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Proposal to index

I'm interested in taking on a tedious and difficult task, because it feels important: invisibly indexing useful information in all the style guidelines talk archives in some hopefully uncontroversial and useful way. (I've got lots of time until May 1.) I've noticed when doing indexing for legal projects in the past that prefixing a semicolon to index terms seems to work well as a "poor man's database". Putting an invisible <span id="1" /> [changed per Daniel Friesen below] in an archive page would let people wikilink to a line, if they like, that gives useful information on any desired keyword. (What's useful and uncontroversial will be determined through feedback on this page.) I can then maintain a page with all these links, in my userspace or elsewhere, and/or we can put the invisible links on each archive page listed (visibly!) at the top of that archive page.

It would be particularly useful to know which issues have already been argued by a wide community, with or without an RfC, so I'll make sure to put invisible links there. I'll include that information on the summary page, which I'll put in my userspace for the time being.

Archive pages say that they shouldn't be edited, so anyone who makes an edit has a pretty steep presumption working against them, but we could use this to our advantage. Anyone is welcome to help, of course, but it's not a trivial project; I don't see how someone could do it at all without having some kind of broad knowledge of what subjects keep recurring, which pieces of information in the talk archives are new, where it's been discussed before ... this is kind of a headache, so we can use the presumption against editing archives to insist that people either get broad permission or discuss potential additions or subtractions on the (current) talk page if they don't want to get reverted immediately. So, that's what I'm doing: I'm asking for broad permission to start indexing. Anyone who has a search term they'd like included, please list it here. Anyone who thinks I'll screw it up, please let me know now :) - Dan (talk) 17:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. This proposal has already had one good effect ... on me. I'm realizing that a few things I said might get linked, but they aren't as tight and hard to miscontrue as I'd like, so I'm going back to fix them before they get archived. If people are more careful with what they write here, that can only be good. - Dan (talk) 20:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
This is in reply to Sept's question above, about why we don't follow guidelines with explanations and justifications. It seems to me that if there's a particular "Why?" that comes up a lot, and there's a quick answer, an occasional footnote (as at WP:Layout) might be helpful. But in general, it's hard to predict the questions, and even harder to get a short answer that represents all sides, so it would be great to have a page that matches keywords with all the relevant invisible links in the archives. For people who really want to know more (on all sides of the issue), it's ideal, and it's also a good way to deflect any criticism that we didn't think it through. - Dan (talk) 00:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Answered above in particular. In general, a habit of giving reasons, if any, seems preferable to expecting the readers to quarry them out of our discussions. But we could <wait for it> do both. 00:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
It's something I'm willing to keep an open mind on, Sept. Maybe another random survey? Do you want me to add a question to the GAU survey giving a few examples with more and less explanation and asking which works better? If so, can you give me some examples? - Dan (talk) 03:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
(copied from my talk page) However I would suggest you don't use the Keyword and just stick with hunting down anchors. <span id="anchor id" />. Dantman (talk) 02:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
That was from Daniel Friesen, a css guru who hangs out at Wikia and also gave a response at bugzilla to the bugzilla thread above. So, let's do it that way; there are other places to put keywords. - Dan (talk) 03:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

←Clarification. There's a general principle that things on WP pages shouldn't be invisible, in order to make sure we're getting the full benefit of multiple eyeballs. So I think I would recommend that we not insert <span id="1" /> on a talk page before it's archived, when we could just as easily, and in full view, insert a subsection heading that accomplishes the same thing. It's when a page is archived that inserting a new subsection heading isn't appropriate any more. Also, I really would recommend that the id's are 1, 2, 3, etc, on the principle that nothing invisible should be allowed to build up randomly even in talk archives. Having the id's be as simple as possible will make it easier to list and keep track of them. - Dan (talk) 20:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

A thought about editing style guides

(I have eliminated this comment because I have just realized that you all discussed this subject at length above. Great minds think alike, I guess. My apologies!) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 10:52, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Blockquote for emphasis

There are times where I will put one or two quoted sentences (with reference) inside of a <blockquote>...</blockquote> because it serves to emphasize the quote when formated without the (in my opinion) added visual clutter of the {{cquote}} template, although I only do it if there are no additional quotes from the same source in the section. Not sure if it's important enough to add to the MOS section but I thought I'd bring it up for discussion.Awotter (talk) 03:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you asked. I've seen plenty of three- and four-line block quotes. I'm sure some editors won't like a two-full-line block quote, but TCMOS gives examples of block quotes of just one line (11.26) and two lines (11.28). It does appear that WP:MoS suggests that four-line one-paragraph quotations should not be in block quotes, but anything longer should be; I don't know who decided this, and maybe they'll share. (But apparently, the example defines one line plus a name to be "two paragraphs", requiring a block quote.)
I can't find any discussion on the subject from a Google search of these archives, not under "block quote" or "blockquote", so I guess I'm free to tell you what I think. I often block quote with two full lines or more, although I'm not sure if I would get away with it at WP:FAC. I've heard that many Wikipedians don't like too much white space, so pay attention to how much white space you have in the vicinity. I lean towards block quotes for two full lines if I want to call special attention to the quote, or if the quote has several quotation marks that I don't want to demote to single quotation marks. - Dan (talk) 04:52, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
P.S. I need to be a little careful, so let me clarify "I've seen plenty of three- and four-line block quotes." This is not a statement that everyone should accept my original research, nor a statement that everything that you see inside or outside Wikipedia is good or relevant. I'm not a full-time professional copyeditor. I'm saying that when someone asks a question, and I can't find evidence that the question has been widely discussed on Wikipedia before, and there's no clear consensus among the commonly-consulted style guidelines such as TCMOS, a good first step is to report on what I have seen that seems relevant to me. That way, if I'm heading in the wrong direction, someone can tell me, and the conversation can evolve. - Dan (talk) 15:04, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, it does seem like more of a personal preference. I like to be able to read articles without having to wade through large blocks of unbroken text because it just seems easier on the eyes whereas with a printed page it's not as bad. Awotter (talk) 04:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
An alternative option might be the use of pull quotes and epigraphs. Block quotes are really for practical reasons, and if you want quotes for aesthetic reasons, those two are really better options. VanTucky 18:01, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I know this qualifies as WP:WEASEL, but pull quotes are widely held to be unencyclopaedic. At least this is what I hear. Waltham, The Duke of 21:16, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The proposal is to merge Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) into Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations), and why not? It's been tagged for months and more input is needed HERE. Comments welcome. Tony (talk) 14:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

More eyeballs at protected style page, please

WP:Words to avoid is protected because of some edit-warring (not by me) over a proposed section on the word "phenomenon". There have also been discussions about giving advice on "controversy" and "the" (when used to falsely imply importance or definiteness). I wrote some proposed language here, but there's no discussion yet. Discussion would be helpful so that the page can be un-protected. Thanks. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:53, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Please, a few yay or nay comments would be appreciated at that link so that page protection can be removed. There have been no edits at all to the talk page. - Dan (talk) 16:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
The page is still protected because of lack of response. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Currencies

Do the three-letter ISO currency codes go before or after the value? That is, do we write CZK 55,555 or 55,555 CZK? Shouldn't this be stated in the MOS?--Kotniski (talk) 08:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Better to ask at MOSNUM (which is in a state of tumult at the moment). Tony (talk) 09:15, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization in French titles and style from 1589 to 1830

To begin with, if this is not the appropriate notice board to post this discussion, please excuse me. I am in a dispute with Charles and, apparently, WP:MOS-FR#Noble titles. I find this whole section of the MOS faulty. It tries to set standards were it readily admits there are no standards. In the end, the standard it does promote is contrary to the actual usage of capitilization method used by the House of Bourbon between 1589 and 1830. In addition, the standard is not followed by many English-speaking authors today, leading to a style of writing most English-speakers would not be familiar with from reading a biography of a member of the French royal family.

In particular, I am offended by the following comment/directive and find it to be arbitrary, incorrect and representative of a very biased POV:

"in French with capital spelling: Comtesse de, Marquis de... (e.g. Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu; Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon; Constantin-François de Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney). This is a incorrect Franco-English hybrid form using the capitalization rules of an English-user."

I am interested in getting this policy changed, and WP:MOS-FR#Noble titles rewritten or deleted. I will summarize my argument as follows (it is found more fully in Talk:Fils_de_France and Talk:Prince_du_Sang):

1) The capitalization method described in the MOS is not an incorrect "Franco-English hybrid." It is the one used by the French royal family and court themselves:

2) Many modern English-speaking authors do not use the Wikipedia style of capitalization, and to use it not only misrepresents how the people who used those titles and styles referred to themselves, but also is confusing to most English-speakers, whose reading material should not be censored by modern French linguists and how they feel about linguistic revisionism.

The following is a list of well-known books in English on the French royal family that specifically do NOT use Wikipedia's incorrect capitalization standard for French titles:

  • Nancy Mitford - The Sun King, Harper & Row, 1966;
  • Antonia Fraser - Marie Antoinette, The Journey, Doubleday, 2001;
  • Antonia Fraser - Love and Louis XIV, The Women in the Life of the Sun King, Doubleday, 2006;
  • Caroline Weber - Queen of Fashion, Henry Holt and Company, 2006;
  • Susan Nagel - Marie-Thérèse, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter, Bloomsbury, 2008.

BoBo (talk) 14:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming fr.wikipedia.com will follow the Académie française on this; how do they capitalize? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it is necessary to consider what either French Wikipedia or the Académie française says on the matter. They are concerned only with modern French speakers. They are neither concerned with the accurate preservation in modern English of French capitalization from the past, nor with how an article in modern English should be written concerning old French styles and titles. BoBo (talk) 14:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Right, I'm not saying that we need to capitalize the same way the modern French do. I'm saying that you made two arguments; one was about what modern English writers do, and that's certainly important. Your other argument was on a subject that I'd be much more willing to trust the Académie française on, namely, "What capitalization was used in the 18th century by the French royal family and court?" - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:45, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
BoBo, tell me, how do you preserve what varied anyway? Do we alternate every second title with an upper- or lower case letter? Really now, we are not destroying information. Where text is quoted or duplicated we should use whatever form was used... If that is quoting the actual French or actual translations or English of the time. Anything else is not a matter of preservation! We are conveying the information either way. We do not write for the past, we write about it. As I said before, we don't call Henry VIII "the Kynge". Charles 22:21, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm... given what BoBo says... I think we do need to re-think this section of the guideline. Blueboar (talk) 14:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's worth mentioning that this kind of things can easily be checked with Google books, e.g. this book form the 17th century, printed in the 19th, uses this style. (And it's the first old book that I found.) --Hans Adler (talk) 16:06, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Hans, the book you link to is a perfect example of what I am talking about. It capitalizes the titles in the same way that the handwritten letters I referenced to earlier do. This should be evidence enough to demonstrate that the current Wikipedia standard is inaccurate. BoBo (talk) 18:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely with BoBo. I've disliked our capitalisation of French titles intensely for a long time, but my complaints have always been shouted down. Proteus (Talk) 17:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Without being any sort of expert, the capitalization in French is surely a political issue - whether a capital is used or not depends on the political stance of the writer. The current MoS formulation, following a Republican line, is way too emphatic. Johnbod (talk) 18:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Is this an NPOV issue? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Not in English I think. Johnbod (talk) 20:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
For me the capitalisation feels wrong, but this is because I've always used Chicago style and because the best history books use the non-capitalised style. "Rare was the great noble, who, like Henry, duke of Guise ..." (J. Russell Major, From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy); "La Rochelle's mayor, Alexandre de Haraneder, sieur de Roulraux ..." (S.Annette Finley-Croswhite, Henry IV and the Towns); "Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy" (N. M. Sutherland, The French Secretaries of State in the Age of Catherien de' Medici); "his future governess, Françoise de Longuejoue, baroness of Monglat ..." (A. LLoyd Moote, Louis XIII), etc. These are books I have read recently. In more popular histories, one does however find capitalisation in such cases, I admit.
Because I have been ticked off about, even mocked about, my non-captalisation principles, and, more particularly, because people come along helpfully adding capitals (but never all of them), I have crumbled and started to go with the capitalisation crowd. And I accept that where capitalisation occurs on article titles, one feels rather obliged to use the same form when mentioning those individuals in other articles. But I would urge those arguing over this to stop short of becoming heated, because there is no one "correct" system, not in today's English, today's French, today's English translated from the French, or in historical French. Inconsistency rules. The best we can aim for here is consistency within each article. qp10qp (talk) 19:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I was impressed by the evidence adduced by BoBo and Hans, so I decided to research how the current language of the MOS directive came to be. Before it resided on WP:MOS-FR#Noble titles, it was at Wikipedia:WikiProject France, where it had been moved in turn from Wikipedia:France-related topics notice board. It is there we must look to discover how the language was arrived at:
  • The page was created by editor NYArtsnWords on March 5, 2006. In the original, short version of the relevant section it states, "Capitalization is currently chaotic" and declares, "It would be helpful if we could come to some sort of consensus which would fit with Wikipedia:Naming conventions and Wikipedia:Proper names." There is no claim that one style—lowercased or capitalized—is more correct or in any way superior.
  • The most important change to the language is made, again by NYArtsnWords, on March 12, 2006. Here is where the claim appears that the lowercase style "is the correct form in French and is the form used in article titles on the French wiki." Here is where the claim appears that the capitalized style "is a Franco-English hybrid form." Significantly, NYArtsnWords adduces no evidence for the claims (though the form on the French wiki is obviously verifiable first hand), and there has been no discussion of the matter on the Talk page.
  • Another major change to the language is made, once again by NYArtsnWords, on March 16, 2006. Here is where the claim appears that "the current (tenuous) concensus is that all articles with French titles using de should have the title in lowercase." In edit summary, NYArtsnWords identifies the change to the language as following "results of discussion." The referenced discussion took place at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles). The discussion does indicate a consensus that titles in French be lowercased; however no evidence at all is adduced, and the discussion is effectively guided by the unevidenced claim (made once again) that the capitalized style "is a Franco-English hybrid form."
In sum, I believe it has been demonstrated in the present thread that—at least for the historical period under discussion—the claim that the capitalized style is an improper hybrid and the lowercased style is more correct are patently false. Those statements should be struck; in the matter of lowercasing it might help to explicate that the style is correct in modern French but was not historically the standard. I would make these changes myself on the basis of the great weight of facts presented, but it might be better if it was done by a member of the project. The matter of the old, and apparently ill-founded, consensus is in your hands. All the best, Dan.—DCGeist (talk) 19:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
There is no right and wrong. But let me explain the thinking. If we say "King Charles", we capitalise because the title is combined with the name; but if we say "Charles, king of England, the title is in apposition to his name and therefore is used as a general title (other people have been king of England). I would not insist on this; but I would object if anyone insisted against it in the policy.qp10qp (talk) 19:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Qp has described good contemporary American English style. The problem in this case is that WP:MOS-FR states (at one point in bold) that things are right and wrong, when the evidence clearly demonstrates that those statements are false. They've been floating around Wikipedia for over two years; now they should be removed.—DCGeist (talk) 19:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's the issue. It would be good if someone could write a little essay, explaining all the nuances (erk, not me) to editors. I think it is good that Wikipedia has an MoS, but I feel the MoS should obey the overall principle of the site, which is that all information be sourced. Any attempt to standardise language on Wikipedia runs the risk of making one alternative right and another alternative wrong, whereas in the real world of letters and publishing, variety may exist from one publishing house to another, from one usage guide to another, from one branch of written English to another. In honesty, we must describe and explain such variety rather than presuming to rubberstamp one vein of it. The latter would be original thought, would it not? qp10qp (talk) 20:06, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Dank55, I agree with DCGeist. The standand needs to be rewritten to allow both forms of capitalization with the qualification that modern French usage is different from the usage in the 17th and 18th centuries. Articles about pre-1830 French individuals probably should use capitalization and post-1830 individuals should not. The 1830 date is somewhat arbitrary in the sense that I don't actually know the date when the lower-case usage became commonplace. All I know at this point is that the senior line of the House of Bourbon used capitalization in their titles all the way up to King Charles X of France, who was deposed in 1830. BoBo (talk) 20:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
It's better not to even go that far, in my opinion. All we need to do is write names in a style acceptable in modern English. In this case (names and titles), the capitalisation is allowable—but old-style capitalisation (and spelling, punctuation) is generally out of date now, whether in French or English. qp10qp (talk) 20:35, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Johnbod (talk) 20:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

←An interesting problem. Do the French make the case that a 20th-century "comte de Lyon" (I don't even know if there is a Count of Lyon) isn't capitalized because it's not a proper noun, the same way that a barber of Lyon wouldn't be capitalized? Several other possibly relevant things come to mind, all pointing in different directions:

  • The principles behind WP:JARGON and Use English, namely, English is hard, and it doesn't work to try to force everyone to learn the special rules or special words that every small group knows. The application of this would, of course, piss the French off mightily, since fr.wikipedia.org is now the second largest Wikipedia, and since they have to learn our stupid rules and stupid words on a daily basis. But we toss foreign capitalization rules, diacritical marks and non-English spellings out the window all the time, even though this often puzzles and offends non-English speakers. People who haven't grown up speaking a language created by a melting pot of cultures and run by "cowboys" who aggressively resist standardization often don't understand that there is a strong tendency among English-speaking people to shout "No more!" every time someone tries to force us to learn something new.
  • WP:NPOV: If there really are two sides to this story, then we are required to tell both sides.
  • Free flow of information: if almost everything that is written about French titles is written by Francophiles, including English-speaking academics who have used lower case, then we impede the flow of that information in and out of the English Wikipedia if the capitalization has to be changed. (My understanding from BoBo is that this is not true, that many recent scholarly works do capitalize the titles ... are these works representative or exceptional?) If we allow capitals, then usually capitalization will win out, since that's what most of us are used to (whether we know anything about French titles or not). If that means that we offend just about everyone capable of writing the articles, then the articles don't get written.
  • This seems like a potentially hard problem to me, but I hope I'm wrong. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:54, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

We write about the past, not for the past. We are not bound to use forms of French (which varied) used in the past when writing now. We do not use Old English for Henry VIII when he was called "the Kynge" nor do we use a form of a title just because it was found in letters of the time and also because some authors have used it. BoBo has claimed that the use of lower case letters for French titles is a recent invention to suit the egos of scholars who wish to rewrite history. I believe BoBo says that to serve his POV. The Almanach de Gotha, the Holy Bible of European royalty (almost all sovereigns consulted it when considering a bride's eligibility) uses lower case letters in its 1910 edition, so it's not even a new invention as BoBo would like everyone to believe. And if he wants to talk about what's official and used, the Almanach de Gotha is basically watertight. We haven't anglicized French titles because we borrow them in their entirety. If we anglicized them (which we could), we would use "Duke" instead of "duc", "Count" instead of "comte", etc. But we don't in all cases. In the last ten years, any number of authors have used both, but that isn't to say authors are always correct. Where there are variants we record what we know independently to be correct which is the French usage, not English usage if it varies (which it has). Charles 22:17, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Charles, your presentation would be more impressive if you did not personalize the dispute to the degree that you do. You should be especially careful not to mischaracterize the position of your opponent in a debate. Nowhere in the is thread, nor the two article threads where this dispute arose does BobBo claim that lowercase form might not reflect a style used in 1910. The facts remain: Capitalization is not a "French-English hybrid", but a style with a long, well-evidenced history of French usage. Lowercase is not "the correct form"; it is an acceptable form, just as capitalization is. Yes, our Manual of Style can reflect a preference here for one or the other, but that preference should be based on a consensus honestly arrived at after considering a large amount of available evidence and without browbeating those who disagree with us.—DCGeist (talk) 22:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I have no issue with healthy disagreement but this issue was started with BoBo characterizing anything but following what people called themselves as inventions to suit the egos of history revisionists which is an unfair statement which accuses anyone who may disagree with him of the same. I apologize if that did offend anyone or it seemed too personal as that was not my intent, although that was ultimately how it came out. My summary argument is that usage does vary and if neither is wrong in English we should at least favour a consistency to avoid disputes. I point to things like the latest old Almanachs de Gotha (as an example that the lower case is not a recent invention) and also current French usage because those are definitive and don't vary. The wording shouldn't say one form is wrong but that one form is preferred. I do, however, protest the argument of using what was used way back in the 1700s, etc. Like I said, Henry VIII isn't "the Kynge" to us. Charles 22:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Charles (though I still cannot find any reference by BoBo to anyone's "egos".) On the matter of which, if either, style should be preferred here on the English-language Wikipedia in 2008, I happen to agree with your argument that the lowercase style is preferable.—DCGeist (talk) 22:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
It was on another page. I can bring it up if asked but won't before that because I don't think it will serve anything past what I've already said. Let's focus on the topic rather than the people since it is out of the way. Charles 22:52, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
This discussion just came to my attention. Let me say a few words, since my edits have been brought up.
  1. It seems to me that this discussion would be more appropriate on the WP:MOS-FR talk page (and might perhaps be moved there?). My (recent) creation of the WP:MOS-FR page was meant as an attempt at encouraging discussion and clarification of these very problems. An RfC was made, although no one responded to it. As one can tell, there are very few people working on these things and my edits from 2006 have pretty much remained uncommented on for 2 years. The MOS-FR is under development and no one should construe anything on it as set in stone. I am concerned that the tone of the posts here is already heated. Relax and discuss.
  2. BoBo, in their original post, mentions historical cases of capitalization. The French language, like any other, has changed much over the last two centuries. If one was to follow 19h century capitalization rules for English, the Wikipedia would look like Pynchon's Mason Dixon. Judging from the Academy Française's website (see for example http://www.academie-francaise.fr/immortels/index.html) or from such contemporary scholars of the Ancien Régime as François Bluche (editor of the Dictionnaire du Grand Siècle), or Arlette Jouanna and Jaqueline Boucher (editors of several dictionaries on the Renaissance) or by the conventions of the French Wikipedia - noble titles ARE NOT CAPITALIZED in current usage. I do think it's necessary to look at how the French Academy and the French Wikipedia do things: if it's reasoned consensus we are looking for, why wouldn't we go to people and sites whose job it is to think about these things.
  3. DCGeist's archeology of the matter is correct - I am the source of the convention statements. If the expression "Franco-English hybrid" is the thing under attack, then by all means remove the line. I am truly sorry if that line has been taken as anti-English language POV; it was not my intention (in other words: it was not my intention to write on capitalization from a historical perspective, but only with regards to current French-language practice.). That unfortunate line notwithstanding, my point was: in contemporary scholarly work in French, this capitalized form is not used and that there is chaos in the wikipedia style. -NYArtsnWords (talk) 23:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
An addendum to the previous: With regards to titles of people before 1850, I have never seen a noble title (duc, comte, seigneur, etc.) capitalized in any modern French scholarly works on the 16th or 17th centuries, including:
  • Arlette Jouanna, Jacqueline Boucher, Dominique Biloghi, Guy Le Thiec. Histoire et Dictionnaire des Guerres de religion. Paris: Laffont, 1998. ISBN 2-221-07425-4
  • François Bluche. Louis XIV. Paris: Fayard, 1986. ISBN 2-01-013174-6
  • René Pillorget and Suzanne Pillorget. France Baroque, France Classique. Vol II: Dictionnaire. Paris: Laffont, 1995. ISBN 2-221-08110-2
  • Jean-François Solnon. La Cour de France. Paris: Fayard, 1987. ISBN 2-253-90439-2
  • Lucien Bély. La France moderne 1498-1789. Paris: PUF, 1994. ISBN 2-13-047406-3
In addition, contemporary French versions of period works, such as Madame de Lafayette's La Princesse de Clèves, use the lowercase format (see Gallimard, 2000 ISBN 978-2-07-041443-7 and Garnier-Flammarion 1966 ISBN 2-08-070082-0). -NYArtsnWords (talk) 23:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
My response to NYArtsnWords is simple. This debate shouldn't rely on anything modern French linguists, the Academie française or French Wikipedia are doing. Their discussions relate solely to how modern French is written. Unlike English, French is a highly regulated language. Any concentration on modern French usage confuses two separate issues. The issue in this debate is not the validity of modern French usage but how modern English articles should be written based upon ORIGINAL French usage. What is wrong with allowing English-speaking editors the right to choose which method of capitalization to use? I have offered the names of five well-known books in English on the French royal family which shows that there is no currently accepted English standard of translating French titles and styles. To impose one is dictatorial for no reason since it has been established that both methods have had weight at different times in French history.
I am also going to at this point include a quote from a response I gave to Dank55 on his talk page:
"As far as modern usage goes, I recognize that at some later point French usage changed. My assumption is that after the change certain English-speaking academics jumped on the band wagon to enhance their academic credentials. Academics are constantly trying to re-invent history in order to attract publishers and gain tenure. Unfortunately, I think at times this leads to an unnecessary revisionism. In this case, I see no reason why the original methods of capitalization can't be used. Rather than distorting the information, it makes it more authentic. An academic might insist on a new methodology, whether in France or an English-speaking country, but that doesn't make the new methodology in line with either the original circumstances or with the methodology employed in popular English-language biographies where most English-speakers will get their information." BoBo (talk) 23:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Support the proposal to copy the conversation to WT:MOS-FR and continue the conversation there, leaving this much text here to point people to the conversation if they want to join. Enough has been presented here for people to know whether they're interested or not. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I support that as well. Charles 00:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I do not support. It is my fear that any removal to the WT:MOS-FR page would serve only to isolate this debate to a apecific academic audience tilted toward accepted modern French usage and away from a general audience more representative of the majority of English-speakers not allied to a specific language. This debate, as I have said before, should not be a debate about the validity of modern French usage. This debate should be about how to write modern English articles. BoBo (talk) 00:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
What about WP:AGF? Everyone here will see where the discussion is and may participate. What have you to fear? Charles 00:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Charles, you have not been civil to me in the past when editing me on Prince du Sang. The addition of the question, "What have you to fear?" to your suggestion has an air of unwarranted sarcasm and dismissiveness associated with it that makes me especially wary of you. After a review of the WP:AGF article, I am also bothered by the following comment from GTBacchus:
"I've noticed a lot of interactions here in which one editor throws an AGF link at another as part of a response to some point in a dispute. The effect of this is often an escalation of ill will, and a further wandering from the constructive point at hand, because they end up arguing over whether one person was assuming good faith, and whether the other was assuming the assumption of good faith..." BoBo (talk) 00:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Really? It was I who suggested moving to a general discussion and I see nothing wrong with the edits at Prince du sang... You kept on reverting while pointing to a discussion you had already made your mind up on anyway. I said no one was going to listen there so throw it out where more people will see it. Wary of me? I beg your pardon but *that* is an unnecessary comment. I haven't any ill will, GTBacchus cannot speak for me and I have in mind to move the discussion to where it counts most, which is the most concise part of the MOS on the matter. Charles 01:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
You have just proved my point about incivility. Can Charles make a unilateral decision like he is suggesting? I think it has to be a consensus decision and so far you only have two other supporters, both open opponents of mine. I suggest that you stop trying to intimidate me and leave this conversation in place for the next week or so so that others can comment. BoBo (talk) 01:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Having taken the discussion this far here, it should remain. By all means add a notice at the other page. Johnbod (talk) 01:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not your "open opponent". I oppose your ideas which are shared by a few other people, so it's not about you. Please don't barb your comments about civility with more incivility. If you find me intimidating though there is something wrong! What can I possibly do, wish that your fingers get caught between your keyboard keys? :P Charles 01:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

'Ello 'ello 'ello. What's all this then? Are you going to immortalise yourselves on WP:LAME about, of all things, the location for the discussion about capitalisation of French names? I have a French book from 1997 (Cornette: Chronique du Règne de Louis XIV) that seems to be using inconsistent spelling. --Hans Adler (talk) 01:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC) (ec)

Does the honour come with a user box or some sort of barnstar? :P I know there is the inconsistency but I think the issue is the inconsistency leads to arguments over what is used. We should develop a policy or clarify the MOS. Charles 01:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't mind whether this particular argument lives here or somewhere else, as long as we're agreed on the principle: people can come here and start style discussions if they're not getting a broad enough audience on the talk page of some other style guideline, and this is a good example of good things that can happen when they do, but OTOH, this is the talk page for WP:MoS, not WP:MOS-FR. WT:MoS already has 97 archives. Searching talk archives is already pretty hard, we don't need to make it harder by putting stuff on the wrong talk pages. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I removed the unfortunate/incorrect/POV "Franco-English" line on WP:MOS-FR. The issue of consensus on French titles remains however.

There is no problem when using the English spelling of the titles with an "of" (Duke of..., Count of...) for those people known by their English forms... although one could imagine an infinite discussion about capitalization and the use of "of" in those titles (Pulling a book from a shelf: Capetian France 987-1328 by Elizabeth M. Hallam (London & New York: Longman, 1980. ISBN 0-582-48910-5) uses the lowercase "count of" and "duke of" throughout. I notice that Britannica online [ http://www.britannica.com/] appears to use lowercase and "de": "duke de", "count de" and "prince de").

The difficulty for French language titles on the English wiki: should contemporary French usage and the TCMOS be taken as guides? I am not sure that assuming "that after the change certain English-speaking academics jumped on the band wagon to enhance their academic credentials. Academics are constantly trying to re-invent history in order to attract publishers and gain tenure" is an effective way at arriving at consensus. English language usage is chaotic. A respected introduction on modern French history -- Gordon Wright's France in Modern Times (New York & London: Norton, 1987 ISBN0-393-95582-6) -- uses Duc d'Orléans, Duc de Broglie, Comte de Paris and Comte de Chambord. A respected overview of French literature -- Denis Hollier (ed) A New History of French Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1989. ISBN 0-674-61565-4) -- uses "marquis de", "prince de", "duc de".

The word "consensus" is key. The above discussion is an obvious example of why establishing a consensus and following a manual of style is helpful, if only to avoid losing oneself in endless discussion (or worse, edit wars) so that one may go back to writing/editing articles. NYArtsnWords (talk) 02:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

In addition to the five books I have already listed, here is a sampling of books printed in English of French royalty or nobility that capitalizes French titles:
  • Irene Mahoney, Royal Cousin, The Life of Henri IV of France, Doubleday, 1970;
  • Peter Quennell, Memoirs of the Comte de Gramont, George Routledge & Sons, 1930;
  • Hester W. Chapman, Privileged Persons, Four Seventeenth-Century Studies, Ebenezer Baylis and Son, 1966;
  • Bryan Bevan, The Duchess Hortense, Cardinal Mazarin's Wanton Niece, The Rubicon Press, 1987;
  • W.H. Lewis, The Sunset of the Splendid Century, William Sloane Associates, 1955;
  • W.H. Lewis, Assault on Olympus, The Rise of the House of Gramont, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1958;
  • Joan Sanders, La Petite, The Life of Louise de la Vallière, Houghton Mifflin, 1959;
  • Lisa Hilton, Athénaïs, The Real Queen of France, Little Brown and Company, 2002;
  • Frances Mossiker, The Affair of the Poisons, Alfred A. Knopf, 1969;
  • J. Christopher Herold, Love in Five Temperaments, Atheneum, 1961;
  • Lucy Norton, First Lady of Versailles, J.B. Lippincott Company, 1978;
  • Maria Kroll, Letters from Liselotte, The McCall Publishing Company, 1971;
  • Nicholas Henderson, Prince Eugen of Savoy, Frederick A. Praeger, 1964;
  • Jack Richtman, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Prentice Hall, 1971;
  • Nancy Mitford, Madame de Pompadour, Harper & Row, 1968;
  • Stanley Loomis, Du Barry, A Biography, J.B. Lippincott, 1959;
  • Philip Mansel, Prince of Europe, The Life of Charles-Joseph de Ligne, Phoenix, 2003;
  • John Hardeman, Louis XVI, Yale University Press, 1993;
  • André Castelot (translated by Denise Folliot), Queen of France, Harper & Brothers, 1957;
  • Frances Mossiker, The Queen's Necklace, Simon and Schuster, 1961;
  • Alice Curtis Desmond, Marie Antoinette's Daughter, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1967;
  • Philip Mansel, Louis XVIII, Blond & Briggs, 1981;
  • Cynthia Cox, Tallyrand's Successor, Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu 1766-1822, Arthur Barker, Ltd., 1959;
  • Marvin L. Brown, The Comte de Chambord, The Third Republic's Uncompromising King, Duke University Press, 1967.
Why have I listed so many? To show that the capitalization of French titles occurs in many, many English-language books up to the present day. Regardless of the argument about how the French court used capitalization, why should Wikipedia institute a policy that is not inclusive of a lot of the books that are the best way that the average English-speaker can gain information on French royalty? In addition, I think the case of the American translation of Castelot's book on Marie Antoinette is very instructive, regardless of what style Castelot actually used in his original French edition (which I haven't seen), the determination was made that the spelling should use capitalization for the titles in English. BoBo (talk) 03:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I love that the American Library Association review on Amazon of the Lisa Hilton book you mention uses the lowercase "marquise de Montespan". Like I said above, English language usage IS chaotic. There has never been any question that it isn't. If it wasn't chaotic, there would be no need for discussion of consensus. That is why a manual of style consensus is helpful, so that people don't edit war minor issues of capitalization forever. Without Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles), things would be far more chaotic and one would never find anything. WP:LAME, mentioned in the comment above, is, despite its humor, a record of a lot of time spent on nothing. NYArtsnWords (talk) 04:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Basically, I agree with you, NYArtsnWords, that English usage can be chaotic. But, with historical evidence to support its use by the French court itself, I think that the capitalization of French titles should not be banned from use on English-language Wikipedia. French Wikipedia can do what they want. That is a separate issue. BoBo (talk) 04:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
How do we deal with inconsistencies, BoBo? Do we have articles on Henri, comte de Chambord or Henri, Comte de Chambord? Charles 04:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Charles, I think you are essentially asking a software question. Why do names of articles need to be case sensitive? If they weren't, either method of capitalization could be used. BoBo (talk) 04:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, the article names usually reflect what the subjects are called. If it matters to you and others what the content within the article is, what should the articles themselves be called? If you want to use "Duc" in an article, shouldn't the holder of that title have the article title using "Duc" as well, and not "duc"? What is to prevent someone from an edit war either way if we don't have a style guide? In Chambord's case, one is a redirect to the other, they aren't the same page technically because the caps do matter. Charles 05:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
From earlier in the conversation, "I agree with DCGeist. The standand needs to be rewritten to allow both forms of capitalization with the qualification that modern French usage is different from the usage in the 17th and 18th centuries. Articles about pre-1830 French individuals probably should use capitalization and post-1830 individuals should not. The 1830 date is somewhat arbitrary in the sense that I don't actually know the date when the lower-case usage became commonplace. All I know at this point is that the senior line of the House of Bourbon used capitalization in their titles all the way up to King Charles X of France, who was deposed in 1830." BoBo (talk) 05:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Just to be clear, my primary concern has been that the facts be represented properly and as wide a range of evidence be adduced as possible. And I greatly admire the effort you've taken to do just that. However, the refined distinction you propose—capitalizing the titles of nobles who assumed their titles before 1830, lowercasing the titles of those who assumed their titles afterward—despite its historical grounding, is an odd sort of distinction to make in a style manual. Manuals of style tend not to call for different styles depending on the age of the item described and the style most prevalent at that point in history. That said, style manuals do sometimes call for fine distinctions based on nuances that are arguably analogous, and your well-evidenced argument is certainly not unreasonable.
Coming at this largely from the outside, I find the argument for applying the lowercase style in all cases stronger because (a) it agrees with preferred present-day French usage, (b) it parallels preferred present-day English usage, and (c) in applying one style generally it will improve consistency in a readily apparent manner (thus increasing the average reader's appreciation of our pursuit of professional-level quality) and decrease case-by-case arguments (thus making the average editor's life easier). Best, Dan.—DCGeist (talk) 05:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I want to clarify something, I too want Wikipedia to display professional-quality information. That is why I am introducing the idea that Wikipedia try not to discriminate against historically accurate presentations of French capitalization. By dividing the capitalization issue by date (1830?), I don't think the job of an editor will be made any more difficult. It seems easy to say different sets of rules apply pre and post a certain date. Any debate can be referenced to the date of the creation of the title or the date a person was born. In fact, there is already an article in development that lists the dates of the creation of certain titles, List of French peerages. BoBo (talk) 05:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, there is no doubt that your proposal is just as amenable to professional-quality presentation as the alternative. That's why I carefully worded my version of the case for that alternative—"readily apparent", "average reader's appreciation." In this regard, I'm saying, the case does hinge on the matter of perception: Would the average reader recognize the logic behind the system you propose? It seems most unlikely, in the absence of explanatory sidebars that would be inappropriate. I'm afraid the average reader would be more likely to perceive simple inconsistency.—DCGeist (talk) 06:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
The problem is I can't think of any professional-quality publication that makes such a differentiation between titles on the basis of date. Historically accurate is fine if you are reproducing a manuscript but in conveying information itself there is nothing gained by using a capital letter unless it is from a direct quote. It also seems easy to simply use the lower case letter across the board as is now down in French. Why do we have to create an even more artificial distinction? Again, we don't pick and choose the style of language we use based on date when writing article. I don't need to mention the "kynge" example again, I hope :-s Charles 06:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Naturellement, André Castelot uses lower case for titles in French, as do other French historians such as, Michel Antoine, Jean Castarède, Philippe Erlanger, Paul & Pierrette Girault de Coursac, Évelyne Lever, Jean-Christian Petitfils, Étienne Taillemine, Jean Tulard, Pierre Verlet, Jean de Viguerie, just to name a few. It irks me to have men & women of such erudition be given the epithet of "revisionists" just because they do not capitalize le roi de France or la comtesse du Trou. A question: if we are to use 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th century up to 1830 (why 1830? why not 1848 or 1870?) French Court's way of address, why is "Lis" in the article on the Fleur de Lis in English Wikipedia written with an "i" instead of a "y" since the "Fleur de lys" was the symbol of the French monarchy? Following this logic, when describing how Louis XVI was acclaimed before becoming unpopular (by the way, not by all his subjects), we should not write in French "Vive le Roi!" but "Vive le Roy!" On the other hand, if we want to stay so obtuse as to refuse the evolution of a language, why bother writing about anything outside the Anglo world? And why not pick a fight on the use in the same article of words being spelled the English way while others are spelled the American way? What is the proper English of English wiki? English? American? Australian? Canadian? Talk about inconsistencies! Frania W. (talk) 06:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I entirely agree. But Père Anselme was by far the most respected and authoritative royal genealogist-biographer-historian during the reign of Louis XIV on the subject of titles appearing in print. In the third edition (1726, first edition 1692 -- exactly the same on this matter) Père Anselme's "Histoire Généalogique et Chronologique de la Maison Royale de France, des Pairs, Grands Officiers de la Couronne & de la Maison du Roy", page 154, the entry on the Sun King begins, "Louis XIV. du nom, roy de France & de Navarre, surnommé le Grand...". Titles are not capitalised in Anselme's published works, though he may well have capitalised them in private correspondence -- especially to royalty. His style is typical of information printed in media intended for a wider audience than one's personal correspondent. Whatever variation one may find in post 19th century popular biographers in English, or in princesses writing letters, an encyclopedia strives for accuracy, authenticity and professionalism in the printed word -- not in penmanship. Most 17th, 18th and 19th century works I have seen lower-case French titles when the words are not translated into English. Foreign titles are notoriously mangled by writers of popular history in English. That is understandable: such works are character- and content-driven. But people turn to an encyclopedia for clarity and accuracy in both form and content, and should not leave misinformed or bewildered. Wikipedia may encourage anarchy in choices of subject matter, and even in length of articles. But "individual expression" in the rules of grammar, format, and presentation within articles simply say that we are unprofessional, i.e., undisciplined, unsure, and unreliable. Adopting standards isn't saying that any other usage is wrong, but that readers can count on Wikipedia to handle similar things similarly from article to article. Of course, that assumes that people don't game the system by creating forbidden forks, as has been done with a French royal title in Prince du sang and Prince du Sang -- which have recently been made to direct the reader (needlessly) to different articles. FactStraight (talk) 10:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC):
I think it is interesting to watch the evolution in the argument of the people wedded to the lower-case scenario. First, the MOS directly stated in an absolutist manner that using capitals was incorrect as if only morons would use it. Now that it has been established as a historical fact, they have switched carts to the argument that it would lead to inconsistencies. I am more persuaded by that argument than the ones they previously used, but I dislike the elitist, academic aspect of the the argument that "only the best" academic works use the lower case system, completely overlooking the multitude of English-language books that I have listed as if they were "populist" drivel. I would not be opposed to still using the lower case system IF the MOS was further rewritten to show that there is quite a valid case for using capitals both historically and in popular literature, but that Wikipedia has chosen not to use capitals for consistency purposes - not for educational, academic and/or professional reasons. In addition, I think the forms of address - Monsieur le Prince or Madame la Duchesse - should remain in capitals because they do refer to specific people, while the generic titles of prince or duc when used in reference to any holder of that title remain lower case. BoBo (talk) 11:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


While upper case vs lower case may be a vital case, I believe there is something more important in the writing of Wikipedia articles: balance within the article. For instance, why does the section "Family life" in the article on Louis XVI of France go on for over 30 lines (1/6th of the article) on the difficulty L.XVI & MA had consumating their marriage (American obsession with sex?), but says next to nothing on the accomplishments of Louis XVI? Hardly a word on the scientific projects, nothing on the creation of the meter, the decimal system, the reason for the creation of the guillotine, the abolition of torture - the list is long... Here is the fr:wiki link to Louis XVI (and I do not mean to imply that articles are better in the French wikipedia, but in this case, yes). http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVI_de_France
What I am trying to say is that here we are discussing a long-ago-dead-way-of-address in the French language for which we are incapable of giving the closing date, but are not addressing the real issue when writing an article: the truth.
As for the "elitist" vs "populist" approach, it seems to me that the "elitist" would be characterized by the use of Louis XIV's court manner of speech, while the "populist" would be the toned-down modern French. Frania W. (talk) 15:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Frania, while I understand your problem and sympathize, your complaint is easily taken care of. All you have to do is translate the parts of the French Wikipedia article you want to use and incorporate them into the Louis XVI article with proper sourcing (by the way, it has been my experience that many of the royalty articles in French Wikipedia aren't sourced at all). My problem is a little different. I have provided sourcing and there are still people who, although they can't deny its historical truth, don't want to deal with it. As long as you source your claims, you can incorporate what you want, I can't.
As far as your "elitist" statement goes, "elitism" is when one small group tries to enforce their cultural will upon a much larger group. You would be valid in the claim that the courtly manner of speech characteristic of Louis XIV's reign was "elitist" in comparison to the mass of French commoners at the time, but you would be incorrect to say that its use in modern English literature is "elitist". I have provided a variety of sources to prove that many popular English-language biographies use the capital case. It is not a minority over the majority scenario. It is not a dead issue either, I have provided the names of six books printed since 2000 that use capitals. If what you said was true, then there should be no popularly printed books in English that use capitals with French titles BoBo (talk) 21:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Might I suggest the following revision of the present MOS:

Noble titles

Main page: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles)

There is currently no standard convention for French noble titles and present-day English usage varies greatly. In Wikipedia articles, French noble titles are currently listed in two different ways:

  • in English translation (Duke of, Count of...) for historical figures and royalty most well-known by their English forms.
  • in French for other cases, maintaining the French title spelling (seigneur, chevalier, marquis, duc, comte) and the de.

Furthermore, in the second case—French titles in French form—capitalization is currently chaotic:

The consensus is that in order to prevent spelling inconsistencies within a single article or between different articles that the lowercase spelling be used.

The exception to this rule involves the style and form of address associated with the rank of specific members of the House of Bourbon. Certain members of the French royal family, the Fils de France, and their cousins, the princes and princesses du sang, were accorded a particular form of address. For example, Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans was known at court as Monsieur le Prince because he was the First Prince of the Blood. His form of address should not be in lowercase (i.e. Monsieur le prince) because the style referred exclusively to him and no other royal or noble at the time.

BoBo (talk) 22:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I’m not sure there’s much purpose to illustrating within a style guide all the inconsistencies in usage in either language; moreover, the result is confusing. I would recommend keeping it very simple, and it would seem to me that there are two main issues to resolve (keeping in mind that this is the English Wikipedia):
  • First, is it satisfactory to require more than that usage should be consistent only within each individual article?
  • Second, if uniformity is preferred, should French titles be left in French or translated into their English equivalent spellings? (In the latter case, where there is no equivalent, the French spelling would be used; however, “of” would still replace “de”.)
I would further recommend that for consistency and simplicity, capitalization of French titles (translated or not) should follow the MOS practice for English titles. Askari Mark (Talk) 00:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Vidame of (a French title) and the like simply do not work. Also, some people are rarely referred to by translated titles, such as the marquis de Sade (Marquess/Margrave of Sade?). Applying English practices to French titles is stylistically incorrect and also shows a lack of care. I would keep the MOS simple and state that French titles appended to the end of a person's name are either in the form X, Count of Y where English usage is appropriate (I would say mostly for members of the French royal house) or in the form X, comte de Y. Standalone styles without designations may be in the form M. le Comte but otherwise it is just comte (we say "the princess" in English as well, generally not "the Princess"). Charles 00:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Bobo - the use of "forms of address" seems to me to be a minor point; I doubt that any editor will use "Monsieur le Prince" in any place in an article other than in a subsection on, specifically, forms of address. Nevertheless, I see no reason why, if you want to add information on the pages of French nobles about how they were traditionally addressed, you shouldn't use the period capitalization if you reference it and put it in quotes. You might also consult Appellations des princes du sang on the French wiki.
I also strongly recommend that this discussion be copied to the MOS-FR talk page, as it may be useful to understand the conventions.- NYArtsnWords (talk) 01:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
"Forms of address" are relevant here because some who like to edit historical biographies are prone to maximize use of both titles and foreign phrases. We have gradually ratcheted down the number of WP bios with paragraphs begining "His Royal Highness The Prince George of Camelot, Duke of Cambridge, said...". But some would like to do the French equivalent, "The Fils de France inherited a château with a cour d'honneur..." or "Madame la Princesse was handed the cordon bleu by her dame d'atour..." This preciousness must be resisted, not only because it's bad writing, but because if we who care about contextualized usage of historical titulature don't ration it, we're inviting a backlash from deletists with vacuum cleaners and attitude to move in and dumb everything down. FactStraight (talk) 07:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • The discussion should be referenced, but not copied, or it will develop two continuations. I think consistency within articles should be mandated, but otherwise, as in so many areas, either style allowed, since both are clearly used in English WP:RSs. Isn't it that simple? Johnbod (talk) 01:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes it is acceptable to set a standard for usage of the same foreign terms in all articles. Conceptually, encyclopedias seek to organize information in a way that shows as well as tells how that information is typically used. Pragmatically, if we don't set a standard each article's content becomes a battleground over trivial personal preferences. Some readers expect guidance from an encyclopedia concerning appropriate usage. Others, seeing none, assume the right to substitute their personal preference (Prince du Sang) for someone else's (prince du sang) every time they encounter it. This is inherently unstable. Others shouldn't have to spend so much time and energy over this issue. They can only be spared if we adopt a consensus on usage. FactStraight (talk) 07:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
And consistency within individual articles overrides any particular rulings on how to write French names and titles; the style has to apply to all titles in an article, English, French, German, or whatever. So if we say "Henry, Prince of Wales", we say "Henry, Prince of Condé" (or "Henri, Prince de Condé"). If we say "Henry, prince of Wales", we say "Henry, prince of Condé" (or "Henri, prince de Condé"), etc. (Whether we use French or English versions of French names and titles is a matter of choice but should be as consistent as possible within articles, though it's rarely perfectly possible.) There's not one rule for the names and titles of French people and another for the rest of the world. 01:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Johnbod (talk) 02:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Disagree. The consistency is in applying the proper forms for a title in the language in which is it written. We would never speak of a "fürst" (it requires a capital letter), why would we use "Prince de"? Charles 02:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Disagree. French is different from German or Farsi: English readers are historically much more accustomed to seeing Henri, duc de Guise than "Heinrich, Herzog zu Braunschweig" as an untranslated term amidst English prose, if only because past English encyclopedias treated French as a lingua franca. Titles in the other Latin languages are less decipherable for averagely-educated English readers, and those in other languages entirely undecipherable. I understood that we were discussing only how French titles and styles are to be used. FactStraight (talk) 07:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I’m not sure I agree, Charles. The gist of the foregoing discussion is that there exists no consistent standard in either French or English “translation”, so I don’t know how one approach can be said to be “stylistically incorrect and also shows a lack of care” with respect to another. Where is there a respected style guide that holds extensive consensus on the issue. Furthermore, translation of foreign-language titles into English has precedent on Wikipedia (cf. WikiProject Germany). As for the Marquis de Sade (which I have hardly ever seen rendered “marquis de Sade” in English), a formula can be included in the MOS to cover such “well-known exceptions”. Personally, I’m agnostic about whether titles are translated or not, or capitalized or not, but I’d prefer simplicity (for the sake of non-specialist editors) and consistency (for its own sake – and since it’s jarring to the reader to click on a link only to be taken to a page that employs a quite different approach). To me, this is “stylistically correct and demonstrative of care”. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
We can't apply English standards flatout to a language which isn't English. German is a little different than French with translation (although we never speak of the "Herzog of Anhalt"). French seems to go untranslated for any number of reasons (I personally think it is because it was the language of diplomacy) but German is usually translated or left in the full German. I still think that simplicity is to treat English titles as they are in English and French titles as they are in French (and have been used in English, which is not consistent). Simply replacing "de" with "of" and using the French titles still (capitalized, nonetheless) is tantamount to misleading readers, in my opinion. No Ducs of Berry or Comtes of Brissac for me. Charles 04:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Charles, you and BoBo are at either extreme on this issue, but I suggest that the best place to be is in the middle. Wikipedia cannot enforce a single style when one doesn't exist in the real world. Although I have stated my preference for lower case, some books undoubtedly use upper. For example, my copy of Jean & François Clouet, by Etienne Jollet, published by Editions de Lagune, Paris, uses the form "Prince de" that you object to. All titles are rendered in the same way: Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse de Valentinois; Claude Goffier, Sire de Boisy; François de Vendôme, Vidame de Chartres, etc.
All we can do on Wikipedia is try to be consistent within individual articles, respecting the style that is used already, if there is one. One will never be totally consistent: do we ever want to say Catherine of Medici, for example? Or Anthony of Bourbon? Certain nonsenses are inevitable—but we can take consolation from the fact that this is also true in published books, where, for example, Catherine de' Medici has one son called Francis and another called François. qp10qp (talk) 03:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
The French Academy though is the only body which governs French usage. If we favour consistency if it all possible why wouldn't we look toward what is used in French if England is all over the place? I'm not particularly concerned with the particule at the moment, we aren't discussing names themselves. This is about titles. Should we reproduce inconsistencies? Charles 04:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
As I have said before, I am against any reference to the Académie française and the its accepted version of "correct" usage. This debate should not be about how modern people in France capitalize. It should be solely about how modern English articles are written that incorporate past forms of French titles and styles. To incorporate modern French usage, as I have said before, conflates two separate issues that should in my opinion be delinked. BoBo (talk) 10:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I reject that in its entirety. We are not writing FOR the past but ABOUT the past. We don't have to abide by past "rules" which weren't rules at all. To separate the issues only misleads and serves to confuse others in this discussion. Charles 11:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I'll support a short-and-simple version of BoBo's revision: "While present-day English and past French usage vary, for the sake of consistency, articles with French titles and styles should use the lowercase." FactStraight (talk) 07:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I want to make sure you realize, FactStraight, that I only suggested my revision in order to allow consistency within a single article or between different articles. If the consensus is that such consistency is only necessary within a single article, I would prefer not enforcing any capitalization rule across the range of English Wikipedia articles on French royalty and nobility because I do not think the lowercase system is historically accurate in all cases within the pre-1830 time frame we have been discussing. BoBo (talk) 10:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
It is accurate today though according to the French academy. We aren't writing in English of the time either. Spellings change but we are still conveying the same information. You speak as if every single title was either written one way or the other. I imagine plenty were written both ways. Charles 11:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Charles: not only in the past "every single title was either written one way or the other", but even family names had different spellings. The name of Charles Claude Flahaut de La Billarderie, comte d'Angiviller comes to my mind, where in the 17th & 18th centuries, "Angiviller" could be Angeviller, Angiviller, Angevillier, Angivillier, Angevilliers, Angivilliers. Other examples of the variations on spelling of family names in the 17th & 18th centuries: d'Angenne/d'Angennes; de Montausier/de Montauzier, André Le Nostre/Le Nôtre, François Mansard/Mansart.
RE the translation of "de" into "of": instead of Charles de Gaulle, shouldn't we write Charles of Gaulle? Mon Dieu! Frania W. (talk) 15:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Frania, I must respectfully disagree with you on the idea that inconsistent French spelling in the past somehow impacts a discussion of the capitalization of older French titles and styles in modern English. You are making reference to the spelling of the names of the appanages that were used in the creation of the titles, not the titles themselves. As far as I can tell, the actual spelling of the titles prince, princesse, duc, duchesse, comte, comtesse, etc. has not varied in the last 400 years, but the capitalization has. It doesn't make any difference if the spelling of the name Berry in Duc de Berry has changed over time because the debate is not about the capitalization of the word Berry, but is rather about the capitalization of the word Duc, which has not changed spelling during the same time frame. BoBo (talk) 21:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
BoBo, this is the second time you try to "trip me" on what I wrote: The first time was on my "elitist" vs "populist" comment which I made in jest because I found hilarious that the "elitists" were now "populists" and vice versa. However, you seemed not to have caught l'esprit of my words and, instead, went on a long classroom style (yawn) explanation of the word "elitism/elitist". Thank you. However, a patronizing attitude is not sought after in the world of Wikipedia. And, probably unbeknownst to you, I could spell & explain to you the word "elitist" in quite a few languages. The point I was making, which prompted your last tongue-lashing, was in answer to the comment Charles made about the changes in spelling. By the way, in the 15th century, "comte" used to be spelled "conte". I have under my eyes a text from original early 15th century (reproduced in typing by the Sorbonne) in which you can see the chaotic spelling in French writing, which did not stop at the close of that century, and was still reigning at the time of Louis XIV. One of the reasons the Académie française was created was to put down some rules for the "literate" French (a tiny percentage of the population of France at the time of Louis XIV) who took quite a bit of liberty with spelling and did not give much of a hoot about grammar. Following, and courtesy of the Sorbonne, are excerpts from the Chronique 1407-1424 http://elec.enc.sorbonne.fr/morchesne/chapitre21/#453note:
Celle annee, la veille de Saint Clement, fut tué a Paris le duc d’Orleans Loys, frere germain du roy.
L’an mil CCCC VIII fut la bataille du Liege de Jehan duc de Bourgongne et de l’evesque du Liege contre les Liejois.
Celle annee trespassa madame d’Orleans, la femme dudit feu duc Loys d’Orleans.
Item le roy party de Paris pour aler a Tours et au retour en mars fut fait le traictié de Chartres sur la mort dudit feu duc d’Orleans entre Charles duc d’Orleans, les contes de Vertus et d’Angolesme, ses enfans, et le duc de Bourgongne Jehan.
Mil CCCC et IX. Montagu, le grant maistre d’ostel du roy, fut decapité a Paris.
Mil CCCC X. Jehan, premier duc de Berry, le duc et les enfans d’Orleans, le duc de Bourbon, le conte d’Alençon, le conte d’Armaignac et le conte de Richemont et autres furent a grant compaignie a Vicestre452 ; depuis poursuirent le duc de Bourgongne jusques a Mondidier, puis s’en retournerent a Saint Denis et a Saint Cloud pres Paris, et fut la bataille de Saint Cloud.
Mil CCCC et XI. Le siege fut miz a Estampes par Loys duc de Guienne, daulphin de Viennoiz, et par le duc de Bourgongne et les gens du roy ; et furent prins le conte de la Marche et autres au Puiset en Beausse par ceulx de la partie d’Orleans.
Frania W. (talk) 23:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Frania, I am sorry you feel I am trying to "trip" you. All I have been trying to do is "narrow" the context of this debate so that it doesn't go off into a million different directions. Although I am impressed with your research, I would like to point out that from the beginning I have restricted my conversation to the reign of the House of Bourbon from 1589 to 1830, primarily because my main concern has always been the titles and styles during that period. I carefully phrased the heading to this section using the phrase, "from 1589 to 1830," because of my interest in the courts of Louis XIV through Charles X. I even specifically restricted the time frame in my last comment to 400 years to ensure the accuracy of my statement. I respect your erudition, but please do not try to pull this debate into the 1400's, a time period I have not commented on. Your "slippery slope" technique only serves to distort and not address my two main points: 1) The actual capitalization of French titles and styles during the Bourbon period, and 2) its acceptable use in modern English literature. BoBo (talk) 01:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Why should we make that distinction and be constrained by limits which you seek to impose? You cannot restrict conversation in such a way. Should I say please do not comment to restrict this to such a specific time frame? Really now, you are making things more complicated than they have to be and it is getting tiresome. My interest, and Frania's, and many others', is to find a solution for all French titles. I'm sorry if you do not share that POV but we are not going to be limited by the whims of a single user. Charles 02:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
BoBo, I knew when I threw in the 15th century Chronique, that you would bring up the 1589-1830 span of time & I almost added a paragraph to this effect but judged my comment long enough as it was. The voyage into the 15th century was not meant to be a “slippery slope” but an interesting illustration of the evolution of the French language from that time until the end of the 16th century. I am pretty sure that if I had the time I could find a few texts dating back to Henry/Henri IV whose language & court manners were a far cry from those of his grandson Louis XIV. I understand very well your two main points & your tough fighting to have your view implemented, but I happen not to agree with you & I believe that my points are as valid as yours. The 1589-1830 period you chose is leakage free at either end. There was much left over from the two centuries before the reign of Henri IV that could still be found during the reign of Louis XV & beyond.
If you change the rules of Wikipedia for that period, how are you going to enforce them? Do you know how many read wiki rules & regulations before editing a sentence, specially when they see what they know to be a mistake, even if it is not one, according to your point of view? If all of us here reach a consensus, and you go ahead with the changes you want to make, do you think that a non-initié walking into a Bourbon article is going to abide by the new ruling? He or she is going to make the change to what he or she thinks is correct & you’ll revert, and so on until someone brings up the subject again & starts the very same discussion as if this one never happened. It is hard for me to imagine a ruling just for one period. I see it as “burdening the beast”. Frania W. (talk) 03:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
P.S. In the article on Ancient Rome, are the numbers written in Roman numerals because that is the way the Romans wrote?
Frania, I basically have promoted the idea that there should be no "capitalization police". It is due to the shortcomings of the software that Charles earlier pointed out that has forced this awkward situation where a standard needs to be put into place to guarantee consistency in a single article and consistency between articles, although it seems that there are editors out there who feel only consistency within a single article is necessary. If there were no "capitalization police", the edit wars you describe probably wouldn't happen.
I would like to address another issue at this point which I realize might seem a digression. I realize from your comments about the Marie Antoinette article and your exchanges with Charles that you hold Antonia Fraser in low regard. I hope that you are not so opposed to my line of reasoning because Fraser promotes the same use of capitalization that I do in her writing. I merely have sought to use her books as proof that there is no established, standard way of translating the capitalization of French titles and styles into modern written English. I have made no comments about her quality as a historian. I have provided many examples of other biographies of French royalty written in English that support the use of capitalization I do, independent of Antonia Fraser. BoBo (talk) 04:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I did not point out "software shortcomings". That is what you call them. Do not mislead people into believing I said that. Don't put people down by calling them "capitalization police" if you do not want to easily be put down yourself. I speak for myself, but also imagine Frania feels the same, in saying that your POV isn't so important that we would use Fraser to nullify it, the opposition is in that you are proposing a bizarre, asymmetric and at times nonsensical way of dealing with capital letters. What about examples that can be found both with caps and without them? Do you deny the sources do not exist "countering" almost each and every example you provided using caps which do not use caps? Charles 06:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
First, Charles, let me quote an earlier exchange in the conversation:
"Charles, I think you are essentially asking a software question. Why do names of articles need to be case sensitive? If they weren't, either method of capitalization could be used. BoBo (talk) 04:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)"
"Well, the article names usually reflect what the subjects are called. If it matters to you and others what the content within the article is, what should the articles themselves be called? If you want to use "Duc" in an article, shouldn't the holder of that title have the article title using "Duc" as well, and not "duc"? What is to prevent someone from an edit war either way if we don't have a style guide? In Chambord's case, one is a redirect to the other, they aren't the same page technically because the caps do matter. Charles 05:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)"
You specifically bring up a software issue to prove your point that consistency is needed, because,"in Chambord's case, one is a redirect to the other, they aren't the same page technically because the caps do matter."
Second, your statements are growing increasingly hysterical for no good reason. By saying, "you are proposing a bizarre, asymmetric and at times nonsensical way of dealing with capital letters," when I have shown 1) the method of capitalization I propose was indeed used by members of more than one Bourbon court, and 2) it is used in many modern English books on French royalty and nobility seems to me to point to a logical inconsistency on your part and not mine. Any possible revisions to the current Wikipedia policy I have suggested have been my attempts to compromise with your clearly held belief that somehow modern French usage, which Qp10qp proves with his Clouet example is itself inconsistent, should reign supreme in English-language translation. As I have said before, your only argument so far that I think has any validity is the consistency one.
Third, you needn't jump so quickly to Frania's defense. She comes across as a highly intelligent person who is perfectly capable of explaining her own position on Antonia Fraser and how modern English has no set of capitalization rules concerning French titles and styles like modern French does.
Fourth, you are bordering on ad hominem attack, and I would suggest your future responses not be so derogatory. BoBo (talk) 10:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's a software issue, I just think you have issues with it. You have not shown that each individual only used one system of capitalization. Everything else you say, including what you say about Frania, to me is an attempt to sidestep around the issue and discredit others. This conversation (the one on one bit with you) is over because as far as I am concerned. You gloss over or entirely ignore the fact that the capitalization you are proposing itself was never consistently used. If you imagine at all that it is somehow "better" I'd like to see some real, worthwhile evidence. Ignoring the use of lowercase letters doesn't make them go away, for all of your quoted Fraser material and the like. That being said, the only reasonable policy would be to pick a side and endorse it (preferably the lowercase because it is the only thing that has anything said for it) for the sake of avoiding issues like capitalizing a letter. Charles 11:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
The tone is rising, not good in such a discussion & will take us nowhere. In my opinion, phrases like "your statements are growing increasingly hysterical" (from the Greek word for uterus, hystera) are out of place, and more so when addressed to a man. Frania W. (talk) 13:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


←Okay guys. We don't want people taking WP:MoS off their watchlist because of long off-topic conversations. This stuff is relevant to Use English and WT:MOS-FR, and maybe some of the past discussions there will be helpful. You won't bring additional eyeballs or points of view into the discussion by continuing to discuss it here; in fact, the longer this gets, the less likely people are to read it. Like the bartender said, "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here." - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I've created a section: WT:MOS-FR#French titles. Charles 14:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

National varieties of English - right to revert?

A few hours ago, there was quite an edit war on Four-color theorem. My view is that, while Ozone009 (talk · contribs) was in the wrong by starting it, just reverting it may not have been the right course of action.

Looking through the section, the changes don't violate "Consistency within articles" * or "Strong national ties to a topic". Both the original change and the reversion break "Retaining the existing variety" if you take that expression literally - as after Ozone009's alteration, the "existing variety" is changed. That leaves the content of that section, which talks of the variety used by the "first major contributor". This, in turn, sounds to me like a form of WP:OWN.

*It's true that the page's title wasn't changed to match, and that the edits to the references section infringed the "titles" aspect of the policy, but these aspects wasn't addressed in any of the comments.

Here's my opinion. If there's no reason to use a particular variety of English in a particular article, then it shouldn't be changed without good reason. But just changing it back is equally changing it without good reason, and two wrongs don't make a right. So rather than reverting and potentially starting an edit war, a friendly note to the person who changed it should be the first course of action.

Comments? -- Smjg (talk) 14:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem with your view is that it essentially gives a free pass to PoV pushers (and language usage is a continuing source of difficulty here). Why should it be that one person is allowed to push through a change, and (only after that happens) it becomes something that should not occur? It's simple reversion of vandalism. It's not WP:OWN to retain one variety of English in an article, because the purpose of the MOS section cited above is to prevent edit warring over this issue, and the person who makes the first change is the party at fault, not those who revert the change. Horologium (talk) 15:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
True up to a point. But in this instance, it seems that the policy is what led to the edit war in the first place. Moreover, it's only reversion of vandalism if the original edit actually was vandalism, as opposed to ignorance or something along those lines. JTAI the policy certainly doesn't prevent edit warring, but it probably does reduce it to some degree. But then again, so would dropping a message to the person who changed it in the first place before reverting. -- Smjg (talk) 12:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I must say I agree with Smjg. It sometimes bears remembering that "preventing edit warring" is not an end in itself, but a means to keep the encyclopedia manageable and improvable. An edit war that moves quicker than the usual pace of improvement for the article swamps the histories and increases the risk that a constructive edit will be lost in collateral reverts. That is why we want to prevent them. However, how does reverting spelling-variant edits as a matter of principle help further the eventual goal?
With automatic reverts, each time somebody who lacks enough of a life to really care which national variant of English a world-wide encyclopedia is written in takes an interest in the article, the edit history grows by at least 2 entries, and possibly some multiple of 2 if he sticks around and decides to have an edit war. If the edit were not reverted, the history grows by only 1 entry, and stays that way until a sucker with the opposite agenda happens to come along. Just leaving it be appears to do the most to eliminate the distractions to constructive editing that should be the ultimate goal.
Sure, we have trouble if two stubborn editors with opposite spelling agenda start to target an article at the same time. But still this will only produce an edit war if both are willing to ignore the policy that says such things are not worth disagreeing about. I fail to see which possible good it can do to arbitrarily declare that one of the parties is entitled to wage his side of the war merely because what he supports happen to be the status quo.
The guideline that spelling-variant edits can/should be summarily reverted means that it only takes one ill-willed party to have an edit war. An alternative guideline saying that such edits should be ignored unless they leave the article in an inconsistent state would mean that a war would need two villains. Thus, wars would be supposed to be rarer. (And instituting a 1RR rule for such edits would be fair game, I think).
But if the first one to ignore the rules gets it his way, then were are we? Better off, I say. The purposes of our procedures are not to punish the wicked, but to prevent them from impeding the construction of the encyclopedia. Sometimes that calls for sanctions, sometimes just for ignoring them. –Henning Makholm 22:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

"First major contributor" is intended as a last resort: what do we do when there has never been a stable consensus? We may need to strengthen this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Then it's editor who makes first disambiguation of the variety who has equivalent status to the "first major contributor", perhaps; the first time a spelling such as "color" is used, which is not pan-anglophone. The use of "litre", for example, might flag Canadian or British or South African English, so it would come down to that person's preference/origin. Tony (talk) 05:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Even though Smjg is referring to a section that is in WP:MOS (and should be), the point seems like pure WT:CONSENSUS and WP:VPP to me: "But just changing it back is equally changing it without good reason". The responses seem to be more focused on policy than on style guidelines, also. Btw, this argument has an amazing ability to keep springing forth from the dead, which probably means that it's a hard issue to resolve. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
P.S. When the thread first started, I didn't say anything, since it concerns something that really is in WP:MoS. But the problem with saying anything now (like I just did) is that it's hard to try to move the conversation, and it makes it sound like I disapprove of something someone said. And besides, people don't always move off-topic stuff when you ask them to, as we've noticed recently. I think in the future I'm going to go with my gut; if something sounds like it will mostly be about something not style-related, I'm going to offer that opinion, before the conversation becomes hard to clarify (by virtue of being on the wrong page). - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Self identity

The Self identity section says

Use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self-identification) whenever this is possible. Use terms that a person uses for himself or herself, or terms that a group most commonly uses for itself.

I propose we change this to:

Use terminology that the majority of sources use for the subject whenever possible. Use terms that a person uses for himself or herself, or terms that a group most commonly uses for itself when reliable sources conflict with one another.

Any thoughts? Yahel Guhan 00:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

That would be completely contradictory to the point of this entry. Lara❤Love 01:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


I think I get what WP:MoS is saying, but only because I know where it's going; if I didn't know before I read it, then I wouldn't know what it was trying to say. Yahel and Lara, can you elaborate on what you'd like to see? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I fully support Yahel's proposal, as being fully consistent with our article naming practice, both in guidelines (see WP:COMMONNAME) and in practice. (We use Hilda Toledano and Perkin Warbeck, although they did not, because most people do. Conversely, we should use Wendy Carlos, because most people do. [written before reading Jason's post below]) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Conflict with verifiability/reliable sources

According to this guideline, if the subject of an article self-identifies as x, and an overwhelming number of reliable sources identify it as (contradicting/effacing) y, we should use x. This seems in serious tension with WP:V. Either the self-identity section should be altered to state that it trumps V in this instance, or it should be deprecated. There is serious need of clarification here. Skomorokh 01:34, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you're ascribing more weight to "whenever this is possible" than was intended. I believe the intent was to respect the preferences of the subject when they are known, and when doing so doesn't conflict with other overriding Wikipedia policies. So if J. M. Barrie described himself as "Scottish", we shouldn't refer to him as "British" (even though the latter is also factually correct). If Wendy Carlos self-identifies as female, we shouldn't use male pronouns in reference to her (even though some would argue that we should). It does not mean that if Jason A. Quest self-identifies as "African-American" – a claim contradicted by all of his biographers – we should defer to his claim. - JasonAQuest (talk) 02:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Then we should say that. We do not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not quite comfortable with the text and Sept and Tony worked on today, "Where possible, use terminology that a majority of sources use for a person or group. When reliable sources are in conflict, use terms...". If I'm not mistaken, it's trying to infringe on NPOV's territory. We might replace the previous: "Use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self-identification) whenever this is possible. Use terms..." with this: "Disputes over the proper name for a person or group are addressed by policies such as Verifiability and Neutral point of view (and Naming conventions, if the name might appear in an article name). When there is no dispute, use terms...". - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd no more adopt what a subject thinks is the proper national identity than adopt what he thinks is the proper age. Basing on V and RS, we should in a dispute possibly try to explain the subjects own views. W.C. & Barrie are not good analogies because the RW use is almost invariable female, and Scottish, respectively. DGG (talk) 23:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, DGG: this is WP:V and WP:RS territory as well as WP:NPOV, and I just updated my suggested text. I for one welcome our policy-page overlords. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
P.S. Forgot WP:NAME; just added that in. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Military titles

This may be a dumb question, but is there a Wikipedia style for military titles when followed by a name? Is it "Captain Hyman Rickover," or "Capt. Hyman Rickover"? Some style systems abbreviate these when followed by a name. Urzatron (talk) 14:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't see the answer in a quick skim of WP:WikiProject Military history/Style guide, but there are so many links from that page, one of them has got to answer your question. And if not, check with the folks at WP:MILHIST. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Alright, thanks! Wow, that's long. :) Urzatron (talk) 00:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Lead image size

If you look across Wikipedia, including our FA work, the vast majority of decent articles have lead images of a large size (mostly 250px), and forcing thumb size in the lead is the most common exception to that part of the images guideline. As it says in the Images size subsection, such images (I think it specifically refers to infobox images) being less than 300 can cause problems sometimes. Why not put this generally used convention of editing in to the guideline? VanTucky 03:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

What exactly do you want to put into the guideline? Hesperian 04:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Consistance across pages

...but consistency promotes professionalism, simplicity and greater cohesion in Wikipedia articles. An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be applied consistently throughout an article...

I'd like to change part of this to "An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be applied consistently throughout individual articles as well as multiple articles that are closely related". The reason is that there's currently some debate about using comma seperators for large numbers in scientific pages. Once that's settled, they should all either use them or not, to prevent confusion about the data. I believe this type of style requirement to prevent confusion applies to other pages as well. Also, some sections of pages become large enough to have their own article. The reasons why they required the same style when they are part of the original page are the same reasons why they should keep the same style after they have been split off. (I would go as far as to suggest we require ALL pages to have the same style as much as possible and reasonable, but that's a bigger discussion) -- SkyLined (talk) 10:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Anything policy-related should be hashed out on a policy page before we tackle it here. Determining the scope of "consensus" is very much a WP:VPP and WT:CONSENSUS thing; please go a few rounds on one (not both) of those pages, and then let us know when all sides have weighed in so we can have a look. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Using a policy page as a scratchpad to develop a proposal

I have raised a MOS policy about policy changes question at the village pump. Feel free to read it and comment. Lightmouse (talk) 11:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a very good time to go to WP:VPP for this and several related issues, thanks Lightmouse. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ten-day archiving

Tony and the Duke and I would prefer 10-day archiving by MiszaBot, and MiszaBot did its thing last night. Anyone can feel free to revert if they think that's a bad thing, but we were up to about 400K, and it could have easily been 800K. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Numbers as figures or words

Please remember the major question: should this page go into this for several bullet-points at all, or should we write a general summary here, and leave the details to WP:MOSNUM? I should prefer to be simple here; let's keep that revert war in one place. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Use of header for heading

Throughout the pages that comprise the MoS, there are scattered uses of the word header as if it were a synonym for heading. A header is text in the upper margin of a page; the word has nothing to do with a section heading in an article. Wikicode and title of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings) use the correct term, and so should the MoS pages, consistently. Finell (Talk) 17:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

A wide-spread use in WP, even if it is a misuse. I have no objection to tweaking as Finell proposes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Did some poking around in dictionaries and glossaries, I agree with both of you. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I fully support the change; it will help us at SBS clarify things a little, as we use header for the titled coloured bars in succession boxes. Waltham, The Duke of 00:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

A case of confusing pronouns

Here's a rather complicated situation regarding the pronoun(s) to be used for a fictional character, for I would appreciate guidance on interpreting the first two bullets of WP:ID. The character in question is Akito Sohma from the manga Fruits Basket and its anime adaptation. (Please ignore that article's current hideous quality, including a wretched inconsistency with pronouns: I'm preparing to clean it up soon, thus my question.) In the manga, Akito is presented as male for the first half of the series, but turns out to be biologically female and raised to live as man; at the end of the series, as part of letting go other roles he/she has been living, Akito announces that she/he will henceforth live as a woman and is afterward always shown dressed in women's clothing. The anime adaptation covers the first third of the story and was generally faithful to the manga, but was made before the manga reveled Akito's biological sex and, in wrapping up the story early, shows Akito as unambiguously male.

If I understand WP:ID correctly, when discussing the character as portrayed in the manga, Akito should be referred to with female pronouns. What about when discussing the character as portrayed in the anime (such as when describing the differences in adaptation)? What about when discussing the character generically, independent of format? And, possibly most importantly, is there any way to make distinctions clearly enough as to not confuse either readers and editors? (Especially in other articles where Akito is mentioned in passing without reason to explain pronouns.)

For full disclosure, the rule of thumb I've been following in editing other Fruits Basket articles is to use "he" except when discussing Akito after she declares she will live as a woman. Which goes against the word of the guideline, but seemed at the time to invite less confusion. My thanks for any insight others can give. —Quasirandom (talk) 18:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The first place to look is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (identity), which is (arguably) policy, so that needs to be considered first. (And btw, if anything there looks wrong, tell us, because policy fixes are high priority.) Your next stop would be Wikipedia:Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality. Your third stop would be Wikipedia:Manual of Style (anime- and manga-related articles). Skim the talk pages as well. If none of those answers your question, let us know. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:05, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
The first claims to be a guideline, and it looks like the MOS is echoing the relevant points there. The second, I'm not seeing anything additionally relevant. For the third, having edited that guideline I know it has nothing specific to add and for other questions, it refers back here. I could take discussion to the talk page either there or WikiProject Anime and Manga, but started here since the actual guideline is here. —Quasirandom (talk) 19:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
On the first point, the infobox says "This page documents an English Wikipedia naming convention". What's going on there is that this page is an offshoot from WP:Naming conventions via the WP:Summary style process, and you can make a case that text doesn't lose "policy" status just because it got too long for its policy page, but I'm just being pedantic. It's a "naming convention", which is something vaguely more important than a guideline.
Perhaps someone will answer your question here. The WP:GAY folks tend to have encyclopedic (in both senses) knowledge of these things. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah -- hadn't quite realized WP:NCI's a spinout of WP:NC. Thanks. —Quasirandom (talk) 00:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Dash or hyphen?

I'm no style guru, but I can't fully agree with this statement from the MOS:

  • [en dashes are used...] As a substitute for some uses of and, to or versus for marking a relationship involving independent elements in certain compound expressions (Canada–US border, blood–brain barrier, time–altitude graph, 4–3 win in the opening game, male–female ratio, 3–2 majority verdict, Michelson–Morley experiment, diode–transistor logic) [...]

OK, I agree with 4–3 and 3–2, but with the others I find hyphens equally acceptable. Checking with the Chicago Manual it seems they probably prefer hyphens here too (although other style manuals no doubt take different views). Do we really need to make things more difficult for ourselves, when there's no clearly established standard in the outside world? Hyphens are easier both for editors and for users of Search. We could at least allow both styles, like we do with em dashes and spaced en dashes.

And while we're at it, how about this one:

  • Spacing: All disjunctive en dashes are unspaced, except when there is a space within either or both of the items (the New York – Sydney flight; the New Zealand – South Africa grand final; July 3, 1888 – August 18, 1940, but July–August 1940).

Does this look right? Doesn't to me. I came across a neat usage from Chicago: London-Sydney (with a hyphen; see above), but New York–Sydney (use an unspaced en dash when any of the terms contains a space or hyphen). To me, that style would be aesthetically preferable.--Kotniski (talk) 10:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Check out /Archive 99#Dashes again (groan). The bottom line is that rules on dashes are slowly changing in modern usage, especially substituting hyphens for en-dashes. (For instance, look at the title bar at the top of your screen, before and after "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia".) But it's a good idea for Wikipedian usage to change slowly, for many reasons, and we've decided to stick with the current usage for now. I have a bet going that eventually some of the en-dashes on Wikipedia are going to wither into hyphens, but that's not the current consensus, and I'm not going to support any change until we look at the issue again next year.
I don't know the answer to your second question. Looks complicated. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
CMOS ranges from the excellent to the ignorant (in many places they don't even take their own advice). Take no notice of this tripe here about en dashes; they're essential to good writing in English. Tony (talk) 14:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Tripe is a dish best served cold. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with Kotniski on both points, though less so on the second. Before I respond, let me say that the MoS is only a guide, and you don't have to follow it. Others may of course alter your chosen style.
On the first point, I wouldn't say that hyphens are equally acceptable, but then again, they won't do much harm. In handwriting, the en dash and the hyphen are indistinguishable, and in typewriting, a hyphen will do for an en dash. On Wikipedia, though, we should imitate good publishing houses, and as far as I can see, good publishing houses do use the en dash for disjunctive compounds. So I can't find anything wrong with the MoS entry you quote.
On the issue of spaced en dashes for things like "New York – Sydney flight", I'm equivocal. An unspaced en dash is used in such cases in some publications, so it would not be wrong. I strongly believe, however, that when a dash construction looks unwieldy, it is best to redraft to avoid the dash. So, for the above examples, I might write "New York to Sydney flight" and "New Zealand v South Africa grand final". Unfortunately, there is no way round the unspaced en dash for the date range that gives day, month, and year at the beginning of our biographical articles: in the body of the article one can write such ranges out as part of sentences, but at the start they need to be given in the MoS-recommended form in brackets. To use an unspaced en dash in such cases would create miscues like the following: 27 May 1519–23 October 1565. The M0S's advice therefore makes sense to me. qp10qp (talk) 15:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, MOS is not just a guideline as long as this "tripe" is enforced at FA. If that were changed, I would still urge that we sensibly acknowledge that there are different ways of writing "and every single one of them is right"; but I would not care whether it was done. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Just an aside really. The en-dash is needed in Michelson–Morley experiment to make it clear that this involves two people. A nice illustration of this is the Birch–Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture. Geometry guy 19:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Concur, at least for BSD. When there are two links of different force, we should differentiate, although English often does not; but that does not require a general rule when we don't need to distinguish (and, as is pointed out somewhere above, a double dash = is also usable when we do). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • qp, where is this person who uses a typewriter? Do they also have a rotary telephone bell for the lady at the exchange? I need these items for a museum. One of the benefits of an online language-based project is that we can now readily use the formatting and typography that was previously available only to professionals. Like en dashes. PMA is even going to change to a better font/browser, I suspect, that will allow him to see the difference. Tony (talk) 02:38, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
    • No, I am not. It is uncivil of you to suggest it.
    • More to the point, many of our readers cannot. MicroSoft has market dominance, and its software with all of its flaws, is unavoidable for many people.
    • Please retract. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
      • I'd hoped you were going to take a more measured approach since your hysterical launching of that AN/I hate page aimed at besmirching my role; no success there. Now get a grip on yourself and stop accusing people of incivility, when their comment was meant in a light-hearted/ironic vein. There's nothing to retract, and no place for the unpleasantness you are all too ready to inject into these proceedings. On the substantive issue, Microsoft may be dominant, but we're talking here about browsers and fonts, not platforms. There's plenty to choose from, including the newly released Safari for Windows, which has received good reviews. Tony (talk) 03:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

← Ignoring the usual nonsense, I should like to mention that hyphens already enjoy extensive usage in various linguistic constructs, and that I do not find it necessary to further extend this usage, when clarity can be derived from the application of dashes in the other cases. Touching not only on this issue, but also on the much-discussed matter of spaced en dashes versus unspaced em dashes, I say that I like each dash having a role of its own, which not only makes things clearer but justifies each one's continued usage on Wikipedia. With a few exceptions, I have in my mind a rather clear distinction:

  • Hyphens for conjunction
  • En dashes for disjunction
  • Em dashes for interruption

Simple, isn't it? Waltham, The Duke of 10:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for using all three (except that I prefer spaced en dashes to unspaced em dashes, but never mind). However since the boundary between conjunction and disjunction seems rather blurred (what is disjunction anyway?) my preferred distribution would be more like this:
  • hyphens for joining
  • unspaced en dashes for "to" and "thru" (and for joining items containing spaces/hyphens)
  • em dashes (or spaced en dashes) for interruption.

Also simple, and I think more comprehensible to the ordinary writer. The point about Michelson-Morley is a good one though.--Kotniski (talk) 15:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Kotniski, your second option is used by a few publishing houses, but looks gawky to me and others. Scientific American tried it for a while in 2004–05, but I think they dropped it in favour of rewording triple bungers. Tony (talk) 15:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why we need to prefer a usage at all. All we really need to say is: Be clear and Be consistent within any one article (for the sake of clarity). There are innumerable slightly different ways to use dashes; why bother to distinguish cetween them as long as they are not obscure? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

My dear fellow, this could easily be tweaked as "Be consistent within an encyclopaedia for even greater clarity". :-) Waltham, The Duke of 00:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Your Grace, I must respectfully question your august opinion that consistency across the encyclopedia adds significantly to clarity. Our readers will quickly learn that our conventions do vary from article to article: one article will use semi-cola and asyndeton, another will not; one will use Harvard, another will use footnotes; one will use colour, another color; one AD, another CE. Within the article, a reader will naturally assume that the change from an emdash to an endash and back again must mean something and wonder what; she will quickly see that differences between articles mean only that we are written by divers hands, as indeed we were. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, I do not seriously propose that there should be full standardisation throughout the encyclopaedia, or that it would be as important and helpful as is standardisation within an article (and, to an extent, within a topic). However, although readers will indeed learn that most conventions are not global, some style details—which, even though often seen as relatively unimportant, they form part of the skeleton of text—are better-off standardised, so that the readers may be aided in reading by something they will normally (or at least should) not pay much attention to. In films, the best special effects are usually those which do not attract the attention of the audience. Similarly, good style is supposed to pass unnoticed, ensuring that readers will peruse the articles of their choice without obstructions or distractions; standardisation helps in this respect. Waltham, The Duke of 22:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Initial spacing

This may have already been discussed, but following a discussion at the help desk, there seems to be a consensus that the rules regarding initials (eg. H. G. Wells or H.G. Wells?) needs to be clearer. Do we have a policy on this, and if so, where? If we don't, should we have one? Thanks, PeterSymonds | talk 14:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Translations in first sentence

I have searched extensively on many occasions for a policy on this, and have failed to find one. I am referring to the practice of putting the name of something in its original language in parentheses after the English translation, like, "Some French Guy (French: Un gars français)". Sometimes the {{Lang}} template appears. There are numerous references to this practice, but no guideline as to how it should be done.

If the other language does not use the Latin alphabet, it is common practice to write the name as it would be written by a user of that language, and then give a Romanized version. Usually there is only one language, the original, but sometimes two are appropriate, especially for a person. Sometimes, the different versions of the name are a notable topic, addressed in that article (e.g. Christopher Columbus), as part of a separate list (Vienna), or even in an article devoted wholly to the names of that thing (Istanbul).

As I understand it, the purpose is to give the name in the language of origin. But I have also seen mention of the name in other languages, ones in which the thing is often named. For example, someone recently added the Turkish name of Lesbos, Midilli, while the English name is derived from the Greek. I assume the Turkish name is also used frequently, given the isle's proximity to Turkey. Is this appropriate?

If I am correct in believing that there is no policy page, I suggest that we create one.

MagnesianPhoenix (talk) 21:04, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

If we do write a page, perhaps that awful Lang template can be discouraged, since there's no need to WP:OVERLINK a common word/term like French language. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:48, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
The purpose of the Lang template is a common format for all languages. At what point is the name of a language uncommon enough that it should be linked? Should the continuum of commonality be encoded in the Lang template so only the uncommon languages are linked? -- SEWilco (talk) 17:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
The template itself isn't the issue; it's a question of when to use it. I came across it being used for English, which resulted in a link to the English language on the English wiki (!!), and italicizing of the English phrase that followed (WP:ITALICS is for foreign phrases). Some people automatically apply the template where it's not needed on any translation. My suggestion was that we discourage the use of the template when it's not needed and results in WP:OVERLINKing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually, the name Midilli is not particularly common; I've never heard it before, and Google Scholar suggests it is far less common than Lesbos as a name for the island. (Tenedos, on the other side of the frontier, is another question.)
  • WP:NCGN suggests that such names be included if they are used in English more than 10% of the time.
  • Not linking should be troublesome for advocates of uniformity. It is not impossible for, say, Russian, Armenian, and Abkhazi names to be in the first line of the same article. We may not need to link to Russian language, but we should certainly link to Abkhaz language, if only to be sure it's spelt correctly; do we really want to have one or two black and the rest blue? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
    • I have no problem with inconsistency on that level. Apart from the utility of rationing links to the useful ones, it signals when we know and the reader should know that an item is obscure/less well-known. As for black and blue, any linking is going to cause that in the text. Tony (talk) 10:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I feel another general principle lurking around here: when there's a question of whether a suggestion is NPOV or not, that's above our pay grade on this page. All we can deal with here is style and language: what works well, what's accepted, what looks nice. We can't right any wrongs. That begs the question, what do we do about it when someone suggests that we're dealing with something that even has a flavor of POV? I don't have the answer ... obviously, I got it wrong in the discussion about Arabic foods. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:03, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Once there is an at least semi-concrete consensus on something, can we go ahead and create a guideline page, as I suggested, or put it under WP:Lead section? Now, as for specific issues...

The Lang template is not just for the names of languages in the opening sentence; it has applications to any kind of foreign-language text. That said, I could care less if it was deleted.

I strongly agree with the point Septentrionalis brought up - that not linking major languages would be fraught with inconsistency and difficulty. (Though I'm not sure if you yourself agree, given your position on uniformity.) Not only would it be inconsistent, the decision on the significance or commonness of a language is unavoidably POV. For an encyclopedia trying to rid itself of its U.S./U.K./Australian bias, dividing the languages of the world into - effectively - "nobody wants to read about this language" and "nobody's heard of this language" would be an unseemly judgment call. Also, while linking to the French language article in the body of an article would usually be gratuitous, I don't think the clean, well established format of "([[Language]]: Name)", once, in the first sentence, is a problem at all. Let the reader decide to use or not use the link. What about Latin? It's extremely well known, but also a topic of interest.

The addition of the Turkish name Midilli has been reverted. I was tempted to do that myself. I know it's not a common name in English. The reason I brought it up was to ask if the inclusion of a relevant non-English name was felicitous, and to illustrate the need for a guideline with the very question. The answer, as we have been graciously informed, is found in WP:Naming conventions (geographic names). I still support the creation of a new guideline (see above).

MagnesianPhoenix (talk) 04:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, but as you know, I'm a minimalist when it comes to linking. There are good reasons to ration it to the important stuff you really want readers to access. Linking English on en.WP seems absurd, but it's done all too often. Linking United States same deal: why? Let's not splash bright blue around the text for no reason ... Tony (talk) 15:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Lesbos does, and should, link to Greece; readers may want to go there, although almost all English-speakers know what it is. (For example, to compare the demographics of Lesbos to the whole country.) Kentucky should link to United States for the same reasons. Lesbos should also link to Mytilene.... Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I might be a little late here, as usual, but here it goes... I don't know about Lesbians, or residents of other, nearby islands, but Greeks in general have no idea about the Turkish name of Lesbos, or of any other island of the Archipelago for that matter. How often are names of neighbouring countries' languages used in Wikipedia for localities, especially when there are no major historical connections? Really, this doesn't sound very serious. Waltham, The Duke of 05:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
If it is felt that this really needs to be addressed by the guidelines, I would strongly suggest that it is better to amend WP:LEAD to include something on it than to create yet another guidelines that hardly anyone will read or obey. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with it being part of WP:LEAD; I am not really partial to either of my suggestions. My concern is having the information somewhere. As for no one reading or obeying it, no one will read or obey it if it doesn't exist. Its existence will give editors who find themselves in my position the opportunity to look up the policy. MagnesianPhoenix (talk) 10:02, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Late addition: I just ran across this in WP:Proper names: "Geographical names in a language not official to the article's political entity (English excepted, of course) should not be listed as alternatives, except on the link to another (foreign language) Wikipedia." (Apparently, someone felt strongly about this, since the not is bolded.) I don't care what we do about Lesbos, but if people think this guidance needs tweaking, we should tweak it. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

What SI unit to use?

I have a park that is 11 acres; do I use km^2, ha, or another unit in metric? --NE2 22:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Although hectare is not SI, it is accepted for use with SI, and the converted area, 4.5 hectares, is convenient, so I woud use that. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:49, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Parks in the U.S. should use U.S. units, and we would prefer to have either km2 or hectares in parentheses after it. (The {{convert}} template is helpful for this.) Btw, we prefer <sup>2</sup> to ^2. Is the park in the U.S.? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Does the conversion in Sheridan State Scenic Corridor look good? --NE2 00:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I added some links to articles for the units of measure. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Nice touch, Gerry. Yes, that's it, NE2. Btw, User:Dincher and User:Ruhrfisch crank out articles on parks like nobody's business; they just got another Featured Article a few days ago. Reading some of their work may give you some ideas, and they're very friendly and collaborative. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm actually working on Historic Columbia River Highway and decided to write about the parks along it. --NE2 02:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Possessives

What is the correct writing of possessive form of noun ending in S, like Knowles? --Efe (talk) 05:15, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:MOS#Possessives is the short answer, and the link there is the longer answer. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 05:34, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

American

Looking at WP:AN#Politically-motivated systematic edits, it seems there's at least one user concerned by the use of the word "American" to describe people from the United States (as they point out, American and American people are both disambig pages). This does seem to be a common practice, but I'm not able to find mention of it in the MOS. Is it mentioned, one way or another? If not, should it be? – Luna Santin (talk) 22:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no other adjective used to describe people from the United States, and it is internationally recognized to mean "people from the United States", not "people from the New World". If you want to see an interesting reaction, walk up to an average Canadian or Mexican and call them American, and see how they react. At the very least, they will politely correct you, and are extremely unlikely to agree with the logic that they are American because they are on the same land mass. Walk into one of the Protestant sections of Belfast and call the locals "Irish", for an extension of that type of logic (and I use the term "logic" loosely). The editor in question here needs to be told in no uncertain terms that he needs to stop his disruptive edits or risk getting blocked. USian (one of his preferred neologisms) is a grammatic abortion that should never appear anywhere in Wikipedia. Horologium (talk) 23:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree, American universally means from the US. If you wanted to include Canadians and Mexicans, you would pick another term, like "North American". Other languages use phrases along the line of "United Statesian", but that term is nearly non-existent in English. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:39, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
How many times does this dead horse have to be beaten? Corvus cornixtalk 23:43, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Isn't there some place in official policy that we can just point to next time? --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes: any dictionary or thesaurus; the lack of an alternative makes it a non-issue. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone, but in Spain, I was told by several people to say that I was "Norte Americano", not "American" or "Americano", because that was considered a little obnoxious; they felt a lot of kinship with "America" (North and South America), and weren't happy that we had appropriated the word for ourselves. Nevertheless, there aren't any alternatives to "American" that have any traction at all. - Dan (talk) 00:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. "American" is the English word for people from the United States. The Spanish word is estadounidense, I believe, if you're being the most exact you can be, norteamericano if you're kind of including Canadians--but we don't have an equivalent term in English at all. Darkspots (talk) 00:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
"Yankee doodle dandies" is the preferred term.--Father Goose (talk) 06:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
The issue was not that a new term need be used to relate to citizens or things from the United States of America. It was instead to propose the reduction in usage of American for things from the United States of America. To completely remove the ambiguous nature of American, it would be best to simply relate things from the United States of America, as "from the United States of America" or "formed in the United States of America".
Arctic.gnome's point of American relating universally to the United States of America is simply incorrect. Of course Canadians are North Americans, but they are also part of the greater America. Just as Belgians are Western Europeans, they are also part of the greater Europe.
As Horologium points out, Canadians, Mexicans, Bolivians, etc. will no doubt be offended if you call them American. This is yet another effect of the ambiguous nature of "American". They do not want to be thought of as being from the United States of America, so they reject the label American, when really it simply means they are from America (continent(s)).
I would love to use an alternative for American (US), such as Usonian. Unfortunately this is not in common usage so it will not be used here on Wikipedia. However, I am not proposing the usage of a new or pre-existing term for American (US). I am simply suggesting we state people, things and places as being from the United States of America, and not the ambiguous title American. Dale-DCX (talk) 07:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
If the term "American" already refers to denizens of the United States, who are we to try and change that? North American and South American work perfectly fine as more general terms. American, by definition, may be ambiguous, but it's very unambiguous in common use. --clpo13(talk) 07:52, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
In any cases where there might be confusion, I agree that we should say "from the United States". However, unless an article is specifically talking about the Western Hemisphere as a whole, the phrase American without context is very unlikely to be assumed to mean anything other than from the US. Indecently, I recommend that we all go around using "Unitedstatesian" in real life until it's popular enough to be added to reviewed dictionaries. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
(prepares to make controversial statement) It is fitting that the people of the United States should be called by the ambiguous American—they are rather ambiguous as a people anyway... Waltham, The Duke of 00:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Wow. Stereotype much? Horologium (talk) 01:38, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Let's just say that I find stereotypes enjoyable to discuss. :-D
PS: I really like your username. Should I translate it as clock or as sundial? Waltham, The Duke of 09:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

From United States comes this sourced statement:

The reference for the above: Wilson, Kenneth G. (1993). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 27–28. ISBN 0231069898. Can we all agree that changing articles to eliminate use of "American" as a demonym for people from the United States is disruptive? Horologium (talk) 03:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, it meets the standard in WP:POINT, since there is no other word WPians have accepted for it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I have nothing to add, and there is nothing to disagree with. Waltham, The Duke of 09:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
So what is the appropriate response to Dale-DCX who continues to replace the word American when he finds it?Doug Weller (talk) 23:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
That I am correct in stating American is ambiguous, but that due to a Usonian dominance of Wikipedia's operational language, not to mention lazy editors, nothing is going to be done. Bitter, yes I know. I just can not stand extremely abiguous terminology. I like how Horologium referenced an "American" English guide to support the usage of American as solely for Usonians. Funny stuff.
Well, you guys can do what you like. I maintain American is overly ambiguous and that "from the United..." is better. Oh well. Dale-DCX (talk) 02:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Other languages may handle the issue differently, but actual usage of the English language by almost all sources is that "American" is the standard way to indicate a person or thing from the United States. Wikipedia is not the place to Right Great Wrongs. It is not the place for Wikipedia to invent new words such as Usonian or otherwise changing the language trying to fix the world. In English "American" is rarely used to mean "of the Americas", it is only used that way in specific contexts where that is the unambiguous intent. The phrases "North American", "North and South American", "of the Americas", or some reference to the "Western Hemisphere" the standard non-ambiguous way indicate the broader meaning of "American"ism. Alsee (talk) 13:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh good, I get to be the second person to comment who actually cites sources. The primary adjective definition of American given in the OED is "Belonging to the continent of America". The primary adjective definition given by Merriam-Webster's (Third edition) is "belonging to, inhabiting, or coming from, or forming part of America." Note that the first noun definition given (this precedes the adjective) is: "an Indian of No. America or So. America." And the first definition given for America in MW3 is "of or from No. America or So. America." Thus, the leading dictionaries of both the UK and the US clearly lay out that this term is not as specific as was claimed in unsourced arguments above. The very fact that it carries enough ambiguity to lead to discussion like this shows that it is inappropriate for use specific to meaning "United States"; we don't want ambiguous labels. --EncycloPetey (talk) 12:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
While I personally agree that the use of the word "American" for people from the US is problematic, I doubt that the order of the entries in the cited dictionaries reflects usage. Collins COBUILD (a British dictionary based on its own corpus of texts) says "1 An American person or thing is someone or something that belongs or relates to the United States of America. […] 2 An American is a person who comes from the United States of America", and does not even offer an alternative meaning. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1894) has entries for "American Flag", "American Peculiarities" and "American States". All of them refer to the United States, and there are no other entries starting with "American". --Hans Adler (talk) 12:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable is not especially useful for this issue. Suggestion: look at sources that describe the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Many books credit him as the European discover of "America", even though his voyages primarily involve the Caribbean, Central America, and South Amnerica. Consider also that the 2003 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia defines America as the combination of North and South America. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I can't cite the OED, because its online version is largely behind a pay firewall, but much of Merriam-Webster's content is available without a subscription. One of the entires on which Dale-DCX imposed his change was on Mark Twain. M-W doesn't list Twain as such, but rather as "see CLEMENS", since "Twain" was a pseudonym. The entry for Clemens reads: "Samuel Langhorne 1835–1910 pseudonym Mark Twain American writer". [1] This would seem to confirm the use of "American" to mean "someone from the Unites States" at least in reference to Merriam-Webster, despite their primary definition of "American". The other articles subjected to this type of POV-pushing are not in M-W (they are bands of recent vintage). (FWIW, MW3 dates from 1961, so I'm not sure how useful a 47-year old reference is for modern usage. The M-W.com version is based on Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition[2], which was released in 2003.) Encyclopedia Britannica's online edition also notes Mark Twain as an "American humorist, journalist, lecturer, and novelist..."[3].
For additional referencing of "American", let us go to Dictionary.com, which has its own unabridged edition based on the Random House unabridged dictionary (2006), and the American Heritage Dictionary (2006). At the entry for "American" [4] the Dictionary.com first definition is "of or pertaining to the United States of America or its inhabitants: an American citizen." and the American Heritage first definition is "Of or relating to the United States of America or its people, language, or culture." Likewise, the first definition for "America" in both of these dictionaries is "The United States".[5] Lastly, Kenneth G. Wilson, in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, notes the presumptuousness of the usage of the term "American" to refer to inhabitants of the United States, yet also recognizes that it is the only term in wide use. [6] Horologium (talk) 13:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Your sampling is inherently biased. All the dictionaries you've cited are produced in the United States. Please provide similar research from dictionaries of Canadian English, or Australian English, or the English as spoken in India. You'll find that they do not have the same slant as US dictionaries. Since Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia, we need to be mindful of how the articles and categories will be interpreted in countries outside the US. Note also that the Columbia Guide is only refering to substantive use of the adjective to name an inhabitant, not use of the term generally. The proper noun United States may be used attributively to achieve the same function, and often is. We say "the United States Congress", not "the American Congress", so there are cases where "American" isn't even used. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
My sampling is biased because it appears that only American (deliberate use) dictionaries have online access; OED (British English) and Macquarie (Australian English) require subscriptions. I am not familiar with Canadian or Indian English dictionaries, but if you point me in that direction, I will see if I can come up with citations from them. I will be heading to the University of Florida library tomorrow to see what they have. And as I noted, Britannica uses the formulation of "American writer" for Mark Twain, which was one of the articles upon which this debate focused. Surely you are not going to claim that Britannica is US-centric? Horologium (talk) 18:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Um, "the United States Congress" is a bad example as it is a proper name. In any case, what does the OED suggest as the proper demonym for citizens of the USA? It might also be interesting to see what the Oxford Dictionary of American English says, if anyone has a copy handy. Askari Mark (Talk) 18:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Above I have already given the definitions from a British dictionary from 1987, Collins COBUILD, which is independent of Webster's and OED: There "American" appears only with the US meaning. It follows that "American" is not the word for "from America". I don't like this, but that's how it is. --Hans Adler (talk) 18:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Since "America" is not generally a place name in English, except as short for the United States of America, this does not seem particularly odd. There's North America, there's South America, there's Central America (a subregion of North America), and there's "the Americas", but no just-plain-America in the seven-continent model. It's true that there's no good adjective for "of or pertaining to the Americas", which is arguably a pity. --Trovatore (talk) 19:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (edited in UK) is a bit weasely: "from North, South, or Central America, especially the United States of America." DCDuring (talk) 20:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
One fairly unambiguous way to refer to things having to do with the people, geography, culture, and institutions of the United States is by the attributive use of the nouns "United States" or "US". "The United States transportation system" is much less ambiguous than "the American transportation system". After first mention in an article (or section, in some cases) it would be very appropriate to switch to "US transportation system". I could not say whether or not there might be cases for which this would not be suitable, but I am very sure that it would cover many circumstances. DCDuring (talk) 20:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
"The United States transportation system" is clearly better than "the American transportation system", yes. Not so much because of ambiguity, but just because it sounds more formal and precise, and this being an encyclopedia we want writing to be done in a fairly "high" register. On the other hand "a United States author" sounds strained and frankly unidiomatic. --Trovatore (talk) 20:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Wiktionarians, if there is a primary definition, will often place it first, but you're basing a huge assumption on the order found in OED and M-W, which if anything supports the idea that dictionaries are confusing and not the point you're trying to make. All the obsolete and archaic terms are ordered first as well, but they are not primary definitions either. The definition you cite is legitimate and still in use, but not nearly as common. It is first only because it is older. Because the definition exists, Dale-DCX might have a case if an article pertained to one or both of the Americas as a whole, or at least didn't pertain to the U.S. yet made comparisons to things African, Asian, and European, but outside of such potentially ambiguous context, the meaning is straightforward, and the behavior is disruptive. DAVilla 70.112.116.94 (talk) 19:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Given that there seems to be confusion as to which of these terms should be used, may I suggest deferring to the highest authority on things relating to the United States and use the form as it appears in the title of the United States Government? (i.e., not the "American Government" - there is no "American House of Representatives", not is there officially an "American Congress" the term "U.S." or "United States" is universally used as an adjective in the names of these institutions. These are not "bad examples" for being proper names; they are clear indications that as proper names they were deliberately chosen to avoid problem which might be inherent in other chosen options. There is, of course, the Organization of American States, but to the best of my knowledge it does not have delegated representing only the 50 states of the US.

The term United States fulfils all of the functions necessary for its usage as the adjective of choice on Wikipedia:

  • It is an accepted adjectival form
  • It is universally understood
  • It is unambiguous

While the term "American" is definitely a common adjectival form and is understood widely (though not without some controversy in other parts of the Americas), it is hardly unambiguous in all settings and circumstances. Furthermore, as has been pointed out, "United States" is the more formal and precise term and is thus more suited to an encyclopedia. Grutness...wha? 23:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It is "an accepted adjectival form" in some contexts. It is terribly ugly in locutions like "a United States author"; no one says that. ("A United States Congressman", on the other hand, is fine.) --Trovatore (talk) 23:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes they do - it may not be common in the United States, but it is elsewhere. I do not know of any contexts in which it is not an accepted adjectival form. Check the 50,000+ ghits. Grutness...wha? 23:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
It's utterly hideous. No, I think that form is absolutely unacceptable. --Trovatore (talk) 23:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Although I don't find the usage "United States author" hideous, it would not be my preferred use. Searching on Books.google.com shows that "American author" is much favored over both "United States author" and "US author", though both of my less favored usages are plentiful. Also would an author who wrote before the American Revolution be well described as a "United States author". Frankly, I think we have to depend on context. If we are talking about English language authors, American would not be ambiguous. Few would take it as including Canadian or Jamaican authors. I wonder how English-language discussions of Spanish-language literature refer to Latin American authors? The body of a WP article defines its own context for the most part. The contention should really be focused on what words to use in the lede, IMHO. DCDuring (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking, wouldn't it be an interesting source for this discussion to go on IMDB and find every movie with the word "American" in the title, and see in how many of those cases, the term refers to the United States? Unfortunately, there were way too many hits for it to be useful. I couldn't really examine them all. Still, I would ask anyone to estimate for himself: When you hear a phrase "American ________," do you not expect this to be referring to the United States? Simply examine countless cultural sources, from the Miss America Pageant to the American Music Awards to "American Pie." I know that's not precise, but it's massively intuitive. Urzatron (talk) 20:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

No, IMDB would not be an interesting source. Mostly as the majority of movies are made in the United States. It would not be surprising for United States movies to be called "American". Thus I think it shows very little, other than things created in the United States by people from the United States are often called "American". No surprise there. Your other references are also created by United States peoples. Again, no surprise.
To answer your question... When I here the phrase "American ______", I do not think directly of the United States of America. Nor would many peoples and nations outside of the United States of America immediately think of it as being from the United States. Which is the point here. We know United States citizens think of themselves as American. However, many, many non-United States peoples do not. So you may think American=United States is intuitive, but it is not. Dale-DCX (talk) 21:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Really? Huh. I would have thought that if I said "American Gladiators," "American History X," "American Gothic," "American Gangster" or "American Beauty," you would have thought of the United States. Are you sure? Urzatron (talk) 21:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

We all know that the "Google Test" isn't supposed to mean much, but I was curious about something. I tried a few searches on Google, filtering by *.uk and *.ca domains, to see what results I got. These are only British and Canadian sites, remember.

  • "American Culture" - 94,800 on .uk, 84,900 on .ca
    • "United States culture" - 446 on .uk, 416 on .ca
    • "U.S. culture" - 15,100 on .uk, 5,430 on .ca
  • "American revolution" - 2,120,000 on .uk, 88,000 on .ca
    • "United States revolution" - 12,200 on .uk, 5 on .uk
    • "U.S. revolution" - 1,300 on .uk, 641 on .ca
  • "American Civil War" - 231,000 on .uk, 37,500 on .ca
    • "United States civil war" - 10,700 on .uk, 8,250 on .ca
    • "U.S. civil war" - 15,800 on .uk, 82,50 on .ca

Of course, there was no question about what America Carolyn Parrish was talking about when she uttered her famous line "Damn Americans ... I hate those bastards." and she's supposedly "American", judging from the arguments being advanced by some people here. Horologium (talk) 22:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Another issue relates to categories. Look at the "nationality" categories in which Mark Twain is included--Category:American humorists, Category:American memoirists, Category:American novelists, Category:American satirists, Category:American short story writers, Category:American travel writers, Category:American humanists, and Category:American socialists. Not a "United States" in sight. Same thing for all of the musician categories for the bands that Dale-DCX changed. And look at the user cat—Category:American Wikipedians. Unless you have the admin bits, you won't be able to change those, and if you do, you know better than to try...we have Wikipedia:categories for discussion and Wikipedia:User categories for discussion for those, and it's unlikely that you would be able to gain a consensus for such changes in either venue. Horologium (talk) 22:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

This is from The Columbia Guide to Standard American English (1993):

American (adj.), America (n.)

We of the United States of America, citizens of only one of many nations in the Americas, North, Central, and South, have preempted the informal name of our country, America, and our title, Americans. It may be arrogant and inaccurate that we do so, but the fact is that no other citizens of the Americas seem to want to be confused with the Americans of the USA. Nor have others coined any other universally recognized names for us. Yankees and Yanks sometimes applies to all of us but often only to Northeasterners (particularly New Englanders) and twentieth-century soldiers. Our flag is almost always “the American flag.” Only the precision of The United States of America and of a citizen thereof can be official and usefully substituted, and the rest is language history: we speak American English, we live in the United States, the U.S. (or USA), or America (the beautiful), and we’re Americans, even if we only adapted and adopted the language and the lands. It is not likely that these usages will change soon, so overwhelming is their use both by others and by us.

TCMOS had 118 hits on "United States"; all 118 either used it as a noun or, when it's even arguable that it was an adjective, only in the sense of the U.S. Government. APStylebook didn't have anything useful. NYTM (1999, paperback) followed the same usage as TCMOS. First two definitions in Wordnet are "a native or inhabitant of the United States" and "American English, American language, American (the English language as used in the United States)". I can find no support at all for the idea that "United States" is an adjective, other than conceivably when it refers to the U.S. government. The phrases "New York minute" and "Munich beer hall" do not make "New York" or "Munich" adjectives.

Unless anyone has a clear argument that "United States" has wide usage as an adjective, or that there is some other synonym for "American", then we're stuck with "American" by default. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Urzatron (talk) 01:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Sorry I'm late; I just now finally finished reading all the comments. The OED says:
"A. n.
1. An indigenous inhabitant of (any part of) the Americas; an American Indian. Now only with modifying word, as indigenous American, original American, etc.; see also NATIVE AMERICAN n. 1.
2. a. Originally: a native or inhabitant of America, esp. of the British colonies in North America, of European descent (now hist.). Now chiefly: a native or citizen of the United States. Cf. also LATIN AMERICAN n., NORTH AMERICAN n., SOUTH AMERICAN n., etc.
b. As the second element of compounds forming nouns with the sense ‘an American of the specified origin or descent’. Cf. AFRICAN-AMERICAN n., ASIAN AMERICAN n., Irish American n. at IRISH adj. and n. Compounds, ITALIAN-AMERICAN n., POLISH-AMERICAN n.
3. An American ship or other vessel. Obs.
4. The variety of English used in the United States; American English.
5. Brit. In pl. Stocks or shares in American companies or enterprises.
B. adj.
1. a. Of or relating to (any part of) the Americas.
In later use sometimes difficult to distinguish from sense B. 2, except in scientific contexts. Cf. LATIN AMERICAN adj., NORTH AMERICAN adj., SOUTH AMERICAN adj., etc.
b. Of, relating to, or designating the indigenous inhabitants of (any part of) the Americas; of, relating to, or designating American Indians. Now chiefly with modifying word, as early, original, indigenous, etc.
c. Of, designating, or belonging to any American Indian language, or such languages collectively.
d. Designating animals and plants native to or originating in America, chiefly to distinguish them from similar or related species native to Britain or the Old World, as American aloe, crow, marmot, etc. See also Special uses 3b.
American bittern, elm, leopard, masterwort, ostrich, plaice, robin, etc.: see the second element.
2. a. Originally: of, relating to, or characteristic of the European (esp. British) colonies in North America or their inhabitants. Now chiefly: of, relating to, or characteristic of the United States or its inhabitants.
b. Of, designating, or belonging to the English language as used in the United States (or formerly, in Britain's North American colonies).
See also AMERICAN ENGLISH n.
c. As the second element of compounds in the sense ‘American of the specified origin or descent’. Cf. AFRICAN-AMERICAN adj., ASIAN AMERICAN adj., ITALIAN-AMERICAN adj., POLISH-AMERICAN adj.
d. U.S. Of a horse or cow: originating in the eastern states, esp. as opposed to the southwest, being typically of superior quality and relatively large in size. Now hist.


Unfortunately, the term "United States" is not listed as an adjective, and indeed until the 1993 revision the closest entry related to the country in question defined it as "The Republic of North America. Abbrev. U.S. or U.S.A." (1888). Just more grist for the mill. Her Pegship (tis herself) 04:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I am quite troubled by those who are trying to use the order of definitions in a dictionary to claim that American has a primary meaning of "of the Americas" Quite a number of dictionaries give as their first definition of a word, the first definition used in time, not the main one that is currently in use. Unless one checks the dictionary's policy one cannot claim the first definition is the one that is in primary use. American these days has as its primary meaning "of the United States of America. If people think that we need more precision in our use of national adjectives, we'd be better off removing the term "British" from every article relating to Northern Ireland. Caerwine Caer’s whines 03:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

You are quite right, Caerwine. But I notice that the COBUILD data based dictionary has been mentioned a couple of times in this discussion. This dictionary has it's definitions ordered according to the statistical usage calculated from their multi-million example database. (It is an eye-opener at times, for this very reason!). -- Algrif (talk) 15:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

If anyone's still interested, the Canadian Oxford Dictionary's first sense of American relates to the U.S., but other senses remind us that Latin American, American elk, North American, and I would add American Indian all do not specifically relate to it.

Where American can cause confusion, United States and its abbreviation U.S. are certainly attributive nouns, usable as an adjective in many contexts, as in United States citizen, U.S. passport, United States government, U.S. embassy, etc. If that is awkward, then we can use of the United States, from the U.S., (U.S.) or some other formulation when necessary.

What American means depends on context and nuance. It makes no sense to impose one definition on it, or to dictate when it is to be used, when we have many editors practised in the craft of writing. Any ambiguous phrasing ought to be improved, and it's great if an editor wants to take on the task across many articles. But please don't make blanket changes without specific justification, because that only pisses people off. —Michael Z. 2008-04-26 05:30 Z

I wonder why this is only an issue with America. No one complains that we call people from the United Mexican States "Mexican". Powers T 02:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Caps for US Democratic Party

I'm sure this has been asked many times before, but is it "the democratic convention" or "the Democratic convention"? thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a cap D, and either cap C or not depending on context. "The Democratic convention is held every fourth year in the summer." - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Centuries

Do we prefer 16th century or sixteenth century or do we have no preference? Itsmejudith (talk) 11:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:MoS#Numbers as figures or words. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry I missed it. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Scrolling reflists

I added a scrolling reflist to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum but another editor has removed it with an edit note of we do NOT use scroling ref for reasons too long to list here. Scrolling reflists enable the article length to be reduced and are particularly useful when 40 or more references appear in an article. Can anyone show me where it says not to use scrolling reflists in articles? This feature is being used in quite a few articles now. Mjroots (talk) 15:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Just been told it's at WP:CS. Mjroots (talk) 15:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Watchlisting the RFCstyle list

People interested in WP style, formatting and language might want to watchlist Template:RFCstyle list. I get the sense that very few people do. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

French language MOS : Works of Art

After the lengthy discussion of French noble titles (see above), I wonder if we might review the "titles of works of art" section at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (France & French-related). Specifically, should we maintain the rules given or should we adopt the simpler rules (only the first word and any proper nouns) adopted by the WP Opera people? Please respond on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (France & French-related). - NYArtsnWords (talk) 22:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

ClueBot III

ClueBot III is an outstanding archiving bot that will go find section links all over Wikipedia and correct them on the various pages as stuff gets archived. We should do this. I'm bringing it up now because it's relevant to the objection, "We can't move material from one style guidelines page to another, it will break links". Just let ClueBot III archive the section(s) to a separate page, then do a Special:WhatLinksHere on the archived page, then we can fix the links manually or run a bot. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, it took me some time to figure out what you mean. So can we instruct ClueBot III about exactly which section we want "archived" to a temporary subpage? And is ClueBot III the same thing as WP:CLUEBOT? And how long does it normally take until ClueBot III has "updated" all links to the subpage?
--David Göthberg (talk) 21:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
That's the right link, and it will show you that there are 5 ClueBots that do different things. More people have seen the ClueBot that reverts vandalism. There's nothing in the documentation at User:ClueBot III about telling it what to archive, but there's an easy workaround: ClueBot can go into action in under an hour, maybe less, and it only archives sections below it on the page; so if you're trying to move a particular section, just move it to the end of the page, put the ClueBot code right before it, and tell it to archive anything more than 1 hour old (maybe less, I'm checking that now). Link updating has been nearly instantaneous with archiving. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I see. And I assume that Cluebot uses the "what links here" to see what pages to investigate for section links, right?
--David Göthberg (talk) 00:21, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Exactly, and it takes ClueBot III a short time to check every page on Wikipedia that links to the entire page. We would only need to run WhatLinksHere on the new single-section archive page, which will then (after ClueBot III has done its thing) only be linked by WP pages that linked specifically to that section on the previous page. Of course, ClueBot III can (and should) also be used for normal 10-day archiving, and will update all relevant links on WP when it does so. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Right. Seems like a nifty solution. And while we update all the links to that single-section archive page we can redirect that archive page to the new section in the page we actually are moving the section to.
--David Göthberg (talk) 01:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Reading through this, I have decided to add the following feature to ClueBot III: If a section on a page monitored by ClueBot III contains {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}, ClueBot III will archive that section next time it runs instead of waiting for the required section idle time to elapse. This feature is beta and has not been tested, so let me know if there are any problems. Also, ClueBot III doesn't care where it's main template is, it will archive all level 2 sections that fit the archival requirements, so the above suggestion about moving the section to the bottom and putting the template above it will not work. Thanks. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 10:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

←Thanks Cobi. Cluebot III had a bad bug over on WT:Layout (archived only half the page, but deleted the whole page), and my bug report at Cluebot Commons got archived without an answer, so I put Miszabot back in for daily archiving, but Cluebot III could still be extremely useful for helping us identify which pages link to specific sections, especially with your new ArchiveNow feature. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, Cobi fixed ClueBot III over at WT:Layout, I'll keep an eye on it. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Terms from foreign languages

At Template talk:POTD protected/2008-05-02, I wrote this comment:

In the article in German on Warnemünde one finds the forms der Alte Strom, dem Alten Strom, den Alten Strom, des Alten Stroms, and Altem Strom with no article. The form depends on whether it is in the nominative, genitive, dative, or accusative case, and on whether an article is used. Such case distinctions do not occur in English. Which form, then, should be used when writing in English? I don't know whether WP:MOS or other style manuals address the issue. In the caption here I've changed it to Alte Strom because somehow the nominative seems like the default.
Comments?

Is this sort of thing covered in any style manuals? Michael Hardy (talk) 02:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

There are 2073 cities in List of cities in Germany. Not one of them (skimming quickly) has an unhyphenated adjective in front of it. The few hyphenated adjectives are uninflected: Neu-Ulm, Ober-Ramstadt, Groß-Gerau. I'm not sure if this answers your question, but I don't have a better answer. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, this was a river rather than a city, and that could be said to account for the unhyphenated adjective, but that's not really what this was about. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Normally, you would follow the nominative case, which in this instance is der alte Strom. Since it's a proper name here, "the Alte Strom" would be best usage based on the way I have usually seen such terms conveyed in English sources – so you guessed right! Askari Mark (Talk) 05:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I couldn't find anything in style manuals but I would have thought normal practice would be to use the nominative form as used without an article, and as the name would appear as a headword in a German encyclopedia (the lemma or Grundform). That would be Alter Strom.--Boson (talk) 05:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
This was the conversation I just had in #wikipedia-de, I'll also post on de.wikipedia.org to confirm.
...
<dank55> Der Alte Strom ist ein Fluss in Warnemünde. [It's a river in Warnemünde}
<paddyez> a major river yep
<dank55> ich meine nicht irgendeinen alten Strom :) [I don't mean just any "Old River" :)]
<paddyez> he lived by the old major river in Warnemünde?
<dank55> wir wissen nicht, wie man im allgemein solche Worte auf Englisch schreiben soll,
  [we don't know how to write such words in general in English]
<Thogo|trabajando> paddyez: der Alte Strom ist ein Eigenname, der heißt halt so. ["Alte Strom" is a proper noun.]
<dank55> ob wir "Alte" oder "Alter" oder so was schreiben soll [whether we should write Alte or Alter]
<paddyez> Thogo|trabajando: aha
<paddyez> in that case the "Alte Strom"
There was no disagreement with this. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

It probably wouldn't hurt to bear in mind the context in which the term was used in English Wikipedia: Template:POTD protected/2008-05-02. It's a caption to a picture, and it's a long noun phrase, not a complete sentence. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it's fairly clear that the nominative should be used.The problem is that in German there is a strong nominative form which is used when used alone or following the indefinite article (Alter Strom and ein alter Strom; the latter cannot be a proper noun) and a weak nominative form used after the definite article ("der Alte Strom"). The lemma used in encyclopedias etc. is the strong form "Alter Strom"), so in my opinion the English should be Alter Strom. The German rule should in my opinion not apply following the English the. The only argument for "Der Alte Strom" would be if the definite article were part of the proper noun, which I don't think it is; it would be unusual in German and the German Wikipedia article would not then have zwischen Altem und Neuem Strom (without the articles). If the definite article were part of the proper noun, the German form would have to used in English (Der Alte Strom as opposed to the Alter Strom) Of course, I can imagine that to a German writing the Alter Strom would be like scraping ones finger nails down a blackboard. That the form Alter . . . is the lemma can be confirmed by looking at similar article titles (for masculine nouns) on German Wikipedia. de:Spezial:Alle Seiten&from=Alter+&namespace=0 http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spezial%3AAlle+Seiten&from=Alter&namespace=0, e.g. Alter Bau, Alter Dom--Boson (talk) 18:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I see that this article bears the title Alter Bahnhof (Heilbronn) and begins by saying

Der Alte Bahnhof in Heilbronn ist...

Of course that's appropriate when writing in German. Writing the Alte Strom in the English Wikipedia article still seems better than writing the Alten Strom, when it's in a caption that is only a noun phrase. I remain uncertain about what is the best way to handle this. Notice that this was in the article titled Warnemünde, not an article about the river. There must be other articles in English Wikipedia that correspond to the various titles found here. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Normal practice is to use the nominative case and treat it as indeclinable in English; I think I see an evasion which may hold. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:44, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
But "use the nominative case and treat it as indeclinable in English" fails to say whether to use "Alter Strom" (which in German would be used when there is no article) or "Alte Strom" (which would be used when preceded by a definite article, and is the form I actually used in the caption, which had the definite article in English). Michael Hardy (talk) 16:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
In fact, I used both; if you want to tweak, I have no objection. (Perhaps "Alte Strom" with no italics, as an English phrase?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Relevant conversations at WP:RD/Language from February and today. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Here's that link: WP:RD/Language Michael Hardy (talk) 01:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Being clear about naming conventions vs style guidelines

When a page has (article) naming convention information (including perhaps information on redirects and links), and a sizeable amount of content that is clearly intended as a style guide, would it be better to split the page, or should we perhaps create a new infobox that says that both kinds of content are present, and explains the difference? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

  • It depends. The two functions do overlap; often, splitting the page begs for more inconsistent advice than we have now. The new infobox should be small; a list of all the MOS pages and all the NC pages would overwhelm most pages. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
That makes sense to me, let's keep it on the same page, when there's not enough material for two pages. I'm not talking about a sidebar that mentions other pages; I mean a substitute for the top infobox, the one that might say "this is a naming convention" or "this is a style guideline", neither of which is 100% accurate in the case of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (U.S. state and territory highways). See that talk page. What language do we want? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
My personal preference would be to replace with {{guideline}} and make all WP:MOS and WP:NC links see alsos. But this may be too radical. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Need Help with this

I'm having trouble regarding this article: Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain?. Everytime I try and edit it I am confronted with the creator, who refuses to let the phone numbers etc. be deleted. Please give the article a quick glance and let me know if there is anything in this manual that can possibly help me with this --Maurice45 (talk) 19:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like spam to me. To report persistent spamming, see WT:WikiProject Spam. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Archive gone missing

For some reason this discussion appears not to have been archived! G-Man ? 22:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Cluebot never ran on this page, and it's commented-out. The last time Miszabot ran was Apr 28, and Miszabot has always had a lag of at least 10 days after the last comment in a thread; was it archived then? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Ah, it's in Archive 99. Check the archive directory now, I just added the next 8 archive links. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. G-Man ? 23:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Euphemisms

I can't seem to find any sort of policy or guideline regarding euphemisms. In particular, when a person has died, is it appropriate for an encyclopedia (Wikipedia) to use "passed away" or equivalent? Is this spelled out somewhere or gone under previous consideration? Thanks, (EhJJ)TALK 01:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there's a guideline that says not to use "passed away" and other euphemisms, anyone remember which one? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it's addressed at Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Sadly, tragically. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 01:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

New proposal on images

A tall image

I think the current default widths for image thumbnails are hopelessly small - 180px for "thumb" tagged images and 140px for "upright" tagged images (the latter is actually hardly used).

These sizes may have been appropriate when most people browsed with 640 x 480 monitors, but with most people now using resolutions of 1024x768 or more, these sizes are hopelessly inadequate as these pixel widths appear tiny on most people's monitors. I despair when going to pages and seeing these tiny little thumbed images where you have to click each one to actually see what is going on. I know that people can adjust their settings, but this only works if you are logged in, and most people who view wikipedia aren't.

I think we need to create two new classes, portrait, and landscape, in addition to the thumb, and upright classes we have at the moment. I will illustrate this below:

  • Tall images

I think the upright class size of 140px width is OK for tall images such as the one on the left.

A portrait image
  • Portrait images

I think the upright class of 140px width is too small for portrait images, at least 170px should be used. We could create a new "portrait" tag with this 170px size.


A square image
  • Square images

I think 180px is just about OK for square images, but perhaps 190px would look better and that would still make it the same in pixel area as the other classes.

A landscape image
  • Landscape images

I think 180px is too small for landscape images, and we should use 230px. The size of the Obama flag image above is 227px (height) x 170px (width). The size of the Obama image on the right is 230px (width) x 156px (height) so these two images are roughly the same size. We should therefore create a new "landscape" tag to set all images such as this one to 230px default width.

Conclusion

I hope I have displayed above how the current system does not address the wide range of image shapes, and how we are perversly left with a large amount of landscape images that are much smaller in area than the portrait ones. Please vote whether you are for or against my proposal below with any appropriate comments in the discussion section. Thanks Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 20:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal vote

  • Support although I'm not sure default sizes are an MoS issue, and would like to see a more formal list of proposed actions and changes to the text. Johnbod (talk) 13:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal discussion

Yes, we very much need new bigger default sizes for image thumbnails. Even though I use 800×600 in screen resolution the current defaults are much to small. But instead of adding new thumbnail classes I suggest another approach. I think it would be easy for the devs to implement and that it would be much more flexible:

  • First of all set the default thumb size higher than now.
  • Secondly add a new parameter giving the size of the image in percent. That is, [[Image:Something.png|thumb|100%]] will be shown at the default thumb size, or if the user is logged in and has set another size at the users default size. While [[Image:Something.png|thumb|150%]] would show the image at 150% the default thumb size, or 150% of the size a logged in user has set.

This would allow the article editors to decide on an image by image basis what size the image needs, but still allow logged in users to configure their Wikipedia experience. Since some images with a lot of details need to be larger, while some images of a single object often don't need to be that big.

--David Göthberg (talk) 21:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your response David. If you had this percentage tool that you could use, it would not be necessary to increase the default size at all would it? At the moment the upright tag works roughly equivalent to 78% of default thumbsize. My proposed portrait tag would be about 95% and the landscape tag would be about 128%. These would work in exactly the same way as the upright tag so I don't think developing it would be a problem. I suppose the only problem with your method / possible advantage of mine is that it may save people arguing about what percentage an image should use and save people changing them round all the time? Against my proposal, and for yours, is that as you suggest, sometimes images of exactly the same dimensions may need to be a different size due to a more complicated scene in one than the other.Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 22:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes Gustav, you have fully understood my suggestion. But it would anyway be nice to have a larger default size since then we wouldn't have to add the percentage all the time. Making it simpler especially for new editors. And I think people will argue over image size almost as much if they have four types as if they have percentages, so that won't do much difference. And percentages might even make it easier to reach consensus since then you can more easily compromise. (At least I have seen that several times when we have chosen colours for templates. We often ended up choosing a nuance in the middle of the suggestions.)
--David Göthberg (talk) 00:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


A feature request was already submitted to the MediaWiki bug tracker for percentage thumbs, and it was rejected because it would make thumb caching much less efficient. I think a better option would be to stick with the fixed widths e.g. 120px, 150px, 180px, 200px, 250px, 300px, but support image parameters "bigger" and "smaller". For someone with default thumb size of 150px, "bigger" would step the image up to 180px; "smaller" would step it down to 120px. This approach would only affect caching inasmuch as it would need to support "smaller" at 120px, and "bigger" at 300px. Hesperian 13:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that info. I'm not sure what you mean when you say stick with the fixed widths? At the moment we have the normal "thumb" parameter which at the moment is set to 180px width default and the additional "upright" parameter which sets the image to 140px at default or roughly 78% of whatever the person has as their preferred thumb width. I think you are basically suggesting a similar thing to me, but replacing portrait, and landscape with smaller and bigger? Your smaller is similar to what upright is now (66% to 78%). I think that is too small for most portrait images (as illustrated above) so I would want either to be able to use thumb for portrait images or create a portrait parameter of approximately 95% of the standard thumb size. For normal landscape shaped images I think 300px may be unnecessarily large (and appear too big on 800x600), and to save server work, we could use a minimum of 230px at standard (non logged in settings) or 128% of a preferred thumb width, or perhaps go up to 250px or 139% as this still looks acceptable at 800x600. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 14:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
230px is fine for a single image on a page - but with many, I'd stick with 150. Note that low resolution - which makes the text taller - actually allows generous use of wider-than-present-default images. What looks fine on 800x600 will be a mess on 1600x1200. Users can change their default picture sizes at will, readers 'from the streets' will have to face this mess. NVO (talk) 00:57, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The majority of people who look at wikipedia pages aren't logged in so I don't see why we should neglect how wikipedia looks to these people. 140px is definitely too small for anything other than tall images (that is what the upright parameter gives, not 150px). Even for logged in users, at the moment the parameters we have availiable (thumb and thumb + upright) don't adequately cover the range of image shapes as I have illustrated above. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 01:16, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
No point in tiny images; people will find it irritating if they have to hit the image to find out what it is, and if they have a slow connection it will take even more time than downloading the original page. Let's dispense with postage stamps. Tony (talk) 02:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Where to discuss this

The fact that WP:MoS#Images goes into such detail means (if we want to be consistent) that we can't ask this discussion to move to WP:Images or WP:Picture tutorial. (And btw, why do we not link WP:Images from WP:MoS#Images? Seems like an offshoot page to me.) So: do we want to have this much detail on images in WP:MoS and continue to discuss image questions here, or hand off most of the content to WP:Images and WP:Picture tutorial and discuss these things there? (I have no preference.) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone can say "You can't discuss this here" on any talk page as long as the project or article page covers the subject in some detail; that's what talk pages are for. (Although if there's an active discussion on the same topic somewhere else, it's better not to discuss the same thing in two places at once.) Unless/until we decide to move stuff, feel free. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Date-range question

(Note: this question was also asked at WP:HELPDESK here.)

Experienced editor here with a MoS question - is there a better venue to ask this? Let me know if so. Regarding this edit, where the editor changed the date range from "350-500,000 years" to "350,000-500,000 years". I've looked through the MoS for ten or fifteen minutes and can't find anything regarding this exact situation, either in the date section or number section. Anyone have any enlightenment for me? Tan | 39 15:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I answered this at the help desk too, but I'll copy it here as well. I would tend to agree that 350,000-500,000 would be more correct as its unambiguous. 350-500,000 could mean "(350 to 500)-thousand" or "(350) to (500,000)" -- ShinmaWa(talk) 16:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Please use an en dash: 350,000–500,000 years. Waltham, The Duke of 03:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure who you are talking to. However, if you are talking to me, I will be happy to put an endash on a talk page as soon as someone puts an endash on my keyboard. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
If you're on a Windoze box you can get an endash by holding down the ALT key while typing 0150 on the numeric keypad. Hesperian 03:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I can also click on the link below the edit box. However, I'm not going to do either on a talk page and it's ridiculous to even suggest it. I understand the endash debate is a hot button right now, but a) this is a talk page and b) this is a discussion regarding date wording not punctuation. Dragging that tired discussion into this section only distracts from the subject at hand. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Hesperian. Or click on the en dash below the edit box. Or use the Insert menu. Or use a desktop computer. Or a Mac. There is simply no excuse—unless you're PManderson—and his Grace is quite justified in asking Shinmawa to use en dashes here: for those who are used to proper punctuation, there's a short "bump" every time someone squibs on the practice and substitutes a tiny little hyphen; and we should be setting an example here to all users, not perpetrating bad practice. Tony (talk) 03:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Would "350–500 thousand years" keep everyone happy? Hesperian 04:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Since people are more than happy to tell you when they're not happy around here, I believe the silence means that people are happy. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Shinmwa: be sloppy, then, but (1) I won't be able to take you seriously on issues of style; and (2) please use an apostrophe in "it's" (your edit summary), also relating to (1). Tony (talk) 03:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
i koodent kare lez if ewe take me seriosly or nut, tonee. I have to admit, though, that I'm growing weary of your pedantic, nitpicky tone, which is bordering on incivility. (Making snide comments on typos in edit summaries??) Your treatment of PMAnderson is way over the line on incivility. I respectfully request you tone it down a little. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Nope. Tony (talk) 11:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Foreign terms

In the section Foreign terms there is a subsection No common usage in English

Use italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that are not current in English. However, in an article on a subject for which there is no English-language term, such terms do not require italics.

I think that the second sentence should be removed. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

In the section Foreign terms there is a subsection Spelling and transliteration. It says:

Use anglicized spellings; native spellings are an optional alternative if they use the English alphabet. The choice between anglicized and native spellings should follow English usage (Besançon, Edvard Beneš and Göttingen, but Nuremburg, role, naive, and Florence). In particular, diacritics are optional, except where English overwhelmingly uses them, whether for disambiguation or for accurate pronunciation (résumé, café).

Currently "Edvard Beneš" is used yet the English usage in verifiable reliable sources is for Edvard Benes. I suggest that ig we are to have examples that we replace the words where there is debate over common English usage in verifiable reliable sources with words where the use of accent marks is clearly the most common English usage in verifiable reliable sources. Replace "Edvard Beneš" with some other word. An unqualified use of the word Göttingen is not a good example because there are different usages for the word. For example a Google book search shows that "Gottingen poets" is more common than "Göttingen-poets", so I suggest that a different word is chosen where there is no ambiguity.

There is a problem with "or for accurate pronunciation". Now many English people but not all have learnt French so it is not unreasonable to include those examples. BUT what about Zurich? The Germans spell it Zürich this would suggest that we should not use Zürich because it would make the pronunciation less accurate in English. Further what about diacritics in languages less familiar than French? For example if "Điện Biên Phủ" helps with the correct pronunciation of "Dien Bien Phu" should it be an option? It seems to me that this paragraph needs re-writing using as a template the wording in WP:UE.

So I propose replacing the wording in this subsection with the following:

Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, as with Greek, Chinese or Russian, must be transliterated into characters generally intelligible to literate speakers of English. Do not use a systematically transliterated name if there is a common English form of the name; thus, use Tchaikovsky or Chiang Kai-shek even though those are unsystematic.

This Manual of Style neither encourages or discourages the use of diacritics (accent marks) on foreign words with articles, their usage depends on whether they are used in verifiable reliable sources and the constraints imposed by other more specific Wikipeda guidelines.

Within an article, use the name of the article rather than an alternative spelling unless there is a good reason to do so (such as showing alternative spellings in the lead section of an article) — For selection of the name of an article see naming conventions guideline. For other foreign names, phrases or words, within an article use the most commonly used English version, as you would find it in English language sources used as references on the subject of the article. If the foreign name, phrase, or word, does not appear in any of references on the subject of the article then use the most commonly used English version of the word or phrase as you would find it in other reliable verifiable English sources. If the foreign phrase or word does not appear often in English, then avoid using it (see Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms).

Sometimes the usage will be influenced by other guidelines such as national varieties of English which may lead to different usage in different articles depending on the common English usage in different national varieties of English.

comments? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

About diacritics: I think the default should be to use them, unless the form without is very widely used in English (like Zurich). Basically we're here to inform, and dropping diacritics results in loss of information (whereas it doesn't take much imagination to work about what a word written with diacritics is going to look like wihout them). Diacritics can also play a useful disambiguating role, avoiding the need for extra tags in article names, for example. Of course article names with diacritics should have a redirect from the equivalent name without (this is common practice in my experience); and searches for names without diacritics should also return results with diacritics (I've just done a quick check and this would seem to work, though not as perfectly as I would like - you get a link to the article but without the text extract you usually see. I searched for Sniezycowy if you're interested.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
It depends on the diacritic. We should use what our readers will expect and understand; WP:UE says to use most commonly used English version (and to include a local spelling which differs from this in the first line, so there is no loss of information). If we want a sentence: do what English normally does.
  • As for the examples; I would expect to see Edvard Beneš in carefully printed modern English works, like the New Cambridge Modern History (copyright 1968), although this may not have been true in the 1930's. Evidence is welcome; if an example is wrong, we can change it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
At WP:Naming conventions, PBS removed all of the example words that had diacriticals, implying that Wikipedia now disapproves of diacriticals. I compromised on Edvard Beneš, because that's not an example that the average user will find easily in dictionaries, and substituted a name we've got a slam-dunk for: Søren Kierkegaard. It's an FA on Wikipedia, I asked at WT:FAC to make sure there's still support for the diacritical, I looked it up in a variety of references, including the first several in a Google search. Easy. PBS reverted again, and again removed all the examples that had diacriticals, and again didn't give any argument for his position, other than being able to find examples of "Soren" in a Google search ... well, yeah, you'll find contractions in a Google search too, but that doesn't answer the question of whether they're suitable for WP mainspace. Per WP:NOTLEX, we have to look it up. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Dank55, please look carefully at the wording above and consider if the version I am suggesting is more or less friendly to your position. Also consider that we are not talking about article names here but the use of foreign words inside an article. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to rely on "the mob" here, because the general subject of anglicizing or not is a touchy one. It might take a while to get input from a variety of people, especially prolific editors and article reviewers. Many issues in the style guidelines can rub people the wrong way but IMO shouldn't; all we're trying to do is follow modern usage, and strike various appropriate balances. Stripping words, especially the names of people and places, of diacriticals represents an actual conflict; there really are opposing interests who need to be listened to. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
There's a good discussion of this topic at WP:VPP#Arguments. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

No one has commented on my first comment.

So I have removed it. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 07:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Dank55 are there any specific parts to my second part that you object to. I am willing to include examples (indeed would encourage their use) of foreign accent marks providing that they are examples where it is clear that common English usage (in reliable sources) favours them. I am not in favour of you suggestion of modern usage because one would have to define modern (and we have enough problems in this area without introducing another source of argument). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

New proposal on images

A tall image

I think the current default widths for image thumbnails are hopelessly small - 180px for "thumb" tagged images and 140px for "upright" tagged images (the latter is actually hardly used).

These sizes may have been appropriate when most people browsed with 640 x 480 monitors, but with most people now using resolutions of 1024x768 or more, these sizes are hopelessly inadequate as these pixel widths appear tiny on most people's monitors. I despair when going to pages and seeing these tiny little thumbed images where you have to click each one to actually see what is going on. I know that people can adjust their settings, but this only works if you are logged in, and most people who view wikipedia aren't.

I think we need to create two new classes, portrait, and landscape, in addition to the thumb, and upright classes we have at the moment. I will illustrate this below:

  • Tall images

I think the upright class size of 140px width is OK for tall images such as the one on the left.

A portrait image
  • Portrait images

I think the upright class of 140px width is too small for portrait images, at least 170px should be used. We could create a new "portrait" tag with this 170px size.


A square image
  • Square images

I think 180px is just about OK for square images, but perhaps 190px would look better and that would still make it the same in pixel area as the other classes.

A landscape image
  • Landscape images

I think 180px is too small for landscape images, and we should use 230px. The size of the Obama flag image above is 227px (height) x 170px (width). The size of the Obama image on the right is 230px (width) x 156px (height) so these two images are roughly the same size. We should therefore create a new "landscape" tag to set all images such as this one to 230px default width.

Conclusion

I hope I have displayed above how the current system does not address the wide range of image shapes, and how we are perversly left with a large amount of landscape images that are much smaller in area than the portrait ones. Please vote whether you are for or against my proposal below with any appropriate comments in the discussion section. Thanks Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 20:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal vote

  • Support although I'm not sure default sizes are an MoS issue, and would like to see a more formal list of proposed actions and changes to the text. Johnbod (talk) 13:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal discussion

Yes, we very much need new bigger default sizes for image thumbnails. Even though I use 800×600 in screen resolution the current defaults are much to small. But instead of adding new thumbnail classes I suggest another approach. I think it would be easy for the devs to implement and that it would be much more flexible:

  • First of all set the default thumb size higher than now.
  • Secondly add a new parameter giving the size of the image in percent. That is, [[Image:Something.png|thumb|100%]] will be shown at the default thumb size, or if the user is logged in and has set another size at the users default size. While [[Image:Something.png|thumb|150%]] would show the image at 150% the default thumb size, or 150% of the size a logged in user has set.

This would allow the article editors to decide on an image by image basis what size the image needs, but still allow logged in users to configure their Wikipedia experience. Since some images with a lot of details need to be larger, while some images of a single object often don't need to be that big.

--David Göthberg (talk) 21:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your response David. If you had this percentage tool that you could use, it would not be necessary to increase the default size at all would it? At the moment the upright tag works roughly equivalent to 78% of default thumbsize. My proposed portrait tag would be about 95% and the landscape tag would be about 128%. These would work in exactly the same way as the upright tag so I don't think developing it would be a problem. I suppose the only problem with your method / possible advantage of mine is that it may save people arguing about what percentage an image should use and save people changing them round all the time? Against my proposal, and for yours, is that as you suggest, sometimes images of exactly the same dimensions may need to be a different size due to a more complicated scene in one than the other.Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 22:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes Gustav, you have fully understood my suggestion. But it would anyway be nice to have a larger default size since then we wouldn't have to add the percentage all the time. Making it simpler especially for new editors. And I think people will argue over image size almost as much if they have four types as if they have percentages, so that won't do much difference. And percentages might even make it easier to reach consensus since then you can more easily compromise. (At least I have seen that several times when we have chosen colours for templates. We often ended up choosing a nuance in the middle of the suggestions.)
--David Göthberg (talk) 00:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


A feature request was already submitted to the MediaWiki bug tracker for percentage thumbs, and it was rejected because it would make thumb caching much less efficient. I think a better option would be to stick with the fixed widths e.g. 120px, 150px, 180px, 200px, 250px, 300px, but support image parameters "bigger" and "smaller". For someone with default thumb size of 150px, "bigger" would step the image up to 180px; "smaller" would step it down to 120px. This approach would only affect caching inasmuch as it would need to support "smaller" at 120px, and "bigger" at 300px. Hesperian 13:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that info. I'm not sure what you mean when you say stick with the fixed widths? At the moment we have the normal "thumb" parameter which at the moment is set to 180px width default and the additional "upright" parameter which sets the image to 140px at default or roughly 78% of whatever the person has as their preferred thumb width. I think you are basically suggesting a similar thing to me, but replacing portrait, and landscape with smaller and bigger? Your smaller is similar to what upright is now (66% to 78%). I think that is too small for most portrait images (as illustrated above) so I would want either to be able to use thumb for portrait images or create a portrait parameter of approximately 95% of the standard thumb size. For normal landscape shaped images I think 300px may be unnecessarily large (and appear too big on 800x600), and to save server work, we could use a minimum of 230px at standard (non logged in settings) or 128% of a preferred thumb width, or perhaps go up to 250px or 139% as this still looks acceptable at 800x600. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 14:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
230px is fine for a single image on a page - but with many, I'd stick with 150. Note that low resolution - which makes the text taller - actually allows generous use of wider-than-present-default images. What looks fine on 800x600 will be a mess on 1600x1200. Users can change their default picture sizes at will, readers 'from the streets' will have to face this mess. NVO (talk) 00:57, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The majority of people who look at wikipedia pages aren't logged in so I don't see why we should neglect how wikipedia looks to these people. 140px is definitely too small for anything other than tall images (that is what the upright parameter gives, not 150px). Even for logged in users, at the moment the parameters we have availiable (thumb and thumb + upright) don't adequately cover the range of image shapes as I have illustrated above. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 01:16, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
No point in tiny images; people will find it irritating if they have to hit the image to find out what it is, and if they have a slow connection it will take even more time than downloading the original page. Let's dispense with postage stamps. Tony (talk) 02:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Where to discuss this

The fact that WP:MoS#Images goes into such detail means (if we want to be consistent) that we can't ask this discussion to move to WP:Images or WP:Picture tutorial. (And btw, why do we not link WP:Images from WP:MoS#Images? Seems like an offshoot page to me.) So: do we want to have this much detail on images in WP:MoS and continue to discuss image questions here, or hand off most of the content to WP:Images and WP:Picture tutorial and discuss these things there? (I have no preference.) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think anyone can say "You can't discuss this here" on any talk page as long as the project or article page covers the subject in some detail; that's what talk pages are for. (Although if there's an active discussion on the same topic somewhere else, it's better not to discuss the same thing in two places at once.) Unless/until we decide to move stuff, feel free. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Bot is being developed to convert hyphens to en dashes

See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DyceBot 4. Discuss here if you think en-dashes should die-die-die; that's not appropriate for a bot dev page. Discuss here if you're concerned (as I am) that changing hyphens to dashes when the editors aren't expecting that will mean that they can't find stuff they wrote with a search or assume that it's not there anymore, because the two symbols look similar enough that it will be easy for many people to overlook the difference. Discuss at the bot link if you have additional rules for when the substitution should or shouldn't be made. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Let me get this right: when you put a hyphen into a search engine, it won't pick up an en dash? And vice-versa? Tony (talk) 14:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking of local search in browsers and word processing software, and also regex searches; Google tends to largely ignore punctuation in searches. Btw I should add: the particular bot being proposed doesn't present this problem, because it's only going to change page titles, so the problem can be handled with a redirect. But as is pointed out on that page, it's likely that if people see this happening in an automated way, they might start using AWB on the same regex string to start automating this conversion in text. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it should be discussed here first, and then if we decide that's okay, editors should be notified that that happens, including in WP:MoS. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I do hope this happens for main text. Good, crisp writing in English requires the use of en dashes, whatever Anderson says. Tony (talk) 14:41, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm a bit torn on this one, because the difference between hyphens and en-dashes is not something that sticks in most Wikipedian editors' minds, until they become aware of the issues. So if someone types "2005-06" (hyphen) in some unwatchlisted articles, and it magically changes to an en-dash, and they later decide that they got the dates wrong, they are probably going to hit Ctrl-F (in Firefox) to search for "2005-06". When they don't find it, they won't assume that it was converted to an en-dash, they'll assume that someone else changed it, or that they misremembered the page. On the other hand, conversion to correct typographical symbols is the kind of thing that ought to be handled by software, at least some of the time. I haven't figured out what I think about all this, yet.
A separate point: I need to keep an eye on proposed bots that deal with style issues. I was only over there because I like to randomly wander to places I haven't been before in Wikipedia. The last time a style-bot was deployed without discussion first on style-guidelines pages, it caused a lot of grief over at WT:Layout. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

←(copied from Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DyceBot 4, in response to a comment) "Ah, who would have to search for something they wrote?" Everyone who writes for a living. As the saying goes among professionals, there is no writing, only re-writing. And I am not an inveterate anything, nor antagonistic, nor against en-dashes; I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear before. I completely support the current WP:MoS recommendation on use of en-dashes, and I have made the corrections at FAC's and GAN's. I support the idea of revisiting the discussions concerning all characters not found on keyboards roughly once a year, for the simple reason that all such characters are slowly dying out in "persuasive" (not sure what I mean by that) English writing, because so much content is migrating to the web these days as the primary place where it lives. We don't have to change our style the moment other publications do; we can and should be conservative. But we should keep an eye on developments.

And I agree with Tony that, if we're going to make these conversions, they should be done with a bot. But there needs to be discussion, and it needs to be done carefully, and people have to be notified. Notification is especially important when the proposed substitution is one that a majority of editors won't even notice or remember, unless they've been made aware of the issues. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Tony operates out of personal prejudice, including here, this is totally a judgment call. And btw, I agree with Tony's judgment call on this one, for now, and maybe for several years more. I still claim that many typographers characters are slowly evaporating online; but reports of their death are greatly exaggerated. Dashes are well-established in the publishing world, pleasing to the eye, and easy to learn. But the WT:GAU survey documented that people sometimes got grumpy when we insisted they insert no-break spaces or dashes, not because they cared, but because they didn't want to take the time, so I'm all in favor of bot development to help us conform GAs and FAs. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:24, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Please note that none of what you have said implies that endashes are required for effectiveness, which is the statement I question. I oppose any bot that would make stylistic decisions in text, since that is an editorial prerogative; I would oppose it equally if it replaced endashes with hyphens. A standard format for titles is more defensible. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I meant his judgment call on supporting WP:MoS#Dashes. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Obviously one should not convert ALL hyphens to ndashes. Some should remain hyphens and some should be mdashes and some should be minus signs. A style manual should prescribe which is which. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think a bot making substitutions of this type will do much more harm than good. The difference between hyphens and en-dashes doesn't warrant any complications that affect the substantive work of creating an encyclopedia. JamesMLane t c 06:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the bot is being developed to modify only page titles, not page content. Changing page content to use ndashes in place of hypens, besides being a bad idea to begin with, is a task laden with false positives, so it is not suitable for a bot. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 06:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Replacing hyphens by en-dashes in article titles is rather counterproductive. I do not expect anyone ever to type an en-dash in the entrybox when looking up an article. So a redirect from the name with hyphen would always still be required. So why not keep that as the only entry? −Woodstone (talk) 08:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that automatically changing the hyphens in the text is a task fraught with difficulties, but this is not what we are talking about here. This is a discussion about changing the titles of articles, and there are virtually no false positives here. A couple of categories of titles with hyphens instead of en dashes between numbers have been identified, and these titles—rather few anyway—will be, of course, discounted from the substitution. Therefore, as far as the process is concerned, we are covered.
The technical background exists to ensure that the usage of en dashes or other non-ASCII characters in titles will not adversely affect searches or navigation, as has already been mentioned in the bot-approval discussion. As an encyclopaedia, it is our duty to offer accurate information to our readers, in a clear and presentable manner; using en dashes and other characters to this effect is most desirable, and when the Manual of Style—written by consensus and with knowledge of the proper usage of the English language—recommends a certain usage model for such characters, then it becomes obvious why it is a problem that there are thousands of article titles deviating from our established guidelines. Changing these titles, as I can tell you from personal experience, is slow and tedious, and to move all of what are essentially misplaced articles by hand will waste time and resources better utilised elsewhere. If approved, a robot which, as has been explained, will remove a great part of the problem with a near-zero possibility of error, will successfully conduct a long, repetitive, and necessary task, improving the encyclopaedia while placing no burden on the shoulders of our editors, and showing even more to our readers how professional and well-written Wikipedia has the potential to be. Why succumb to the inferior linguistic standards of much of the rest of the Internet when we could be a beacon of high-quality written English? And this logic applies, or at least it should, to the entirety of the Manual of Style (so I reserve the right to re-use the whole, or part, of my speech here :-D). Waltham, The Duke of 10:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • There appears to be ignorance and hysteria at the thought of bringing all article titles into consistency WRT a basic punctuation mark that is a hallmark of good, crisp writing. If you don't know how to use an en dash and how it operates to make the reading experience easier and clearer (even among those who don't quite understand its function) you should read about how to in MOS. Take no notice of guerrilla warfarists such as Manderson, who seem to have a frenzied fear of anything but dots and hyphens—or if they don't, seek to weaken our stylistic guidance at every turn out a simple hatred of centralised cohesion. Tony (talk) 12:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that ndashes should be used, and I even think that the bot is probably a good idea, but mixing a detail of orthography that has virtually no effect on the flow of reading with completely unrelated words such as "good, crisp writing" is unlikely to help this discussion. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:14, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Orthography has everything to do with the flow of reading. Tony (talk) 13:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Therein lies the nub of the subject. Reading is not writing. Orthography is not composition. Most editors on WP have only the most rudimentary understanding of orthography, yet we regularly use software that does a reasonable (if imperfect) job of it. We should seek to understand if there are many special cases in which the choices between hyphen, en-dash, and em-dash are not amenable to being automated. If it is sufficiently rare, then by all means unleash the bots to correct the wikitext. Otherwise, should we use suggest-bots and a task force? LeadSongDog (talk) 15:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
It is a hard task in prose, but a relatively easy one in article titles, which follow very specific conventions and fall under strict limitations. Also, I do not know whether there are any em dashes in article titles, but to the extent of my knowledge, there should be none whatever. Waltham, The Duke of 02:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Date-range question

(Note: this question was also asked at WP:HELPDESK here.)

Experienced editor here with a MoS question - is there a better venue to ask this? Let me know if so. Regarding this edit, where the editor changed the date range from "350-500,000 years" to "350,000-500,000 years". I've looked through the MoS for ten or fifteen minutes and can't find anything regarding this exact situation, either in the date section or number section. Anyone have any enlightenment for me? Tan | 39 15:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I answered this at the help desk too, but I'll copy it here as well. I would tend to agree that 350,000-500,000 would be more correct as its unambiguous. 350-500,000 could mean "(350 to 500)-thousand" or "(350) to (500,000)" -- ShinmaWa(talk) 16:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Please use an en dash: 350,000–500,000 years. Waltham, The Duke of 03:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure who you are talking to. However, if you are talking to me, I will be happy to put an endash on a talk page as soon as someone puts an endash on my keyboard. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
If you're on a Windoze box you can get an endash by holding down the ALT key while typing 0150 on the numeric keypad. Hesperian 03:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I can also click on the link below the edit box. However, I'm not going to do either on a talk page and it's ridiculous to even suggest it. I understand the endash debate is a hot button right now, but a) this is a talk page and b) this is a discussion regarding date wording not punctuation. Dragging that tired discussion into this section only distracts from the subject at hand. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Hesperian. Or click on the en dash below the edit box. Or use the Insert menu. Or use a desktop computer. Or a Mac. There is simply no excuse—unless you're PManderson—and his Grace is quite justified in asking Shinmawa to use en dashes here: for those who are used to proper punctuation, there's a short "bump" every time someone squibs on the practice and substitutes a tiny little hyphen; and we should be setting an example here to all users, not perpetrating bad practice. Tony (talk) 03:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Would "350–500 thousand years" keep everyone happy? Hesperian 04:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Since people are more than happy to tell you when they're not happy around here, I believe the silence means that people are happy. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Shinmwa: be sloppy, then, but (1) I won't be able to take you seriously on issues of style; and (2) please use an apostrophe in "it's" (your edit summary), also relating to (1). Tony (talk) 03:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
i koodent kare lez if ewe take me seriosly or nut, tonee. I have to admit, though, that I'm growing weary of your pedantic, nitpicky tone, which is bordering on incivility. (Making snide comments on typos in edit summaries??) Your treatment of PMAnderson is way over the line on incivility. I respectfully request you tone it down a little. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Nope. Tony (talk) 11:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Monthly update of style and policy pages: April 2008

It was a complicated month, so I hope I've captured, as simply as possible, the substantive changes. Please notify any issues on the talk page. Tony (talk) 16:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Interesting how Tony's tags are included, and nobody's else are. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
What are tags? Seems like a personal attack. Aside from that, I won't bother to respond to this attempt to smear my efforts with accusations of POV. Tony (talk) 10:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

New category

I'm trying to carve out some kind of monthly job (several of us have volunteered, but more are welcome!) of patrolling some of the style guidelines pages and talk pages, answering questions, and especially, doing monthly summaries of changes for the benefit of article reviewers. We're not going to be able to cover the 68 pages in the "style guidelines" cat, but then, we shouldn't; we have no business fiddling with most of those pages. I've created Category:Manual of Style, and I don't have a strong preference for what goes in the category, but I have some ideas about which style-guidelines pages stay out:

  1. Pages that don't read like style guidelines. WP:Article development is a great page, but it reads much more like pages in the "editing guidelines" and "how-to" cats than like WP:MOS, WP:Layout, etc. People expecting something prescriptive would be disappointed; other people might stay away from it thinking that it's another boring MoS page (in their view), when it's really very helpful. [None in this category now]
  2. Subject-specific pages. Really, what business do I have looking at a style guideline for anime? The question of whether a new style guideline for film was official or not just came up in WP:VPP here, and my feeling is, it's as official as it needs to be, until and unless someone suggests that it's not. We can't be running around vetting every style guide that pops up, because we don't have time for it, and we won't know as much as the subject experts do. If there's a contradiction, if a problem comes up, we'll deal with it then.
  3. Pages that have a flavor of being policy-related or controversial. It's not hard to pick these out: just look at the talk page and see if there's a lot of yelling. WP:Avoid Neologisms is an example. That page is in three different cats, and it will certainly live on, but I don't think we actually need it in our core MoS-cat, and it would be more trouble than it's worth to maintain it. It will be good enough for day-to-day work just to tell people which dictionaries, glossaries and style guides are helpful.

All of this is negotiable; feel free to add or delete pages from the new cat. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Rather than monthly summaries, which I'd hoped would be covered already in my initiative earlier this month, I think we urgently need to gather information relevant to rationalising the jungle of MOS subpages, to underpin a strategy of gradually, bit by bit, merging some of them and addressing conflicts between them. Tony (talk) 08:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I was talking about your initiative; let me rephrase. I meant that I'm trying to carve out some kind of role for myself (and anyone is willing to join of course) that involves participating in your initiative, plus watching style guidelines pages. I'm happy to follow your lead on that; you know what article reviewers need. On the jungle of MOS subpages, one editor has made a good start on that and will be ready to present his findings by the end of the week. (Can you feel the drama?) As for merging and addressing conflicts, one technical problem is that renaming or moving sections breaks links. I asked several related questions about this over at Wikipedia:Bot requests#Does anyone know of a bot that fixes links to sections as the sections get archived?, and the only answer so far is that Cluebot III may be useful. Anyone have any advice? This has been one thing making me hesitant to do any heavy lifting. [Solved by ClueBot III] - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


Okay, I finished the walkthrough for everything in the style-guidelines cat. The theory in adding CAT:MOS to some of the style guidelines is that we want editors to feel like CAT:MOS is a learnable amount of material, the material is intuitive and not terribly controversial, it's not too much of a burden to watchlist everything in the cat (for those who care), and everything in the cat reflects well on Wikipedia. Here's the key to the following list of articles that I left in the style-guidelines cat but didn't add to CAT:MOS:

  • S (example: WP:Stubs): "subject-specific" pages. For instance, most editors won't need all the information on stubs categories in WP:Stubs, and if they do, they'll know where to look; they don't need to read it before they need it.
  • P (example: WP:Avoid weasel words): these pages aren't "policy", but they concern policy in some way. For instance, WP:WEASEL helps people comply with WP:NPOV. It's important not to lead people to confuse policy with guidelines.

Some pages were a judgment call. I think WP:Manual of Style (pronunciation) is a little scary for some editors, and it's not something you have to learn ahead of time; you can wait until you want to learn IPA (if ever!) before reading it. So I marked it with "S". None of my judgment calls are intended to "demote" or "promote" a guideline.

  • S Wikipedia:Articles on elections
  • P Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms
  • P Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms
  • P Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words
  • S Wikipedia:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board/Style guide
  • P Wikipedia:Citing sources [much of the "style" content in this is also in WP:Footnotes, which is in CAT:MOS]
  • S Wikipedia:Conservation status
  • P Wikipedia:External links
  • S Wikipedia:History standards for China-related articles
  • S Wikipedia:Lists [WP:Embedded lists is in CAT:MOS]
  • S Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists) [should probably be merged into WP:Lists]
  • S Wikipedia:Lyrics and poetry
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Korea-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Latter Day Saints)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Macedonia-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (anime- and manga-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies) [about biographical articles; the WP:BLP policy covers any material of a biographical nature]
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) [this page is linked from many CAT:MOS pages, in order to focus on specific helpful sections]
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (flags)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (use of Chinese language)
  • S Wikipedia:Music samples
  • P Wikipedia:Pro and con lists
  • S Wikipedia:Proper names [diacritics, transliterations, capitalization of animals]
  • S Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines
  • S Wikipedia:Simplified phonetic transcription for Lithuanian
  • S Wikipedia:Spoiler
  • S Wikipedia:Stub
  • S Wikipedia:Style for U.S. presidential election, yyyy
  • S Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines
  • S Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide

I removed the "style guidelines" cat from:

  • Wikipedia:Avoid statements that will date quickly (it may become historical soon)
  • Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style (it's a how-to guide, and disputed)
  • Wikipedia:Disambiguation and abbreviations (this was already marked as a content guideline and has much in common with naming conventions)
  • Wikipedia:Hatnote (Since WP:Disambiguation is a content guideline rather than a style guideline, this should be too)
  • Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles (moved to content guideline)
  • Wikipedia:People by year (it's a spinoff of the editing guidelines page WP:Categorization of people, so I moved it to that cat)
  • Wikipedia:Soft redirect (editing guideline)

If all this is okay, we need to un-redirect the style-guidelines template (it's currently redirected to the MoS-template), and re-assign the templates. (If anyone has a problem with this, we can certainly leave them as they are, but currently, these pages more or less randomly begin with either "This page is part of the Manual of Style" or "This page is a style guideline". I don't feel strongly about what it says at the top, as long as people who patrol style guidelines reach consensus on how to deal with the various pages.) See WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 44#Style guides for how I propose we deal with new pages that people use to develop new style guidelines. The items in the Style template also need to be changed, and the Duke has suggested that the last sections should be collapsed, which is a great idea. I had to remove the entire (uncollapsed) Style template from WP:Captions because it didn't leave enough room for examples. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Style template

There are a little under 400 pages that list the Style template, which gives that long blue sidebar. Almost all of them are either style guidelines or User pages. Is there any general objection to removing that template from pages that aren't? Some pages look a little bit like style guidelines pages but aren't, such as WP:NAME, which is policy, and WP:EDIT, which is a how-to page. I think a sidebar is more likely to stick in someone's head than a cat at the bottom of the page, and it seems to me it would be best not to confuse people about the nature of the page. If people argue after I remove the style template, I'll report back. I don't see this as necessary, just potentially helpful. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with a user having the template on their page. They likely put it there as a reference for themselves, and I don't think we should mess with it. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Besides, restricting WhatLinksHere to the WP namespace only is more manageable; it looks like I'll finish today. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

←I did finish today; here's the report.

Added to "Wikipedia style guidelines" cat:

  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ethiopia-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Islam-related articles)
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters) [also added to CAT:MOS]
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (command-line examples)
  • P Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)

See above for what S and P mean. I don't think it means anything in particular to add the cat, it just makes articles which clearly already claim to be style guidelines easier to find than having to sift through Special:WhatLinksHere. However, if people are watchlisting these pages and they've had problems with the contents, this would be a logical time for them to speak up, and I'll report here if any conflicts arise. To play it a little safer, I left messages on the talk pages of the following pages that also claim to be guidelines:

  • WT:Record charts
  • WT:WikiProject Hawaii/Manual of Style
  • WT:Manual of Style (poker-related articles)
  • WT:Manual of Style (U.S. state and territory highways)
  • WT:Manual of Style (Portuguese-related articles)
  • WT:WikiProject Novels/Style guidelines
  • WT:Manual of Style (Iceland-related articles)
  • WT:Manual of Style (chemistry)
  • WT:WikiProject Aviation
  • WT:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Style guide

I removed the Style sidebar from 3 pages that considered themselves naming conventions instead, and since they dealt with article titles, I think they're right:

  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (U.S. state and territory highways) [in Naming conventions cat]
  • Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic) [added Naming conventions cat]
  • Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian [in Naming conventions cat]

I also removed the Style template from a number of pages that were historical, proposals, etc, to reduce clutter in the "WhatLinksHere" page.

Feedback on any of this is welcome. Tomorrow, I'll hit the "Template:Style guidelines" pages that haven't been covered yet in this sweep, with the same goals: ask first, then add the "Wikipedia style guidlines" cat to make them easier to find. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

One change; moving WP:Words to avoid out of CAT:MOS. It probably deserves a "P" label (see above). - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Update on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (U.S. state and territory highways): there are 3 pages worth of stuff that could be distributed between a "naming conventions" page and a "style" page; input on how to tell the difference between these two types of pages and how to sort the material would be welcome. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Recommendations from sweep of style guidelines

Okay, all done. I looked at "WhatLinksHere" in the WP namespace for {{style-guideline}}, {{style-guide}}, {{style guide}}, and {{style}}. I have now change the {{style-guide}} and {{style guide}} pages to {{style-guideline}} pages. I also looked at what's currently in the {{style}} sidebar, and I previously looked at Category:Wikipedia style guidelines. I have moved any page that used one of the above templates into the cat, unless it had very little activity or it seemed to fit better in a different guidelines subcat (see CAT:G). The main goal is to allow people to quickly find all the pages that claim to be style guidelines.

I've been a little surprised not to see any friction or reversions, but then, most of the style guidelines pages are like that: lots of civil discourse, not a lot of drama. The notable exceptions are the pages where material foreign to the page, generally policy-related, is being dragged in to support a fight somewhere else, which suggests a fix: don't let that happen. You can see what may or may not be a current example at WT:Layout#"References and notes" or "Notes and references". I'll wait and see what response I get in this thread, and then go back and look at WP:Layout and other CAT:MOS pages to see if there is consensus for moving some of the policy-related material on to other pages (such as moving material on citation to WP:CITE).

The point of the new cat CAT:MOS is to identify those style pages that that don't seem to be restricted to a specific kind of article or wikiproject, and that don't regularly struggle with policy-related issues. I hope that a lot of people will watchlist these pages; they don't see a lot of action, and when they do, there's generally a good reason for it. I suggest we shorten the "Style" sidebar to the pages in CAT:MOS, plus style-guidelines pages I've marked with "P" in this section, plus possibly a few additional pages, plus links to the style-guidelines cat and the editing-guidelines cat. The {{Style}} sidebar is already so long that we can't include it on some of the style-guidelines pages (such as WP:Captions) because it gets in the way. Sure, WP:Summary style is important, but not more than the other editing guidelines. Sure, Ethiopia-related articles are important, but do we really want to be in the business of saying which subjects and wikiprojects are important and which aren't? Let's back as far away from being "the man" as we can, and let any battles fought over inclusion/exclusion in the "Wikipedia style guidelines" cat be fought page by page. Most of the people who take it on themselves to maintain styles guidelines pages are doing a very good job and have a good sense of whether a page is ready to be called a style guideline.

Report of recent activity

Removed "style-guideline", "style-guide" or "style guide" template because of inactivity on the page, left msg on talk page:

  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics/Style/Currency article
  • Wikipedia:Portal guidelines

Moved to editing guideline:

  • Wikipedia:Article message boxes

Added Wikipedia style guidelines category:

  • S Wikipedia:Colours
  • S Wikipedia:Taxobox usage
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Philippine-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Captions
  • S Wikipedia:Profanity
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (legal)

Added Wikipedia style guidelines category and Manual of Style category:

  • WP:How to copy-edit

- Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I propose that we use an infobox that says something like "style guideline supporting the core-content policies" for the pages I've marked with "P". (To get why I think these pages should be denoted differently from other style guidelines pages, read the talk pages. These pages have a different constituency with different priorities.) The CAT:MOS infobox might say "general style guideline" or something similar; as long as no one is confused, I don't think it matters. There are so many pages that have "Manual of Style" in the title that it doesn't mean much, and I don't see any reason to ask anyone to move their pages. But I don't think "Manual of Style" in an infobox is helpful, because the phrase means different things to different people. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC) [tweaked 23:54, 10 May 2008 (UTC)]

Okay, unless I missed something, the {{Style}} template in the WP namespace has now been removed from pages which are not in Category:Wikipedia style guidelines. (No one has reverted me on this yet, but we'll see. The idea is that a graphic sticks in people's heads more than words do, so it's important that the graphic not be misleading.) Pages recently added to the cat after leaving messages on the talk pages are:

  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (poker-related articles)
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Portuguese-related articles)
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Style guidelines
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Iceland-related articles)
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (chemistry)

- Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:30, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Church or church

The article Roman Catholic Church has a vote going on at present regarding the proper use of capitalization. It appears that in reading the MOS that it is confusing as to what is proper on wikipedia. As a result, the majority of editors feel that it is most appropriate to vote in support of referring to the RCC as the Church when not using the proper noun. Could you please clarify the proper usage and if anyone would like to add a vote it would be helpful. Thanks.--Storm Rider (talk) 00:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

See WT:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Church.2C_when_used_alone.2C_is_usually_lowercase for what the American style guides say. I like the fact that people are trying to be as sensitive and respectful as possible, but the style guides seem both stable and unanimous on capitalizing less often in the current editions, and there are many reasons to try to keep our style guidelines not radically out of line with what professionals do. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think a vote is the way to fix this problem. If users feel the MoS is ambiguous on this issue, or flat out wrong, or if users are in conflict on what style to use, they shouldn't vote on an article by article basis, but have a centralized discussion to deal with these matters. I propose that we tackle that here and now. Let's re-examine how we discuss the capitalization of institutions in the Manual of Style. Let's here new proposals. Let's dig out style guides and figure out what we can agree upon and what needs to change to make the MoS more clear. We have already started discussing this on the Capital letters subpage. Is there a better venue for this discussion, or is it ok if we continue it there? Is anyone opposed to trying to open this dispute up into a site wide discussion?-Andrew c [talk] 14:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I am really looking forward to this, but not now. Always seek to reduce urgency and heat in style guidelines discussions. Increasing urgency and heat is a sometimes useful technique in policy discussions, because everyone likes to talk about what's hot, and policy needs wide discussion to be worth anything at all. Style guidelines are sometimes harmed when people feel that they need to get in a response to every point that's made or risk "losing" on some urgent matter. The current WP:FAC for Roman Catholic Church is urgent; let's make sure that this isn't a make-or-break issue in that WP:FAC before we discuss it here. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
WT:MOSCAPS now has two sections on the subject. If we are going to discuss this in general, we should do so there; but should we? The RCC question involves so many essentially theological issues not shared by other organizations (What is a Church? What is the Church? What is the effect of caps on these?) that I doubt this is good occasion, or sufficient reason, to consider caps in general. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

My practice has been that when the phrase "the Church" is used as a abbreviation of the name "the Roman Catholic Church" or of the name of some other church, then it's a proper noun and should be capitalized, but in other contexts it's a common noun (e.g. "The church to which John Smith belongs practices infant baptism."---lower-case since it's not an abbreviation of the name of any particular church). Michael Hardy (talk) 22:43, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

That is a reasonable position. Our examples, however, say much more. We need a new section.

University

We can, I hope, agree that we should write:

The University of Delhi was founded in...

but

Any university offers courses in the arts and sciences.

Some of the discussion on the RCC would suggest that MOS is being read as requiring:

The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. The university has a distinguished alumni body and faculty.

This is less than persuasive; both instances of University refer to the University of Delhi, and so both are proper nouns. This is a violation both of common sense and (at least in my university town, which is not Delhi) of idiom. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I follow that it seems easy, but it turns out it's not easy. Again I ask, can we put this off so that it doesn't become a sixth thread in a very long discussion in a current FAC? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
It would be just as well not to have this become a theological argument, so I am willing to postpone definitely. Our errors should not be used to darken counsel while we wait, however. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Good call on the "disputed" tag. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:35, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

"both instances of University refer to the University of Delhi, and so both are proper nouns." What a strange thing to say! Here's another example: "I'd like to introduce you to my friend Bill. He is an engineer." Would you say "My friend, Bill and He all refer to the same person, so all are propor nouns"? Hesperian 23:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a better example: "Fleet Street is the street on which the British press were located until the 1980s." Would you say: "both instances of street refer to Fleet Street, and so both are proper nouns"? Hesperian 00:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

  • No, it is a different example. Fleet Street being treated as an element of the class of streets; one cannot substitute one for the other. (This may in fact serve as a decent test: One can say The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. The University of Delhi has a distinguished alumni body and faculty. with no problem but repetitiveness; Fleet Street is the Fleet Street on which the British press were located until the 1980s. is nonsense. )Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Then I would be required to capitalise all occurences of street in "Fleet Street is where the British press were located until the 1980s. The street is a location on the London version of the Monopoly board game"? How about "I live on Fleet Street; sometimes my children play in the street"? Hesperian 05:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Can we say I live on Fleet Street; sometimes my children play in Fleet Street, with no change of meaning? No. The second street does not mean Fleet Street, the geographical entity; it means the pavement. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
The church does not become a proper noun just because it is used in place of the actual proper noun. Where did this assumption come from? A proper noun is a proper noun; it is never a generic noun used in the place of a proper noun. This surprises me that it is so often repeated. The the Chicago MOS is clear that capitalization has become the exception and is often discouraged. I don't have a problem with arriving at a new policy, but whatever the policy is it should be observed by all. More importantly, no article should be held up as an example if it blatantly ignores MOS policies. --Storm Rider (talk) 00:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
No, the CMOS chooses to make a recommendation, a rule of thumb, which will serve as one possibility when no complication arises. (The section above, where Church and church by idiom denote different objects, is a perfect example of the complications which may arise.)
But the defenders of this ill-arranged exercise in dogmatism face a fork. When the matter is simple, their recommendation is simply wrong; when the matter is complex, any simple recommendation is wrong. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I notice that Anatolian Shepherd Dog contains the text owners of dogs of this breed must determinedly socialize the dogs to turn them into appropriate companions. I suppose you advocate correcting this to owners of dogs of this breed must determinedly socialize the Dogs to turn them into appropriate companions? Hesperian 05:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

No. Again, it's a matter of sense; dogs in dogs of this breed means members of the species (which is why it needs the defining qualifier), and is so a common noun; the second dogs means the same thing, and therefore inherits the capitalization of dogs of this species. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
  • There are doubtless many examples, however, where it is idiom to write dogs and no such explanation is available. I do not think we should say or imply Dogs is always right; but at the moment, we imply that Dogs and University are never right. This is not what English does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

But the problem is ever more clearly that we are imposing a simple rule on a complex situation, and are therefore wrong. I would modify to make the example Any university and be silent on the matter at hand; if we do discuss it, we should add something like:

"When the noun is being used as a short form of the proper name,

The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. The University has a distinguished alumni body and faculty.

then it is usually capitalized; when it is being used of the organization as a member of the class of organizations of the type,

The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. This university, like most universities, offers graduate courses in the arts and sciences.

it should be lower case. The distinction between these is often more one of mood and emphasis than of meaning; one test is whether the proper name of the organization can be substituted for the noun without change of force."

Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Clarity is an important issue here too. Church can have several meanings, and capitalisation helps distinguish these. An example from the article in question:
"According to canon law, one becomes a member of the Catholic Church by being baptized in the Church. Christians baptized outside of the Church or those never baptized may be received by participating in a formation program such as the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults."
Without the capitalization of Church, confusion would soon arise as to whether one was being baptized inside or outside of a building or the mystical institution. Xandar (talk) 23:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


With regards to the capitalisation of the second occurence of university in The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. The university has a distinguished alumni body and faculty, there are three positions you can take:

  1. university is a proper noun in this context; the MOS should mandate capitalisation.
  2. university is not necessarily a common noun in this context; the MOS should not mandate anything; and
  3. university is a common noun in this context; the MOS should mandate lower case.

With regards to the first position, I think it is refuted by the fact that one could replace university by school, and this would be indisputably a common noun. I cannot see how changing school to university necessarily changes the may in which the sentence must be parsed, merely because its referent has University in its name. Fortunately this may now be a straw man, because if I have read Septentrionalis' most recent missive aright, he has now adopted position two.

I am more comfortable with position two, but I still don't think it is correct. What it boils down to is "it depends on the author's intent. Having already referred to University of Delhi in the previous sentence, the author is free to refer to the same in any of three ways: by repeating the full name University of Delhi; by use of the common noun the university i.e. "the previously identified definite article of class university"; or by use of the proper noun the University, being an abbreviated form of the full name." My objection to this is that University of Delhi has an accepted abbreviation, DU. This being an encyclopedia, I would surely be reverted if I decided to refer to it by UoD or UofD or UDelhi or any other novel abbreviation. Why then is it permissible for me to abbreviate it to University on a grammatical whim? I think that to use such an abbreviation would be wrong, if not in general then at least for an encyclopedia. I am therefore of the view that only the common noun interpretation is correct.

Hesperian 00:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Perhaps not the best example, considering that "university" and "school" cannot be exchanged in this way in British, or I think Indian, English. But in any case your objection to "abbreviation" does not really stand up. Consider any biography; is it necessary to refer to Charles Darwin with his full name at every mention? Perhaps it is a British/US thing, and perhaps spending too much time with things saying the likes of "Foo Company (hereinafter "the Company")", but position 2 seems correct to me. Johnbod (talk) 00:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Changing The University to The school changes the force of the sentence, even in those dialects in which university would be a subclass of school. Therefore (2), which I have always held: The University has a distinguished alumni body and faculty and The university has a distinguished alumni body and faculty are saying slightly different things, only the first being exactly equivalent to The University of Delhi has a distinguished alumni body and faculty. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Come again? How are they saying slightly different things? In both cases the [Uu]niversity is an unambigous reference to the same entity. Hesperian 01:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
        • They (probably) have the same truth value, but one denotes DU by a proper name, and the other as this member of the class of universities. Much the same difference exists between
          • This was observed by Charles Darwin; Darwin wrote... and
          • This was observed by Charles Darwin; the naturalist wrote....
        (Not quite the same; but posit that the article has already said Darwin was a naturalist.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Okay. Clearly neither of the above sentences can be declared to be wrong, or even stylistically inferior to the other; it depends on context, personal preference, and subtle nuances of meaning. I'm not 100% convinced that our University example maps perfectly onto our Darwin example, but the correspondence is more or less there. I'll concede the point that mandating against capitalisation of that example in the MOS would be "imposing a simple rule on a complex situation, and therefore wrong." Hesperian 02:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I do not know what the idiom is for DU; I merely quoted our article. Some universities do have multiple short forms, the equivalent here of the University, DU, and Delhi (for example, Berkeley and UCB', or Princeton, PU and the University). Some of these are of course only appropriate in certain contexts; Delhi would only be useful if it is clear that the University, not either of the cities, is meant. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

What, therefore, do we do? I made two proposals above; one is a rule of thumb, the other is to change our present examples to Any university... (desirable) and Any University... (undesirable) leaving the issue Hesperian and Johnbod and I have been talking about drowned in silence. We could also say The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. The University has a distinguished faculty. depends on context, personal preference, and subtle nuances of meaning. Suggestions? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion is that it's possible that we would be saving a lot of time if we were content to use style guides to help with this one, so let's have a larger discussion about that, whenever people are in the mood. I would prefer to finish up some other stuff first, but it's not a strong preference. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Kingdom of Gwynedd

What's the MOS's take on the current lead setup in the Kingdom of Gwynedd article? --Jza84 |  Talk  10:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The paragraph on Nennius and Cunedda is not a summary of the rest of the article; it should be worked into a section on history or mythical history.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Accessibility and images

Is WP:MOS#Images out of sync with Wikipedia:Accessibility?

* Avoid floating the table of contents if possible, as it breaks the standard look of pages. If you must use a floated TOC, put it below the lead section for consistency. Users of screen readers expect the table of contents to follow the introductory text; they will also miss any text placed between the TOC and the first heading.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I made this change to keep WP:MOS in sync with WP:Accessibility. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I completely support the change. DrKiernan (talk) 12:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I added back in the word Exception as this was not discussed here. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:58, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong objection to the encouragement of gender-neutral language

I seriously and strongly object to the section of the article which suggests that users should "consider using gender-neutral language where it can be done without loss of neatness and precision." This policy is pointless adherence to political correctness which contributes nothing but convoluted sentences an gratuitous indulgence of minority group's requests. It encourages neologisms and assumes fact which just plain don't exist. Most importantly, it is arguably incompatible with other sections of the manual of style and policies.

1) It's political correctness. This is apparent from the very definition of PC (i.e., "language, ideas, policies, or behavior seen as seeking to minimize offense to racial, cultural, or other identity groups."). Why is political correctness inappropriate for an encyclopædia? Quite frankly, it is censorship for the protection of others, taking away the preferred style of writing for ages on end (English has had genders, in one form or another throughout its entire lifespan, it's only recently that we've lost the vast majority of said genders) to satisfy the will of a specific group of a specific agenda. No one would here would agree to support a PC motivated style change such as changing all instances of "homosexual" to "person who condones a different lifestyle choice without thinking less of other lifestyle choices" simply to avoid the chance that someone may be offended, yet that is the only reason I see here for using gender neutral language in inappropriate places. In summary, it's a pointless change that is nothing but indulging specific groups, and has no place on Wikipedia.

In answer to your spin on "political correctness", I'd call it "political inclusion". Tony (talk) 15:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

2) It's against precedent and policy. We have a diverse group of people on Wikipedia, each with his own customs and beliefs, as a result, we see clashes of customs and cultures. In the vast majority of these circumstances we choose the path based on the rules of the language and on common usage, not on avoiding offense to particular groups. An instance of this, particularly applicable to me, is the capitalization of pronouns for God out of respect. Wikipedia does not condone this, even though it is a simple change that would take little to no effort and serve to avoid offending Catholics and Christians in general. This is relevant in that it is a specific example of how proper academic usage is stressed over protecting a group from offense. Another specific example is the removal of "peace be upon him" from articles dealing with Muslims. Once again, this change is done in spite of the fact that it may offend some readers. What is the moral from all this? On Wikipedia, by precedent, avoiding offending people is not a valid reason for policy. This is in direct conflict with the first sentence of WP: Gender Neutral Language, "Gender-neutral language avoids constructions that might be interpreted by some readers as an unnecessary reinforcement of traditional stereotypes."

3) It encourages neologisms. Avoiding common and valid words like "chairman" or "fireman" and replacing them with words which haven't existed for any period of time, and which have been custom-created for this very purpose is silly. The gender neutral components, "chairperson" and "firefighter" respectively are awkward and unnecessary, and, as above, only serve to avoid offending a specific group. In order to avoid accepted an common words, which only have gender as a result of the nature of the language and no specific attempt to make a statement one way or another, we are often forced to use new and unaccepted words which have no place on an encyclopædia. For an extreme example, see this.

Er ... Adair, Red, American firefighter - that's the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Not that we have to do what they do, but at least the argument that the word has no place in a respectable encyclopedia is clearly wrong. --GRuban (talk) 03:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

4) The offense is imagined. Languages have gender for specific words, often arbitrarily. This is a fact of life. No one among us would think it reasonable or even sane to replace all occurances of gendered nouns within Latin, for example, with their neutral gendered companion, and no one among us would take offense that iudex is male and argentaria is female as we know that this isn't a statement of the suitability of a given gender for a given role, but an arbitrary construction of grammar serving only as a result of convention. Similarly, in English, it happens that "man" both means a singular male human and the whole of the human collective. It's only because specific groups are looking for the offense that it is received.

In the end, what do we have? A pointlessly politically correct convention that results in awkward prose and ridiculous and irregular neologisms, stemming from the will to avoid an imaginary offense to a group of people in blatant violation of the precedent set by Wikipedia policy. This doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Let's be sane.--Liempt (talk) 02:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I am in complete and total agreement with Liempt. This has no place on WP at least until the point when it becomes common usage in the english language. I especially stress his point 2. It is definitly against precedent and policy as he explains. Chris M. (talk) 03:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh dear. I see on Liempt's page this announcement, among many others—"ANAL 5: This user is incredibly stringent with professional grammar". Could I suggest that you work on your writing technique before you start claiming such stringency? Tony (talk) 10:04, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi Tony. You know what, you're right. Perhaps I was exaggerating my prowess with grammar on my talk page. I have, after reflecting on your comments, removed the aforementioned userbox. The point I was trying to make was not that I was an excellent writer (I'm not) or even that my grammar is flawless (far from it), it's simply that I have taken the time to learn the rules of grammar on a theoretical level more than the average person. I think my main downfall is that I'm too hasty to post and thusly fall on my face as far as application of the rules goes. Thanks for the constructive criticism, even if it wasn't particularly related to the matter at hand.--Liempt (talk) 10:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Formal style guides are beginning to encourage more gender-neutral language, but the fact stands that English is not currently well-equipped with widely-agreed upon facilities to write in a gender-neutral and natural way. If and when the publishing world decided to move towards a specific type of gender-neutral language (I personally am a big fan of singular they), I would encourage following in their footsteps - meanwhile, it's just a source of stilted prose that distracts from the topic under discussion. I'm particularly annoyed by attempts to use female pronouns for gender-neutral subjects for the sake of "compensation." Pronoun usage should be something that fades into the background, not pops out of the page to make a political point. Dcoetzee 04:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
So many answers come to mind, but the only relevant one is: take it next door. You're mistaking WP:MoS for a policy page; we didn't say "use insane language to appease minority groups", and we didn't mean that, either. What's wrong with saying "Every student knows they should study" instead of "he should study"? Use a gender-neutral pronoun when you don't know the gender of the person and if it doesn't sound awkward; what's radical about that? There's nothing terribly wrong with saying "chairman", and the word still has many valid uses, but we would be misinforming our editors and readers if we told them that that word is preferable to "chair", because "chair" is much more common these days. If you want an NPOV fight, take it to WP:NPOV where it belongs. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Hey Dan, I appreciate the comments. I'll give you a bit of my rationale as to posting this here. The manual of style is used by many, many Wikipedians. I'd be willing to bet almost as much (if not more) as some policy pages. Many Wikipedians take it's word as gospel and use it as their primary guide. As a result of this, I believe this is just as important as any policy page, and faulty information here is just as dangerous as a faulty policy. That being said, I believe that it's also easily fixable, and I wanted to go ahead and change it, however, since I figured this would be a touchy issue so I decided to discuss it and gain community consensus before making any changes, bold as I may be.
As for what's wrong with it, I'd say, in the context of an encyclopædia, my four main points above. Saying "they" as opposed to "he" is gratuitous indulgence to prevent offense, which is against the no censorship policy. Sure, it's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is a matter of principle. As to your "misinformation" point, we wouldn't be misinforming our editors by telling them to use "chairman" any more than we are misinforming them by telling them to properly use "whom", as it's way more common nowadays to improperly use "whom" (if at all).
In my mind, it's not about what's common, it's about what's right. --Liempt (talk) 05:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the discussion above, Wikipedia is not here to put a political agenda, and encouraging gender-neutral is nothing but a political agenda for equality. Not a bad one, by my feelings, but still a political agenda. SyG (talk) 10:01, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I think that gender neutral language should have the same policy as English variants. Then we can have it both ways. The person who starts the article decides whether it will use the "language of the oppressor" or not. ;-) Gimme danger (talk) 11:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I still think it would be a bad idea if we allowed the creator of an article to specify that the article should use the gender-neutral "co" or "ey". The "they" would be reasonable, but the term "gender-neutral pronouns" encompasses a wide variety of terms and blanket allowing all of them is not a good idea. If the singular "they" is to be found acceptable, which is probably fine, then that specifically should be listed, instead of all gender-neutral terms. Chris M. (talk) 11:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
No one is forcing anyone to use or avoid anything. It says "Consider using GNL where this can be done with clarity and precision". Even where it can be done with clarity and precision, no one is forcing you to un-man yourself. (Of course,consistency is required within articles, or we'll look like fools.) The fact that the guideline doesn't say "Consider not using GNL ..." is testament to the movement in the English-speaking world over the past god-knows-how-many decades towards the avoidance of exclusivity. The important thing is that our readers not perceive exclusivity; your or my rationalisation of gender-neutral or gender-specific language is less important that being exclusive where possible. But again, if you want to use gender-specific language in an article, all you may run up against is objections from other editors—not the MoS. Tony (talk) 12:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
My biggest concern is that using it at all, or advocating its use at all is nothing more than censorship for the prevention of offense, something which wikipedia is explicitly aligned itself against, as I have written in detail above. As such, I don't think leaving it up to the author is justified. If, in fact, we encourage singular they, we should also probably start adding buffer pages so innocent users don't see naughty pics and we don't alienate the extreme right, and spoiler tags for plot details (maybe even buffer these too). Of course, I'm being extremist, but that's simply an attempt to demonstrate my point. --Liempt (talk) 12:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
It's not censorship, though; censorship is the removal or concealment of content. Quotes, of course, are to be left alone, and refactoring existing (non-quote) prose into a gender-neutral form simply isn't censorship, it's just refactoring. The meaning should never be lost. If a sentence is male- or female-specific because the subject is definetely male or female, then it's incorrect to change to gender-neutral language, as is made clear on the actual page giving advice on GNL. SamBC(talk) 14:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
The Chicago Manual of Style advocates a form of invisible gender-neutral language that avoids "nontraditional gimmicks". I feel their guidelines make sense. We aren't asking people to write 'womyn' or 'grrrl', we aren't saying use 'sie' and 'hir', or even s/he . Our guideline is not encouraging neologisms, and all the talk about political correctness is alarmist at best. I think striving for "invisible" gender-neutral language is a good thing, but I think we could improve the section here in the MoS by specifying that neologisms and awkward constructs ("nontraditional gimmicks") should be avoided.-Andrew c [talk] 13:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the current wording ("Consider using gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision.") is perfectly adequate and does not encourage silly use of artificial constructs. I suppose it could be reformulated to better express the intention, which I take to be "Avoid inaccurate or imprecise implication of gender due to use of terms that some might understand as gender-specific (even if only subconsciously). Nothing to do with censorship, everything to do with clarity, being understood, and not distracting from the information you are attempting to convey, in my opinion. As regards use of the singular they, it might not often be appropriate in a Wikipedia article but I don't think it should be implied that it is some new-fangled PC thing to avoid giving offense. It has been a normal part of the English language for centuries. It seems to be only recently that people have started objecting to it.--Boson (talk) 14:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
On review the current wording seems reasonable. The important thing is that the language is "invisible" and does not detract from brevity or the focus of the article; as long as this is the case, word usage is unimportant. Dcoetzee 18:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

What's this! We encourage "gender neutral" language?! Sounds like a feminazi conspiracy to me. Speaking of which, when are we going to move Flight attendant back to Stewardess? Kaldari (talk) 15:54, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

This is why there is no consensus for anything stronger than consider. Considering alternatives to one's prose rarely hurts, and there will be occasions when a gender-neutral phrasing will be stronger and clearer than the original, aside from all claims to virtue on the part of the unco' guid. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Liempt, you write: I have taken the time to learn the rules of grammar on a theoretical level more than the average person. Splendid, splendid. I hate to boast, but I have done the same. I wonder which route you took; my own was Radford's English Syntax, which, like every theoretical book on the rules of English grammar that comes to hand, ignores the syntactically uninteresting matter of gender-neutral phrasing. If, however, we turn to atheoretical, descriptive books on English grammar, I can think of no better than CGEL -- and sure enough, within its eighteen-hundred-plus pages there is room for this subject, particularly on pp.484–97, "Gender and pronoun–antecedent agreement". Of particular interest, and short and easy to read, are pp.492–94, which deal with "Purportedly sex-neutral he", "Purportedly sex-neutral she", "Disjunctive coordination", "Composite forms", "Singular they", and "Avoidance". What's most interesting here is the treatment of "singular they", which leads up to three samples for the reader's consideration: (i) Let me know if your father or your brother changes ___ mind; (ii) Let me know if your father or your mother changes ___ mind; and (iii) Either the husband or the wife has perjured ___ (in all three, the object coindexes with the subject).

As a theoretician, you may have bypassed this necessarily expensive book. Not to worry, you can read up on "singular they" right here.

Incidentally, I'm surprised by: This policy is pointless adherence to political correctness which contributes nothing but convoluted sentences an gratuitous indulgence of minority group's requests. It encourages neologisms and assumes fact which just plain don't exist. The policy (for policy it is, other than as "policy" is more strictly defined by WP for its own use) is not pointless, it's pointed. (The point may of course be one with which you disagree.) Which minority group, which requests? (My own group -- minority? majority? -- is one in favor of clear writing.) How does the policy encourage neologisms? (Or are you saying that they or the singular use thereof is a neologism?) What is the fact that doesn't (or what are the facts that don't) exist? (And is the term "political correctness" anything other than a rallying call for the conservatively or retrogressively inclined?) -- Hoary (talk) 02:38, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Hoary makes some good points here, especially the one concerning neologisms. (I don't recall ever running across a stray neologism in a WP article, but I'll keep keep my armor on just in case one ever leaps up and attacks me.) My view is that the current wording in the MOS is satisfactory. It might be helpful for Liempt to give specific examples of awkward phrasing encouraged by the current wording, but I find the generalized argument unpersuasive for several reasons, chiefly that the English language has been evolving since its birth and continues to evolve, and WP usage should respect that. The concept of what's "right" or "correct" is a shaky one when it comes to usage, to say the least. Incidentally, I'm sure the situation varies around the English-speaking world, but I must say I haven't heard or read the word "fireman" in many years. Rivertorch (talk) 05:49, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh yes, neologisms. Liempt seems most worried about them. He starts by linking to Wikipedia:Neologisms, which is not a warning against the use of neologisms but instead a warning against articles on neologisms, and a warning that starts The use of neologisms should be avoided in Wikipedia articles because they are not well understood, are not clearly definable, and will have different meanings to different people. He gives two examples, "chairperson" and "firefighter", which he says "are awkward and unnecessary", but which, he surprisingly adds, "only serve to avoid offending a specific group". If these two words really did serve to avoid offending a non-trivial group of sane, sober people, that would elevate them above, say [pauses while he looks around messy desk], "chewing gum", "CD-R" and "glue", good workaday terms that don't serve this sterling end. But I'd have thought that "chairperson" and "firefighter" also served to put across meanings: unlike the neologisms that the WP page discusses, they are well understood (as long as your English is up to snuff and your name isn't Rip Van Winkle), they are clearly definable [remarkably so, as, famously, many non-neologisms are not clearly definable], and they have the same meanings to different people. But whatever you think of their alleged awkwardness, they're hardly neologisms: they've been around for years. Liempt leads to a finale in which he says that [f]or an extreme example we should see Gender-neutral_pronoun#Neologisms. It's an odd section of an odd article, with a table that presents such freaks as "Xe" and "spivak" (most of which I'd never heard of, let alone felt myself forced to use in WP articles), but one that also presents, a little way after "he" and "she", "singular they", which is the subject of an article that's longwinded but that proves the word used in this way is no neologism, and instead used by excellent writers (and successfully pushed by them past copyeditors and other busybodies) for well over a century. If "singular they" was good enough for Jane Austen and her publisher, it's no neologism; and as it's an integral part of every lect of English I know of, it's good enough for me. -- Hoary (talk) 08:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
John Boddie and I were talking about gender-neutral language today, and I suggested he should comment here. He immediately replied, "Oh, I see how it is, you want me to be the fall person." - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Tony raises some interesting arguments. Upon reflection, I agree she has a point. DurovaCharge! 04:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Given that you want to make a point it is correct to use "she". It however does not follow that your point is correct; you know Tony is male and you know the convention is to use "he" to be gender inspecific. The convention is that you can use "he" when it is unclear or arbitrary. The convention also holds that when you explicitly know, you should use the correct form. Thanks GerardM (talk) 07:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Shorter or longer comments in the edit summary

I think it depends a lot on the page, but on this page, I tend to paste a phrase from my first sentence in the edit summary. I figure that people probably know whether they're interested in a topic or not, and if I give them enough to go on, they can save some time by skipping the comment. This would be overkill in the typical article, of course, because that's more a process of construction than of debate and providing links to past discussions. Should I follow the crowd and make my edit summaries shorter? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You can give a descriptive summary, I guess... After all, the box is titled edit summary for a reason, and that is not necessarily restricted to the main namespace.
I often use a plain Comment when I'm too bored to write anything else (or my comment is simply humorous), or Reply, especially in my talk page, but I often give a brief summary of my argument, or, when in a poll, a simple "Support" or "Oppose". Waltham, The Duke of 09:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
A chance to be rude or humorous. Tony (talk) 11:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Not towards me, I hope. :-D Waltham, The Duke of 02:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Initial bolding

"Everybody knows" that the title word or title phrase is set in bold at its first appearance in the article. This manual says:

Equivalent names may follow, and may or may not be in boldface.

When an article begins by saying

The very important thing (VIT) that this article is about has been known since time immemorial....

I usually change it to

The very important thing (VIT) that this article is about has been known since time immemorial....

Is that explicitly considered entirely optional?

Also when it says

The very important thing (VIT) that this article is about has been known since time immemorial....

I also change it as above, so that the parentheses are INSIDE the bolded part. And I do the same with quotation marks, so that if it says

The "very important thing" that this article is about has been known since time immemorial....

then I change it to

The "very important thing" that this article is about has been known since time immemorial....

I've been doing this for about five years and no one's ever said a word to me about it. Have pros and cons of these sorts of things been discussed here, with the result that they've all been declared optional? Michael Hardy (talk) 20:09, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding bolding VIT, WP:MOSBOLD says "...(including any synonyms and acronyms) in boldface", so yes. Regarding bolding the quotation marks and parentheses, I haven't noticed that anyone said one way or another. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, I have noticed something in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles): "The quotation marks should not be bolded in the lead section when the title of an article requires quotation marks, as they are not part of the title". That makes perfect sense to me—we should only bold the subject's name, not extraneous elements. Not to mention that not bolding the parentheses does not allow one to easily see that these are two names and not one. This is repeated in Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Punctuation, under "Article openings". Although certainly well-intentioned, I fear that your edits were mistaken, Mr Hardy. (I feel a sudden urge to say "You are the weakest link. Goodbye!")
This revelation is yet another indication of the urgency of the rationalisation of the Manual of Style. It needs quite a search for a non-insider to find that passage in the Manual... Poor Laurel stood no chance.
Sorry, I meant "Hardy". :-D Waltham, The Duke of 23:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

"Duke", I think you are guilty of an error. If the article is titled Book, it can begin by saying

Books were invented by...."

including the letter s in the bolded portion, and if the article is called impossibility, it could say

Things that are impossible don't happen very often.

...the form of the word being different from that in the title. That is appropriate and can cover quotion marks and parentheses in some cases. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Still wrong; books is a different form of book and impossible is a different form of impossibility. You can, within limits, alter a title, but that does not mean that you may add other elements to them. Quotation marks and parentheses are allowed when they are part of the title, which is rare; the acronym of Very important thing is VIT, not (VIT), and the subject itself is not called "Very important thing"—the quotation marks are added because of the form of the sentence, and could be substituted by italics. Waltham, The Duke of 18:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
the use of the parenthesis is a convention to separate the acronym from the title, and is widely expected. The virtue of putting it in bold is that , especially for an organisation, it will usually be referred to by the acronym later in the article, and it helps to spot it. DGG (talk) 14:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
What does bolding the parentheses help in this? The acronym is bolded, that is what matters. On the contrary, an unbolded parenthesis helps divide the acronym from the name proper, and show that they are two independent ways to name the subject. Waltham, The Duke of 21:13, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I also prefer "The very important thing (VIT)". —Remember the dot (talk) 03:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Hybrid article names

Attempts to please rival national sensitivities sometimes lead to article names consisting of two different local names for the same thing (such as Sněžka-Śnieżka, which is the Czech name of the mountain followed by the Polish name). Whatever you may think of this "solution", what do people think should be the format of such names? I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be a hyphen in the middle. A slash is probably ruled out on technical grounds, right? So should there be an en dash there, or what?--Kotniski (talk) 14:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

"Sniezka" gets 3.7M Google hits, "snezka" gets 2.2K. It might be important that there are 1700 times as many hits on the Polish name as the Czech name. "Snowtop" doesn't seem to be a common English name for the mountain; is there some common English name? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:49, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I think you must have mis-Googled - I get more hits on Sniezka, but not an order of magnitude more. No, there isn't any other English name. Go up it from the Polish side and you know it as Sniezka; go up on the Czech side and it's Snezka. I don't want to start another cross-border war, I just don't like the hyphen there and I wondered if there's any precedent for dealing with this sort of thing from a punctuation point of view.--Kotniski (talk) 17:09, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I might be wrong, but from a quick read of the article, there does not seem to be any reason why the mountain in question would be known enough to the English-speaking world for a common English name to exist. (I reserve the right to denounce this statement if a cult worshipping Sněžka or Śnieżka surfaces and makes threats against my life. :-D) Waltham, The Duke of 17:15, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Go and read some of the past discussions on the article's talk page if you want to learn something about cults... No, there isn't an English name like Snowflake or anything; it has to be either Śnieżka or Snezka or a combination of the two (or conceivably Schneekoppe, if you're of German inclination). Another example is Babia Góra-Babia Hora, where the hyphen (and possibly the capitalization) seems even more out of place.--Kotniski (talk) 17:26, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I have not studied such cases, but the inclusion of both names, hyphenated, looks like a terrible idea to me. An article's name should be as close to the subject's name as possible, and if there are more than one then a selection should be made. Combinations of two or more different names are unacceptable. Waltham, The Duke of 17:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
The number of Google hits is right, but Sniezka also appears to be a city or region in Poland. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
?I don't think so; maybe it's a commercial name. Anyway, I get 100 times more hits on Snezka than you claim to; and in any case we ought to add a search term like "mountain" to restrict to English texts. Sniezka does come out on top but it's not an overwhelming difference.--Kotniski (talk) 17:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

You probably want to bring this up at WT:NCGN; questions of article title are naming conventions. It disapproves of multiple names, as a result of one of our lamer discussions (should the name of Bolzano be Bolzano-Bozen or Bozen-Bolzano? Twice; no, I'm not making this up). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

New MOS

I want to establish a new manual of style for television-related articles. This is the current page that informs us how to write about television programs. It's only specific to the main article on the show, it's vague, and most importantly it is not an official MOS page. I have written a new page, which I hope will take the place of the other one, but in an official capacity. While not perfect, I think it embodies more of the television-related articles as a whole than simply the main article on a TV series. I also think that it is more informative about what to do. I've had a few editors give feedback and tweak wording, though I'm sure it can use more. Anyway, the point is that I'm at a loss for what I need to do next. I know that I would like the page name to be moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Style guidelines, as it is more professional, and appropriate for the broader range of coverage, but I don't know what I need to do get to the ball rolling on getting it made official. Could someone help, please? Much appreciation.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, it's long overdue that we establish a consensus-driven approach to accepting new MOS supplementary pages. Rather than the nefarious system until now, in which no one quite knows how pages suddenly become part of the MOS or indeed any kind of styleguide (I suspect that some have just self-announced it), I propose that a formal process be established on this page for the purpose. Having announced an intention to be accepted as either styleguide or MOS-supplementary-page status, there might now be a process of providing feedback and improving the page at least for a few weeks. The formal consensus gathering might then be launched here. Tony (talk) 17:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Style guidelines seem to develop a following in one of two ways: either everyone looks at them, or people in a wikiproject or something like a wikiproject look at them, so we're really looking at different results and even different goals. The pages that I put in the "general style guidelines" cat were the pages that seemed to get lots of eyeballs and apply equally to all kinds of pages. (It was formerly the "manual of style" cat, but after seeing how many pages put "manual of style" in their title, I decided that's not a useful phrase.) I'm happy to help with anything that needs doing. For pages that have, so far, only been examined by members of a wikiproject, we can always take the position that it's as official as it needs to be until someone points out a problem. Just because someone puts "manual of style" in the title or slaps a cat on a page doesn't mean that I suddenly have a new ongoing obligation. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:26, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
We've always used this "nefarious process"; indeed, Tony's proposal is another form of self-announcement. If anybody actually wants to improve matters, the way to do so is to stop giving any special weight to WP:MOSXXX pages, at which point it won't matter.... Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Excellent idea, Mr Anderson. Just now I was thinking that the best way to make Wikipedia completely neutral is to delete articles with NPOV problems. All of them. Talk about improvement there, eh? Waltham, The Duke of 22:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Your Grace's wit ignores a small detail: I didn't propose deleting anything. It would be enough to redirect {{style-guideline}} to {{guideline}}, and tweak some mentions of this page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, to stop giving weight to a guideline is almost as good as deleting it—what use does a guideline have if people don't look at it? In any case, I believe the template in question should remain as it stands; it would be confusing for many to have tens of pages tagged simply as guidelines while in reality being part of one body, the Manual of Style. It would detract from the other guidelines. Use {{guideline}} less so that it has more value, is what I think. Waltham, The Duke of 00:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
An irrelevance; how does this answer a proposal not to give MOSXXX any extra weight over other guidelines? Where is the case that the ill-assorted and self-appointed collections of original research and revert warring (see the history of WP:MOSNUM) deserve any? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Image question

Is it really necessary to place this image on the left? Do people really instinctively follow the eyes of praying mantises? And where is the mantis looking anyhow? Hesperian 00:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

It has come to my attention that the guidelines of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Images can apply to animal articles in ways that make life a tad difficult and I'd love some clarification. How important is this rule Images of faces should be placed so that the face or eyes look toward the text..., and how should it be applied to images of entire animals? When it refers to portraits does that mean images only of a bird's (or other animal's) head, or does it mean any photo where the alignment of the image is portrait? I ask because I am currently working on two bird articles and image placement is somewhat tricky, particularly for trogon, which by virtue of being long, straight birds, tend to have long images that can often only really be situated on the right hand side of the page (thanks to the other new(?) rule about not pushing headings around). I don't want to have to stop using images because of the above rule, for example the image of the Black Throated Trogon, particularly as good images are hard to find for many species/genera/familes. How much digression do we have in these situations? (lots I hope). Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you brought this up, as this has been bothering me too. I hope this 'rule' is interpreted with a bit of flexibility. At the very least, I should think it would only be enforced for facial profiles, as opposed to full-body profiles; and then only for people, and perhaps animals that are easily anthropomorphised. Hesperian 00:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Or, if anthropomorphism is a bit much to stomach, how about applying the rule only to animals that have forward-looking eyes. The mantis on the right appears to be looking straight out of the screen at you... because it is. Hesperian 00:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
The "face looks towards text" rule is a good one to follow when everything else is equal, but it really shouldn't be allowed to interfere with more serious layout issues. Having a portrait face away from the text is at worst slightly distracting — it's not going to make an article unreadable, whereas trying to force an image into a position where it just won't fit can indeed do that. Don't take it so seriously. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Cheers. I agree with Hesperian, incidentally, most birds don't have binocular vision quite like people do and a bird with a side on view is actually looking at the picture taker as a rule. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Mr Karonen's view on the matter; we need to put our priorities in the right order here. It matters little if an image looks away, it is disconcerting for our readers to change the entire standard page-top layout, and it is unencyclopaedic to reverse images or to use none at all. Waltham, The Duke of 02:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes it's more of a guideline, it's fine to use "common sense" in my opinion. If it's a person for example, standing with the back turned towards the text/reader it looks kind of bad and it might be good to switch side. Or if it's a cheetah looking like it's running into the side ("wall") of the page it also might look a bit odd. It's usually clear when you look at it, Choose what makes most sense overall. Also it's much easier to see where a human is looking because of our clearly visible eye white. (I've heard that one possible reason why humans have such a clearly visible eye white is because there might be some evolutionary advantage to be able to see where others (in the group) are looking?).
— Apis (talk) 03:18, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Interesting...
I've heard, on the other hand, that it makes us more expressive (although eyebrows would seem to be more effective in this respect, and they also have a practical utility). Waltham, The Duke of 03:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
That sounds plausible as well, maybe it's both? =)
—Apis (talk) 07:22, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Using numerics that are not measurements

I always have used nbsp when I use a numeric, for example 23 kangeroos. (23&nbsp:kangeroos) My rationale is that nbsp is used to prevent the number appearing at the end of a wrapped line separated from its unit of measurement. In the example, kangeroos is arguably a unit of measurement.

A few of my nbsp have been removed in later edits so I am asking here. Is the nbsp to be used generally to prevent a number apearing at the end of a line, or does it only apply to recognised abbreviated units of measurements? MortimerCat (talk) 07:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The MOS guideline is cast WAY too broadly; it was I who dreamt up the wording last year during a revamp of MOSNUM, and no one queried it. The intention was to mandate the use of hard-spaces for values and symbols (i.e., abbreviations of ISO units). I think His Grace has made a change recently.
The indiscriminate use of hard-spaces leads to the unnecessary "stretching" of interword spaces, especially when the text wraps up to an image. Tony (talk) 09:22, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I modified the phrasing of the guideline yesterday to conform to the various discussions held here from time to time, the examples already included in said guideline, and common sense. A kangaroo is not a unit of measurement, because one does not count things with kangaroos (although I'd sure love to be proven wrong there :-D). In these cases, numbers are much like all other adjectives: two kangaroos is not that different from brown kangaroos. On the other hand, when we are talking about metres and kilograms, things change; precision is required, and having a number (often a long one) at the end of one line, a unit of measurement (often an abbreviated one) stranded at the beginning of the next line, and, in all, a compound which should be united yet is not, makes for a rather awkward situation. In technical articles and lists, especially, where measurements are more numerous and important, it is bad for easy, uninterrupted reading. But we shouldn't equate cases which are clearly different. As Tony says, over-using hard spaces creates problems. Therefore, we should use them only where we have to. Waltham, The Duke of 09:50, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Is this the only discussion that led to the change in NBSP? The first time I read the 7 World Trade Center article, it was a wreck of hanging 7s. Same thing occurs at aircraft articles (for example Boeing 747) and spacecraft articles (Apollo 8). Please reinstate the previous wording which included "numerical and non-numerical elements"; this was much more logical and sensible.[7] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Double-barrelled surnames

Brought across from Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Double-barrelled surnames

for Jane Watson-Smith, for instance, should we use a hyphen or ndash? Happy‑melon 20:18, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahem! Cough cough! Happy‑melon 11:20, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
WP:MOS#Hyphens and WP:MOS#Dashes? Don't think this is a WP:NCP issue. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Moved as requested. What do you think? Happy‑melon 14:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Definitely hyphen for proper surnames. I believe that there are some dubious cases for certain titles or title-derived surnames, but I know little about this, and it sounds quite uncommon anyway. Waltham, The Duke of 17:48, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Capitalisation of common noun god in monotheistic contexts

I started a discussion on MOS:CAPS about capitalisation in cases like "three persons in one god", but it's been a couple of days and it hasn't seen much attention. Since the policy in question is also delivered (in reduced form) on the main MoS, I'm hoping it's okay to link to the discussion here and ask for input. Ilkali (talk) 08:14, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, one should post a note here anyway, because many editors watch this page but not the supplementary pages of the Manual. Waltham, The Duke of 16:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

If you use god as a common noun, then it's a small g(e.g., The Abrahamic god, Mars was the god of war, ...). If you use it in the sense of the "proper noun" of the Abrahamic god, then it's a capital g (e.g., God said "Kill them all.", The scent of burnt animal flesh is pleasing to God). If referring to some more or less defined supreme deity, then it also takes a capital g (What is God? God is the feeling you get when a baby cries). Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 20:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

That is more or less my policy too. Unfortunately, it seems that you and I (and a good four other people listed in the discussion) do not exist. Ilkali (talk) 07:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Names with proper given names and usual nicknames

I can't find guidance on how to write the name of someone called "Noel Hughes" who was always called "Josh". There could be many ways eg

  1. Noel "Josh" Hughes (what I imagine WP will settle on)
  2. Noel 'Josh' Hughes
  3. Noel ('Josh') Hughes (what the index of the book I'm working from uses)
  4. Josh Hughes (properly "Noel")
  5. Noel Hughes (usually called Josh)
  6. Josh (born Noel) Hughes

As a further issue, would James "Jim" Sutton just be called Jim Sutton, since Jim is a known nickname for James?
Apologies if this decision has already been taken and I've failed to find the policy almost-instinct 07:45, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Use common names. The article would be at Josh Hughes; the name within the article would say Noel "Josh" Hughes. Rebecca (talk) 09:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Thank you! So within an article on someone else I could refer to him thus: Noel "Josh" Hughes? If this policy is non-contentious, could/should it be inserted into the MoS main page? almost-instinct 12:28, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
To clarify, my guess is that in the lead of Josh Hughes it would say Noel "Josh" Hughes, while within the article and all other articles Josh Hughes followed by Hughes would be more likely. It would depend on the context of the other article if you wished to expand his name to Noel "Josh" Hughes in the link. Oakwillow (talk) 19:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I understand you. I don't think he's in any danger of getting his own page yet ... but it's good to have the groundrules made explicit, thank you. almost-instinct 15:45, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

NBSP change

I have just become aware through User:Tony1/Monthly updates of styleguide and policy changes/May 2008 of an unfortunate change at WP:NBSP (thank goodness for Tony's updates).

The scope of the recommendation to use a non-breaking (i.e., "hard") space was narrowed from all instances where:

"numerical and non-numerical elements are separated by a space", to all instances where:
"measurements in which values and units are separated by a space".

Compound items such as "20 chairs" are thus excluded from the recommendation.

Not a good change. Why should we see 20 on one line and chairs on the next? And why should terms like Boeing 747, Apollo 7 or 7 World Trade Center have unnatural line breaks? I oppose this change; can someone point me to the discussion please? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:05, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Sandy, I think the rationale is that while the need to keep together values and units (especially symbols/abbreviations) is important, the need to avoid splitting "20" and "chairs" is somewhat less. On the other side, where hard spaces are used liberally—for almost every number in an article, they are more likely to slightly damage the appearance of the text by stretching interword spaces (where the default justification is used, which includes almost all readers) on many lines. It matters yet more when lines are shortened by the presence of an image or by the use of a small monitor. Tony (talk) 17:22, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
For comparison, we have no problem with putting The Twelve on one line and Chairs on the next, although The Twelve Chairs is more of a unit than most mentions of 20 chairs will be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

I've changed my position from a few months ago, and maybe I'm alone in this, I don't know. Can anyone find a style manual or anything like a style manual that supports the idea that content editors of any kind should be inserting hard spaces? Chicago, AP Stylebook, and NYTM don't seem to even approach the issue. As I mentioned previously, I think the issue here is that there are some abbreviations (of units and otherwise) that cause a person skimming down the article to stop and go "Wha?" if they appear by themselves at the beginning of a line, so per the principle of least astonishment, IMO it would be nice if lines didn't wrap in the middle of "3 cm" or "Ames IA" (Iowa, USA). But I'm more interested these days in promoting collaborations between content experts and experienced Wikipedians, and I'm getting more and more nervous about being put in the position of having to defend orthography that none of the style manuals will touch; if a rule is considered too fussy even for academicians, authors and journalists, then it ought to be too fussy for us. If people in their roles as copyeditors want to agree on where to wrap the lines, that's fine, and if we want to follow up on the bugzilla thread to do some of it by software, that's even better, but it shouldn't be in WP:MOS or WP:MOSNUM and shouldn't be expected from editors, unless we can come up with support for the idea that this is expected outside of Wikipedia. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:39, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

The Chicago Manual of Style and The Oxford Guide to Style both advocate not separating numerals from the accompanying abbreviation (e.g. "15 kg or "300 BC") but don't seem to say anything about separating numerals from most other text (unless you count "Louis XIV").--Boson (talk) 19:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
I was still seeing it in Chicago 3 months ago, but now I can't find it...they've moved or deleted the recommendation. Now they say that a "word space" (which isn't an nbsp) should go between numbers and units. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Where are you looking? Try looking for the treatment of the space between a number and a symbol/abbreviation; that might be different than the treatment of the space between a number and a spelled-out unit. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 16:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Chicago 15.55: "A word space usually appears between a numeral and an abbreviation. [examples] 4 L [,] 13 Mc". By "word space" they mean: not nbsp, not the space between sentences, and not a half space...a normal space. A search on nbsp now comes up empty, and I couldn't find anything about line wrapping, word wrapping, or anything in the sections on punctuation, units or abbreviations. If they have moved it somewhere, I'd like to know where. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:44, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
I was looking in the 14th ed. (being too cheapskate to buy every edition). It was under "Word Division", "NUMERALS", 6.55: Abbreviations used with numerals should not be separated from the numerals:
345 mi. 24 kg 55 B.C. A.D. 1066 6:35 P.M.
I was also looking at an old edition of The Oxford Guide to Style (2nd ed.), under "Word division", p. 140: Do not break numerals at a decimal point, or separate them from their abbreviated units, as with 15 kg or 300 BC. The Oxford Guide to Style also has: Do not break place names or (especially) personal names, if possible. [. . .] Do not break between a name and a modifier: Louis XIV [...].
I can only speak semi-intelligently about American English. It's gone from Chicago now; I just read everything in Chapter 9 (Numbers), searched on "word division" (seems to only cover hyphens now), and searched on "numerals". - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Wait, I found it, although it's not much. It was, unhelpfully, under "spelling":

7.42 Abbreviations [:] Abbreviations used with numerals are best left intact; either the numeral should be carried over to the next line or the abbreviation should be moved up.

345 m

24 kg

55 BCE

6:35 p.m.

- Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:54, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

So should something like "State Route 9" or "SR 9" be allowed to wrap or not? --NE2 18:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

People have gone berserk with nbsp. I would like to say that line breaks are a *good thing*. One of the benefits of the modern world is that the internet is available regardless of screen size. Try it on a pocket device and you will see what I mean. Line breaks are needed to fit things on the screen. I would hardly notice a problem with a line break in '20 chairs' and 'Boeing 747'. As Dank55 said, I think it might be nice if '3 cm' and 'Ames IA' did not break but I think we have gone too far in mandating the use of nbsp. It used to be optional. Please think about limiting the scope of nbsp because line breaks are good. Lightmouse (talk) 19:40, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Once again, where is the discussion that led to this change? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:52, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Lightmouse. Apart from the visual appearance for our readers (the balance struck too far towards the risk of inter-word stretching), without a shortcut key-in for hard-spaces, and without even a button below the edit-box, will you believe, it's a pain to type them in; and it doesn't make the editing job any easier when the gobbledygood subsequently appears in the edit window. I, for one, have to slow down and think everytime I see it.
I'm happy with the new text, but here's a compromise that you may like to consider:

In compound measurements in which values and units are separated by a space, a non-breaking space (also known as a hard space) is recommended to avoid the displacement of those elements at the end of a line. Hard spaces may also be considered where line-end displacement might be disruptive to the reader (7&nbsp;World Trade Center).

Sandy, the discussion was some months ago, and if you like I can try to locate it (MOSNUM and/or MOS talk); Noetica was involved, and agreed that the use of hard-spaces should be constrained in some ways. Tony (talk) 04:58, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Actually, there is a button; it is amongst the first ones in the "Wiki markup" section. Waltham, The Duke of 00:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

What's so special about numbers? Is it really that much more jarring to the reader to have a number and a word in separate lines than having two words in separate lines? (If there is a study about that, I'd like to see it.) I don't see any rules for inserting non-breaking spaces between articles and nouns, between verbs and adverbs, or between given names and surnames. Or even in the middle of an infinitive. While I see the suggestion of some style guides to put a nonbreaking space between 15 and kg as not too unreasonable, it can be taken too far. At least in science, not all units and numbers are one or two characters long. I decided to take a look at a few recent articles in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and Science, and I noticed that they are not afraid of putting a number and a unit in separate lines. I also noticed that in some cases a full number plus unit can easily take half a line of text. Refusing to split such a monster would be as problematic as refusing to hyphenate supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. But these journals don't mind splitting even the short cases. If they don't mind, why should we? Or does one need to be a scientist to be able to put a number and a word or symbol together when they are on different lines? I don't buy it. --Itub (talk) 11:16, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

  • I proposed the compromise above to give leeway to editors to insert hard-spaces in unusual or difficult compound items on a case-by-case basis; this seemed to satisfy Sandy's misgivings. What I (and others here, I think) definitely don't want is encouragement to insert that hedgehog string in 11 kangaroos, etc. I've been seeing a lot of this in FACs. Tony (talk) 17:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Well, I'm worried about Boeing 747 and Apollo 8; terms like that shouldn't be split. I'll have to try to track down the old conversations when I'm home (I hate automatic archiving because it makes it so hard to know where old threads end up; if you know where it is, help appreciated :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I've gone back and checked now, and this seems to be another of those recent, not broadly discussed MoS changes, made only in the last few weeks (May 21 and May 26).[8][9] I disagree with this change, and suggest going back to the long-standing wording, "In compound items in which numerical and non-numerical elements are separated by a space ... " I'm glad we're now made aware of these changes via Tony's monthtly updates, but this weekly tweaks and changes continue to frustrate. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm interested less in delving back into archives than producing the most desirable guideline. I totally disagree with the encouragement to glue together "20 chairs". Sandy, do you really want gobbledygook to be used in those places? Not happy, and there seems to be little support here for this reversion. Tony (talk) 08:52, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't care about 20 chairs; I do care about the other issues I mentioned, which were previously covered. That people may be putting NBSPs before numbers of chairs seems to me a matter of rewriting a guideline to legislate common sense; you can't do it. Well, you can try, I guess :-) But losing Boeing 747 or Apollo 8 because people were stupidly putting NBSPs on 20 chairs is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:57, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
  • As you've now made it, you have to put a hard-space in 20 chairs. It's a pain in the edit box when copy-editing articles that have a lot of them. And there's the slight stretching issue. I proposed a compromise above; however, it might require more detail. Please consider this (since updated on the basis of feedback below):

A non-breaking space (also known as a hard space) is recommended to avoid the end-of-line displacement of the elements:

  • in compound expressions in which figures and abbreviations or symbols are separated by a space (17 kg, AD 565, 2:50 pm);
  • between month and day in dates that are not autoformatted (August 3, 1979);
  • on the left side of spaced en dashes; and
  • in other places where displacement might be disruptive to the reader, such as £11 billion, 5° 24′ 21.12″ N, Boeing 747, and the first two items in 7 World Trade Center.

Tony (talk) 14:01, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Your feedback is welcome:

  • We can put Boeing 747 in with 7 World Trade Center. It may be worth saying (to avoid putting in unnecessary &nbsp;s) that this recommendation applies where lines are likely to break (i.e. not in tables, not where the space is in the first few words of a paragraph, etc., although I don't think we need to spell this out.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:27, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Done, at least the 747 example. I think you're suggesting not to explicate the other stuff (I agree). The "such as" fifth point gives editors the leeway. Tony (talk) 08:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I was going to insert your recommended "where lines are likely to break", but couldn't find a neat place for it—the lead is long enough already. And it seems obvious from the "to avoid disruption" phrase that you don't need it in tables, etc. Tony (talk) 03:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Comments by The Most Noble The Duke of Waltham

As the person who made the change (or at least started it), I see that my intervention is required here—although I should probably comment anyway, as is my habit in these cases. Basically, I made the change because the guideline, as it was written before 21 May, was too general and opened the door for an incredibly widespread usage of hard spaces, with all the disadvantages that such a thing would entail (analysed by my honourable colleagues above). It was not my intention to go to the other side and make the guideline too strict; I simply did not consider that the revised guideline would leave out numerous types of legitimate hard-space application. However, I find that a restrictive guideline is better than one which allows for undesirable overuse, especially if we are to resolve this problem in a relatively short time period. Restoring an acceptable balance is, of course, the primary target at this stage. I shall not include a more detailed reasoning for my edit here, in order to prevent my message from growing too long. I can provide it on demand, however. As far as Tony's suggestions for the location of hard spaces are concerned, I agree with all of them, and would even add a few more (see below). As far as the spaces around en dashes are concerned, I believe that the preceding space should be hard and the trailing one a breaking space. This method not only improves wrapping but is actually established practice, something reflected in the existence of a template doing this very thing (which I have just used in the navbox below). I should mention that using hard spaces at both sides would be highly debatable—many editors choose spaced en dashes over unspaced em dashes because the latter stick with the following word while the former do not; we should grant editors this stylistic choice as far as wrapping is concerned. In addition to Tony's points, now, I believe that we should consider expanding the application of hard spaces to unabbreviated units as well, treating 9 metres exactly like 9 m. It is already widespread practice ({{convert}} does that automatically), and it makes sense to keep measurements together, be the units full or not (people understand them in the same degree, given that they are familiar with the abbreviations). In any case, I am not sure that we should be too specific or extremely prescriptive about how hard spaces should be used, because this is a dodgy issue: no matter how many cases are described, there will always be more warranting special treatment—some in all instances, some based on editorial judgement. I propose writing a simple guideline saying that hard spaces should be used at the end of lines when items should not be separated blah blah, and making it clear that this should normally not be applied to ordinary words or in cases where, as Mr Anderson says, compounds are unlikely to break. Below could be given a table with all the specific examples where using hard spaces is encouraged.

In addition to the items in Tony's list, several names and terms would make reading easier for people if using hard spaces. This would include addresses (10&nbsp;Downing Street), postcodes with two or more parts (DN37&nbsp;2AB), years with a designation (AD&nbsp;1066, 480&nbsp;BCE), time in 12-hour format (2:50&nbsp;pm), co-ordinates ({{nowrap|5° 24′ 21.12″ N}}), and names followed by a number (Boeing&nbsp;747, State Route&nbsp;9) or modifier (Louis&nbsp;XIV of France). For the last case—which might be more controversial than the rest—I find it important to use hard spaces, as these compounds make even less sense when broken than those with numbers first. All these proposals strictly fall into either the number or the name category; ordinary words are explicitly excluded. Waltham, The Duke of 00:21, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


We want to be careful with the last. For one thing, we will often want to link Louis XIV of France, which should mean no hard spaces. On the other hand, in such articles as History of France or War of the Spanish Succession, it will require an awful lot of hard spaces: does William III and Louis XIV agreed that the possessions of Charles II should pass to the Electoral Prince of Bavaria rather than to the eventual claimants, the later Philip V and Charles VI. really need all five? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:56, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I have capped my comments in order to take up less space. I have also modified a section; I had confused Tony's "either" for "both" in the fourth bullet about spaces around en dashes.
I saw the example of monarchs mentioned higher above and found it very reasonable; stray numerals at the beginning of lines will look bizarre, and first mentions of monarchs will be a little more confusing without the accompanying numerals. Note first mentions; most instances of these names will not repeat the numerals, so the hard spaces of this type will not be dozens in any given article, as it might initially appear, but rather ten or fewer; up to twenty in the worst cases. Waltham, The Duke of 02:13, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
That clarifies whether you want Scylla or Charybdis; but that still leaves the problem that the first mention is also the one we want to link with. Do we really want to require [[Louis XIV of France|Louis&nbsp;XIV of France]]? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:27, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Not require... Except for FAs, I suppose, but even there the phrasing suggested above will not make it mandatory to follow these examples.
That said, forget not that some of these linked first mentions are pipe-linked anyway, so this takes away another little piece of the problem. :-)
And we need not worry about info- and succession boxes, for names in there, as you say, usually don't wrap anyway. Yet another piece gone. There's not that much left, is there?
Anyway, it's almost 6 am; I think it is time to sleep. I shall reply to anything that comes up tomorrow. Waltham, The Duke of 02:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


  • So I guess now what we need people's opinion on is:
  1. whether the list and the "such as" final point that gives editors leeway is acceptable;
  2. whether it would be better to leave out the nowiki html hard-space codes in the instructions, since they make it pretty hard to read. Tony (talk) 08:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I'll repeat since we're voting: it's not very important to me, but I have concerns about going farther than American style manuals in American English articles, so I'd prefer a light touch. Also, I think there's a risk of losing content experts in sci/tech/math who read that they're supposed to write "2&nbsp;+&nbsp;2&nbsp;=&nbsp;4", regardless of any disclaimers or reasons we offer. This kind of thing is what the <math> tag is for. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:35, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
You mean there's a template for maths expressions that will avoid the gobbledygook? Better to exclude the example, then, and just say to use the math template, don't you think? Anderson, does that mean the non-breaking code doesn't work? How's the text now? Tony (talk) 02:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm happy, if you add something like Boeing 747 or Apollo 7 to the last example; if people don't see it, they don't think of it. Thanks :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, to reverse Anderson's point (he suggests not the 7WTC, but to include Boeing 747), I don't have a problem with Boeing
747, since "Boeing" at line's end prepares the reader for a number, we're so used to it. This is quite unlike having a "7" dangling at line's end, which doesn't at all prepare us for "World Trade Centre" (or "kg"), and thus requires reverse-disambiguation. But ... if you insist, hmmm. Tony (talk) 03:19, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Actually I suggested both, to compromise between other people's suggestions, but I'm no longer convinced we need either, except when there is unusual likelihood of confusion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

<math>, it's a tag not a template see Help:Displaying a formula. JIMp talk·cont 03:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC) I'm pretty sure (I tested narrowing the help page I mention down) that that within the <math> tags does not wrap. It would be nice to have a word recommending that mixing these <math> expressions with regular text on the same line should be avoided wherever practical. I'm often finding stuff like spotted throughout prose, an unnecessary change in font. JIMp talk·cont 04:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

All that should be in WP:MSM, which describe the tag. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
  • On further thought, I doubt we want to encourage runs of non-breaking spaces in mathematical expressions at all. If they are likely to break, make them a separate line, with ordinary spaces; if they're too long for that, use <math>.
  • Long non-breaking expressions can seriously screw up format; consider this edit of Omar Khayyam, which has (at least on my machine) a lake of white next to the infobox because somebody wanted to have the Farsi not break. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
    • I strongly agree. Do you mean I should remove the maths point altogether? Tony (talk) 02:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
      • I do not understand why there couldn't be a space after the colon, even if the Farsi part would be glued together. The visual effect of this is awful. In any case, I agree with the removal of the maths point, and would even support its conversion to a counter-point ("Do not use hard spaces for mathematical expressions..."). Waltham, The Duke of 15:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
      • Probably best to remove it, unless we recast the section into a discussion of solutions of badly breaking lines; in which case we would have two or three cases which are fixed by hard spaces, and a separate sentence on mathematical expressions, which are fixed otherwise. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:07, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Should we encourage the preemptive use of &nbsp;? It does make edit screens less readable, which is a cost; and it occurs to me that in most of our examples, it may be makework. Consider; when will Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit – sed do eiusmod tempor break before the dash?

  • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit must fit on one line
  • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit – must not fit
  • and the display routine on the computer involved must fail to catch it.

For this reason, it is preferable to fix a bad break if it happens, but otherwise it is OK to leave well enough alone. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:20, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

But whether it occurs in the absence of a hard-space will depend on how large your window is and your font/font-size settings. Nice to use the Mac option-space, which does the job without the gobbledygook code—just looks like a normal space. The disadvantage, of course, is that you see only the result, not the mechanism, so subsequent editors can't be sure it's been done. All the more reason we should pursue an easy code such as double comma or the like to represent hard-spaces, not the ugly five-character duckling we are currently forced to use. Tony (talk) 01:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
But it will only happen for those window/font combinations in which the line is exactly the wrong length. This means it will occur (if at all) 1 or 2% of the time. Fix it if it cocurs, but why go hunting for it? the other 98% of us all have to put up with the &nbsp; goobledegook. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Language tags

I don't know if this is the right place for this discussion, if not, please kindly me point me to the right place.

I noticed another user recently adding the template lang to some titles in foreign languages (French in this case) in some articles (e.g. here[10]), and wondered what it was used for, as it has no visible effect on the page. It turns out after a friendly discussion with the user that it is supposedly useful for people and/or tools spell checking texts, so that they don't try to "correct" text which isn't in English.

I'm not really happy with these tags, as they seem to me to be a solution looking for a problem (since none of these articles or many others I have watchlisted seem to have the problem of erroneous spelling corrections in these cases), and a nuisance for editors (yet another level of tags around titles, which often already have double [ and double ' around them). I would like some discussion to see if other people feel we should encourage or discourage this in general, or if it should only be used in some cases but not in general. As is probably clear, at the moment I'm in favour of completely discouraging it since the perceived benefit of the tags is too small to outweigh the extra trouble it gives. Fram (talk) 19:02, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

A puzzlement. The quite useful tags {{Lang-fr}} and {{fr icon}} do label with reader useful information; but the Template talk page is the best place to ask. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm the 'other user' in question, and after friendly discussion with Fram, I think that adding these language tags is appropriate, while (s)he disagrees. In the past I have made incorrect edits of foreign-language text using English typo lists, so was acting partly in a preventative manner and also because I understand that these language tags help browser encoding for more exotic languages, and finally that I think adding these tags enhances the quality of an article (clarity for future editors etc.). The fact that no error has been made on a particular page to date doesn't really interest me, as an ever-expanding list of English typos may catch a foreign word in the future and errors have certainly been made on other pages with the same foreign word. My interpretation of template:lang is that my actions are correct, Fram thinks otherwise. I am hoping for confirmation that I'm right ;) and would like template:lang to be clarified after resolution of the issue. Thanks Rjwilmsi (talk) 19:23, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
To be clear, I believe that what you did was a reasonable reading of what the template page describes. However, I also believe that use of the template should be discouraged, since its benefits are smaller than its disadvantages. Pages about foreign authors, musicians, awards, ... would be filled with these tags. A page like List of works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe would have about 28 tags,and I'm not going to count it here: Rammstein discography. All tags and markup make editing by casual editors harder, and I don't believe that they provide clarity for future editors (in the examples I have seen, it was quite clear from the article what language the tagged titles had). Fram (talk) 07:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Besides spellchecking, these tags can be used by screen readers to provide correctly audio output, and users can change their style sheets to display different languages using different fonts and styles. I say this is a significant benefit. Much greater than screwing up the wikitext to introduce unnecessary non-breaking spaces as per the latest fashion, IMHO. --Itub (talk) 08:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Screen readers may indeed be a good reason. I don't see why people would want to display the French title of a book or the German title of an opera in a different font or colour, but to each his own, I presume. And I don't really understand what you are referencing with the "unnecessary non-breaking spaces" line, couldyou provide a diff with an example? Fram (talk) 11:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I just saw the above discussion on NBSP and realised that this is the thing you were referring to, so you can ignore my question. Fram (talk) 11:24, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Another (and, in my opinion, the most important) benefit is that these tags provide language metadata to search engines, allowing to search for, say, French terms, without confusing them for English or something else. Also, as correctly noted above, for non-Latin-based languages these tags allow for a selection of an appropriate font.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:25, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Allright, obviously enough benefits to keep on using them. I'll not add them myself (enough other things to pay attention to already), but I'll not discuss it if other people do so. Thanks everyone for patiently explaining. Fram (talk) 18:35, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, those tags could in theory be useful in various ways but is that actually the case? Can anyone point to a page where a tag like this makes the difference between text being correctly displayed or not? Do actual screen-readers pay attention to them? Do actual search engines use them? Can we have some examples where the tags are clearly doing some good? The original edit which sparked this discussion still seems confusing and crufty to me.[11] Why not mark all the French titles in the article? It looks to me like these templates are yet another thing which raises the bar for newbies and clutter page histories. These may be acceptable sacrifices but only if the benefits are clear and demonstrable. I don't feel the added convenience to typo checkers is enough of a benefit. Haukur (talk) 16:45, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

The right place for this is WP:TFD; if someone takes the initiative to move it there, please let us know.
Here is one example off the top of my head—Bashkortostan. In absence of {{lang-ba}}, the Bashkir name would not be displayed correctly. As for the statistical point, just because not enough editors are aware of these templates is not a reason to get rid of them, especially considering all of their benefits (even though those benefits are not immediately obvious). Case in point—Wikipedia did not support the div tags for quite a while, because, seemingly, there was no use for them. If we continued not to support these tags, then none of the existing navbox templates would have been possible, among many other things. The bottom line—if you find these templates too unwieldy or difficult to use, then just ignore them. Someone else will add them in places where they are useful (although not necessarily to you).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:03, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I see. {{Lang|ba}}, however, is supposed to do exactly the same as {{lang-ba}}, except it would omit the "Bashkir language: " specifier, which is useful when several Bashkir terms are listed in the same article (as to not clutter the page). As for the language markup, it does help in search engines. Can't say anything about French, but it is, for example, possible to google Wikipedia for just Russian words without having to see identically spelled Ukrainian, Belarusian, or Bulgarian ones. This, of course, only works when the words being looked for are properly tagged with the lang template.
In any case, if you feel so strongly about this template, feel free to list it on TfD. I expect the outcome be the same as before—the template will survive (exactly because it is useful), but it is your right to do whatever you feel is the right thing. Best,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
This is still fairly vague. Can you give an examples of a specific Google search which you feel yields more useful results due to these tags? Haukur (talk) 23:23, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
No, sorry, I can't—it did not occur to me to keep track of them!
Consider, however, the following. The {{Lang}} template does not use magic fairies to mark a passage as written in a certain language; the effect is achieved via the "lang" attribute of the (X)HTML <span> tag. Both the tag and the attribute are a part of the (X)HTML specification, which was devised so it could be used in practice. One can imagine that tags/attributes which do not have practical value did not make it into the specification, right? Granted, support for some such tags/attribute is still lacking in the real world, but it does not mean we should ignore them just because some editors are too lazy to learn about them. If we get rid of the {{lang}} template, perhaps next we should also do away with non-breaking spaces, tables, templates, or even the whole transclusion concept? Why not, they all are concepts which may be difficult for an average Joe Shmoe to grasp—certainly they alienate a good chunk of otherwise brilliant editors?
All in all, this discussion very much reminds me one regarding putting accent marks indicating stress in Russian words. Normally, such stress marks are only shown in dictionaries and in the texts targeting children and learners of the language. At the time (about 3-4 years ago), not only no search engine was capable of processing these stress marks, but they actually interfered with searches (a stressed word no longer showed up in the search results). Fortunately, common sense prevailed—just because the search engines were flawed at the moment did not lead to Wikipedians withholding this valuable piece of information. Now all major search engines are capable of processing accented Russian words—who knows, maybe in part because we actually started to use them on large scale? I don't see the language markup any differently—if it is implemented in Wikipedia on the scale large enough, it's only going to be a matter of time until the search engines start utilizing these metadata more actively. And like I said before—if anyone is not willing to add the lang template to the list of things to keep in mind when editing, then just ignore the damn thing! Those who do care will fix it for you.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
If we get rid of the {{lang}} template, perhaps next we should also do away with non-breaking spaces, Yes, now you're catching on. Non-breaking spaces are almost always unnecessary clutter, your signature is a good example. ,tables, templates, or even the whole transclusion concept? We should indeed avoid these things except in cases where there is great benefit in using them. Your condescending attitude to editors less well versed than you are in the niceties of code and web-standards is disappointing. Those people are not "lazy" "Joe Shmoes" - most intelligent people in the universe are not familiar with wiki-code and do not have any great incentive to learn it. We should keep it as simple as possible in order to make the wiki more attractive to a broader spectrum of people. People can be very intelligent and non-lazy and still be overwhelmed when they click the "edit this page" button and are confronted with a smörgåsbord of esoteric tables and templates. I agree with your point that early adaption of standards, even before widespread support, sometimes makes sense. I still don't see that a compelling case for {{lang}} has been made and I still would like to see an actual case - or at least a plausible made-up example - where it helps someone find something. Haukur (talk) 23:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, now you're catching on. Well, I see you have a larger problem than this template alone. Sorry, I can't help you—it is not my place to force my views on you, and we obviously disagree on a number of things.
most intelligent people in the universe are not familiar with wiki-code and do not have any great incentive to learn it. My point exactly. If those intelligent people (and, I suspect, a good portion of Joes Shmoes as well) are not willing to learn the intricacies of the wiki-code, by all means let them ignore them. If someone is capable of contributing high-quality information but is not willing to learn anything more complicated than linking, bolding, and italics, I, for one, is more than willing to do the grunt work of formatting for them. Content, not presentation, was the emphasis of Wikipedia from the early days, and it should stay that way.
I still would like to see an actual case... where it helps someone find something. I'll keep my eyes open. As for this particular discussion—how about we wrap it? I'd much rather spend my time providing comments where they would matter (in this case it would be TfD) rather than shouting things I deem to be patently obvious into the void. Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 14:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
You aren't allowing people to ignore the wiki-code, they get it right in the face whenever they click the edit button. Haukur (talk) 17:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry, but I don't find this argument very convincing. Wiki-code, no matter how complicated it gets, still allows seeing what the actual content is. It is also much more readable than, say, straight HTML. You, on the other hand, make it sound as if we are trying to make people decipher binary codes!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Go to, say, Belgium and click the edit button. Is what you get more readable than straight HTML? Only barely, in my opinion. If you go to a version of the article from 2002 you will find the code much more readable and easier to get into. Of course the current article is much more readable in read-mode but large sacrifices have been made when it comes to ease of editing. Haukur (talk) 20:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Like I previously said, your comments show that your issue is far greater than with this single template. As for the Belgium article, I see no problem there whatsoever. The only thing the person who is not willing to learn all of the intricacies of the wiki-code needs to know is that curly brackets signify templates. This single piece of information enables pretty much anyone to edit the actual content without becoming confused.
In any case, are you not finding it ironic that a person with non-technical education (me) is trying to sell the benefits of new technologies to a person with technical education (you)?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't personally have any problem editing the Belgium article if I wanted to and it's not surprising to me that you don't find it problematic either. But it's not me or you I'm worried about - we've both been Wikipedians for years, we've long ago learned the basics and we've assimilated new stuff as it comes along. I'm sure you are generally a technically proficient person even if you don't have a technical education. I still think you're seriously underestimating how intimidating the templates and tables are to the uninitiated. If someone wants to edit the lede of Belgium they have to do quite a few page-downs before they even get to it, and then hopefully they won't get lost in the flurry of citation templates. There's a world of difference between this and the state of the article in 2002 - or even 2003 and 2004 when you and I signed up. You're right, of course, that this is a much larger issue than the lang template. But in my opinion that's just one more small well-intentioned step down the road towards ever more opaque code and it's hard to really see the problem with it until you step back and look at the larger picture. There's certainly ample opportunity to use the lang template in the Belgium article. Right at the top you can enclose Koninkrijk België and Eendracht maakt macht with it. Would that improve the article? It's hard to tell, isn't it? It may have some tiny advantage for some hypothetical searches, bot runs, statistics collection etc. and it has the tiny cost of making the article ever so slightly less accessible for editing. It can be hard to see that tiny cost which is why I suggest looking back at the accumulation over the years of all the costs of increased complexity. I'm personally fine with all this code. As you point out I write code for a living. I'm just concerned that we are making it ever harder for Wikipedia to get new editors. Haukur (talk) 23:58, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:Captions, WP:PERFECT

WP:Captions doesn't get as much attention as some pages. This was just inserted in a new section last night: "Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article. It is not necessary to fulfill attribution requirements of the GFDL or Creative Commons licenses as long as the appropriate credit is on the image description page, and it implies ownership of free content, which contradicts Wikipedia policy." Thoughts?

Also, an editor wants to largely rewrite WP:PERFECT, and we haven't attracted any discussion there. Please see the talk page. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:28, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The editor can try as much as they want; the page will never reach perfection. :-D
The captions addition looks reasonable. Waltham, The Duke of 23:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Footnotes not at the foot?

The "section management" subsection says: "The standard order for optional appendix sections at the end of an article is See also, Notes (or Footnotes), References, Further reading (or Bibliography), and External links; the order of Notes and References can be reversed."? Does anyone know why footnotes are not at the foot? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 19:01, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Sure they are References, Further reading (or Bibliography) and External links are under-foot. Why's a hot dog not a dog? ... But seriously, though, it's because the notes are meant to be more closely tied to the text, they are more or less an addition to the text so should go with the text. JIMp talk·cont 19:11, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. I understand the reasoning but I wonder whether it takes into account that folks generally get to the footnotes by clicking on a link (and return to the text the same way). So there is no benefit to putting the notes closer to the text (and there is a detriment because readers have to scroll through the "footnotes" to get to potentially valuable information). Were those factors considered when it was decided that Wikipedia footnotes are like hot dogs?Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 19:47, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

I decided it yesterday. :-D
Seriously now, I agree with Jimp; the "See also" and "(Foot)notes" sections are closely connected to the article, in contrast to the following sections, which are effective exits from Wikipedia. The distinction is mostly one of relevance, but it concerns usability as well: with the exception of succession and navigation boxes, categories, and sister-project boxes (all of which are at the bottom anyway), all useful information to people not really concerned about further research ends with the "See also" links (if present), unless there are notes unconnected to referencing, which are right below said links. Waltham, The Duke of 03:08, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

This doesn't respond to my point that interactive users can jump to footnotes. (In fact this brings up an additional consideration: If "footnotes" comes before other sections then any footnote in the later sections will will appear above the footnote signal. That doesn't make sense if, as the responses to my comments seem to say, we should ignore the interactive features of on-line footnotes.) Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:29, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Excellent point; I have only now noticed it. In none of the appendix sections are footnotes ever used. It is a wiki-universal constant. Thus, it is to the readers' advantage for the footnotes to be as high as possible within the appendices, and currently they occupy the second slot—if it weren't for the importance of keeping "See also" first, we'd see the footnotes in their place. Actually, there are many articles, like Palace of Westminster, where footnotes are first due to an absence of a "See also" section; this is desirable, because it indicates that the links have been integrated in the article's text. In a perfect article, the footnotes would be first, right under the text. And everything below them would be footnote-free.
As far as your initial question is concerned, thereto I am sorry to say I had forgotten to reply, the answer is simple: Wikipedia is not paper. Footnotes were at the bottom of pages in books, where there were neither internal ("See also") nor external links. Special accommodations must be made, of course, for electronic means of communication. Now, scrolling may be unpleasant, but there are benefits in keeping the footnotes where they are. Semantics (relevance to text) and the lack of footnotes in the appendices are two. Another is that having the footnotes at the bottom would worsen the position and visibility of the categories and would be a rather awkward way to end the page (the navboxes don't really match after the footnotes). Another still is that footnotes cannot come after the external links, the sole difference of which from references is that they are not used for sourcing. I suppose I could find more if I did some research.
The fact is that the order of the appendices has been discussed much, and the current order has evolved through widespread editing practices (most of Wikipedia's articles have such sections at the bottom, so the experimentation field is, and has been, vast). Not much has really changed that could make the arguments leading to the current consensus moot. Waltham, The Duke of 17:15, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much for the education. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:50, 17 June 2008 (UTC)
The section you're quoting continues: "For information on these optional sections, see Wikipedia:Layout#Standard appendices and descriptions...", and there's additional explanation there, including, appropriately enough, in the footnotes. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:20, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Usage of diacritics

See the new proposal Wikipedia:Usage of diacritics.

"For a placename or person that is well known in the English-speaking world, i.e. is widely mentioned in English-language sources: ... " and then goes on to lay down rules. This seems to be at variance with WP:MOS#Foreign terms --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 19:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Why is a page about diacritics trying to address non-diacritic characters like Ə? Strad (talk) 23:23, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Better to ask there, but I guess it's because users who are not aware of such fine distinctions would probably attempt to extend any rules about diacritics to other extended characters, if exceptions for these are not laid down explicitly. --Kotniski (talk) 07:30, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Ellipses

So why exactly is "first text...another text" forbidden? No reason is given; nor is any citation given for any of this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:25, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

This is a possibility, although we don't follow it exactly as it requests spaces between each period: Editing Quotations. Three ellipsis points (periods with a single space before, between, and after each period) indicate material has been omitted within a sentence or at the end of a sentence. (CMS 2003, 459). --Laser brain (talk) 20:34, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
This is sufficient reason not to deprecate "first text . . . another text"; thank you. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:23, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, bear in mind that's a print convention. I'm sure the CMS didn't have wikis in mind. The likelihood of me or anyone typing all those non-breaking spaces while writing an article is about zero. --Laser brain (talk) 21:36, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
That may be, although a sufficiently determined editor will type anything; I typed those. But at present we deprecate "first text . . . another text"; why do so? (why bother, if nobody will use it?) And above all, why forbid the opposite? A rational style guide would either say nothing, or present the case for and against each; we do neither. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:42, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
If we're talking about the ellipsis used in the sense of a dash, rather than omission, which is the sense I get from "first text...another text", then it's the same issue as with dashes. Publishers have used special characters for a long time; we're now in the age where people read and write much more democratically; people tend to type what they see on their QWERTY keyboards. This guarantees 3 things: 1. Older readers and writers (guilty) and readers and writers who have more of an academic bent or are using books for sources tend to expect dashes rather than "..." (although I kind of like the "...", always have); 2. Each year, you see more and more typographical characters being replaced by keyboard characters; and 3. There is often little standardization in the way keyboard characters are substituted for typographic characters, since it's a bottom-up phenomenon. Some people always put spaces around "..." when used in the sense of a dash, some people never do. I don't mind revisiting orthography issues every year, but I sure don't want to revisit them every week. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I meant the sense of omission, especially since I foresee much hysteria at the thought of another variety of dash. But does it make a difference?
The easiest way to avoid revisisting orthography is to say, once and for all, that there are many ways of punctuating English, most of them are questions of taste, and articles should decide among them by consensus on the individual article. Editors who felt that a given method was squashy or ornate would then be free to eschew it themselves, and persuade others to do so too. Let's do it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:49, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
I've made a suggestion to Sept that he and I tackle some other projects before this one. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Anderson would have us kow-tow to CMOS on every occasion. Why? It's not bad in some respects, but crap in others. It's for dead-tree text, not online text. It has a very conservative (petrified, some might say) editorial policy that resists change with the times. Get over it and move on. Tony (talk) 04:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
    • I do wish Tony would take the novel approach of reading what I actually said. I don't think we should kowtow to CMOS; I think we should take the same approach as WP:NPOV: acknowledge all points of view, discuss them (in MOS, this would be mentioning their advantages and disadvantages) and let our editors decide on that basis. In particular, we should acknowledge and permit what any major style guide recommends, because some editors will use that style; just as we acknowledge and permit all national dialects. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:51, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I was so hoping that Chicago would represent a consensus among publishers, journalists and academics that Wikipedia could bootstrap off of, but Tony is right. Chicago is a horse designed by a committee; sometimes Chicago recommends things that are just goofy, and sometimes it goes on forever in a way that is just burdensome and inappropriate for Wikipedia. No one should be required to memorize Chicago's capitalization rules, or even follow them. But the good news is that, so far, I'm happy with the match between Wikipedian practices and the two manuals US journalists use the most, The NY Times Manual of Style and Usage and AP Stylebook. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:08, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Language differences proposal

I have never stated a topic like this before, so I thought it might be best to start here. I believe that the minute differences in language and spelling between UK and US English can be reconciled using a translation system that is similar to the process that has been developed for the Chinese WIkipedia. Under their translation system, users have a choice of selecting either one of the following as their "viewing language" on Wikipedia:

I believe that this system has the potential to, in addition to bridge the difference in language, localize the encyclopedia for users in the wide and diverse Anglophone world. With this system in place, we can disregard the rules in regards to "-ize" or "-ise" or "-or" [as in behavior] or "-our" [as in labour].

So, I would like to put this out as a feeler, and see if anyone is interested in pursuing this further. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 06:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not aware that anyone has written such "translation" software either inside or outside of Wikipedia. I'd love to have some kind of tool like this, but I'm dubious. There are plenty of British TV programs (sorry, programmes) in which the language still sounds foreign to me, despite years of effort to pick up the language. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 11:53, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
And that's the point of my proposal. We can completely localize Wikipedia for all English users, so British articles will look American to our American users. Someone will need to contact the Chinese Wikipedia on their translation softwares though. I know they exist, but I don't know how it works on a deep level. I do, however, know how it roughly functions.
Their translation software functions through a set of keywords, and whenever they see those keywords, they will convert them from Traditional to Simplified, or vice versa. However, these conversions, due to the intricate nature of Traditional and Simplified Chinese, don't always work properly, so a template was established that allows a conversion to occur on a per-article basis. I believe with this, we can "separate" our Wikipedia into two major languages: US English and UK/Commonwealth English, without actually forking the project (foolish to do so, I would say), and have both of the "editions" to be readily accessed. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 13:40, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like a can of worms to me, technically and in terms of the politics. I kind of like the melting pot we have of accepting and editing in each other's variety, enabled by the within-article-consistency rule, which works beautifully. The differences between our varieties, let's face it, are superficial—much less of a deal than between those Chinese dialects listed above. And there's the business of proper nouns, quotations and references. Oh, what a mess it would be. Tony (talk) 13:57, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

[after numerous edit conflicts] Would it require us to mark it up? e.g. "The {{color}}s of the rainbow are..." Who would determine the mapping? e.g. who decides whether UK "elevator" must map to US "lift"? And how do you decide when US lift means UK elevator, and when it just means lift. Surely there are situations where a two similarly spelled UK words map to a single US word, or vice verse; how would such mappings be handled? How would quotations be handled? Would it fix article titles too? Hesperian 14:02, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Ditto Tony: I like the local colour given by the variants: it's not as if it ever causes problems in comprehensibity, and it doesn't hurt us to be reminded that there's more than one way to skin a cat almost-instinct 14:07, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I see Wikipedia, and more generally the internet, as a force that will eventually re-unify the English language, after a long natural process. In my opinion that's a good thing, not something to be prevented using technical means. The Chinese situation is special for two reasons: The traditional/simplified split hasn't grown organically but exists for political reasons. And as far as I know the Chinese writing system is used as a kind of interlingua between several mutually unintelligible languages. In that respect it's probably a bit like having a single Wikipedia for Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese (except that the Catalans would certainly be opposed to such a proposal). --Hans Adler (talk) 14:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I think English will reunify sometime shortly after the USA goes metric ;-) almost-instinct 15:11, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
I doubt the translation could be complete, and a partial translation would be unpleasant. Consider "the red-colored woolen jumper" where colored was translated because the software could handle it, but jumper was not because the translator didn't know if it meant a sweater or a skydiver. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 14:34, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Hans Adler, I partially agree. English has been and is subject to both centrifugal and centripetal forces. The Internet is just the most dramatic source of the increase in the centripetal in that balance—an increase that had been growing more gradually since the introduction of telegraphy, telephony and the rest of the ITC structure that has emerged over the past 150 years. But English is and will continue to be subject to centrifugal forces among non-native speakers around the world, who have a right to their own brand of the language. It will essentially become more and more a binary structure: the standard native ancestral English of the eight or so countries that might be classified as such; and a wealth of fragmented non-native local varieties, rich in their own ways. Tony (talk) 16:18, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I want to make a response to the aforementioned questions here.

Regardless of whether English will be reunified in the future, we are dealing with the present. At this point in time, there are variations between different forms of English. Now, as far as server-side translation goes, it can be cumbersome, which is why I believe the per-article translation solution (in Chinese Wikipedia, they do this through a template) is a solution that fits our situation better for region-specific words. For words such as "colo[u]r", the server-side solution will be a better fit. This combination of solutions will do the trick. Now obviously, the problems with Chinese Wikipedia is much bigger than ours (theirs deal with readability, ours deals with the more minute matters that will not render a page unreadable), but I wanted to propose this to see where we can go with it. I think localization, while not an urgent matter, will make English Wikipedia much more special, and can serve to eliminate some of the rules that goes with styles and grammar (we can dispose with those regarding region-specific spellings) if this is implemented. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 17:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Now, to give a sense of how the per-article translation thing can work, I will show you how those editors over at the Chinese Wikipedia deal with this.

They have this template that manually translates specific words within an article, which is the solution we can implement in our case. For example, let's say we are dealing with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (film). The English title is different. So, we do it as follows:

---

{{noteTA (the title name for the Chinese Wikipedia translation template)
|T (for page title)=en-us (for US English): Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (film); en-com (for Commonwealth English): Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
|1 (for word 1)=en-us: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; en-com: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone }}

---

So this is how it could work. It doesn't require too much markups. One template takes care of all words mentioned on that very page. No fuss. Arbiteroftruth (talk) 17:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't call this "no fuss", especially if the main purpose is to hide from clueless Americans the fact that there are people out there who speak and write a different variant of English. Or to have a technical solution that allows us to serve the Great Fire of London as the "Great Fire of London, England" to all those who need this explanation (so they don't book a ticket to nearby London, Ontario to see how much is left of the Roman city walls) without bothering the Brits with this nonsense. We are not a company who try to make money off a perfectly polished product; Wikipedia can afford this kind of rough edges. And one of the strengths of Wikipedia is that it's relatively immune to feature creep. --Hans Adler (talk) 17:50, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Hear, hear. This is, to use an expression I've seen several times lately, a solution in want of a problem. Sure, there are some debates here and there, but the language issue is not causing any significant disruption (excluding this page :-D). The implementation of this proposal would significantly complicate page syntax, confuse editors (most of whom edit across the linguistic board), and engage server and editor resources for little practical gain (all articles are, or at least should be, legible to all readers right now, and the feature would probably only be available to registered users). Basically, it's more trouble than it's worth. I see no reason to compartmentalise the different language variants—with unforeseeable results on the quality of prose—and there are more important things to use our resources on anyway. Waltham, The Duke of 20:48, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
If I may offer a slight correction, Your Grace, this is an unworkable solution in want of a problem. Hesperian 01:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem with this idea is that it isn't ambitious enough. We should be internationalising all vocabulary and grammar. For example, instead of writing

great idea

, we would write

{{adjective-noun-pair|{{great}}|{{idea}}}}

This would expand to great idea for English speakers, but the {{adjective-noun-pair}} template would know to put the adjective after the noun for French speakers, and the other templates would expand to French words for them, so for them this markup would yield

idée excellente

(Of course, we couldn't actually call those templates adjective-noun-pair, great and idea; we would have to come up with language neutral terms.) If enough effort was put into templatizing the grammar and vocabulary of every language and language variant in the world, then we could abandon this ridiculous idea of having a Wikipedia in each language, and write a single Wikipedia that could be read in the language of choice. The efficiency gains would be enormous, the only, very minor, downside being that only a handful of savant linguists would be able to contribute. Hesperian 02:11, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Yes, I am being sarcastic, and yes, I already know that I know nothing about French. Hesperian 02:11, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
It might be of interest to you that this relic of French, namely nouns preceding adjectives, is an integral part of blazon, the jargon in which coats of arms are recorded. The strange writing style and obscure terminology ensure an exotic result that barely reminds one of English. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 04:17, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
The inverted word order doesn't necessarily come from French: it's what we call "marked" grammar. "The light fantastic" is an example. English grammar is binary in that many constructions are either marked or unmarked. Unmarked is the default.
Concerning the proposal: I think it's doomed to failure. Let me make a point that the differences between the writing (and speaking) styles of individuals (subtle grammatical features and other choices) are typically greater than those between the so-called varieties of English. As the song says, "You say neether, and I say nyther". We are indeed lucky that the varieties are so trivial in their differences. It's remarkable. Tony (talk) 04:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
The example I am giving is from French. In any case, what you say is interesting. Perhaps there could be such a thing as convergent evolution in linguistics? Few optimum forms? Waltham, The Duke of 06:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Convergent evolution? Has His Grace been reading Geoffrey Miller's book by any chance? Tony (talk) 08:12, 21 June 2008 (UTC)
Not yet. (Bloody exams...) But I watch a lot of documentaries. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 05:04, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
Good luck, Duke. From the link Tony offers: "The theory makes many testable predictions". I'm not a psychologist, but I love popularized evolutionary psychology for exactly that reason: it comes off as a lot of handwaving at first, but then you realize that if various statements were wrong, they'd be easy to disprove, and they're damned hard to disprove. There's a lesson somewhere in there for WP:MOS, which I'll discuss down at #Stability. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:17, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
(nods) Scientists should never underestimate the power and importance of common sense. Waltham, The Duke of 05:26, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

En dash or em dash in tables?

I'm finding it unclear whether ndashes (–) or mdashes (—) should be used in tables to mark "empty cells". For some reason I remember reading it somewhere, perhaps in an old version of the MOS, that mdashes should be used. This is also what a lot of WP:FLs use (though this may in part be because I always say they should be used in my WP:FLC reviews). A recent discussion at WT:FLC#hyphens in blank squares: why not en dashes? brought this issue up, and I just wanted to get a firm answer from the caretakers of MOS. Once this has been confirmed, could a line please be added to WP:DASH. Thanks! Matthewedwards (talk · contribs · count · email) 05:08, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

I propose that en dashes be formally recommended here. Tony (talk) 07:38, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I like one or even two em-dashes. Otherwise the cell looks too empty. Strad (talk) 18:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I would propose one em dash since it's "fuller" than the en dash. Headbomb (ταλκ · κοντριβς) 16:51, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
In any event, using two dashes, be them en or em dashes, is probably not an option. A single character ought to be used. Waltham, The Duke of 20:50, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with His Grace. And it's a matter of balancing the too small and the too large. To me, the en dash is just right: big enough to be unambiguous; not so big as to draw attention to itself, away from the substantive information in other squares. Tony (talk) 02:30, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I also agree that only one should be used, rather than two. WP:HYPHEN states not to do --, so it would be odd to advocate –– or ——. Whether – or — is used, I don't mind. My only concern is consistency, and many lists use a dash to identify "N/A" information. Matthewedwards (talk · contribs · count · email) 02:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I prefer em-dashes, but in the grand scheme of things I don't think it's that big of a deal. The important thing is that we're consistent. Drewcifer (talk) 09:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Why? Why does it matter? We have dozens of ways of making tables; why does this one variation matter any more than the variation between all dashes and "N/A"? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
If you're going to ask that, you might as well ask "What's the point of the MOS at all?". There are many many different ways of doing anything, and the MOS is here to standardise it. There is already a section on WP:HYPHEN and WP:DASH which explain which and how they should be used in prose, this will just explain which and how they will be used in tables. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 18:59, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
What's the point of the MOS at all? To provide advice where useful, reasons for the various positions that literate English can take, and rules where there is project-wide consensus. Most of this page does not satisfy any of those criteria, but that's its fourth value: to show what a guideline page should not be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:13, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, Anderson, we all know your contrarian views on MOS. Thank you for restating them again in case we'd forgotten them. IMO, en dashes should be the standard; ems are just too large and unnecessary draw attention from the substantive information in the table. Tony (talk) 02:17, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
  • All unhelpful comments to the contrary aside: back to the matter at hand. It appears there is no clear consensus on the en-dash vs. em-dash thing, but that there is some agreement on the fact that there should only be one dash, and that it should indeed be a dash (as opposed to a blank cell or N/A). So can we agree at least that far? As far as the en vs em thing, can we just leave that part up to the user? Or should we make a hard and fast rule anyways, with the slight advantage above going to em-dashes? (3-1 in favor of it) Drewcifer (talk) 07:35, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Drewcifer's view finds me perfectly agreeable. We could try to make a decision here, but if it doesn't happen, something very likely (by the way, I prefer en dashes, so the score is now 3–2), a simple suggestion to avoid hyphens, double characters, and N/As would work. This is mostly a matter of appearance, after all, as the character will not affect any text. Waltham, The Duke of 18:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
  • (←) Good idea, indopug. To quote the Chicago Manual of Style:

"If a column head does not apply to one of the entries in the stub, the cell should either be left blank or be filled in by an em dash or three unspaced ellipsis dots. If a distinction is needed between “not applicable” and “no data available,” a blank cell may be used for the former and an em dash or ellipsis dots for “no data” (see table 13.8). This distinction must be made clear in a note or elsewhere. (Alternatively, the abbreviations n.a. and n.d. may be used, with definitions given in a note.) A zero means literally that the quantity in a cell is zero (see table 13.3)."

We've agreed against the empty cell, and I doubt three unspaced ellipsis are the way to go. So does that somewhat settle it in favor of the em-dash? Drewcifer (talk) 07:40, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
CMOS alone? Why is that the only external reference? It's a very faulty publication, even if it's good in patches. I do wish they followed their own advice in the publication itself, but there are numerous anomalies, only pages' distance from the so-called rules. CMOS is for hard copy. Here, my feeling is that en dashes, not em dashes, are about the right size. Anderson will push his usual "anything goes" line (you wonder why we bother having a style manual), but I trust that will be ignored here in favour of basic consistency. Tony (talk) 08:47, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
So far this is the only 3rd party source we have to go by. I checked my MLA manual, and it doesn't mention it. Drewcifer (talk) 08:50, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
I have no manuals to go and look at but the CMOS is used prolifically, and so I ask let's follow their example. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 07:07, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Em dashes looks too large on monitors, at least in the default font that WP uses. I say let's not recommend em dashes (at least not exclusively). Tony (talk) 07:27, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
And I find that en dash are too small on monitors. While I do have a strong preference for em dashes because of their "fuller" look, I really don't see the harm in allowing users to choose between either, as long as they are being used consistently within an article, and that they are always centered. I would also like to see that users make sure that the significance of em/en dashes is in the table is clear. I would recommend something like the next table, but that might be too stringent. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 13:32, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Possible standardization of table dash usage
Dash Code Meaning
- - Hyphen are not to be used to indicate anything in a table.
− &minus; Minus sign should only be used in the same way a plus sign (+) would.
–?– &ndash;?;&nash Unknown/No data
— &emdash; Not applicable

Headbomb: So you suggest we do the PManderson thing and allow a choice between en and em dashes? I suppose on this occasion I could be swung around to agree, reluctantly. (Never let it be said that I'm inflexible!) And although your system of symbols in the table are logical and nicely worked out, I think they're too elaborate for this context. Tony (talk) 13:37, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Well like I said, I'm personally against en dashes as they are not visible enough in a table, and I will never use them unless there's a consensus that em dashes are evil. I would much rather have em dashes all across than a mix of en dashes and em dashes, but if we can't find consensus on this, then MoS shouldn't favor either. The table thing isn't meant as much more than a way to present things on the MoS. I'm a fan of tables, as they allow things to be summed up very neatly. See Common mathematical symbols for another example of the "summarization power" of tables. With em dashes, of course :P. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 14:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

As I have said above, I am rather open on this one, mostly because it does not affect proper text. Unless some major advantage or disadvantage in either option transpires, I say we go with the "use either an en dash or an em dash, centred, and consistently within an article" principle. Although I find em dashes rather long for this use, it might actually depend on the width of a table's columns which one would look better. This is largely a formatting issue, so I advocate flexibility. Waltham, The Duke of 03:56, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Query

Edit mode toolbar


Insert: –(endash) —(emdash) ... ‘ “ ’ ” ° ″ ′ ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − (minus sign minutely larger than the hyphen) × ÷ ← → · § Sign your username: ~~~~ (on talk pages)


Am I right? Or have I misunderstood

  • [—] ie. Emdash = The long dash in the edit mode is emdash and can also be obtained by typing &mdash;
    • Never spaced
Usage: Wikipedia—one of the most popular web sites—has the information you need
  • [–] ie. Endash = Also available in the edit toolbar or type &ndash;
  • Same for above; for example, both of these (en and emdash) can also be entered from Internet Explorer by using an alt keypad combo of 0150 or 0151. Depends on your browser; see Dash. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Mainly for disjunction
    • Spaced or unspaced
Usage: pp. 12–45
  • [-] = Hyphen = Available on the keyboard.
  • To join words and to separate syllables.
    • Never spaced
Usage: non-violence (word), atti-tude (syllable)

Now the queries

  • When to use spaces while using endash? (WP:MOS#Dashes is not clear to me)
  • How to use the space? Whether the html entity &nbsp; or the spacebar space?

KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 (talk) 15:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Personally I space the en dash when it's used to separate parts of sentences (i.e. in the role which can also be performed by an unspaced em dash). Also in a few special cases like 1 January 1999 – 2 February 2004. Otherwise it generally shouldn't be spaced. I believe it's recommended to use a no-break space before the dash, but a spacebar (breaking) space after.
Only if it actually breaks wrongly, which will rarely happen. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:57, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
By the way, can anyone refer to a dictionary definition of "disjunction" which shows that it means what it's supposed to mean in the en-dash recommendation? It doesn't seem to fit any of the normal meanings of the word.--Kotniski (talk) 16:43, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Meaning that we write "Mexican–American War" because wars tend to disunify, and "blood–brain barrier" because barriers tend to separate? But would we not equally be urged to write "Mexican–American Union" and "blood–brain coalescence", if such concepts existed, despite the lack of any implication of disconnexion?--Kotniski (talk) 18:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I think that's the intent: Mexico and the United States, bloodstream and brain, are two pairs of disjoint things. As I read the section, it might encourage hyphens in your second examples. But do remember that I oppose the section as vague nonsense, and this sort of thing is why the endash, a printer's invention, is re-uniting with the hyphen. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Or Tony1–Manderson sniping. Tony (talk) 13:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Sure: "blood–brain barrier", "Mexican–American War", "3–1 win". But as below, if there's a space within one or both of the items, the en dash needs to be spaced: "3 August 1980 – 15 September 1991", but "3–7 August". Tony (talk) 17:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Requirements for nbsp are discussed at WP:NBSP. When the surrounding elements have spaces (such as full dates), the endash is spaced. Example:
  • 1950–1951 (unspaced endash because no spaces in surrounding elements)
  • July 1950 – June 1951 (spaced endash because of spaces in surrounding elements)
Also, any of the methods for entering the correct dash can be used interchangeably (there was a recent FAC where it was stated that an html endash must be used, and the nominator unnecessarily replaced all of the correct endashes with html endashes. This wasn't necessary; any input method can be used, as long as the correct dash results. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Well now I feel a bit more confident about dashes! Sandy ain't the FAC delegate for no reason. She knows a lot of stuff! KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 (talk) 17:47, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Unnecessary pictures

Quick question: Where's the guideline that says "don't use pictures if they don't add anything to the article"? Thanks, Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 16:01, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:OFFTOPIC. I doubt it says anything about images in particular, but does it have to? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Anderson's link is useful. But we have the warning in FA Criterion 3 already: "It has images and other media where they are appropriate" (my italics). FL Criterion 6 says "it has images if they are appropriate to the subject". We're safe! Tony (talk) 17:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
It should be common sense. Images are visual cues for the reader that tell them their attention is needed. Why disrupt their reading for decorations? --Laser brain (talk) 17:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I should like to note that, while FA criteria may give an idea of what great articles should be like, they do not have guideline status. For future reference. Waltham, The Duke of 04:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
His Grace makes a good point; I answered as though this were FAC talk. Matthew, do you have examples of overuse and/or gratuitous/unnecessary use? Tony (talk) 08:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
This revision, of gold, silver and bronze pictures in the tables. They've been removed now, but something to reference when this thing occurs would be helpful, especially when not dealing with FAC/FLCs. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 20:12, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't know what Laser Brain will think, but those look like visual cues to the reader to me. If there is consensus they're clutter in these tables, fine; but it doesn't look like we need guidance for this matter of taste. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

←I agree with Anderson that this is hard to pin down in a guideline. People, reviewers, can appeal to common sense and the disadvantages of visual clutter to persuade, yes? Tony (talk) 05:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes it's useful to have one or two "artistic" pictures relevant to the topic, which may not be as informational as others, simply to create an impression of quality. There is consensus on not including decorative fair-use images, since this risks falling afoul of fair use law. Dcoetzee 00:39, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

En dashes in page names

Why was the following removed as "nonsense"?

When naming an article, a hyphen is not used as a substitute for an en dash that properly belongs in the title, for example in Eye–hand span. However, editors should provide a redirect page to such an article, using a hyphen in place of the en dash (e.g., Eye-hand span), to allow the name to be typed easily when searching Wikipedia. See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision). The associated talk page name should match the page name exactly.

Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 07:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think the better question would be why it was ever included to begin with. : - ) Using en and em dashes in page titles ruins everyday page linking and needlessly creates redirects. A standard hyphen is surely sufficient, and balances the need for a dash with the need to be able to link to a page easily (most keyboards don't have an en dash key). Is there any reason for the MoS to prescribe that en dashes be used? --MZMcBride (talk) 07:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Only if the title is acutally an en dash. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 07:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Certainly. But that's a rare case. Mexican-American War does not require the use of an en dash, and nothing is lost by using a standard hyphen. It's certainly easier to link Mexican-American War than it is to link Mexican–American War or Mexican—American War.

I went crawling through the page history and isolated the diff that changed this rule from being merely a suggestion to being the law of the land. (See here.) There doesn't appear to be any consensus or discussion behind the move, and as such, I propose changing the language back to being a suggestion, rather than being a requirement. Thoughts? --MZMcBride (talk) 08:02, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

  • [multiple edit conflicts]v Where were you two when this gained clear consensus, ages ago? McBride, do not make substantial changes to MOS without raising them here first. I haven't heard of the inclusion of em dashes in article titles (can't imagine why that would occur), but en dashes have a quite different meaning to hyphens; the main text in such articles needs to follow the MOS guideline, so why should the title of the article clash with this? Who wants internal inconsistency (may as well use British spelling in the title and US spelling in the opening sentence)? The need for redirects is there anyway, whether en dashes or the erroneous hyphens are used; redirects are just a fact of life in an efficiently run site. And no, "Mexican–American War" certainly does require an en dash, despite the renegade reversions of the change back to hyphen that I've heard about. That issue is going to have to be dealt with sooner or later. Now, if you're really foxed about how to produce an en dash on your keyboard, see this. I'll pipe the link in the MOS section now (it's unpiped to the whole dash article at the moment). Tony (talk) 08:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
  • PS Why are you presenting erroneous red links in an attempt to bolster your position? An em dash is totally wrong in that context. Tony (talk) 08:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
    • (even more edit conflicts) I am afraid that the honourable colleague focuses exclusively upon the technical side of the matter, and in so doing forgets the work-arounds which have been devised in order to address an equally, if more, important issue: accuracy. This is an encyclopaedia, ladies and gentlemen, and it is of paramount importance to say things as they are. En dashes improve legibility and often show fine differences in meaning or indicate important technical details. Discontinuing their usage while it creates no disruption (What's wrong with redirects? And why can't links use en dashes?) is at least counter-productive. (PS: Em dashes are wrong in pretty much all contexts in titles; I have yet to see an exception, even though I guess there must be one somewhere.) Waltham, The Duke of 08:10, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Look, the linking thing is a red herring; there's no problem with using a redirect as a link. Similarly for navigation--just type the name with the hyphen into the search box and you'll get to the right place. So the only question is, which form do we want to see at the top of the page? In the case of Mexican–American War I have no strong feelings, but I suppose there's some utility to the endash to make it clear that it wasn't (or at least not especially) a war about Mexican-Americans, but rather between Mexicans and Americans. Similarly the Michelson−Morely experiment wasn't performed by a single physicist named Michelson-Morely. --Trovatore (talk) 08:12, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The issue is that people should be able to type the title without the use of redirects. And now that people have taken to using automated tools to attempt to change thousands of page titles, this becomes a larger issue quite quickly. Tony: I see no consensus (as I tried to demonstrate with that diff) to make the MoS require en dashes. In fact, for years, it was merely optional – a suggestion, really. And the claim that the need for redirects is there anyway is a bit silly. I doubt many people are searching using en dashes, eh? So I really don't understand why the bit about page titles can't go back to being a suggestion rather than a mandate. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The use of en dashes has been well established on WP for some time. Go take a look at the FAC room. If you really don't understand the important difference in meaning, the improvement in the reader's comprehension of the relevant compound items (even if they don't quite understand the formal set of rules), and the improved visual appearance, I'm very willing to give you free private lessons. It's really not hard, and serious WPian writers/editors (particularly those preparing featured content) seem to have no problem in grasping the concept and the keystrokes. More broadly, most good styleguides (for hard-copy text) insist on the use of en dashes; on-screen, where the display is often rather small, hyphens are often difficult to discern when not merely joining two words, but signifying apposition or opposition between them, as in the title of the unfortunate war, and in ranges. Tony (talk) 08:27, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Apart from the other things that I have mentioned above, Mr McBride seems to ignore the speed with which events unfold on Wikipedia. Two years can make the place largely unrecognisable; the whole site has reached this point in seven. I daresay that we are driving fast (although not necessarily fast enough) towards professionalism in many aspects of article-writing, and that many of the old guidelines have had to be modified along the way to conform to our changing demands for quality. Inline citations used to be an unknown concept, and look at them now; is it hard to believe that this can also happen with dashes? Waltham, The Duke of 08:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
The difference there was that inline citations were a good idea. This change made no sense to begin with, and has no consensus support anywhere. Look, I really don't care what sort of dash you use in articles. However, until you convince computer manufacturers to put the en dash on conventional keyboards, this does not belong in article titles. It's ludicrous to create a situation where our readers can't physically access thousands of articles without the assistance of redirects due to the concern of a tiny handful of users about the proper length of a line. It badly interferes with the usability of project for its readers for absolutely no good reason. People generally overlook these issues because they generally don't matter, but this is one thing that you're going to actually need to establish a consensus to do if you don't want every move to be vigorously opposed. I dare you - take this to the village pump or any communal discussion space that isn't solely frequently by the MOS fanatics and see if this proposal lasts five minutes. There was no consensus when this was put in place, there's no consensus here, and there's sure as hell no consensus on the broader project for this. Rebecca (talk) 10:54, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Right. Consensus is only what Rebecca from Adelaide thinks. The fact that you "don't care what sort of dash" is used in articles kind of excludes you from the discussion, doesn't it? En and em dashes are on keyboards, and genius is not required to use them. Do you want a private lesson in it? I'll willing give you one. But no one else on WP requires that. What kind of keyboard do you have that makes it incomprehensible? Tony (talk) 11:20, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
No, consensus is demonstrated support among a decent sized group of people, rather than the support of a very vocal group of three people with not insignificant opposition. And no, you don't get to exclude me from the conversation because I'm not going to get rabidly worked up about the length of a line except where some buffoon tries to force the project to use a character that isn't on keyboards in article titles instead of a perfectly usable one that is. I think the fact that you suggest a lesson is needed to find out how in hades one uses one of these precious extra-special lines is telling: the fact it isn't actually marked on the keyboard suggests that the vast majority of our readers ain't getting it either. Rebecca (talk) 11:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Talking about consensus: Can we at least agree that, in the prose, the repeatedly cited Mexican–American War uses an en dash and not a hyphen when the correct type setting is applied? Trovatore has nicely pointed out that in this specific case the en dash is in deed required to produce the intended meaning. It would be a good starting point if Rebecca and McBride could make clear that we are not arguing about the necessity of the en dash for this example in the prose.
Assuming agreement on the above point, I would then conclude that it is the correct type setting for the title of the article, if this was not an online encyclopedia. Remains the objection about functionality or usability of the Wikipedia. I agree that (almost!) nobody would type an en dash in a search window. Therefore, if we use the en dash in the title we must create a re-direct using a hyphen. OK, is there a way out of this compulsory re-direct? Can we use the hyphen in the article title—thereby introducing a typesetting mistake which is considered minor by many? The claim is that everybody would easily find the article even without re-direct. I hope I understood the argumentation correctly. Otherwise, corrections will be most welcome.
Well, I disagree that a re-direct can thus be avoided. Why? Don't forget that some people use copy paste plus search box to search for new articles and the copy function will likely (if used on a good quality article) collect the America–Mexican War spelled with an en dash.
For this case a solution is also necessary. I think it is clear from this argumentation that one re-direct is needed anyways. So, I think that the MoS should suggest to use the correct type setting also in the article and declares the creation of a re-direct as mandatory. Tomeasytalk 12:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
As I said above, I have no particular concern either way which dash should be used in the text, or which would be used in a hypothetical non-online encyclopedia. My sole concern here is the functionality issues created by moving thousands of articles to titles that cannot be accessed by most people without redirects. It looks ugly as hell to consistently have to see the redirect warning on every single page a reader goes to with a dash in the title, and there's no good reason to have to do that.
What I'm challenging here is the need for the compulsory redirect: we can have a technically very minor typesetting mistake that makes no difference to the functionality of the encyclopedia, at least until computer manufacturers decide to stick the en dash on their keyboards. I am not fussed at the prospect of having a redirect from the en-dash, but it would seem like a lot of work considering virtually no one is going to go to that title directly. Rebecca (talk) 12:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Forgive my technical ignorance, but is a redirect obvious to the visitor? I'd have thought it seamlessly led to the right destination. Isn't it the type of thing that the creator of an article (or someone who comes along after, or a bot) can do in ten seconds? I don't see the problem. And yes, Mexican–American War should be fixed so it has an en dash. Trovatore points out above the very reason the correct punctuation should be observed. Tony (talk) 12:51, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Yes. Whenever you've been redirected from a page, you have a notice in largeish font at the top of the page informing you of the page you've been redirected from. It's a helpful thing in the vast majority of cases, but it becomes a downright nuisance when it starts appearing on every single page with a dash in the title. It's one time when it would be really helpful for you folks to suck it up and say "okay, it's not 100% technically perfect, but it does interfere with the usability of the pages and there's no other alternative, so we'll let it slide." Rebecca (talk) 13:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) I congratulate Tony on his use of irony, in the classical sense; but of course redirects are obvious to the visitor; there's this tag, right under the title, saying (Redirected from Mexican–American War). As Tony knows, from the last time (or was it the time before?), some editors find this a visual defect. I don't care so much myself.
  • I am not fully persuaded by Trovatore's semantic argument, although it is infinitely better than the WP:IDONTLIKEIT all too common on this page. The compounds in question are Mexican-American War and Mexican-American population, which latter is customarily abbreviated Mexican-Americans. These are compounds of the same type, and fundamentally of the same meaning: "From both sides of the boundary between Mexico and the United States". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Rebecca, I understand what you're saying. But the problem then arises that we have a hyphen in the title and thenceforth an en dash in the very same compound item throughou the main text. This was one of the most frustrating aspects of the don't-care regime until about a year ago when the proscription against en dashes in titles was, thank god, ended. And I think folks here should be most unwilling to allow a technological deficiency at WikiMedia (yes, another one) dictate a downward slide in our formatting standards. Let the redirect issue stand, I say, so that when we finally persuade WP and Wikimedia to overhaul their program, this will be dealt with. It's a small price to pay. Anderson, I'm not as well-read as you are, nor as versed in classical knowledge, so you can't expect me to understand what "classical irony" means. And ... um ... the grammar of your last clause needs a good look. Tony (talk) 13:27, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
  • See, why is having a hyphen in the title and an en dash in the text going to be a problem? It's something that isn't going to be noticed by 99% of users, and those who do notice are generally going to know why it is the way it is. The problem here isn't with the Wikimedia software - it's just that it isn't (and can't be) designed to have forty thousand redirects from to make up for the fact that computer manufacturers don't put the en dash on their keyboards. It's a slight thing that for once I really wish you might consider overlooking, Tony. Rebecca (talk) 13:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

←Rebecca, by "computer manufacturers don't put the en dash on their keyboards", I presume you mean that they don't allocate this function to a single keystroke, as they do the hyphen. Do I see a show of support for not using the degree symbol just because it requires two fingers simultaneously, not one? Or parentheses? And while we're at it, no more superscript please; and those monstrous non-breaking spaces are out – they require SIX keystrokes. Really, we're all aspiring to a professional standard of writing and formatting, aren't we? Tony (talk) 13:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as I understand, it has been appreciated that in any case we need a re-direct, no matter whether the article is name with an en dash or a hyphen.
So, comes the new objection that the re-direction message is ugly. Personally, I am not fuzzed about this message whenever it appears. I think it is even informative for the reader, as they may find out that who the compounded word is correctly type set, if they are interested in the re-direct message. If they aren't, then I do not see why they would bother about this message, but just read over it.
What worries me a bit in this discussion is that some do not even acknowledge that it is for good that wikipedia discriminates hyphens and dashes. From my point of view, n terms of style, this is a simple pre-requisit of any high-quality reference. Tomeasytalk 13:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I think it is important to have correct punctuation in article titles. I find the small and grayish redirect message nearly imperceptible, but if people really find it annoying, perhaps someone can design a stylesheet that makes it even grayer and smaller, moves it somewhere else, or hides it outright. --Itub (talk) 14:52, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Or ask the developers to make hyphens in the search box go to en dashes automatically (without even a redirect), like initial lower-case letters currently go to capitals.--Kotniski (talk) 14:58, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
On the principle that we should devote time to important things in preference to unimportant things, I'm not going to get worked up about this. No one is going to be shocked, shocked to see a hyphen where they were expecting an en-dash and vice versa; Wikipedia has bigger problems than this. There are good reasons both ways, and since people are doing more and more of their own publishing these days, the general trend is in the direction of hyphens, but we haven't arrived there yet. A few relevant facts:
  • AP Stylebook has given up on recommending that en-dashes ever be used to link two words; there's no mention of this use in the long sections on hyphens and en-dashes.
  • Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, which is one of the most commonly-used dictionaries in the US, uses a hyphen in its own name in a place where current WP:MOS guidelines say to use an en-dash.
  • Chicago does mention a variety of uses for en-dashes as links, but they give exactly one example below that supports our recommendation of en-dashes to link words (London–Paris train) and one that contradicts it (U.S.-Canadian relations), in a long list of other uses for the en-dash (principally, to connect numbers, and to connect with a phrase instead of a word):
Her college years, 1998–2002, were the happiest in her life.
For documentation and indexing, see chapters 16–18.
In Genesis 6:13–22 we find God’s instructions to Noah.
Join us on Thursday, 11:30 a.m.–4:00 p.m., to celebrate the New Year.
The London–Paris train leaves at two o’clock.
I have blocked out December 2002–March 2003 to complete my manuscript.
Her articles appeared in Postwar Journal (3 November 1945–4 February 1946).
Green Bay beat Denver 31–24.
The legislature voted 101–13 to adopt the resolution.

Professor Plato’s survey (1999–) will cover the subject in the final volume.
Jane Doe (1950–); or Jane Doe (b. 1950)

the post–World War II years
a hospital–nursing home connection
a nursing home–home care policy
a quasi-public–quasi-judicial body (or, better, a judicial body that is
   quasi-public and quasi-judicial)
but
non-English-speaking peoples
a wheelchair-user-designed environment (or, better, an environment
   designed for wheelchair users)

(Abbreviations for compounds are treated as single words, so a hyphen, not
   an en dash, is used in such phrases as “U.S.-Canadian relations.”)
 
the University of Wisconsin–Madison
the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

I suggest that we acknowledge that there's a large, pre-existing base of GAs and FAs that follow the long-standing WP:MOS guideline, that this guideline is and was based both on a nice simplicity (hyphen for "and", en-dash for "or" and "between"), and on a solid foundation of the way things were done in the publishing world for a long time, that this issue is not all that important, and that we revisit it from time to time as journalists move gradually in the direction of converting to hyphens. I'll be happy to discuss it in January, but I'm not going to discuss it every month. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Hah! I notice that <pre> completely mangled that, representing hyphens and en-dashes as being the same length. More evidence, if needed, that people are paying less and less attention. Let's try again. It's all en-dashes, except for:
  • the post–World War II years
  • a hospital–nursing home connection
  • a nursing home–home care policy
  • a quasi-public–quasi-judicial body (or, better, a judicial body that is quasi-public and quasi-judicial)
  • but
  • non-English-speaking peoples
  • a wheelchair-user-designed environment (or, better, an environment designed for wheelchair users)
  • (Abbreviations for compounds are treated as single words, so a hyphen, not an en dash, is used in such phrases as “U.S.-Canadian relations.”) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
One more thing. This dash issue is brought up from time to time as evidence that the people that wrote the long-standing rules are out-of-touch rules fascists. Even though my personal position is somewhere in the middle, what I take away from the discussions I've read is exactly the opposite. Although things are gradually becoming simpler, rules for dashes have traditionally been very difficult. A variety of intelligent people talked about it and decided that, even though it's a little bit of an over-simplification, the rules could be simplified down to "hyphen, and, en-dash, or and between", and that would come very close to representing traditional publishing practice and be a hell of a lot easier to explain. Encyclopedic writing also is much better when it doesn't use a lot of extra words to represent a simple concept, and en-dashes are great for representing a simple concept in a simple way. The rules were designed for ease of use and to benefit a crisp encyclopedic style, and not for any other reason, that I can see. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:02, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
There could be many worse recommendations, and if these were phrased and treated as recommendations, I could nearly agree with Dank's argument; for one thing, that would include acknowledgement that there are other legitimate methods of doing things. But look how WP:DASH is treated in FA reviews, and you will see demands for unthinking compliance with these rules, at least nine times out of ten. (That, of course, is in the minority of cases it is cited at all; whether mindless control of punctuation is worse than no review at all is a matter of taste, but we should aim for a middle ground.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:14, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Many issues in MOS require a lot of explaining, and the challenge is just to do it as simply and briefly as possible. I can't imagine Capital letters tossed off in a sentences. Tony (talk) 16:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
We could try for as clearly and accurately as possible, but there seems to be consensus against that...Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:14, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Why are you all ignoring the fact that the naming conventions, which are policy, dictate that en-dashes are to be used in article names? And have done so for over a year? This conversation should be happening there. In any case, my argument has been iterated many times above: They look better, redirects are not even remotely a big deal, etc. There is no accessibility issue. Also Mexican-American war was moved to the hyphen version because of a technical restriction. Not because of any of the issues opposers on this page have brought up.--Dycedarg ж 17:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

It says that, and when you look here it gives the instances in which en-dashes are to be used. Explicit statement on that page that that's what it means, when such is obvious, shouldn't be necessary. The technical restriction hasn't existed in over a year; what I was saying is that the specific example of Mexican-American War is moot because it was moved back for technical reasons, not because any consensus existed at the time that the current name was more correct.--Dycedarg ж 18:29, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm wholly in favour of using the correct en dash where it should be used by proper style in article titles. With redirects, there's no reason not to do it. —Nightstallion 21:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

From where I stand, as long as
  1. the usage of en dashes in text is not disputed, and
  2. there is no way to prove that more people will reach an article through the go button rather than through a link or a search page (especially in the cases of many lists, which have long names difficult to get right the first time),
it is impossible to know that with using hyphens in the titles we shall have fewer redirects. As style in articles is steadily improving and a great percentage of links now makes provision for en dashes, moving articles back to hyphenated versions will either create redirects (avoiding which is the entire point of the discussion, although, for the record, I don't mind them at all) or force us to pipe-link where it is hardly necessary, making things realistically harder for editors (in contrast to the implications of having a line saying "redirect" below the title, which the honourable colleagues have failed to actually present to us).
And all this is said without considering the advantages of accuracy and clarity that the usage of dashes offers. Ignoring them in order to gain something in terms of usability is an argument, even though I categorically disagree that not seeing redirects is such a gain; ignoring them only to end up with nearly as many redirects constitutes a pointless sacrifice resulting in net loss. Waltham, The Duke of 23:02, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
As far as I understand Rebecca's argument, she's not objecting to the existence of redirects, but to readers arriving at the article through a redirect. This will happen when they type the simple hyphenated form and arrive at the endashed one. I write subject to correction, of course. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:14, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Certainly, that's what I meant. If my phrasing indicated otherwise, I apologise. Waltham, The Duke of 02:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Then I don't see why the creation of redirects from the endashed form to the hyphenated form matters; readers won't use them. That's what misled me. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:09, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I meant that if we were to use hyphenated titles instead of en-dashed ones, then the en-dashed links would have the readers use redirects almost as often as they would through the search box for en-dashed titles. Therefore, no real gain. Waltham, The Duke of 19:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't see arriving at an article via a redirect as a usability problem. The only usability problem I can envisage is that people will create redirects to the hyphenated titles, thus unknowingly creating double-redirects. But the days of having to fix these problems manually are long gone - this is easy fodder for a bot. Hesperian 00:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
It's ugly, and it's unnecessary. Let's put it this way: we can have fifty thousand redirects that the ordinary reader is going to notice and think "eh, what happened there?" - or fifty thousand hyphens which about thirty people on the project find a stylistic gripe with. The issue doesn't arise with text; the reader doesn't notice it, and it's easy enough for the ordinary editor to cover it, but it's madness to force article titles to use a character that the vast majority of our readers have no idea how to actually enter. Rebecca (talk) 01:51, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
How can you arbitrarily declare that more people are annoyed by redirect notices than care about whether or not dashes are used? Do you have some way of polling the general population of readers you haven't shared? I have never heard someone complain that redirect notices are ugly, nor seen a thread in the village pump asking the devs to make them prettier. Don't think village pump readers are too petty for something like that either, there was a massive thread about whether or not the little guy who appears next to usernames at the top of the page in monobook was racist. You don't know whether or not people would like dashes more, nor have you demonstrated that they dislike, or are confused by, redirect notices.--Dycedarg ж 02:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
It's not a matter of "liking dashes". It's a matter of the vast majority of the population not knowing the difference; hell, before I came on Wikipedia, I'd never met anyone who knew the difference, let alone cared about it. Redirect notices are generally fine - they alert you to where you've been redirected from, and it does its job. It's just when you have to have one pop up every single time one accesses a page with a dash in the title that it becomes very annoying. As far as the vast majority of our readers are going to be concerned, they're going to be constantly getting irritating redirect notices that appear to have redirected from exactly the same title. While I get that there's something of a bias on this particular page towards people who are absolutely fascinated by things like the length of a dash, it's just bad practice to force the tens of thousands of commonly-accessed pages to use a character that the vast majority of our readers cannot type on their keyboards. Rebecca (talk) 02:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Every single time? Hardly. You have practically ignored my comment above; people might reach an article through a link or a search page as often as they do through a direct, successful request at the search box. And if en dashes are used in text, they are used in links, and if the article has been moved to the hyphenated version, the reader will have to pass through a redirect.
Oops. That's what you were trying to avoid, right? Waltham, The Duke of 02:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Er, no. What I'm suggesting is simple, and what is still actually done in practice in most areas (witness the links to Mexican-American War cited above); keep the article title and the links to it at the one that people can actually type, and do whatever the hell you like with the rest of the text. It is of course true that there are other ways to access the article, but why is it so unreasonable that one should actually be able to access the article by normal means without the use of a redirect? I've yet to see a compelling reason to enforce this on the project besides WP:ILIKEIT - there's just no good reason why can't make a practical exception for article titles. Rebecca (talk) 02:56, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I think what people here would like to consider a compelling reason to enforce this on the project is "It is grammatically incorrect, and this is an encyclopaedia". Hesperian 03:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
So, if I understand correctly, Rebecca has moved from "keep en dashes in the text" to "keep en dashes in the text except for links". And then we are forced to either compromise professional writing by creating massive inconsistency within articles, or we have to flood them with avoidable and meaningless pipe-links, complicating the edit window more than is warranted. Unless I am imagining these problems—and I have good reason to believe that I am not—they have probably flown right past the honourable colleague. The thing is, the further we pursue this discussion, the more insane and convoluted Rebecca's suggestions sound; this profound lack of simplicity and common sense is not the mark of a sound proposal.
Neither is the fact that a simple style issue which might as well be fixable by a script asserts precedence over Wikipedia's mission as an encyclopaedia. Waltham, The Duke of 04:52, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

←Now that Rebecca has calmed down from her earlier hysteria (referring to me as a "buffoon", etc, and to many of my colleagues here as "people who are absolutely fascinated by things like the length of a dash"); and now that it's apparent people here don't go along with Anderson's characterisation of MOS as being ruled by a few obsessive zealots, let's examine the latest assertions. While considerably down the shock-horror scale, they are nonetheless on a par with what spin doctors for politicians come up with:

Redirect notices are generally fine – they alert you to where you've been redirected from, and it does its job. It's just when you have to have one pop up every single time one accesses a page with a dash in the title that it becomes very annoying.

It's as though half of the articles had an en dash or required one. Um ... no; it's a rather tiny proportion. If they really make your sides ache, your cache settings should prevent the display of the redirect where you need to access a page more than once in a session. Mine do.

to use a character that the vast majority of our readers cannot type on their keyboards

But ... they don't have to type it. Nor do readers have to write good prose; we have to.

... before I came on Wikipedia, I'd never met anyone who knew the difference, let alone cared about it

Yeah but no but yeah but. We're engaged here in what is effectively the business of publishing on a scale never seen before, not of writing substandard undergraduate essays. Publishing houses have to deal with these matters; ordinary readers don't, but will benefit even if they're unfamiliar with the finer points of the en-dash vs. hyphen issue. Tony (talk) 03:20, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I honestly don't see any consensus for having it be a requirement that page titles use en dashes instead of hyphens. It can be a suggestion, it can be part of the featured article guidelines, but it really shouldn't be mandatory (which is how it is being interpreted currently). What is the issue with keeping it optional? --MZMcBride (talk) 05:47, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Confusing inconsistency? Bad writing practice? We might have all sorts of mistakes in our articles, but the titles are more important, more prominent, and harder to change; these should be paid more attention. And what does, in any case, "optional" mean? A lease of time? Because if a format is better, then sooner or later it will be adopted. And we'll have an inconsistent mess all the way until then. We've had it so far; let us bring about some order now. Waltham, The Duke of 06:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Precisely. In my opinion, as far as style and precision is concerned, Wikipedia should not follow "do what others do" (i.e., WP:COMMON and similar things), but rather should try to follow the highest standards of typography, precision, etc. possible. —Nightstallion 13:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree. It's not as if anyone's going to be thrown off Wikipedia for breaching punctuation guidelines, but we can ensure that clear guidance is there for those who do care, and that we have a community document to appeal to if people start opposing or reverting stylistic improvements to articles. --Kotniski (talk) 16:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
You are asking what this same "clear guideline" means, a couple sections below. The answer is: it doesn't mean much. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:03, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
(German accent) The Manual of Style rarely means much to P. M. Anderson. I, Dr Sigmund Fraud, expert psychoanalyst, have concluded that Mr Anderson is experiencing intense suffering stemming from repressed memories connected to a traumatic incident involving the Manual, which prevents him from comprehending it or even wanting to attempt to understand it. I suggest a series of very expensive therapy sessions, which will mostly work by boosting Mr Anderson's morale and self-esteem, as well as in other ways I have yet to study, as my professional skills are rather dubious, really. :-D Waltham, The Duke of 22:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Motion to close

The arguments in favour of retaining the guideline in question are overwhelming, as is the support towards it, even from people who do not frequent these noble halls of style. There are issues here of high-quality encyclopaedic writing, internal consistency, and usability, and unless there is a satisfactory reply to all these concerns, I am removing the "disputed" tag from the page on 27 June. I request that it should be retained until then, so that no objections can be raised on grounds of due-process violation, contempt of the community, hostile environment causing bias, etc. We want to be fair. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 19:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

In a month or two we will have another complaintant. The solution is to word this as a recommendation rather than a prescription; but if we are going to treat this vague buncombe as a Higher Truth, which needs no justification or evidence but our lordly say-sos, I don't suppose that will happen. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
"word this as a recommendation rather than a prescription" \o/ Couldn't have said it better myself. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:54, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
If there is another complainer, they should be referred to this discussion. It is not so much how the guideline is worded here; rather, it is the context thereof that one must understand. In text, we do not force any editors to follow the Manual of Style—if someone wants to apply it, they do so; if they are unaware of it or prefer not to bother, they are free to ignore it. What they cannot do is revert edits that apply the Manual, so sooner or later its provisions will be applied on text. But the vehicle for this application will be the free will of editors.
(Featured Articles are the exception here, but why? Because FA is a process, and if one wishes to participate, one has no choice but to follow the criteria of this process. If the most important thing for a person is to write hours as 07.00 AM, they can do so, but under two conditions: they should not revert edits changing it to 07:00 am, and they should not visit FA.)
An exaggeration, fortunately. But that's not the problem; rather the problem is reviewers who post as though writing "07:00&nbsp;am" were the only important thing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:14, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
For them it might be, but there is, thankfully, something called specialisation. Let them worry for the hard space (which is an improvement, by the way, so it is not a bad thing to have someone point it out in a FAC), and other editors will take care of the rest. FAC is such a good process exactly because there are people to comment on everything, offering a more spherical view of the article examined and its deficiencies. Waltham, The Duke of 03:43, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
On the other hand, titles are not simply a way to write things; they represent the location of pages. This is above plain grammatical conventions, and is connected to the way Wikipedia's fundamental unit of information is organised, namely articles. Accuracy, brevity, consistency, and clarity are of paramount importance, and individual initiative is, and should be, minimal. This is why Naming Conventions is policy and the Manual of Style is a guideline. It's how things work around here. Waltham, The Duke of 22:03, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
And which of "Accuracy, brevity, consistency, and clarity" are affected by the section at issue? Not brevity; endashes are longer, if minimally so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:06, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I was speaking generally. I shall be more specific, then: en dashes offer more clarity, and the guideline not naming hyphens as an equally valid option offers consistency. Accuracy is also gained, as Wikipedia clearly uses en dashes, and should therefore use them properly, and not in a confusing and haphazard (and confusing in its haphazardness) fashion. Waltham, The Duke of 03:43, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I really don't understand why this discussion is still going on. It is clearly a good thing to have a certain uniformness in our articles. There are a lot of other things that are more important, but I am not aware of any that would contradict this particular prescription. We could prescribe the opposite; but that would be worse. We could make more complicated rules; nobody seems to want that.

No articles are deleted for failure to follow the MOS. No editors are banned for obstinately ignoring the MOS prescriptions. It's even possible to be an extremely active editor in ndash-infested articles without ever writing an ndash, so long as you don't revert ndashes back to hyphens just for the sake of doing it. We have a choice between ever so ugly redirects appearing when we enter something into a WP search form, or when we follow a link from WP or Google. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Because of his Grace's admission above, which would be more accurately phrased "if editors are not willing to spend endless time changing every jot and tittle of an article to the preferences of the handful of dogmatists at MOS, they might as well not visit FA." That is one of Wikipedia's major problems; that there is no reward for actually writing excellent articles, because our reward system has been taken over by reviewers who do not discuss content, but who have unlimited demands on punctuation. Let these pages be written so they are recommendations at FA as well as elsewhere, and I will be content;if this page concedes that it is a handful of preferences and recommendations, which are neither necessary nor sufficient for a professional standard of prose, I will take this page off my watchlist. When FA actually discusses content intelligently, it is one of Wikipedia's best processes; let it do so more often. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:50, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I am surprised indeed that Mr Anderson should have so low an opinion of one of our most important processes. FA status does not exist for the sole purpose of rewarding hard work, and although I am not claiming that diligent editors should be content with a barnstar, the view that Featured Articles should be anything else than the best that Wikipedia has to offer to our readership—from all aspects—is sadly mistaken. This community is like every other society in that it allows for specialisation and delegation of work; even if there are some editors who can single-handedly bring stubs to FA status, this is not the rule. Every editor has strengths and weaknesses, and while some are good with sources, they might be awful writers—and vice versa. There is nothing wrong with contributors soliciting the aid of colleagues in order to ensure the elevation of articles to the class of our very finest content, and there are both the editors with the knowledge and interest to help and the means to find them. If nominators don't do so, then they might end up discussing punctuation more than content, but this at least means that the content is not so bad, or it should certainly take precedence.
Even so, the quality classification system is being modified to make the class designations clearer, and put in place a site-wide project-based system for both B-class and A-class articles; if it works well, content concerns will have been mostly addressed before an article is listed as FAC. Waltham, The Duke of 03:31, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Is it is one of Wikipedia's best processes a low opinion? But FA varies unpredictably between too lax and too stringent, and many reviewers appear to stray into pinuctaion, not because nothing is wrong with the content, but because they don't know anything about the content. If this resulted in a comment and abstain, it would be mildly helpful; but all too often it is an oppose. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
No, "there is no reward for actually writing excellent articles" is. Please re-read the first paragraph of my message above, especially the second and fifth sentence.
FA is not infallible. From my limited experience with the process, the technical criteria do seem to be on the forefront; on the other hand, remember that they are easier to determine, and there are so many of them anyway: section length and balance, grammar and style, images (suitability, copyright, captions), reference and footnote consistency... In any case, I cannot say what should be done in the FAC process, but articles there have made a long trip and are more likely than not to have only minor content problems, or none at all. And I've mentioned the strengthening of A-class, haven't I? Waltham, The Duke of 20:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Hans: It's pretty simple, really. This is being discussed because someone is trying to use a bot to move thousands of pages under this "policy." (Nevermind the fact that this page isn't policy. ; - ) ) Rebecca, me, et al. are trying to stop is this page and in particular this piece from being enforced as the word of God. The goal is to ensure that people don't interpret this particular clause as a requirement, and instead as a suggestion that can be applied if the editors on a particular talk page agree or if the article is going through FAC or something. But the practice shouldn't be mass-implemented as it's annoying to editors to be redirected constantly. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Which bot? There are other ways of dealing with bots. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:15, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
For the last time: The naming conventions are policy. If you don't like the statement "For use of hyphens, dashes and hair spaces in page names, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes)." than get it changed. Until then, my running of my bot is justified. No consensus has thus far been demonstrated that I shouldn't do so, except the objections of the two of you. The objections of two people are neither consensus nor an indication that consensus does not exist. If in 24 hours you can't get consensus here or elsewhere that I shouldn't be doing this, my bot will run. Period. You can't block an approved bot operating within the bounds of demonstrated consensus, and should you choose to do so I will take this elsewhere.--Dycedarg ж 02:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes) redirects to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Dashes, which has a disputed tag in it, specifically in the en dash section. As I said on your talk page, making threats like this is plainly a bad idea. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:27, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I put that disputed tag there because I thought it better than Rebecca's brilliant idea of removing half the section. It shall be removed when this issue is addressed, and am quite confident that this will happen soon, as I cannot see you thinking of any argument other than "I don't like redirects". Although I do not approve of Dycedarg's tone here, he is right in that you have no case. Using en dashes in titles is a policy-endorsed and very much justified trend, in that it offers great benefits while keeping side-effects to a near-zero; it is also practically irreversible, in that full title hyphenation would be a massive setback for the project and the source of significant problems. The bot simply follows the times and speeds up the process, saving us human editors some unnecessary trouble—the style side of the matter covered, all technical aspects of the bot have been evaluated, resulting in its approval for operation. The bot in question is perfectly legitimate in every way, and the continued support towards it by people unrelated to the approval process demonstrates this aptly. Before repeating the same arguments, Mr McBride, I strongly suggest revising the above thread, where every single one of your points is refuted; perhaps you will then realise that stopping now will save us all time for doing something more constructive than arguing what is normally taken for granted. Good day. Waltham, The Duke of 06:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
(left) But does Dycedarg understand that this section, vague though it is,
  • Supports some hyphens: but a hyphen is used in Mon-Khmer languages, which marks no specific relationship, and in Sino-Japanese trade, in which Sino-, being a prefix, lacks lexical independence.
  • And that we failed, the last time we discussed this, to decide exactly where the line should be drawn.
This seems a most undesirable situation to address with a bot. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
As long as each case is checked, I see no problem. The wording was made clearer a few months ago: is it still unclear? I can provide a private lesson for you, Manderson, if you wish. Tony (talk) 13:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Ooh, thanks, Tony; you're so kind! Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:18, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

But quite seriously, the present wording is the undefined term disjunctive with a list of examples. We concluded, last time we were asked, that we weren't sure exactly why Mon-Khmer was hyphenated, and we'd have to wait for Noetica to decide how far that example extends. Is this clarity, or is it mud? (But as long as the bot doesn't work faster than it can be watched, that may work in practice.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:18, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I was just complaining to Waltham that examples in WP:DASH need improvement, but I think en-dashes should be required. There is a good reason why MS Word automatically corrects them. They are a sign of a good, academic writing and should be enforced. Renata (talk) 20:02, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) We have long drifted off-topic. As long as neither the policy status of the naming conventions nor the appropriateness and utility of en dashes in year ranges is disputed, nothing changes for the bot; all it does is to "convert" hyphens to en dashes in year ranges. If people want to discuss the particulars of the guideline on en dashes, very well; but it should be made clear that the bot may resume its operation undisturbed. Waltham, The Duke of 20:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
The bot in question is DyceBot, and yes, its operations are to be confined to year-ranges. Nothing else has been discussed yet. Personally, I feel that we have a very long way to go until the moment when robots will be sophisticated enough to successfully edit text (if they ever will); it would require a tremendous degree of analysis and I should want to see extensive materials samples of its ability to do such a task before supporting it. Words have a meaning, which differs from case to case, as does dash usage, and unless one can understand the meaning of the words, one cannot make accurate evaluations as to whether a hyphen or en dash should be used in a title. This is not true for number ranges, however, as all of them need en dashes. It is a very sweeping rule. And given that there are hardly any numbers in titles connected by dashes that are not ranges requiring en dashes, it is only once in a while that a false positive will surface. That is a risk that we can take, if we can reach general consistency earlier and with less human resources expended in so tedious a task as moving pages. Waltham, The Duke of 01:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Then that should be less of a problem. Most date ranges will be in parenthetical disambiguation, which nobody will be expected to search for. Can it create redirects with hyphens where they don't now exist too? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I have no idea, but I suppose not; redirects are created as a result of moves, and the bot mostly does that. I assume that, for articles created straight with the en-dash version, someone must create the redirects as well, if not at the same time then soon, realising that using the hyphen takes them to a search page.
Meanwhile, I should like to express my disappointment at you for trying to circumvent the consensus here; failing to change the guideline in MoS, you are now trying to have the policy on article-naming changed. I believe this is exactly the kind of behaviour the term forum shopping has been coined to describe. Waltham, The Duke of 04:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I regret disappointing Your Grace; but in fact this is precisely what Dycedarg envisioned above; I think the old wording on WP:NC less than ideal, and I took it there, citing this discussion. We'll see what happens. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
What? Whereon do you found this assertion? The man said: "If you don't like the statement 'For use of hyphens, dashes and hair spaces in page names, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes).' than get it changed." I should hardly refer to such a statement as a "vision", and it is highly misleading of you to do so. Waltham, The Duke of 00:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
His Grace should be preparing for His exams, not tangling with Anderson. Tony (talk) 05:42, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't like it (as I said there, I doubt hair spaces belong in titles at all); I brought it up for discussion, and it is now different, although I don't see a great change in policy. I will be glad to discuss this with His Grace when exams are over, and I wish him fortune. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Too late. :-)
Fresh motion for closure: if no well-founded objection is filed by the end of the current month, I am removing the disputed tag on 1 July. PMAnderson has taken the matter to the policy page, anyway. Waltham, The Duke of 20:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the tag. This discussion is officially closed. Waltham, The Duke of 08:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Straight and typographers quotes

  • I’d like to propose a modification to MOS guideline. It makes sense to generally prefer straight quotes; for the reasons so stated on MOS. However, curly (typographers) quotes look much better than straight quotes; that’s why they’re also called “typographers’ quotes.” All professionally produced literature use them. I agree that they they should not routinely be used on Wikipedia, in large part because the Windows operating system makes it so cumbersome to employ them. Further, many volunteer editors to Wikipedia wouldn’t recognize the difference between an hyphen and an emdash so the wise thing to do is to just let them pound the ol’ " key. So it makes sense to permit the use of straight quotes on Wikipedia, especially in articles that are currently in a great state of flux (either revisions or expansion). So…

    I would propose that MOS be updated with the additional caveat that when an article has reached a level of completeness and polish that it is undergoing little in the way of substantial rewrite or addition, that typographers’ quotes are permissible. This will keep Wikipedia easy to edit when articles are in a state of growth and flux, but will also put Wikipedia on the slow track towards looking more like a professional-grade publication. Greg L (talk) 02:20, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not convinced readers would actually prefer that look, even though that's how the printed EB looks. Also, I would hope software could sort out the starting quotes from the end quotes, and if someone wants their quotes to look curly, perhaps they could install a .js script to make that happen. I'd rather not make it harder to edit. If we have anything like a "completed article" on Wikipedia, it's a Featured Article, and they get a lot of new edits, generally. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:35, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
  • I think readers would appreciate the typographers quotes. I use Safari, which does a good job of rendering fonts and, IMO, they appear far superior. Are there browsers in which they look really poor? Perhaps I should do an informal poll of people I know. I wouldn’t let them know which one I prefer and just see what they think looks best. Is anyone interested in the results of that and is anyone willing to do the same on their end? And, “yes” Dank55, while there may never be a “finished” article, there are articles that have been extraordinarily stable for years that get nothing but trivial edits. Greg L (talk) 22:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
I love random surveys, I just don't always have time to do them. What do you think of the arguments below? Most people who write on the web these days use straight quotes, and they search for straight quotes. If we start having 3 different kinds of quotes, isn't that going to make information harder to find? What do you think of offering people a .js file, and if that's successful, maybe a setting in their preferences, that alternates left-curly-quotes and right-curly-quotes on their screens? The few isolated straight quotes on Wikipedia are generally mistakes ... in fact, that might be a way to help us find and fix isolated straight quotes. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:53, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
  • “¿What do you think of the arguments below?”: As far as searching, I’m not seeing that as a compelling enough of a reason to make it a driving issue. If someone was looking for either Mexico’s or Mexico's (a rare occurrence), it’s easy enough to just search on Mexico. I think the more important factor that should be the driving issue is appearance.

    Now that both Firefox 3 and Safari have anti-aliased fonts, it may be that typographers quotes look much better on these modern browsers. I know that I couldn’t possibly even look at Wikipedia pages using the older, non-anti-aliased Firefox because italic text looked positively terrible; I couldn’t even believe people put up with it. Wikipedia pages, with their frequent use of italic text looked infinitely superior on Safari. It may well be that the same font-rendering issue is at play with typographers quotes and, if so, anti-aliased rendering is rapidly replacing the old, barbaric font-rendering method.

    I would like to get to the bottom of the true facts of what appears good and bad, and to whom, and on what browsers/platforms. Some aesthetic issues, such as delimiting numeric strings, have appearance issues that are very platform-dependent. For instance, it took a lot of work and a long time to arrive at a compromise solution for delimiting numeric strings and getting the spaces alongside the times symbol to look proper, such as this one: 0.45386358×10−24 kg. Different people were saying the spaces were far too wide. It turned out that different browsers and different default fonts (mainly the former), treated em-based spacing very differently.

    So maybe the same issue is at play now. I’d like to get to the bottom of it though because what I’m seeing (Safari with anti-aliased fonts on a Mac), typographers quotes look infinitely superior.

    Let’s consider the following text:

• Guinevere picked up Lancelot’s sword and commanded “follow me.”
• Guinevere picked up Lancelot's sword and commanded "follow me."
• Guinevere picked up Lancelot’s sword and commanded “follow me.”
• Guinevere picked up Lancelot's sword and commanded "follow me."
• “She commanded ‘follow me.’ ”
• "She commanded 'follow me.' "
• “She commanded ‘follow me.’ ”
• "She commanded 'follow me.' "
I ask that everyone here examine the above using different browsers, ensuring they also try at least one browser with anti-aliased fonts (either Safari or the newer Firefox), and weigh in here as to what you see. Please provide what browser(s) and platform(s) you used. Greg L (talk) 23:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
One may be looking for a remembered phrase, like "New Mexico's average precipitation rate". If our search engine will find both when handed one as the search string, then it's no real problem. Does anyone know? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:53, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Pmanderson: Well, I was referring to using the search function of the browser when you want to jump (scroll) straight to some text once you are in the right article. Boy, you had me going there for a moment. After reading your above post (“If our search engine will find…”), I thought “Wikipedia’s search function is actually useful?!? I didn’t know about that capability!” So I entered the following into the search field: It is inappropriate for an editor to change an article from one style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so. (without the period at the end). That text comes from the third paragraph of Wikipedia:Manual of Style and has been stable for quite some time. Here is the search result. As you can see, Wikipedia’s search function is nowhere as “Google-like”; it can not do project-wide (across many articles) text string searches.

    It still comes down that if readers really need to use a browser’s search function to find a word in its apostrophed (possessive) form once you are in a particular article, you just search on the non-possessive form and scan through the handful of hits. And, again, I just don’t even see that as happening all that often.

    I’m still seeing that this issue of straight v.s. typographer’s quotes boils down to an issue of appearance. I can believe that there may be browser and default-font combinations that could produce ugly-ass results. But with anti-aliased font display becoming ever more standard in modern browsers, I’d like to explore what people are really seeing—today—and what their impressions are of what they see. Maybe we can even post or e-mail screen captures.

    All I’m proposing is that after articles have reached a point where they are undergoing only minor edits (I can site examples—they do exist), then typographer’s quotes should be considered as acceptable. I buy the argument that they are cumbersome for editors on barbarian (Windows) machines so straight quotes are better for articles that are in a state of growth or flux. But I certainly don’t want to advocate their use—even for mature articles—if they truly look like garbage on a lot of browser/preferences settings combinations. Greg L (talk) 03:00, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia's search engine does not, by default, search Wikipedia space. (Your preferences can change this.) Your example is not in quotes, and may be too long for the software; searching on my four-word example with appropriate preferences returns this page and the page where I found it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:17, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
  • The below text is an image of what I am seeing on a Mac running 10.5.4 (the latest) and Safari 3.1.2 (the latest). Like the newest version of Firefox, Safari uses anti-aliased font rendering technology. Comments please. Are typographers quotes as displayed below ugly to some editors here?
Are there some browsers where the typographer’s quotes in the below live text looks bad to some editors?
• Guinevere picked up Lancelot’s sword and commanded “follow me.”
• Guinevere picked up Lancelot's sword and commanded "follow me."
• Guinevere picked up Lancelot’s sword and commanded “follow me.”
• Guinevere picked up Lancelot's sword and commanded "follow me."
• “She commanded ‘follow me.’ ”
• "She commanded 'follow me.' "
• “She commanded ‘follow me.’ ”
• "She commanded 'follow me.' "
To me, the above straight-quote examples look like they came out of a Underwood typewriter pounded on by a fourth grader. Greg L (talk) 03:29, 3 July 2008 (UTC))
I agree with Dan. In print, the typographers' quotation marks might look better, (that is why they are called "typographers' "); this is an on-line encyclopaedia, however, and different rules apply. You see the quotes through a computer monitor, and the marks may look different, not as good. (Not to mention that my Firefox shows them as straight, so all I get is the technical disadvantages of their occasional use.) Waltham, The Duke of 18:20, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
There are issues other than aesthetics. For example, if I want to search an article for text containing an apostrophe, I'd prefer not to have to do it two or three times, trying each possible rendering in turn. The CSS solution would be to use <q> tags instead of employing quote marks directly, which means people can just add some code to their stylesheets to determine what they look like, but that's pretty unfamiliar to most people. I'm going to agree with Dan and the Duke and advocate consistent use of straight quotes. Ilkali (talk) 18:57, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Straights or curlies, it's a matter of taste, but one thing that would probably not suit anyone's taste would be inconsistancy, thus we'd do well to settle on one or the other, now were we to attempt to settle on the one which is difficult to type, where would we end up? JIMp talk·cont 03:37, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Well, that’s more flexibility than I was even asking for JImp. When you wrote about inconsistency Jimp, I thought you were referring to keeping a consistent style within an article. Or were you talking about project-wide consistency? If the latter, I don’t see how that could possibly matter; after all, we don’t have project-wide consistency in dialect-based spelling (color/colour), which really stands out. Too, differences in writing style from editor to editor and article to article stand out a thousand times more in project-wide comparisons than what I’m talking about. No one but a few dozen editors are ever going to notice that one Wikipedia article uses straight quotes and yet another doesn’t.

    I agree that straight quotes would be better for articles that are growing or in a state of flux. As to your “were we to attempt to settle on the one which is difficult to type, where would we end up?”, I buy into the reasoning that straight quotes are easier for editors given that Windows makes it so awfully cumbersome to use typographers’ quotes. And I agree 100% that the quote style should be consistent within an article. I’m only suggesting the following:

I don’t see a practical downside to this. This would keep Wikipedia easy to edit when articles are in a state of growth and flux, but will also put Wikipedia on the slow track towards looking more like a professional-grade publication. Greg L (talk) 02:01, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Use of conjunctions

I would like to propose the addition of the following text on conjunction use to the end of the Usage section. Comments are welcome and appreciated.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are used to connect words or phrases. The most common conjunctions are and, or and but. Each has its own context for proper usage:[2]

  • and is used to join or add words together in the sentence, ex: They ate and drank.
  • or is used to show choice or possibilities as in the sentence, ex: He will be here on Monday or Tuesday.
  • but is used to show opposite or conflicting ideas as in the sentence, ex: She is small but strong.

Starting a sentence with a conjunction should be avoided. In addition, the word but may create an unintended reaction by the reader; it may imply an action where none is present. Avoid using but where the two ideas being connected are not conflicting. If and can be substituted in place of but without changing the meaning, then and is preferred. For example, "He taught history but was fired in 2007." is preferred as "He taught history and was fired in 2007." Sometimes it is better to avoid the conjunction altogether and simply create two independent sentences. This is especially true of long sentences with several dependent clauses.

Truthanado (talk) 15:02, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Truthnado, I think this is basic grammar and needn't be called out in our MOS. --Laser brain (talk) 15:05, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
My goal is to improve the overall quality of Wikipedia, not teach grammar. What prompted me to suggest this is the grossly incorrect over-usage of the conjunction but in Wikipedia articles. For example, today's featured article Winfield Scott Hancock contains 19 occurrences of but and almost all of them do not connect conflicting phrases; and would be preferred. If MOS is not the place to try to correct this, could someone suggest where that place might be? Truthanado (talk) 15:18, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
In all honestly, the best place to improve the quality of featured articles is to become a reviewer at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. FA writers will not read the MOS—only spot-check it for things they're not sure about. They will however, listen and respond to reviewers who make comments such as your above. --Laser brain (talk) 15:35, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
But some of them will also reply that sentences beginning with and or but are both common and widely approved of; see Modern English Usage or Kingsley Amis. (It's a form of emphasis; it should not be done without intending to.) And they will be right. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:03, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
"Starting a sentence with a conjunction should be avoided." A lot of editors would disagree with this one. At any rate, I don't see enough misuse of these words to warrant mention in the MOS. Strad (talk) 04:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, I think that one depends on the register, and I tend to agree that in the extremely high register expected of an encyclopedia article, sentences beginning with conjunctions should be tendentially avoided. But I don't altogether agree with Truthnado's interpretation of "conflicting phrases". I agree that "but" connects conflicting phrases or clauses, but the conflict does not have to be blatant; it can simply be that the first clause is reasonably capable of creating in the reader an expectation that will need to be somewhat modified on reading the second clause. In particular I absolutely do not agree that most uses of "but" in Winfield Scott Hancock would be better replaced by "and". --Trovatore (talk) 04:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
When I see "but", I want to see that the forthcoming clause is in some way contradictory or unexpected. Sometimes people use "but" rather than "and" in what I call a "false contrast", when the connective logic doesn't add up. On the matter at hand above, this is not suitable for MOS; I agree with Laser. Tony (talk) 06:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't think MoS needs to call out widely-agreed upon usage already documented in style guides. I've seen the "don't start a sentence with a conjunction" thing before but I don't agree, because that type of usage is meaningful and widely used. If anything were useful to add here, it would be the single sentence: "Avoid using but where the two ideas being connected are not conflicting." Dcoetzee 19:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
In the encyclopedic register we really shouldn't be starting sentences with conjunctions, just as we shouldn't use contractions, even though they also are "meaningful and widely used". It's not a question of correctness, just of tone.
On the other hand, while I agree that but should connect conflicting ideas, I think that in all the putative "bad examples" that have thus far been offered, it does in fact connect conflicting ideas. If I am told that someone has been hired I am in fact at least mildly surprised to hear that he was later fired; I absolutely do not want to see those assertions connected by and. (In that particular case I might agree that two separate sentences would be still better, but but is clearly better than and.) --Trovatore (talk) 18:25, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

When one comes from two different countries, how do you spell it?

The politically correct term for describing people of mixed descent eludes me at the moment. In any case, I am unsure as to the precise hyphenation practices of compounds like African-American. I have not managed to find a relevant guideline in the Manual, and unless there is one which I have failed to locate, it seems to me that this is an omission which should be taken care of; especially considering that I have received intelligence according to which the articles concerning such terms are inconsistent in their spelling. Please advise. Waltham, The Duke of 10:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Hyphenation is customary; I am not surprised that the unfortunate manner in which WP:MOSDASH is used in reviews has led to hypercorrection. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Noetica corrected me the other day: it's "African–American". Manderson, you won't see the difference because you insist on displaying a funny font. Tony (talk)
Take a look at Hyphenated American Roger (talk) 12:42, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
At least hyphenating is light-years ahead of no hyphen, which I saw recently. This article is embedded in the typewriter and pre-typewriter era, of course. Standards have risen since. Tony (talk) 13:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
AP Stylebook and NYTM both use a hyphen in African-American, and I have never (until now) seen it with an en-dash. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
African–American may be correct as an adjective (though I don't think I've ever seen the en dash used in this way for people), but what about non-adjectival uses? Will you say "he is an African–American born in Atlanta"? Or "she identifies herself as African–American"? In this context, it looks quite odd. Please, people, opinions; this still looks like a dark area (no pun intended). Waltham, The Duke of 05:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
My understanding is that the rules for compound adjectives apply: a hyphen (not an en-dash) is used for adjectival use ("an African-American woman"); no hyphen in a noun usage ("He is a Mexican Amercian") — Bellhalla (talk) 12:00, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
With deference to Tony's established record here (and in light of my lack of one, though I hope to build it) I offer the following counter argument to "At least hyphenating is light-years ahead of no hyphen, which I saw recently." Chicago (8.42 Ethinc, Socioeconomic, and Other Groups / Use of hyphen) says that either open (spaced) or hyphenated spelling is acceptable for names of ethnic and national groups. They state that there has been "considerable controversy" about it, and that some stlyists regard the use of a hyphen as representative of bias. They conclude: "Chicago doubts that hyphenation represents bias, but since the hyphen does not aid comprehension in such terms as those mentioned above, it may be omitted unless the writer prefers it." I prefer it, but I have no non-ILIKEIT argument. I suppose we could state that since Chicago is neutral, AP and NYT both prescribe hyphens, that hyphenation is the rule. Should we specify this somewhere like WP:HYPHEN? Livitup (talk) 14:50, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

"Sandwiched" images

In the Images section of the MOS, one of the bullet items suggests to "avoid sandwiching text between two images facing each other" (emphasis added). Some people take this to mean no sandwiching of text between an image and an infobox. (This came up during the FA nomination for an article I had worked on, USS Orizaba (ID-1536), which has an exceptionally long infobox.) I would like to propose that the language be clarified to reflect either that it does or does not include infoboxes, whatever the consensus may be. — Bellhalla (talk) 16:24, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

With the position of infoboxes being pretty much fixed by convention, sandwiching between image and infobox sometimes becomes unavoidable. I'd therefore be in favour of excluding infoboxes from the recommendation, though maybe not necessarily if it really is read merely as a suggestion (it seems that suggestions on WP sooner or later come to be interpreted by some as inviolable rules).--Kotniski (talk) 16:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
Well since it's phrased with "aviod" anyway, I can't see FAC reviewers getting too hung up about it. But then again, there's a reason I don't spend much time at FAC. :) How about
Thoughts? Livitup (talk) 15:43, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
Sounds excellent.--Kotniski (talk) 16:18, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
That sounds great. — Bellhalla (talk) 22:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
The width of the window affects layout. As I change the width of the browser's window, boxes, text and images move to accommodate the changes. Text that's sandwiched when the window is narrow may not be sandwiched when the window is wide (or vice versa). Does Wikipedia recommend a width at which to evaluate layouts? Since text size also affects this, a recommendation would include text size. Fg2 (talk) 00:31, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Referencing

References are inherently important in Wikipedia, and presenting them in the most intuitive manner possible is absolutely essential to further its development and continuation. I am proposing to change the current epitome to permit a more: adaptive, cohesive, and organized — method of presenting references within articles. Thereof are the following proposals and supporting reasons:

  1. Providing a "Footnotes" or "Notes" simultaneously with a "References" or occasionally "Bibliography" as a second-level-header (h2):
    1. Over distinguishes the two sections, which present essentially the same content: sources from in which the article was developed
    2. Increases h2 clutter, which present the primary elements of the article, and as stated above are heavily related
  2. It would be more useful to encapsulate the two as a single h2 likely named "References" with two tertiary-level-headers (h3) named: 1 "Footnotes" or "Notes", and 2"Bibliography" or "Sources".
  3. Similar to the previous methods, if only 1in-line citations or 2citations not yet presented in an in-line format are used, all h3 within the h2 "References" are omitted: leaving only the h2 "References"
  4. Similar to previous methods, in long articles where books or other media are cited more than once in different locations, the "Bibliography" or "Sources" h3 should contain the book(s) or other media, with the "Notes" or "Footnotes" h3 containing the relevant locations within them.

Here is a brief example of the proposed method and the associated code: Link. ChyranandChloe (talk) 02:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

While this might decrease "h2" clutter, it increases the total number of headings and the length of the table of contents, which is I think undesirable. That said, I would be fine with this being an option alongside existing methods. Also, for the many articles which include non-citation footnotes, it will not be appropriate to put Footnotes as a subheading of References. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:24, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
WP:LAYOUT or WP:FOOTNOTES is the place for this discussion. It's not going to be well-received over there, I think, because it's come up many times before, but this isn't the place for it; all WP:MOS does is give a brief description and then refer to WP:LAYOUT as the main page for this. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:39, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Use of "is" and "was" in fiction, film, and television articles?

I couldn't find this anywhere in the Manual of Style, so I am going to ask here. I know that many grammarians prefer to use the present tense when writing about fiction. I was wondering if there was a similar rule for writing about film and television. In film and television, when should the past tense be used? Should those articles always use the present tense? Should the past tense be used if the show has been wiped? Should it be used if the show is no longer in reruns anywhere? Should it be used if the show is no longer airing first-run episodes? Please clarify (or point me to a guideline if I happened to have overlooked one). RJaguar3 | u | t 15:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Have you read Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(writing_about_fiction)#Contextual_presentation? Beyond that I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean film and television that is fiction? Haukur (talk) 15:50, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry for being vague. I'm just asking when articles on movies and TV shows should use past tense (XYZ was a 2006 film) as opposed to present tense (XYZ is as 2006 film). RJaguar3 | u | t 20:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
The sentence in question is the introductory sentence in Legends of the Hidden Temple. The debate is about whether the topic "is" or "was" a television show. --132 19:02, 13 July 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Guide_to_writing_better_articles#Check_your_fiction recommends "Works of fiction ... exist in a kind of perpetual present tense, regardless of when the fictional action is supposed to take place relative to "now". Thus, generally you should write about fiction using the present tense, not the past tense." I generally stretch this to use "perpetual present tense" when writing about any TV show, whether or not it is completely fictional. --68.0.124.33 (talk) 14:03, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes. But it seems a bit counterintuitive to discuss a TV show no longer being aired in this way. Especially if it isn't sold on DVDs. Even more so if the materials have been lost. Haukur (talk) 14:40, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Duplicate Articles

I'm trying to figure out if the presence of both 44 gallon drum and 55-gallon drum is in accordance with the MOS. Both articles are identical. It appears that these exist to satisfy an argument about whether this object should be referenced by its name in imperial or US gallons. Can someone clear this up for me? I was under the impression that duplicate articles are undesirable. Phasmatisnox (talk) 19:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Propose a merger of one article into the other, which may help resolve the naming conflict. Alternatively, follow the advise at Wikipedia:Naming conflict. Bebestbe (talk) 19:46, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • That's hilarious :) Haukur (talk) 19:55, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Phasmatisnox, if your premiss in your 20:34, 12 July 2008 post on Talk:44-gallon drum (∆ here) were true, that “both pagers have to be identical”, then your conclusion would be valid. Whereas it might be *nice* if they were identical, it is certainly not a prerequisite—particularly when the solution (two articles) allows readers native to a particular dialect and country that use certain units of measure to search on, and read, an article geared just for them. In fact, by having two articles, editors of the respective articles are now free to make them diverge a little and customize each for their culture’s exact needs and idiosyncrasies rather than try to fit things into a more cumbersome, generic, fits-all solution. And it certainly beats all the conflict that would necessarily arise by trying to get editors in Australia to agree that “55-gallon drum” is the “proper” name for the object in question (and visa versa). Greg L (talk) 21:23, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
  • P.S. This isn’t the proper forum, in my opinion, for discussing this. Phasmatisnox certainly seems determined on this issue (to force it so there is only one article and it is titled “55-gallon drum”. I note that he now placed {merge} tags on both 44-gallon drum and 55-gallon drum and came over here too to raise the issue! So I hope we can use this post just as a way of inviting greater participation in this issue, and can keep all discussion limited to Talk:44-gallon drum, where debate and polling section are available at poll. Greg L (talk) 21:47, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

This is not really an MOS issue, but it is a crystal clear example of content forking and a GFDL violation as well. I have replaced the redirect. The talk page of the existing article is the appropriate place for rename discussions. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:09, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Singular possessives ending in "s"

Anyone want to weigh in? Is there any new consensus? I reverted yesterday's edit. AP Stylebook is a little complicated, but says in almost all cases to use just an apostrophe after singular proper names ending in "s". NYTM disagrees and says to use 's after most of them, except for the ones ending in two successive sibilant sounds, such as Kansas' . - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:28, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Strunk and White insist on Burns's and Charles's but allow Jesus' and Moses'. They're wankers, though.[12] Haukur (talk) 17:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Your last example is what I find completely wrong because an apostrophe has no pronunciation. "Kansas' capital is Jefferson City" is pronounced exactly the same as "Kansas capital is Jefferson City," which makes no sense. It needs to be Kansas's. Most style guides say to simply always add the 's, and some say it is preferred but not required. One link I liked said to add 's when pronouncing it (class's, Texas's), but it is not required when it may be awkward to add another syllable (James', Mr. Bridges'). Whether it is correctly agreed that words ending in s usually take 's or if people think "Arkansas' [no pronunciation of '] population" makes sense, this section still needs a little revision. Reywas92Talk 20:52, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Well, for Arkansas specifically, you have to put the apostophe-s, because otherwise you'd pronounce it "Arkansaw population", which is just wrong. But in the locution I don't like Starbucks' coffee as well as Peet's, I would use the bare apostrophe, because I don't say "Starbucksez". I don't know what you're getting at in saying an apostrophe has no pronuciation. We're not talking about pronouncing the apostrophe, but rather the s that follows it, or does not follow it, as the case may be. --Trovatore (talk) 21:02, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
The guidelines given in Eats, Shoots and Leaves state that singular names ending in s should take 's possessives except for:
  • ancient Greek or Roman names
  • names ending in the pronunciation /ɪz/
  • Jesus
On that basis, James's and Mr Bridges' would count as the correct forms. Though AIUI there's a general difference of opinion between Brits and Americans there. But come to think of it, "Starbucksez" does indeed sound awkward, though I'm not sure whether that's due to the length of it, Starbucks already sounding plural or something else. -- Smjg (talk) 21:23, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
Yes, is Starbucks plural? Probably; Melville's character is Starbuck. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:34, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I think Smjg probably meant to say "...already sounding possessive...". Of course Starbucks is a possessive, and should really be Starbuck's, but for some reason the suits chose otherwise. --Trovatore (talk) 22:36, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I believe the consensus here is that English is FUBAR. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:37, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I guess the difference between sounding possessive and sounding plural isn't as clear-cut as that. But that it should really have been "Starbuck's" complicates further the question of how to turn it into a possessive, or even whether you should turn it into a possessive at all. -- Smjg (talk) 15:09, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

←I go with Strunky here, without the "possible exceptions": the simple approach has the advantage and the logic. We just need to get over our squeamishness at the jostling of two (or three) eses; Fowler's notion that only where there's an extra syllable should 's be added to a word-final s did hold sway in my mind for a while, but I've dismissed it for the simpler. Jesus's (I'm not paying respect to any religion), Jones's, Weiss's, all into the same pot. So much easier for non-native speakers, too. Tony (talk) 11:37, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Sigh. Jesus' ain't "respect", any more than Socrates'; it's how the word is pronounced, and (at least in British English) is idiom. We are not here, still, to reform the English language, least of all for a point of view. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:35, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Upper case M for millions?

WP:MOSNUM, summarized here, says Where values in the millions occur a number of times through an article, upper-case M may be used for million, unspaced.

I couldn't find any talk page discussion of this with Google, and I have only come across its application occasionally in Wikipedia. I have found financial articles, like many English-speaking newspapers, usually use a spaced lower-case m.

Upper case M is often ambiguous, as many North Americans use M to mean 'thousands', perhaps inspired by the Roman numeral.

Should we change to lower case unspaced m? Ambiguity with 'metre' and 'milli' would be rare, but if the context makes it ambiguous, it should be spelled out. For SI and metric units, spaced upper-case M for mega, is of course appropriate. For example 20m sheep and $5m, but 25 MJ (25 million joules, not 25 millijoules, which is 25 mJ).

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

My personal go-to, CMOS, is silent on this. They do mention the use of 'K' to represent thousands, but make no mention of abbreviating millions. They do satate that you should use numberals for the quantity, and spell out the unit of measurement: A price fo $3 million was agreed on. So, I'm not very helpful in this, except to state that we are not a newspaper and aren't limited by the typesetting constraints of such publications, thus I would personally prefer that the million be spelled out each time. Livitup (talk) 19:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Neither NYTM nor AP Stylebook recommend an abbreviation. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
I'd say keep it at lowercase m; makes for easier reading. Gary King (talk) 08:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
A lower case "m" is too easily confused with milli (for 1/1000). If you wish to avoid upper case "M", I would say spell it out ("million"). Thunderbird2 (talk) 22:15, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Foreign terms and headings

Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Foreign terms, "Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have everyday use in non-specialised English." As such, in the article Full Moon o Sagashite, the term shinigami has been italicized as it is a Japanese word not in everyday use outside of manga and anime readers. However, another editor and I are in disagreement as to whether the header for the section listing the Shinigami in the series should also be in italics. I don't think the header should, in general, contain italics and a second editor agrees with me that it looks odd, but the other editor insists that all instances should be in italics, even in headers. So which is correct? -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 01:15, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

As a general rule, barring exceptional circumstances, there should be no markup at all in section headers. This is mostly for technical reasons -- the markup doesn't get translated correctly into edit summaries, and when you click on the edit summary you don't go to the right place. Maybe they'll fix this someday. --Trovatore (talk) 01:18, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
We're talking about "headings" here; headers are something else. I generally avoid links in headings but I'll put italics into headings unless the purpose of the italics was emphasis or calling attention to a word; however, before I do that, I give it a second thought to see if I really want to put a title or something that I think requires italics into the heading. Don't we say something about this on this page? (I'd look it up, but I can't be arsed.) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:34, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Not really sure what distinction you're making here between "headings" and "headers". The dispute in the article in question appears to be about what I'm calling "headers" (that is, the text that appears between multiple equal signs). --Trovatore (talk) 01:37, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
By the way, the rule you suggest is exactly backwards from the point of view of the technical issue I'm discussing. Simple wikilinks in section headers don't cause a problem, though piped ones do, as do any that start with a colon. However italics will definitely break the edit summary/anchor connection. --Trovatore (talk) 01:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I searched the page, and nothing is mentioned about it. In any case, links to it seem to work fine: Full Moon o Sagashite#Shinigami. Besides, other pages use it, including featured articles. Artichoker[talk] 01:45, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Hmm -- I could have sworn I'd seen that one break edit summaries. I wonder if this has recently been fixed. Might be worth some sandbox testing. --Trovatore (talk) 01:54, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I believe your null edit proves the matter that there are no technical restrictions. Artichoker[talk] 01:55, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
I meant, to see what else might have been fixed. Piped wikilinks? Templates? Not that I would suddenly want to encourage using those in headers, but it would be interesting to know. --Trovatore (talk) 01:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I was just saying that since the only reason brought up why italics should not be used in the header was because of that technical restriction, I believe the italics can stay now; unless anyone else has other qualms with it. Cheers, Artichoker[talk] 01:58, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

←See header and heading. Header is a word already in use to mean supplemental data at the beginning of a file. This argument has come up a couple of times before and there was consensus that "heading" was the right word (but of course, it's not a terribly important point). I don't follow what you're saying about italics in headings; click on User_talk:Dank55#Roman–Persian Wars at FAC; the italics in the heading don't cause a problem with the link. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactly what I was saying. Artichoker[talk] 02:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
They don't cause a problem now. I can't prove they caused a problem in the past, but that was my memory. I never made a complete catalog of which sorts of markup cause the problem and which don't, but I had italics down as "do". In any case I have mostly tried to convince people not to use any markup at all, because it is difficult to remember which sorts are OK. --Trovatore (talk) 02:14, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Bleh, Ad Hominem uses them inconsistently.  :( As long as there is no technical reason not to do so, I think foreign words in headings should be italicized if they would be in the prose. Just my 2 bits. Livitup (talk) 18:54, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
Don't know if I understand this 100%. Are there any headers in the following that need to be italisized:
Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:12, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
From what I understand from the above, as anime/manga titles must be italicized always, any appearance of them in the headers should also be italicized. Beyond that, foreign words that should be italicized in text should also be italicized in headers. In those listed, each has one word needing italicized in the headers: Bleach (or just change hers to the more standard "Appearances in other media", Zanpakutō, Senbonzakura, Hyōrinmaru, Zanpakutō, Ashisogi Jizō, Kyōka Suigetsu, Shinsō, and Suzumushi (all in order). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 01:08, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Anything else before I act? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 03:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Not that I can see (except, of course, to make sure those items are also italicized within the text...I seem to remember Zanpakutō is only being italicized sometimes. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:46, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
Done ;) looked like zanpakutō was italicized in every instance. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 22:09, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

← I missed this discussion, but I'd like to drop my two pence: in headings, avoid links, templates, and every other kind of treatment but italics. It's not exclusively a technical matter, but also one of style. There are very, very, very few exceptions to this.

On another note... How would you people feel about italics in tables of contents? It's one of my little ideas; I know nothing about its technical feasibility, but it's worth a try, no? Waltham, The Duke of 22:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that italics is proscribed in ToC. Tony (talk) 02:59, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Italics in TOC is not possible. And I don't like the sound of it, anyways. Gary King (talk) 08:15, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
What's wrong with its sound? :-) I repeat that italics should be the only allowable formatting in headings, so it might be worth putting in the ToC as well. It does sound hard to do, and it's probably not worth it even if people like it, but assuming that it were... I'm just sampling reactions here. Waltham, The Duke of 17:10, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Some MoS issues

The following appear to be issues with the MoS pages. Please comment as to what should be done below each issue. Thanks. Bebestbe (talk) 19:09, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I can only speak for myself, this doesn't mean I have any special powers here. First, a general answer: I'm very happy when people do this kind of work (especially when it's not me). Just don't get tripped up thinking the answers are black and white: there's no official list of style guidelines and never will be, because people are creating pages that they define as guidelines all the time (WP:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines for instance), and it would create needless friction for me to jump and in say "You can't say that" when they're more familiar with the pages in question than I am. If we came up with some "complete, official" list of guidelines, all that would mean is that people who didn't want to wrestle with us would pick other names and categories for their pages, and not being "official" wouldn't mean anything. The current process generally works fine; when it's brought to my attention that pages that call themselves style guidelines are in conflict, then I am happy to give my two cents.
On the other hand, what I enjoy most these days is helping push articles through FAC and solving minor disputes along the way, and it's really helpful when battles are fought in general on a style guidelines page rather than over the particular words in a particular article, when writers are heavily invested in their work product. Some style guidelines pages come up often at FAC: everything currently in CAT:GEN, plus everything in Tony's monthly WP:UPDATES, and a few other pages. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:28, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

In general, this entire discussion supports the unfortunate habit of giving a special status to MOS and its subpages. They are guidelines; like most guidelines, they represent a handful of editors (sometimes literally one or two, but always a handful relative to Wikipedia); much of them is neither well-written or well-judged. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:19, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Sept, are you saying BBB's attempts represent that, or what I said? If you mean me, then read it again, please. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
The original proposal. We might do just as well without this category and the special template; these are guidelines; they did not descend from Heaven. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't buy this idea that someone snuck in in the night and wrote a bunch of guidelines that no one ever talked about or agreed to; thousands of archive pages and thousands of discussions at WP:FAC that are required to follow these guidelines suggest otherwise. I have to respect guidelines pages as the product of conflict among editors, much of which has been resolved (and well done, too). If there's something that needs to be fixed, say so, and I'll be happy to give you my two cents, subject to the general understanding of how debate works on Wikipedia...i.e., per WP:CONSENSUS and WP:SILENCE, it's not a good idea to debate the same points endlessly, and if people don't show up, their voices are not heard. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:01, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for my long mostly-absence; just got back from over a month in Mexico with little Net access. Anyway, I generally concur with Dank55 on all points raised, but will go further and suggest, as Bebestbe hints, that we do have a legitimate problem here, with many pages claiming to be part of the Manual of Style without any actual serious consideration on the part of a) editors who have devoted a lot of their WP time to maintaining MoS sanity, nor b) the editorship as a whole, as to whether they are in fact legitimate guidelines or not.
There is a larger issue, of what to do with "guidelines" that are not WP-wide in scope but only pertain to narrow topics or subtopics (such documents are often created and edited mostly or entirely by 1-3 people... and yet are also often quite sane; but others in this categorization are complete nonsensical bunk, while others still have a grain of usefulness but conflict too much with the MoS proper and its best-accepted sub-guidelines). This overall issue has come up several times in several forums, without resolution (that I know of). At WP:COUNCIL I proposed, probably a year ago now, some kind of new designation for such things, and after some initial "WTF?" overreactions, the general feeling seemed positive. The idea was to create a new designation of, perhaps, "WikiProject guideline" in addition to "guideline", "policy", "proposal", "rejected", "essay", etc., with the understanding that a WikiProject guideline only applies to material within the scope of the topical project that has generated it, that no such guidelines are part of the Manual of Style (though the MoS would likely list and refer to them as topically guiding), and (most importantly) that MoS and other Wikipedia-wide guidelines trump WikiProject guidelines (that they do, regardless of whether we call them WikiProject guidelines or not has already been expressly stated by the ArbCom, over a year ago, so that is not really at issue).
I have a personal interest in the outcome of this, since I am the principal author of both a draft notability guideline and a style guideline/naming convention, for WP:CUE (see WP:CUE#Guidelines for links to them). As noted by someone else above, style guides and naming conventions can overlap (inevitably do so, in some cases), and I for one don't really see that as a problem, although the main naming conventions at WP are in conflict with MoS on several points, and an MoS/NC meeting of the minds has been difficult to approach (and last I looked, it remained unsuccessful). This issue will prove resolvable over time I hope. Anyway, both of these draft guidelines are in actual operation, in practical terms, and have been for over two years, within the scope of the project in question, and without any negative reaction I am aware of, yet are not designated guidelines per se and don't really have a designation available to them that makes much sense. They are both presently tagged with {{Essay}}, but as Radiant has occasionally complained, they are not really essays in the stricter senses of that word. Unless there is a new type of Wikipedia document designation, guideline-ish things of this sort remain sort of homeless. A worse situation for editors, however, is that the upshot of this is that some are designated essays, some guidelines, some not designated anything, and no one really knows what to do with them. And there are lots and lots of them, especially with regard to national/ethnic/language topics (many of them are designated part of MoS, and that designation is highly questionable, as it is for WikiProject-generated guidelines with regard to very geeky topics like highway exits and US freeways - or cue sports, my pet topic.
Anyway, my point isn't right this moment to spur a big debate, just to say "hey, here's an idea that may be worth looking into". It might be best done here, or by reanimating the topic over at WT:COUNCIL or in an RfC or Village Pump discussion or whatever. I would just like to see it actually looked into by more editors, where ever the discussion ends up being hosted. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:23, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
The real question here is: do they matter to the encyclopedia? If they cover a narrow range but state what we actually do in that range, and nobody has disputed them, they're harmless. When they are quoted in opposition to MOS (for example) and a dispute arises, then the question of which (if either) has a wide consensus does need to be settled, and probably will be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Comparable quantities

Comparable quantities should be all figures or all spelled out. We don't say this in general, although it is the point of some of our exceptions:

  • In tables and infoboxes, all numbers are expressed as numerals. (also brevity)
  • Within a context or a list, style should be consistent (either There were 5 cats and 32 dogs or There were five cats and thirty-two dogs, not There were five cats and 32 dogs).
  • The numerical elements of dates and times are never given as words (since they are usually being compared with other dates and times). This includes years, and should include centuries.

Conversely, quantities which are not comparable can be distinguished by spelling out one and leaving the other in figures.

  • For instances where numerals may cause confusion, use words instead (thirty-six 6.4-inch rifled guns, not 36 6.4-inch rifled guns).

These are the principal reasons to vary between figures and spelled out numbers; the present main paragraph is one rule of thumb (of several) for deciding whether a given set of comparable quantities should be figures or words. Careful readers will say there is another: figures imply precision. The title The First Hundred Thousand differs from The First 100,000 in that the alternate form denies that there were 103 thousand of the subject (British enlistees in 1914). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:42, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds fair but why bring this up here rather than @ WT:MOSNUM? JIMp talk·cont 02:07, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
Because I was reminded of it here. Another thing we should do is to decide where we are going to have the detailed treatment of this question on WP:MOS or WP:MOSNUM; we now do both, and the texts already vary. I tried to consolidate, but was reverted. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I've notified WT:MOSNUM. Would that be the more logical place to hold consolidation discussions? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:38, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd say details at MOSNUM, summary here. JIMp talk·cont 02:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

What should the summary be? I don't think the 0-9 rule should be; one reason I posted is because the 0-9 rule has been inducing some FAC posters to insist on comparable quantities being different because one of them was 6 and the other 12. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
I see nothing wrong with six and 12 if we're insisting that numbers at the start and end of sentences be named rather than in figures. That in itself endorses within-sentence inconsistency. I'd be happy to remove the second point (dogs and cats). But generally I find 6 and one hundred and twenty-one both annoying, and worth recommending against, although leaving it finally up to context. Tony (talk) 03:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
If this is restructured, we would retain the recommendation that six be spelled out and 121 be in figures, as a corollary of the general rule that large and complicated numbers are in figures, or that figures imply precision. But I don't think that recommendation should take precedence over all the other reasons to choose; in practice, it doesn't. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:59, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

In part because this page is protected, I will try a draft at WP:MOSNUM. This should not need changing any present guidance at all, merely the present emphases. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:06, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Done (and tweaked a couple times after the version I linked to on WT:MOSNUM. In the process, I have found three or four proposals which are actually used and which we do not include, up at WT:MOSNUM#Comparable quantities for discussion; that text does, and did, include figures for 5th century. (There have been some rearrangements since the draft linked to.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:38, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
Having done this, I propose the following summary for here:
There are two main styles for numbers in English: spelling them out in words and expressing them in figures. Sometimes there is a difference in meaning between the two styles, or the choice is forced by idiom; elsewhere, Wikipedia should be as clear as possible for the reader.
Comparable quantities should use the same style: five cats and thirty-two dogs, or 5 cats and 32 dogs. Nearby non-comparable figures should be in different styles: sixteen 6.4 inch rifled guns.
Figures are preferred for large, complicated, or precise quantities: a polygon of 65537 sides, 3.1415926, 2936 petitions. Spell out small, simple, and approximate quantities: a polygon of seven sides, three, three thousand petitions. Scientific notation may be suitable for some mixed cases.
If these rules conflict, recast the sentence rather than being clumsy or confusing.
Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:50, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

There's some good in that proposal, but here's another go, copy-edited. I don't really agree with the blanket proscription against "five dogs and 32 cats", which I find better than spelling out "thirty-two". And I can't go along with the abolition of the default nine/10 (or even ten/11) boundary, even if it's just a recommendation. I'm sick of reading large numbers that are spelt out in articles. Can we dispense with the "clear as possible" and "don't be clumsy or confusing", which seem too vague to be helpful. Who would think otherwise?

There are two main styles for numbers: spelling them out and expressing them in figures. Sometimes there is a difference in meaning between the two styles, or the choice is forced by idiom; elsewhere, a rule of thumb is to spell out single-digit numbers and express others in numerals. Where's the rule about the start of sentences?
Under clarity, that being the justification for it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
Comparable quantities may use the same style: five cats and thirty-two dogs, or 5 cats and 32 dogs. Adjacent non-comparable figures should be in different styles: sixteen 6.4-inch rifled guns.
  • The first sentence should be stronger: perhaps generally use the same style; the real difficulty is not cats and dogs, which is MOSNUM's example, but changes in the same quantity: The stock rose from 9 to 101 overnight. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
Figures are preferred for large, complicated, or precise quantities: a polygon of 65537 sides, 3.1415926, 2936 petitions. Spell out small, simple, and approximate quantities: a polygon of seven sides, three, three thousand petitions.
If these rules conflict, consider recasting the sentence. [What do you mean by "conflict"? Can you provide some examples?] Tony (talk) 05:05, 15 July 2008 (UTC)
  • The stock rose from 9 to 101 overnight. will also serve as an example of conflict: clarity requires that the quantities be in the same style, but MOSNUM's rule of magnitude would insist on nine and 101
  • 1093 and 3511 are the only known Wieferich primes. on the one hand, names of integers must be in figures; on the other, 1093 begins a sentence. Easily recast by turning the sentence around The only known Wieferich primes are 1093 and 3511 and merging with the succeeding sentence to avoid ending with figures. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

In general, I prefer a few words of justification; recommendations will be more often taken by those who see their value. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:44, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

There are two main styles for numbers in English: spelling them out in words and expressing them in figures. Sometimes there is a difference in meaning between the two styles, or the choice is forced by idiom.
Figures are preferred for large, complicated, or precise quantities: a polygon of 65537 sides, 3.1415926, 2936 petitions. Spell out small, simple, and approximate quantities: a polygon of seven sides, three, three thousand petitions. Scientific notation may be suitable for some mixed cases. A rule of thumb is to spell out single-digit numbers, and express three-digit numbers or longer in figures; two-digit numbers vary, one issue being whether the number is large in that context.
Comparable quantities generally use the same style: five cats and thirty-two dogs, or 5 cats and 32 dogs, and The stock rose from 9 to 101 in three hours. Nearby non-comparable figures should be in different styles: sixteen 6.4 inch rifled guns. Numbers at the beginning of sentences are spelled out.
If these rules conflict, consider recasting the sentence.

I've said three digits as the rule of thumb because that was the effective conclusion of the MOSNUM revert war. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:23, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

  • Anderson, sorry to revert your changes to the manual, but it was premature. Where there are contrary opinions expressed on a talk page, it's often better to announce explicitly that you intend to make a change on a certain date. Here are just a few issues concerning vagueness and language:
    • "There are two main styles for numbers in English: spelling them out in words and expressing them in figures." What are the other styles? "Main" indicates that there are others. This replaces the previous opening that clearly stated the name/figure boundary (nine/10—with exceptions). Now this is buried in less obvious language further down, and you've changed it to two boundaries: nine/10 and 99/ninety-nine/100 (two-digit numbers are in limbo). I do not believe this has sufficient support; if it does, we need to see it here.
      • Roman numerals would be a third style; whether scientific notation would be a fourth, or a variant of figures, is a purely verbal question. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:14, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
      • The nine/10 boundary has never been consensus; Noetica thinks it should be one hundred/101, and MOSNUM had a brisk revert war over it. Even more importantly, it is a rule of thumb; insisting upon it when it conflicts with the other rules here is injurious to clarity. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:14, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
    • What is a complicated quantity? Are petitions and the sides of polygons "quantities"? What are "mixed cases"? Where is 99 large and where small in a context?
      In order:
      • Complicated quantities are quantities that would be complicated to spell out; it's the second adjective, and corresponds to the example 3.1415926, which is also second.
      • Numbers of petitions and of sides are quantities. That's what the word means.
      • Scientific notation is intended, among other things, for quantities which are large or complex but not known to the nearest integer. Those cases fall between the descriptions here and are therefore mixed.
      • Where 99 is large and where small is a question of fact. It is a very large number of aircraft carriers; it is a small number of kites. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:14, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
    • "9 to 101" whats? Tony (talk) 11:42, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
      • The example sentence was The stock rose from 9 to 101 in three hours. This is idiom unless the currency of the exchange is unclear; but we can make it Australian dollars if it will settle that irrelevant and silly quibble. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:14, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

How curious. All of these objections apply to Tony's draft above, which I have only altered in a few places; would this barrage be fired if I taken it unaltered? Almost all of them can be answered by refering to the definition of quantity: as the OED puts it, "the amount of something." Individual replies above. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:14, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

However, this was a long summary, in the interests of preserving as much as possible. There is still general agreement on having a summary here, rather than, as at present, two long, separately evolving, texts here or at MOSNUM; not even Yony has objected. I will therefore put a short summary, a pure reference to MOSNUM. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:21, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

There has been no disagreement that we should summarize here; the present short version is intended to be as anodyne a summary as possible. If there is disagreement, on what grounds, other than {{WP:OWN|ownership]]? 18:01, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
Anderson, you want to make the whole of MOS "anodyne" (= uncontentious or inoffensive, and as a noun, a pain-killing medicine). It's extraordinary that you've let the cat out of the bag by admitting this word into your justification. By "uncontentious", read "Anderson won't shove a dispute tag on it". People who believe in the role of MoS of providing the framework for stylistic cohesion in the project will not allow this to happen. Tony (talk) 03:27, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
YES. All I am trying to do here is to get one discussion of the issues on this subject (rather than two conflicting ones) with one text (by our general structure, at MOSNUM). Although I disagree with Tony's proposed text above in detail, it at least achieves that. If he were in good faith, he would either present reasons not to summarize in MOS, or adjust the summary to suit his objections, whatever they are. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:34, 23 July 2008 (UTC)
  1. ^ a b See, for example, the Britannica Online Encyclopedia ([13]). The entry for Étienne François, duc de Choiseul is given as: "Etienne Francois de Choiseul, duke de Choiseul".
  2. ^ Interlink Language Centers - Parts of Speech: Conjunctions
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