War" with a hidden sic tag. To some people, this makes a formal statement that it is wrong to say "Second World War" and embarrasses the person Wikipedia quotes as saying it, so such a tag should not be used.

I use the hidden sic tag and I'm pretty liberal about it. I don't believe the tag makes any statement other than that the tagged text is a direct quote.

A couple of people have indicated that the offense comes from the word "sic", which they view as inherently hostile, and if the template were named something else, it wouldn't be objectionable. Well, Wikipedia has a number of templates that are very similar to sic. One appears to be almost identical to hidden sic: {{text}}. Maybe we should be using that instead.

I guess the first question to answer is this: Is a hidden sic tag appropriate on something which is not a grammatical error?

Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 04:48, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

I think I screwed up the automatic notification of mentioned users when I forgot to sign my original post. So here are the mentions that were originally in the post above:

I'm aware of these editors besides me who have used the hidden sic tag: User:Chris the speller, User:Laodah, User:ATinySliver, User:Arxiloxos.

I know the following editors have argued against or removed some hidden sic usage: User:Alansohn, User:Rjensen, User:Apuldrum, User:Bbb123.

And I've seen these other editors discuss it: User:Boson, User:Drmies, User:SMcCandlish, User:P64, User:PamD, User:Rich_Farmbrough.

Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 18:10, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Looks like I still don't have it right, so here's another try at notifications:

I'm aware of these editors besides me who have used the hidden sic tag: User:Chris the speller, User:Laodah, User:ATinySliver, User:Arxiloxos.

I know the following editors have argued against or removed some hidden sic usage: User:Alansohn, User:Rjensen, User:Apuldrum, User:Bbb123.

And I've seen these other editors discuss it: User:Boson, User:Drmies, User:SMcCandlish, User:P64, User:PamD, User:Rich_Farmbrough.

Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 07:28, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

I tend to use {{Not a typo}} or {{Proper name}}. I rarely put them in proactively, but use them when repairing text that has been damaged by the AWB typo-fixer so that it doesn't happen again. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:52, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

I barely recall using this, maybe once? I tend in such situations to use invisible comments, a la <!-- Editors: this is an exact quote. --> —ATinySliver/^ATalkPage 🖖 07:53, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

• The argument summed up as "The main objection comes about when the tagged text is not incorrect English, at least arguably so, and it takes the form that the tagging makes the statement that the tagged text is poor English and this disrespects the quoted source" isn't a valid objection, since the template used this way is an invisible copyediting aid, not a visible "[sic]". If people are fairly often making this bogus objection, the obvious solution is to fork the template into, e.g., a "{{quoted}}" or something, that always has the |hide=y functionality, and never appears in the rendered page, and has no connection to sic or anyone's assumptions about it. We still need a template that marks up text as "do not change" in effect, for material that fast-moving copyeditors are liable to mistakenly change. I would hazard a guess that probably 9 out of ten uses of {{sic}} are with |hide=y and used for this purpose. I know that as an editor I use it very frequently this way, whereas I use the visible version may be 3 or 4 times per year, and usually on a talk page, not in an article. The importance of the hidden feature generally outweighs that of the visible version.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:16, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

How do you feel about the existing template {{text}}? I've never seen it used, but its help page seems to indicate it's exactly what you're talking about. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 04:12, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

• The counter-argument is summed up in the fact that what is being "fixed" almost always never was an error in the first place. No non-solution is needed for a non-error. The most common term being hunted down is "comprised of", which is a perfectly valid usage. The overwhelming majority of the more than 50,000 edits by Giraffedata are comprised of efforts to "correct" this non-problem. Using AWB only allows the non-issue to be "solved" faster, but it creates the risk that it will impose changes on quotations; this making Wikipedia worse than it was before as part of an effort that accomplishes nothing if it works correctly. While avoiding a "repair" to the quote may be a positive, the fact that the phrase "comprised of" appears so frequently in quotations that we need to discuss the issue only demonstrates that the term is a common usage that passes the descriptive grammatical test, even if it bothers some people. My number one preferred solution is to recognize that this is a non-problem, no more than putting a "sic" tag on every time the word "the" appears and do nothing about; Learn to live and let live. The number two solution would be to ban the use of AWB for this purpose as there is no clear consensus for the change, which would slow down editors and force them to actually read the articles before they make changes. My last preference would be some variation of the sic tag, which offers the small benefit that the same obsessive-compulsive editors won't try to fix this same non-error over and over again. Alansohn (talk) 13:26, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
• A comprehensive protection of quotations from those style guide changes which we don't apply to quotations would need more than this. It would be better to understand the quoted nature of text by understanding the delimiters. Generally these are either quotation templates, certain parameters of templates, italics, or quotation marks. It would certainly help if we consistently used double quotes ("") as the delimiters on quotations, reserving single quotes ('') for nested quotes. @Magioladitis: may have some input.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 14:53, 19 November 2015 (UTC).

• I agree a hidden sic tag is far from the ideal tool for this, and I fully support a search facility that lets an editor search for non-quoted phrases. I'd help create that if I knew how. But until we can get that, manual tagging is the best we can do. Hidden sic has been the way since 2008, and in many uses it isn't controversial. The only controversy I've seen is in the cases where the tagged text is not incorrect English, at least arguably so. So I'd still like to know what the consensus is on using hidden sic (or one of it siblings) for this. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 04:26, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

• I have discussed/criticized "sic" here and there; I'm not aware that I've done so if it was in a template. It's possible I did, and that I forgot. In general, I'm not a fan of hidden comments and templates; if I understand it correctly this tag prevents editors who use automated editing tools from correcting (or "correcting" something)--I suppose that's useful, but in my opinion the problem lies rather with the automated editing tools. When I search pet peeves (it's time I had another go at "quoted as saying") I go through the results manually, and I prefer riding this high horse. Alansohn, I'm with Giraffedata on the "comprised" matter, though I don't share his zeal, obviously. It's not a non-problem, though whether it's as big a problem as, say, unreferenced BLPs is a matter of opinion. Drmies (talk) 15:09, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
  • The benefit on doing a typo-checking run is two-fold. Firstly the obvious it means someone else is not going to make the wrong change you have just avoided making. But the second is the show stopper. If you leave these entities untagged (let us use that phrase for the moment) then after a few runs (by various people) the first few hundred will almost all be false positives.
  • The benefits of having things tagged with {{Lang}} are also significant, I believe, as is the prevention of correction by random copy editors, either driven by their own eye, or the spell checker built into most browsers these days.

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:53, 20 November 2015 (UTC).

• It doesn't matter if a given Wikipedian considers the flagged error correct. To begin with, the Wikipedia rule is that the least-disputed usage is style. To cite Alansohn's somewhat sneering characterisation of Giraffedata's hard work on this service, the fact that a few outliers don't think that "comprised of" is poor English is entirely irrelevant to any policy argument on Wikipedia, because 1) most authorities agree this error is bad style, therefore it's condemned by Wikipedia policy, and 2) the text that my fellow grammar gnome substitutes is correct, even by the standards of "comprised of" zealots. Matter resolved, under WP policy. However, reverting the invisible tag is truly nitpicking and entry-steading at its very worst. The tag is invisible. No reasonable person could argue against its use, particularly in the service of copyeditors who often fly along at an automated clip and may well mistake the incident for normal text. (I have often corrected the lazy around in a given passage before I realised that it was occurring in quoted text. It's easy to do, even when you're paying close attention, as I always do.) Finally, as others have pointed out, the invisible tag is extremely important for wikignomes because it allows us to use search parametres to exclude it from our results; otherwise those results get overrun with untouchable, already-visited errors and hamper our work, which is both tedious and mentally exhausting. In my debates on this matter on WP talk pages, I have met some who believe any quotation that includes such phraseology as "comprised of" or "articles written around natural science" should simply be deleted, as the authority has compromised him- or herself by using non-authoritative style. I'd like to point out that I don't take that extreme view. (Nor do any other wikignomes I know.) But if we're to eliminate this useful, reasonable tool for managing these passages, I don't see another workable solution. Laodah 04:35, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

• OK, I'm not seeing any real controversy here. The only argument against tagging a grammatically correct quote with a hidden sic tag is the one about disrespecting the quoted source that I summarized in my statement of the question, and frankly, I'm not at all sure now that I understood that argument. The folks I thought I was paraphrasing were notified of this discussion, but have not brought that argument here. And we have some rebuttal of it.

I do see comments that it would be good to render the question moot by

1. having a search tool that is smart enough to recognize quoted material on its own, or
2. banning wikignomes from making changes not required by the rules of grammar

As neither of those is going to happen in the near future, the question is still relevant.

Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 00:11, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

• "Trivial spelling and typographic errors should simply be corrected without comment." --WP:MOSQUOTE. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:55, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
  • Agreed. But we have people here "fixing" uses of "comprised of", which isn't even wrong, let alone a "trivial spelling [or] typographical error." The question isn't trivial, as one editor appears to have "corrected" this problem more than 50,000 times. Same thing with "based around", another usage that isn't wrong; Even its greatest opponent can best characterize it as "lazy". There are no rules of grammar violated in either of these, or the many other trivial tasks that our wikignomes gravitate towards. Maybe we should start addressing other grammar fallacies such as making corrections to unsplit infinitives and sentences that end prepositions with. Alansohn (talk) 22:43, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
    • I agree 100%. Putting sic after "comprised of" is just wrong. I was referring to the commonly held belief that if a typo is in a quotation you should not change it. We should fix trivial spelling or typographical errors in quotations unless the slip is textually important. Real errors, of course, not non-errors like "comprised of". --Guy Macon (talk) 00:39, 24 November 2015 (UTC)
      • I am at a loss to understand your point, insofar as you commented in the section, "Hidden sic on non-error". The "Trivial spelling and typographical errors" line from MOS doesn't seem to have anything to do with hidden sic, and doesn't seem to have anything to do with non-errors. And it doesn't seem to relate to any of the off-topic things mentioned earlier in this discussion either. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 00:56, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Custom link target

Currently the "sic" either links to Sic or nothing. It would be useful to be able to link to something else, especially a talk page section. Currently the lead section of Homo sapiens idaltu essentially does this manually. Hairy Dude (talk) 13:38, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

The link on Homo sapiens idaltu is being used as a maintenance template, when discussion is needed to determine whether something is correct or not. You might find a template in Category:Inline cleanup templates to do that job, or else create a new one. I don't think it is sensible to conflate that use with this template which will be on the article indefinitely. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:59, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

I agree this example is not an appropriate use of sic. One reason it's difficult to determine the proper treatment of this disputed fact in a quotation is that the quotation itself is inappropriate. The article should present the information in its own voice, especially in the lede. The source should merely be cited. Only if the article covers a dispute should quotes like this, to illustrate the dispute, be used. And that would have to be down in the detail sections.

But the actual suggestion, that the sic template be able to link to something other than documentation of the sic template, is a good one. Often, the reader will have the same confusion as the author of the quote and will want to know why the tagged phrase is unexpected. But a talk page probably isn't the proper place to get that information; there would have to be an article on the subject. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 20:34, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Does tagging "comprised of" help or harm Wikipedia?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Does tagging the phrase "comprised of" in a quotation with a hidden sic tag help or harm Wikipedia?

A hidden sic tag is a tag for the "sic" template that uses the hide=y parameter. It does not affect what a reader sees in any way; it is just used in maintenance of the encyclopedia. The tag clearly marks a phrase as part of a quotation and confirms that it is correctly quoted.

This is a real issue, as there has been for some time an editor systematically tagging "comprised of" in quotations throughout the encyclopedia and another editor following the first editor and removing the tags. If we had a consensus on whether the tag is helpful or harmful, these editors could presumably stop this wasteful activity. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:27, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Responses

• I believe the tagging helps. I have been tagging the quotations as described above for about eight years - almost as long as I have been editing the use of "comprise" outside of quotations.

The tag has two purposes: 1) It prevents a copy editor, no matter how tired or lost in a tangle of markup, from accidentally "improving" the phrase, not realizing it is part of a quotation. 2) It helps a wikignome to find phrases eligible for editing, without quotations dominating search results.

The risk of accidentally editing an untagged "comprised of" quotation is real. I have done it myself many times over the years, and those are just the ones I know of because someone was watching the page and told me.

The search interference is also an impediment to me, though not as much as it is to more occasional editors of this phrase. If you search for all occurrences of "comprised of" in Wikipedia, you will find mostly quotations. It will be hard to find the few dozen non-quotation instances you wanted to edit.

Even if the benefits of this tag are only slight, the harm seems to me even less. The only downside I can see is that it makes the article source a little more messy. For that reason, I would oppose using it on a phrase that there's no reasonable chance a wikignome would want to edit, but that's clearly not the case here. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:27, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

• Some editors who have discussed hidden sic here before: User:alansohn, User:laodah, User:John_of_Reading, User:SMcCandlish, User:Rich_Farmbrough, User:Drmies, User:Chris_the_speller, User:Rjensen, User:Boson.

I also am mentioning this RfC on the page User:Giraffedata/comprised_of, which has many watchers interested in the practice of wikignoming "comprised of". Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:40, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

• As a descriptive linguist, I need to subscribe to Alansohn's comment--it's not grammatically incorrect if so many users use it. If editors wish to change it outside of quotes, I can't find fault with it; though "incorrect" usage of "comprised of" rubs me the wrong way, that's an old-fashioned way and I recognize that. We shouldn't be mandating all aspects of style (if it's not grammar, it's style--a great argument to use in the Oxford comma dispute, BTW), but then, this isn't really about the correcting: it's about preventing overzealous editors from changing direct quotes. So, if the "sic" is invisible it is no obstruction to the reader. I looked for an example in Bryan's edits, and here is one. I don't have a problem with it, I think it is probably helpful in the way Bryan explains. However! I wish, Bryan, you'd change that edit summary, and call it something else than "disputed grammar"--but you know my position on grammar. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 04:09, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Minor point, Bryan--the "grammar" edit summary note was just a minor note. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 23:11, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
    • I don't want to drag out something that you're admitting is a minor note, but I do need to point out that we can't claim a dispute doesn't exist just because one side in the dispute is wrong. There are people who follow prescriptive grammars that don't include this phrase and think others should too and use the term "ungrammatical". I hear from them all the time. Nonetheless, if this phrasing is going to raise hackles, I'll think of something else. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 02:31, 25 May 2017 (UTC)
• I agree with the points made by Drmies: I don't have a problem with such use of the template to prevent overzealous editors/bots from changing direct quotes. I do believe that (non-quoted) prose can often be stylistically improved by its removal, but I don't think use of "comprised of" in this sense can be considered ungrammatical; so I would also welcome an edit summary that avoided the word grammar. --Boson (talk) 08:36, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
• Absolutely this is useful to prevent inadvertent correction of quotes and titles. While I sympathise with both sides of the descriptive/prescriptive and grammar/style divides, it would perhaps be worth rephrasing the edit summary in a softer manner, if it makes people happy. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 09:54, 24 May 2017 (UTC).
  
• One is tempted to engage in the age-old dispute over what constitutes received grammar. (I.e., the ancient misconception that grammar becomes correct when "people talk that way". No. That's usage. Correct style by definition is usage that thoughtful and informed people consider logical, accurate, and efficient, not just "anything that's said a lot".) However, the issue here is more basic even than that. It boils down to whether blanking invisible Wikipedia housekeeping markup is vandalism. Of course it is. There is literally no cost to the service of inserting this code, and significant benefit. I too use it to protect quotations that contain the lazy around from inadvertent tampering, and I too have run into misled individuals who blank my work. Such hip-shot blanking is a plague on this service, dissuading rational, good-faith editors from further wasting their considerable skills on us. That the sic tag (invisible, unobtrusive, respectful, good faith, changes nothing whatsoever in the article ... literally what is the problem here?) is controversial speaks volumes to the combative, counterproductive attitude of some in our community. Finally, I'd like to draw participants' attention to a comment made by another editor when I fought this ridiculous battle with the owner of the European Parliament page. I don't recall my colleague's name, but his position was that rather than protecting ungrammatical (or unencyclopedic, if you prefer) quotations , they should simply be deleted as insufficiently authoritative. It's a position I consider extreme -- and it involves blanking others' work, which is something we should only do after sober reflection -- but it goes to the nature of an encyclopedia, as opposed to some random blog or website. Wikignomes who instal the sic template in quotations of low style are acting with utmost care: they're protecting a quotation from accidental tampering, and they're respecting the work of others. Would that we always received the same consideration. Laodah 21:41, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
• I think it is helpful, and at worst neutral, as long as the hide=y parameter is specified. I'm as descriptionist as the next guy, but the problem I have with "comprised of" is that it impedes clarity. It's often unclear, or at least not immediately clear, whether a writer means "consists of" or "comprises". So I strongly oppose what I feel is still a misuse in article text, and such instances should simply be corrected.

In quotes, however, the use of "comprised of" obviously should be maintained as a matter of accuracy; but I think it's "wrong" enough that, when I see it used in a quotation, it occurs to me that it may have been a Wikipedian's error in transcribing the quotation, and worth verifying. Having invisible wikitext that shows that the quoted text has been verified is helpful. "Comprised of" is common enough that I would not support a sic without the hide=y parameter specified; that would appear intrusive. But that's not what we're talking about here. As long as it remains invisible to the reader, I'm happy with it as it provides a signal to other editors that jarring use is an accurate quotation, not an inadvertent error (which is, after all, the whole point of sic). TJRC (talk) 23:43, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

But how do we know that the quoted text has been verified if someone is going around mass tagging all uses of the phrase inside of quotes? --Guy Macon (talk) 03:24, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

That seems like a non sequitur of sorts. There's just no relation. We "know" (assume on good faith, modulo "trust but verify" if in doubt, heh) that it's been verified if it has a source citation, and if no one has changed the wording of the quote since the citation was added. Hidden markup has no effect on that either way.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:51, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

If all quotes are presumed to be verified, then adding a hidden sic tells us nothing about whether the quote has been verified as TJRC claimed above. The quotation marks would be enough. That doesn't mean that the hidden sic should not be added, just that that particular reason for adding it seems to be invalid. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:01, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

You're asking a different question, whether mass-tagging of quotes without verification is acceptable. No, that's not. What we're discussing here is adding the tags to show verification, though. That's helpful. TJRC (talk) 18:59, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, use {{sic|hide=y}} for this and anything else drive-by editors are liable to change by accident in a quotation. As a linguist by training, I have to observe that the "prescriptive grammarians versus descriptive linguists" debate does not belong here. WP is not a linguistic work, and it is not an informal conversation reflecting only the bleeding edge of the vernacular. It is, like other encyclopedias, written in a rather formal register of English, and as such it is subject to a wide variety of prescriptive rules (when the majority of major style guides that inform ours agree on the point, or when WP decides on its own what is best for our context and audience, usually siding with clarity over breeziness). WP's own house style takes more account of the descriptive linguistics approach (often to the chagrin of many) than the average encyclopedia or other academic work, but we only do so on the basis of demonstrated mainstream preference in comparable writing and major style guides. E.g. proving that names of the form "Robert Downey Jr." are mostly no longer written with commas around the "Jr." even in American publications was a matter of post-2000 news & book searches, and an exhaustive review of modern style guides. Showing that other publications (except for the music industry press, the bulk of whose money comes from music-industry advertising) do not write song titles in the overcapitalizing form "Do It Like A Dude", to mimic album cover marketing stylization, took similar research. So has (repeatedly) coming to consensus to stick with units like "gigabyte" despite usage being ambiguous (1020 MB or 1000 MB), and despite there being a formal, standardized rename of one of them to "gibibyte" – outside of technical publications, no one is actually using the new name. And so on. If you want to debate that kind of thing, most of it takes place at WT:MOS. And has nothing to do with whether we should be using hidden {{sic}} to prevent quotations being mangled. Of course we should.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:51, 26 May 2017 (UTC)
• Absolutely not; this is prescriptivism run to its most absurd ad reductio. We should do nothing in terms of "fixing" quotations, as the encyclopedia is for its readers, not for the benefit of obsessive anal-retentive editors who believe that "comprised of" is not proper English. There are thousands of sources across Wikipedia that use the term "comprised of" in quotations taken straight from the source or that appear in the title of a source. It is those one or two obsessed editors whose entire editing history is comprised of an effort to fix this non-problem who are the only ones who benefit from the use of the sic tag in these quotations. While I fervently disagree about the need to fix a non-problem that is a commonly accepted and widely used feature of the English language, I have no objection to any editor removing, rewording or recasting uses of "comprised of" in the text of articles, any more than I would object to an effort to senselessly correct split infinitives or sentences ending a preposition with. There's just no need to "fix" quotations simply as part of any one editor's self-imposed Sisyphean task, as they literally ain't broke. Alansohn (talk) 19:38, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

It sounds like you may have missed the detail about hide=y, which I think is a critical distinction. No quotations will be "fixed". I would be completely in agreement with you absent that parameter. TJRC (talk) 00:10, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Template-protected edit request on 14 August 2018

Please update the (dead) link in the comment for the (currently disabled) category link to its archived location of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help_talk:CS1_errors/Archive_1#{%7Bsic%7C?%7Cnolink=y}} a.k.a. Help talk:CS1 errors/Archive 1#{{sic|?|nolink=y}}. (You might want to cut&paste from the wikisource because the rendered version is different.)

Since the change is inside a comment, it should be pretty safe. :-) 209.209.238.189 (talk) 10:12, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

archiving

I note this talk page contains lots of stale section. Gonna add automatic archiving if that's alright. CapnZapp (talk) 14:09, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

+1. TJRC (talk) 00:20, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

documentation verbose

The documentation Template:Sic/doc comes across as very swollen and talky. If you simply scan it for the archetypal use case, you need to scroll past way too much text.

Let's trim it to contain instructions on template use, and possibly link elsewhere to style manual issues.

CapnZapp (talk) 14:12, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

I guess you'll have to be more specific, because I don't see anything that is not instructions on template use, or that is a style manual issue.

I also don't see archetypal use cases, but if you're talking about the lists of examples of use, it might make sense to put those before the verbose instructions, since people can often generalize quickly from examples using common sense or memory. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 23:52, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Warning provided?

Why does the documentation commence with a warning not to use the sic template in CS1 & CS2 templates when the 'nolink=y' directive was introduced, I would say specifically, for such templates? I would guess that more than 75% of sic template usage is within CS1 & CS2 templates. Neils51 (talk) 04:00, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Within another template

How do you use this within another template, i.e., the quote== in the template:cite-book, especially in instances where removing the [sic] is not option?— Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.93.40.241 (talk) 15:57, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

|quote= is the only cs1|2 parameter where {{sic}} may be used. Do not use {{sic}} in any cs1|2 parameter that contributes to the citation's metadata (see Template:Cite book § COinS).

Better, in my mind: if the quoted text is important to the en.wiki article, put the quoted text in the article body and cite it. In the article body, there are virtually no formatting limits, the quote is right there for the reader to read (no jumping to the reference, reading the quote, and jumping back to the article), and the references section isn't cluttered. Others disagree with me.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:09, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

News headlines

I understand that MOS:QUOTE says "trivial spelling and typographic errors should simply be corrected without comment... unless the slip is textually important", but what about non-significant errors in news headlines. For instance, for a newspaper headline, "Stcok (sic) prices rising".

Should news headlines be treated under the MOS:QUOTE policy or should the (sic) instruct an editor to leave it alone? Kaltenmeyer (talk) 19:51, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

A news headline like this falls under MOS:QUOTE; we should correct it without comment.

Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 16:35, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

sic and CS1/CS2 citation templates

A related discussion about the possible use of {{sic}} in conjunction with CS1/CS2 citation templates, related issues and potential solutions: Help_talk:Citation_Style_1#Journal_template_&_sic --Matthiaspaul (talk) 18:24, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

The nowiki tag you added is messing things up. Please revert. 65.88.88.69 (talk) 19:40, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

See Help_talk:Citation_Style_1#Related_edits_to_the_sic_template

--Matthiaspaul (talk) 19:58, 6 October 2021 (UTC)