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RFC: shall changes in beginning of sentence case be allowed in quotations?

Consensus to retain present WP:MOS wording stating that "if an entire sentence is quoted in such a way that it becomes a grammatical part of the larger sentence, the first letter loses its capitalization" and, agreeing, as editors note, with Chicago Style and the APA manual. Eight votes in favor; consensus not unanimous, with one objection asking for never changing the inital caps, and another asking that it be taken out of the quotes to avoid the issue. Churn and change (talk) 23:43, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

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

[Procedural note: I have moved that explanation to the top of the section, so people will understand what's going on. But what is going on, in fact? There is no current RFC: there is no template in place, and there is no listing at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia style and naming.–NoeticaTea? 01:25, 22 August 2012 (UTC)]

Shall case changes in quotations be allowed at the beginning of a quoted sentence? For example, suppose the following sentence is to be quoted:

A penny saved is a penny earned.

May it be quoted in a Wikipedia article as follows:

*If an entire sentence is quoted in such a way that it becomes a grammatical part of the larger sentence, the first letter loses its capitalization (It turned out to be true that "a penny saved is a penny earned").

The bullet above appeared in the MOS until today. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:15, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Extended content

Discussion of case changes in quotes

Allow changes. As the initiator of this RFC, I support allowing changes as formerly described in the MOS because it is in accord with two American style manuals that I have access to. In particular, Chicago Manual of Style 16th ed. section 13.8 and the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association 6th ed. section 6.07 allow this type of change. However, the third style manual I have, MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers 7th ed. in section 3.1.2 shows this example:

Joseph Conrad writes of the company manager in Heart of Darkness, "He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect." [Emphasis added]

Jc3s5h (talk) 22:14, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Surely it is a basic rule that a direct quote that incorporates the beginning of the speaker's sentence preserves the capital letter needed to start that sentence. Evident in all these first pages on the first google page of a search of "grammar of direct quotes": [1][2][3][4][5][6] Kevin McE (talk) 23:02, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
I think the one you are arguing is not a good example of the last point in Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Allowable typographical changes, but I also agree with that point that a sentence-initial quote can be downcased under the stated conditions. The MOS specifies that as an allowable style, at least, so if you want to change it, talk about the guidance instead of tweaking the examples. In the other stuff you're changing, either you don't understand or don't like WP:LQ, but that's the style we've adopted. Some have argued that LQ is a UK thing, and you're arguing the opposite; but it's neither; just a style. Dicklyon (talk) 23:35, 24 July 2012 (UTC)
It is not just a style. In British English it's right and in American English it's wrong. Leaving periods and commas outside the quotation marks absolutely is a British thing, whatever else it may be.[7] [8] [9] [10] Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

The "as formerly described in the MOS" situation has been restored; it should only be changed if there's a new consensus to NOT allow lowercase at the start of the quote in sentences like the example with "a penny saved". The quote about Conrad does not appear to be the type where downcasing is in order; it's just a quote, not an integral part of the sentence. Dicklyon (talk) 23:41, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Maintain current MoS for now. It seems to me that there is something different between "a penny saved is a penny earned" and "He said, 'He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear.'" I can't put my finger on it, but the two groups of style guides seem to be describing two different things. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:30, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

In general, as I pointed out in a section higher up, capitalization can be changed in direct quotes to match the surrounding material, which may mean either capitalizing a previously lowercase letter or removing the capitalization from a previously uppercase letter. One rule I have seen is to use a capital if the quoted material is a full sentence and independent of the rest of the sentence with the quote:

He said, "Leave me alone."

but not if the rest of the sentence depends grammatically on the quoted material:

It is vital to "be content with your life", as Aesop's moral directs.

In any case this is not a matter of grammar, as someone suggested above, it is entirely a matter of style. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:58, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Certainly quotes used as direct speech (where the punctuation may indeed be described as 'speech marks') should rarely have or need (depending on one's point of view) their capitalization changed, whereas in indirect speech, where the quotation marks serve more to delineate the portion of the text that is word for word attributable to the source, more leeway will be both needed and, generally used. Rich Farmbrough, 03:13, 25 July 2012 (UTC).

Maintain current MoS. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (p. 1029) gives a similar example, with no capitalization following "Mr Crabb stated that ' . . .", describing the construction as a blend of direct and indirect reported speech: " . . . the reporting verb is followed by that, normally a marker of indirect reporting, but what follows that itself is wholly quoted. --Boson (talk) 09:08, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Maintain current MoS (allow changes), for the same reasons as above. Although in the little sequence of reverts between Deor, Jc3s5h, and Kevin McE, I would have to agree with Deor and Kevin McE; there the "The situation is..." is an example of a quotation that is not "a grammatical part of the larger sentence". Leonxlin (talk) 16:33, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Allow changes conditionally: Like most dichotomies "allow or disallow" is a false one. It should be permissible to do this to aphorisms like the penny example, and with spoken quotations, but not with written ones in which capitalization is provably in the original source. An exception should probably be poems and songs which capitalize the first letter of every line (usually) as a matter of stylistic convention, not grammar. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 04:04, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

    • Retain. It's hard to think of instances where the fact that a mid-sentence quote started the original sentence really needs to be communicated to the readers. Tony (talk) 04:35, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Note: If there's a question about the propriety of changing the capitalization, many times you could consider starting the quotation with the next word. For instance, why not just say, "It turned out to be true that a 'penny saved is a penny earned'" if you're worried about (not) capitalizing the "a"? AgnosticAphid talk 22:36, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

  • Retain I think it makes a lot of sense to keep as it is. It just visually flows a lot better to me for some reason, like it would help me to read it aloud better if I had to. I dream of horses (T) @ 02:22, 9 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Discussion unarchived for further discussion before it is closed by an uninvolved admin. See WP:ANRFC]. Cunard (talk) 17:58, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment. Standard practice is to use square brackets when changing a quote. So if the source says: "A penny saved is a penny earned," we write: "Smith argued that "[a] penny saved is a penny earned." Or if the source says: "Today's the day," we write: "Smith argued that "[t]oday's the day." SlimVirgin (talk) 02:45, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
But within a quotation we do change those angle bracket things some Europeans use for quote-marks, don't we? And we tend to sliently correct double hyphens -- like that, and obvious typos likke this, to avoid disruption to readers. Tony (talk) 03:09, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
We change obvious mistakes, yes (not sure what the angle brackets refer to). But changing the case is closer to changing a word, because it can slightly distort the context. It can be important, especially when dealing with primary sources in history articles, to stick closely to the original text, and to signal if you haven't. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:28, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Angle bracket things Art LaPella (talk) 04:35, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Style guides have previously been cited to show that the case in quotes can be silently changed. However, it isn't a purely mechanical algorithm; it depends on extent to which the quote is integrated into the sentence. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:38, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Romanization system indications

Quite apart from questions about a system, how should a romanization system and romanization be specified in an article? I've changed an indefinite mention in Ey Iran from

Ey Iran (Persian: ای ایران, "O Iran") UniPers: Ey Irân is a famous and popular anthem in Iran.

to

Ey Iran (Persian: ای ایران, "O Iran"; UniPers: Ey Irân) is a famous and popular anthem in Iran.

I compared with how the pinyin system is mentioned at the beginning of Beijing. But any detailed look at anything leaves one confused. Like, why is Běijīng linked at all, if it just loops back to the article? Shenme (talk) 00:00, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

"Wikipedia" in italics

Editors may be interested in User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 113#Wikipedia in italics (version of 19:42, 20 August 2012), which has a link to Talk:Wikipedia#Italic title (version of 00:47, 20 August 2012), which has a link to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting#'Wikipedia' is not in italics (version of 00:46, 20 August 2012).
—Wavelength (talk) 20:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

The first discussion has been archived to User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 113#Wikipedia in italics.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:15, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Date ranges in the same decade?

Hello,

I just came across the date range "1952–4" in an article, and the formatting seems strange to me. "1952–54" looks more correct to me, but I couldn't find anything on it in the Manual of Style (except in the Talk archive, where there is a discussion about the more common form 2000–04 vs. the explicit 2000–2004 in article text; see Year truncation in Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Archive_41). Is there a rule for such (year) date ranges within the same decade?

Thanks for letting me know,

--Georgepauljohnringo (talk) 08:45, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

MOSNUM says, "A closing CE or AD year is normally written with two digits (1881–86) unless it is in a different century from that of the opening year, in which case the full closing year is given (1881–1986)." Good advice, in my opinion. Tony (talk) 11:58, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Agree. Normal representation would be with two digits. Vertium When all is said and done 13:15, 21 August 2012 (UTC)
Many thanks, Tony and Vertium! I somehow missed this part of MOSNUM. Now I know.
--Georgepauljohnringo (talk) 14:58, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

United States Military Date Proposal

A discussion on the encyclopedic need for the use of military dates on United States military related articles is taking place at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Proposal to strike out the requirement that American military articles use military dates. Please join in.--JOJ Hutton 23:59, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Even if the article is on a military subject, it should still be written in an encyclopedic style. "Write for your audience" covers that. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:40, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

As much as possible, avoid linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader.
Could someone explain this to me please? How does a (piped) link clutter a quotation? At worst, it changes the color of some words. The proposed remedies add much more clutter than that. Links do not really change the quotations much; the text remains the same after all. And how does it confuse the reader? Are readers really likely to think the original quotation contained links to Wikipedia articles? On the other hand, a reader might benefit from being pointed to an article that explains in details some concepts mentioned in a quotation. So why is linking from within quotes a bad thing? — Kpalion(talk) 21:26, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

I've always assumed the main problem is that it can impart meaning and explanation to words within the quote that we cannot know were meant by the original source. Words and phrases in different contexts can always have subtly different meanings of course. In effect, they can be seen as adding implicit commentary or didactic explanation directly within the quotation. N-HH talk/edits 21:50, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Nicely put by N-HH. Tony (talk) 10:58, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

But then, almost everything we write in Wikipedia consists (in principle) of paraphrases and summaries of (reliable) external sources. Doesn't linking impart meaning and explanation to what cannot know was meant by the original source also when it is not a direct quote? — Kpalion(talk) 11:18, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

There might be grounds for suggesting caution in such links, but I see no reason for the strength of the virtual prohibition as it stands. Most people who we are quoting are trying to communicate clearly (and we probably shouldn't be quoting them if they are not), and there is usually little doubt about who/what they are referring to. Suggest rephrase to something like Exercise caution in linking from within quotes, and never do so if it would mislead or confuse the reader, or if there is any realistic doubt about the intended reference of the person being quoted. Kevin McE (talk) 12:10, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure that would really change that much in terms of ultimate guidance - which, in part, is why I wouldn't have a problem with that wording. As for Kpalion's point, of course most WP content is paraphrased and summarised, and even interpreted/explained to some extent, both by narrative text and by linking. The point is that we don't pretend otherwise with that content. It is, in effect, Wikipedia speaking - and the editor who wrote that content knows what they meant and hence what they wish a link to point to. However, when we do quote a third party directly, and flag up that we are doing that by using inverted commas, we have to be careful we do exactly that and don't make the quotee say or imply more than they might have done or appear to be referring to something different; especially, for example, by using piped links from quotations. The very fact that many pages have disambiguation hatnotes also shows the potential problems here - for the sake of example, when someone in a quote refers, say, to "Germany", do they mean Germany or one of the first options listed here? N-HH talk/edits 13:26, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
All of which is reason for caution, not prohibition. If Roy Hodgson says, "The match against Germany will be a tricky challenge, but I'm sure my team can cope," can there really be any encyclopaedic argument against linking that to Germany? Kevin McE (talk) 23:20, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Well, there is the matter of the appallingly ungrammatical title of the linked article. --Trovatore (talk) 23:57, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
There is actually a more serious objection even though I do very seriously object to the completely ungrammatical locution Germany team, it isn't really on point here, which is WP:EGG. A reader who sees Germany in blue is entitled to expect that the link points to Germany. If it points somewhere else, there need to be explicit cues in the text producing that expectation. This one is a little borderline — a reader who thinks about it will probably expect that this link points to the article on the German team, but it is not quite automatic. --Trovatore (talk) 00:59, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
In which case the encyclopaedia would be doing such a naive reader a favour, by clarifying that Mr Hodgson does not intend sending 11 men to take on the entire nation of 80 million. This sort of objection would lead to the prohibition of any piped or disambiguated link, regardless of whether they are within a quote. Your other issue would apply to c200 national football teams, plus at least as many again of women's and underage teams, plus many hundreds of national teams in other sports. If you are serious about it, I'd suggest raising discussion in the first instance at WT:FOOTY. Kevin McE (talk) 09:13, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
No one is going to think that a soccer team is being sent to confront an entire country; that isn't the point. There's a fundamental principle of interface design involved here, the least surprise principle. Users should be able to predict the topic that a link points to, without following the link or hovering over it. And if you see the word Germany in blue here, it is not really clear where it will point, because some editor might well have thought that this was a good opportunity to inform readers about good old Deutschland. (Such an editor would have been wrong, but not in a terribly unlikely way.)
Piped links are, indeed, very often problematic, and should be used as sparingly as possible, Links that would otherwise go to disambig pages are one example where they are almost unavoidable, but care needs to be taken to make it as clear as conveniently possible, from the text alone, where the link points (without of course performing awkward contortions or using self-referential language). This kind of care is almost impossible to get into a direct quote. --Trovatore (talk) 18:33, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Number sign

The MOS says:

  • Avoid using the # symbol (known as the number sign, hash sign, or pound sign) when referring to numbers or rankings. Instead use the word "number", or the abbreviation "No." The abbreviation is identical in singular and plural. For example:
Incorrect:    Her album reached #1 in the UK album charts.
Correct: Her album reached No. 1 in the UK album charts.

An exception is issue numbers of comic books, which unlike for other periodicals are given in general text in the form #1, unless a volume is also given, like Volume 2, Number 7 or Vol. 2, No. 7.

  • Use {{Abbr|Vol.|Volume}} and either {{Abbr|No.|Number}} or {{Abbr|#|Number}}.
  • Do not use the symbol №.

Can we expand this section to include the reason # is considered wrong in Wikipedia?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:00, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I also wouldn't mind knowing what's wrong with the numero sign. — Jon C.ॐ 15:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Maybe WP:TECHNICAL is the issue. Many older people don't know what a # is. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 15:26, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Its certainly seems pretty informal for an encyclopedia (particularly for a Brit like myself). In the example given - i.e. normal text, there is absolutely no reason why any abbreviation should be used - use the unabbreviated word instead.Nigel Ish (talk) 21:06, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Punctuation of initials in names

An editor moved the article E. L. James, about the British author, to EL James, with the rationale that "None of the [books by James] use the full stops and neither do most of the British media. 'Initial. Initial. Surname' is outdated in the UK". I moved it back because (as I explained on the Talk page) I looked at 3 UK sources and 3 US sources, and in both groups 2 out of 3 seemed to use the periods. It's true, however, that James' own website and the covers of her books uses "E L James."

Is there a relevant guideline here that would affect whether periods, or spaces, should be used? Or does it come down to the usual guidance about what's used more often in reliable sources and/or what the subject uses in referring to herself? Thanks for any guidance. Theoldsparkle (talk) 13:29, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

U.S. English tends to prefer periods in initials and abbreviations (U.S., Dr. Smith, Ph.D.) when British English does not (US, Dr Smith). This might be an ENGVAR issue. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:04, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Middle names and abbreviated names (version of 00:32, 24 July 2012) and Harry S. Truman#Personal life (version of 23:03, 21 August 2012).
—Wavelength (talk) 19:42, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
British English makes a bit of an exception for abbreviating names - see for instance P. D. James or J. K. Rowling or A. J. P. Taylor. However initialisms in general are much rarer here than in the States so practice can vary a bit. Timrollpickering (talk) 17:01, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Tarpan

As far as I can tell from MOS:CAPS and WP:FAUNA, "tarpan" oughtn't be capitalised (except at the beginning of a sentence etc.), as is currently the case at Aurochs. See also e.g. [11], p. 2; [12], p. 2, for examples of its lower-case usage.

Although, on a related note, Golden Eagle is capitalised throughout (cf. e.g. [13]; [14]), whilst Eurasian Wolf seems to switch capitalisation style after the first sentence. Yet with Great Auk, capitalised here, capitalisation in external sources seems to vary ([15]; [16]).

Should we therefore edit these articles to enforce the lower-case capitalisation that MOS seems to imply? It Is Me Here t / c 12:48, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

If you read WP:FAUNA you'll see birds are an exception. That explains both Golden Eagle and Great Auk. Otherwise there is not much interest in making consistancy in animal subjects, see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Animals/Draft_capitalization_guidelines. Articles should be internally consistant however. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 15:56, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
If you search my contributions for MOS:LIFE, you'll find I make such edits every once in a while. However, I wouldn't change Golden Eagle or Great Auk because they are birds. Perhaps you should reread what the guidelines you cited say about birds and some flying insects. Art LaPella (talk) 15:55, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
OK, so I've edited Eurasian Wolf because of the internal consistency issue cited above, but left the rest of the articles if there is, as you say, a lack of interest in the consistency proposal. It Is Me Here t / c 12:59, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

"To google" or "to Google"

There is a discussion at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#"To google" or "to Google"? (version of 19:08, 27 August 2012).
—Wavelength (talk) 19:28, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization and punctuation in verbal quotes

If the capitalization or punctuation of a verbal quote (as opposed to a literary quote) are incorrect in the original source, is it permitted to silently correct them? As an example, a book gives the following verbal quotation for Ms. X: "He's done this to me, He's screwed me!" If I wanted to use this quote in the article, could I change it to: "He's done this to me. He's screwed me!" (or perhaps "He's done this to me; he's screwed me!", or would I have to retain the error in the quote? Kaldari (talk) 05:56, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

You mean when the Wikipedia article is quoting a video or what is very clearly a transcript of an out-loud interview? I would feel all right about fixing that specific cap problem. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:04, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
Two different cases:
  • Where quoting a video presents interpretational choices consistent with the same sound, it's generally acceptable to use the form most likely to have been intended by the speaker as long as it is consistent with the sound (where that is unclear a note should indicate the main choices that are likely).
  • If a printed transcript of an out-loud interview is the source, some indication of correction (such as "(sic)") should be added by the Wikipedia editor making the change.
Any such indication can be discreet, such as in a citation's parenthetical annotation, unless the meaning is significantly affected, in which case the indication should be more prominent.
This is more of a scholarly standard, rather than what would be used in many newspapers, for example. Keeping annotations discreet meets the needs of both accuracy and unobtrusiveness.
Nick Levinson (talk) 15:46, 28 August 2012 (UTC) (Corrected two misspellings and replaced one word: 15:51, 28 August 2012 (UTC))

Airports RM

Hello. There is currently an RM at Talk:Seattle–Tacoma International Airport on whether to use hyphens or dashes in airport names. You may be interested. Thanks, David1217 What I've done 16:55, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

proposing on names

I propose to add briefly about names to the WP:MOS main page so editors can more easily find the relevant guidelines. It's not obvious that Biographies is relevant when we're not editing a biography, so the sidebar doesn't help. When I asked for help, someone found what I needed but first someone else said they didn't find it. So there's a need.

After the section Vocabulary, I propose to add a section, Names, approximately as follows:

I'll wait a week for comment. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:14, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

If someone can't find what Biographies says about people's names, how would they find a pointer buried deep in the Manual of Style page after "Vocabulary"? Or what if they are looking for something not on that list, which is far from exhaustive? I agree we need better directions, and therefore I have long urged more prominence for the search box at {{Style}} in the upper right corner. When I put "people's names" into that box, the Biographies page was the second suggestion. Also, there should be a better way to find things buried in subpages when using the Table of Contents. And we should have a more systematic relationship between subpage sections and how they are summarized on the main Manual of Style page – not some "summaries" as long as what they are supposed to summarize, while other subpages aren't mentioned at all. Art LaPella (talk) 21:26, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
Most times when we mention someone's name it's not in a biography, so I wouldn't look in Biographies and probably most editors wouldn't, either. (In the search you tried in which Biographies came up second, it came up first for me, but still it wouldn't seem to apply when we're not editing a bio.)
The list can be lengthened, although probably not exhaustively.
Yours seem like good suggestions, but I'm not proposing a general overhaul for usability. Ideally, a template listing various items would be nice, but we'd want to add the template onto one page only, so we may as well just add what we want to the one page without creating a template, too.
Maybe a better solution is, in the See Also section, adding a subsection concentrating on pointers within the MoS.
Nick Levinson (talk) 15:30, 30 August 2012 (UTC) (Corrected syntax: 15:35, 30 August 2012 (UTC))
See Also sounds more logical than putting it in the middle of the guidelines. Art LaPella (talk) 20:43, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
One simple strategy for determining the parts of the MOS most likely to be searched for (rather than the parts one individual has looked for lately) is to search this talk page and part of the last archive for links to specific parts (not to entire pages), which is evidence that readers might need to review them to understand the conversation. This procedure yields: WP:MOSNUM#Larger periods MOS:CAPS WP:FAUNA MOS:QUOTE MOS:DASH—repeatedly MOS:ENDASH MOS:EMDASH MOS:IDENTITY MOS:FOREIGN WP:OPENPARA WP:FULLNAME MOS:#Bulleted and numbered lists WP:Manual of Style/Music#Capitalization MOS:& MOS:#Colons MOS:HYPHEN WP:MOSNUM#Fractions WP:ENGVAR WP:COMMONALITY MOS:TIES. I also excluded WP:TITLE because that isn't part of MOS. In that list, only the link to WP:FULLNAME could have been found by the proposed list of pointers. So I think any pointers list should be re-oriented more like the list at {{Style}} and the Table of Contents to avoid being just one more item to lengthen the page. Art LaPella (talk) 21:52, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
On mentioning organizations, I plan to link to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Cue sports#Respect for official organization names. What it says seems sensible for all subjects, not just one branch of sport. I wonder if anyone knows of any other MoS provision on point. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:57, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
It says "The article for an organization should use the most official name ..." which would presumably be the same as the article's title. So I think Wikipedia:Article titles is what you're looking for. Art LaPella (talk) 20:43, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for the research. I'll work on this, which may take a week or so, depending on computer time.
Article titles use common names, not official names, when different.
Nick Levinson (talk) 16:08, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Gendered nouns

I was bold and added some examples of gendered nouns to MOS:IDENTITY, as there's some confusion as to what it means. At The Wachowskis the previous name of a transitioning person, who was famous both before and after her transition, has been removed repeatedly on the grounds that it's an inappropriate "gendered noun" per the MOS. This is certainly not what's intended here.--Cúchullain t/c 13:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Trivial spelling or typographical errors should be silently corrected

MOS:QUOTE says "Trivial spelling or typographical errors should be silently corrected (for example, correct ommission to omission, harasssment to harassment)—unless the slip is textually important." I did assume the reached to trival grammar but now I'm not sure.

Is changing "... a old house" to "... an old house" considered trivial enough to silently correct? Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 13:23, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
Who's the writer and what's the context? Tony (talk) 13:27, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
No specifics, looking for the principle meaning. There are likely a few thousand quoted texts on Wikipedia with incorrect indefinite article designation. If you want a specific case look at Gary Gygax ref 61 "three shot Mossberg 16 gauge shotgun, a old single-barreled 12 gauge", now you could silently correct to "an old", the alternative of adding {{sic}} seems a bit excessive. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 13:46, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm going to go with yes that is sufficiently trivial to correct silently. Even changing awkward wording to smooth wording requires no previous discussion. Just do it and if people don't like it, they'll revert. Only then is discussion required. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:52, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
"Changing awkward wording"? Not in a quote, surely. Also, people generally don't notice or care about most changes/edits, so I'm not sure about the suggestion that it would be OK so long as no one reverts it, as if silence indicates approval. As for the original qu, if it's a genuine, published, written source I'd prefer a [sic] - which mosquote also recommends, albeit more for what it describes as "significant" as opposed to "trivial" errors. When the original written source is a verbatim unproofed transcription from speech or as-live forum noodlings, one could be a little more generous with silent corrections. One other option for the specific option is to add the [n] in square brackets, which also avoids a pedantic and potentially rude or patronising [sic]. N-HH talk/edits 16:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
No, not within a quote, of course. I refer to awkward wording within article text. But yes, in general, people do not need talk page permission to make changes. Silence indicates a lack of objection. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:13, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
For changing 'a' to 'an' you could add the [n] but if it's changing 'an' to 'a' how would you handle it?

"the old book is not an text in the ordinary sense, but an actor. Just as much as the others."

— Vampyr
How could you correct 'an text' to 'a text', if not silently? Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 16:20, 29 August 2012 (UTC)
  • Or the third way: paraphrase, or part-paraphrase if the glitchy language is at the start or end of the quote-fragment. I often do this as a service to readers in our task of balancing the smooth read with faithful reproduction. And let's not forget: no one would bother retaining the original font or font-size, or the justification/non-justification, of the original text. Is "a" rather than "an" a substantive matter? That's why I wanted to see the context and to know who the author was. Tony (talk) 06:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Important new RFC at WT:TITLE

Editors may be interested in a new RFC that has just started at WT:TITLE (not to be confused with an earlier RFC, which it appears to make redundant):

This RFC affects the standing of WP:RM as the established central resource for dealing with controversial moves; many of those involve MOS provisions, so perhaps the standing of MOS is affected as well.

NoeticaTea? 10:18, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

adding hyphens where sources don't use them

I have changed:

However, hyphens are never inserted into proper-name-based compounds (Middle Eastern cuisine, not Middle-Eastern cuisine).

to:

However, hyphens are never inserted into proper-name-based compounds (Middle Eastern cuisine, not Middle-Eastern cuisine). Or in compounds where in the literature usually doesn't use a hyphen, like second language adquisition.

Because there are names where the lack of a hyphen is not going to confuse any reader, like "cold fusion research", and barely any source thinks that there is a need for a hyphen, and wikipedia should follow the best sources.

For example The American Heritage English As a Second Language Dictionary is not a "second-language dictionary", and it's also hyphenless in Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:41, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I would agree, although as a matter of principle rather than via reference to use in sources. My personal preference - and it's one validated by places I've worked and publications I read - is that hyphenation in such cases is only needed to clarify ambiguity; otherwise it's just the addition of redundant marks onto the page. Semi-formal technical terms often don't need it, as don't a lot of common constructions such as "public sector worker". However, my sense is that US publications are much more rigid about applying hyphens and that this is the practice preferred by most MOS regulars here. The proposed wording does also open up potential problems such as defining "usually", which sources we give credence and weight to etc. N-HH talk/edits 17:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
Maybe we should use the "best" sources in the relevant field. The editors can decide which are the "best" sources in the talk page.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I in a few discussions I have found a troubling double standard:
  • if the best sources use hyphens, then we need to follow them.
  • if the best sources don't use hyphens, it's because the experts often drop the hyphens in compounds they are familiar with, and we don't need to follow them.
  • if popular media uses hyphens, then it's common usage in English
  • if popular media doesn't use hyphens, it's because of sloppy editorial standards
This way the decision always goes in favor of using hyphens in all compounds. Idem for hyphen/dash discussions. Maybe we should agree on a single standard, and follow it. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:34, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
  • "Or in compounds where in the literature usually doesn't use a hyphen" ... no, this is well documented in RMs and the like. More often than not, the literature is inconsistent, especially where so-called experts in a field drop typography that's important for easy comprehension by non-experts. Tony (talk) 06:35, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
    • "Easy comprehension by non-experts" is a canard repeated so often here that it has become a constant drumbeat. Enric correctly points out how the argument is rigged in favor of using hyphens or dashes always, regardless of what our sources do. Quale (talk) 06:00, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
I think the issue has been mis-characterized. I normally would not suggest hyphens or dashes without evidence that reliable sources do it that way. But not "usually", as in the sense of "most reliable sources" doing it that. The point is that if some sources have shown that the hyphen is legitimately useful there to help the reader, than that's evidence that WP editors can rely on and use to guide the choice of a style that will best help the reader. It's clear the most reliable sources, especially expert and specialist sources, tend to drop hyphens when a compound becomes so familiar that is no longer ambiguous to their readers. That's not the situation in a general-readership encyclopedia. Dicklyon (talk) 06:21, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
If the suggestion is that we hyphenate a term if we can find a few decent sources that do, we may as well just say "always hyphenate" when technically required, since hyphenation practices vary so widely across the multitude of publishers and publications. Also, on the claim that this is about helping non-experts, similar to the hyphen/en-dash debate, we seem to be affording punctuation a pedagogic and instructive power it does not have, or at least has only marginally. The meaning of "wave-oscillating capacitor" is no clearer to this non-scientist for example than "wave oscillating capacitor". Equally, as noted above, where the term is more familiar to a general readership, the meaning is often so obvious that hypenation adds nothing, eg "public sector worker". N-HH talk/edits 08:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Tangentially, maybe – that's probably because neither of those are recognized terms, at least not to me :) It looks like those three sequential words are from a scanned datasheet that has been copied to multiple sites. It was probably originally printed "sawtooth-wave-oscillating capacitor", meaning the external capacitor that an IC uses as part of a sawtooth-wave-generating oscillator. Ironically, in this case, if the hyphens were in the source, it probably would have resulted in grabbing the whole term instead of leaving off the "sawtooth" prefix, without which it makes no sense. If that makes sense. :) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 09:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Halliday rocks

Don't mention "ideational". Tony (talk) 10:25, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Content in templates

I have started a discussion of how to provide citations for content that is contained in templates at WT:CITE#Content in templates. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:15, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Discussion at VPP

People here may be interested in WP:VPP#Proposal to modify MOS:IDENTITY. Comments there would be welcomed. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:16, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Commas to delimit parenthetic material

The MoS says of using commas:

"Pairs of commas are often used to delimit parenthetic material, forming a parenthetical remark. This interrupts the sentence less than a parenthetical remark in (round) brackets or dashes. Do not be fooled by other punctuation, which can mask the need for a comma, especially when it collides with a bracket or parenthesis, as in this example:

  • Incorrect: Burke and Wills, fed by local Aborigines (on beans, fish, and "ngardu") survived for a few months.
  • Correct: Burke and Wills, fed by local Aborigines (on beans, fish, and "ngardu"), survived for a few months."

Am I right in thinking that commas should perhaps not be used in place of round brackets in situations where those round brackets are themselves within a parenthetical remark, as happened in this change here? I am inclined to reword the sentence in this instance anyway so that neither brackets nor commas are required, but I am curious as to the preferred way from a general grammatical point of view. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 20:53, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

    • No; they can both be used. But here, why the parentheses at all? "Burke and Wills, fed on beans, fish, and "ngardu" by local Aborigines, survived for a few months." Or better, since a lot of commas are hanging around: "Burke and Wills—fed on beans, fish, and "ngardu" by local Aborigines—survived for a few months." Or since feeding months is not at issue: ""Burke and Wills survived for a few months, fed on beans, fish, and "ngardu" by local Aborigines." Tony (talk) 06:29, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree that in the Burke and Wills example given in the MoS, parentheses are not required as the phrase reads just as well without them. However it wasn't the MoS example that I was querying, it was the situation here, in which a parenthetic phrase is 'nested' within another, and I query whether both phrases should be delimited by commas, as when done so (in this case by another editor) the result to me appears awkward. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 05:38, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

The sentence variants in question are:

  • "The letters, part of a larger and somewhat one-sided correspondence (Heger frequently appears not to have replied), reveal..."
  • "The letters, part of a larger and somewhat one-sided correspondence, Heger frequently appears not to have replied, reveal ..."

To me personally the first version is more easily readable, however another editor changed it to the second, presumably because they considered the first to be incorrect in some way, yet to me the second version is less 'natural' - but this might be just my own personal prejudice resulting from my own particular language experiences. (I have since reworded the sentence to avoid parenthetic phrasing completely, but I am still curious to know if the other editor's change was warranted). PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 06:27, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

"Airplane" / "Aeroplane" / "Fixed Wing Aircraft" in ENGVAR

Currently in the style manual: "Universally used terms are often preferable to less widely distributed terms, especially in article titles. For example, fixed-wing aircraft is preferred to the national varieties aeroplane (British English) and airplane (American English)." Are we kidding? "Fixed-wing aircraft" is far less widely used and far less widely understood than either "aeroplane" or "airplane". Can we please find another example? This one is terrible and IMO gives absolutely the wrong advice (unless you're an aeronautical engineering student). --Lquilter (talk) 10:19, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

It may not be ideal, but this rule does a lot to prevent edit warring over WP:ENGVAR differences. For article naming, so long as you appropriately redirect or disambiguate from other possible locations, this shouldn't create a problem. Unless the MediaWiki software is updated to allow you to select a language preference (and to edit article to enable this), i don't think there is a more elegant solution. OwainDavies (about)(talk) edited at 13:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
I think the point is that the example is bad, not the rule in general. 86.160.221.242 (talk) 13:51, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
Anon. contributor is probably right. Better ideas, anyone? I know "curb" and "kerb" are spelled differently in AmE and BrE, but if there's another word for that thing at the side of the road, I've never heard it. Ditto for "check" and "cheque." Hm. "Athletic shoe" might do in the place of "sneakers" and "trainers" where "sneakers" refers to athletic shoes. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:09, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
If you want an alternative example, you can look in "Comparison of American and British English".
—Wavelength (talk) 01:10, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict): (1) The obvious solution in articles for lay readers is just plain old "aircraft" without the fixed wings for both the singular and plural of aeroplane/airplane(s), perhaps allowing subsequent uses of 'plane(s) or plane(s) when clarity trumps formal encyclop(a)edic style. When a wartime BBC bulletin ruefullly reports that "six of our aircraft did not return", images of helicopters and dirigibles do not come to my mind. (2) For better examples, perhaps "decision", "opinion", "verdict", "award", "consideration" or "reasoning", as appropriate, could be suggested as non-ENGVAR alternatives for judg(e)ment. —— Shakescene (talk) 01:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
But when I hear "aircraft," I do think of hot air balloons and helicopters. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:53, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
In my opinion, in normal parlance, "aircraft" is usually understood to mean fixed-wing aircraft. However, I understand the example wanting to be fussy and precise on this point. It would probably be easier, as has been suggested, to abandon that problematic example and choose an easier one. 86.146.104.131 (talk) 11:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree that this example should be removed. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:52, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
But surely the point of the example is that the article is called Fixed-wing aircraft, however clumsy this term (and I agree entirely that it is clumsy). The example demonstrates the importance attached to avoiding ENGVAR disputes, even if the result is less than elegant. So I think it should stay; it makes a valuable point. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:11, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm not sure the passage as written makes the point quite clearly enough that it's talking about titles here. The article title is fixed-wing aircraft, and I think that's fine. On the other hand, if people were to start straining to use fixed-wing aircraft in running text, say
... but as Lindberg neared the Irish coast, the engine of his fixed-wing aircraft began making an alarming noise
well, that would just be silly. --Trovatore (talk) 19:20, 6 September 2012 (UTC)
But surely the point of the example is that the article is called Fixed-wing aircraft, however clumsy this term (and I agree entirely that it is clumsy).
And that's the problem. We usually don't adopt "clumsy" titles to avoid English variety issues. The Fixed-wing aircraft article is a rare exception (backed, in part, by unrelated rationales pertaining to technical aspects of the subject).
In most cases, if no everyday term is used across all English varieties, we do use an English variety-specific name as the article's title. For example, we use Waistcoat (not Sleeveless upper-body garment) and Gasoline (not Petroleum-derived engine fuel). Note that the latter is similar to actual suggestions that arose during the "gasoline"/"petrol" naming debate.
The example demonstrates the importance attached to avoiding ENGVAR disputes, even if the result is less than elegant.
But we generally don't attach that much importance. We prefer sane, English-variety specific titles to artificial constructs designed to ensure that no one "wins". —David Levy 08:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Well there's "pharmacy" and "chemist's" vs "drug store" ... unless "pharmacy" in North America is considered only to be a medicine shop or section and a "drug store" is a shop (often a supermarket) containing a medicine section. JIMp talk·cont 07:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the "fixed-wing aircraft" example is poor, as we rarely select such an obscure term over widely used (but English variety-specific) names. Many editors have criticised that decision, which certainly is atypical (even if valid).
A good example is the Glasses article. After debating whether to title it "Eyeglasses" (used in North America) or "Spectacles" (used elsewhere), we settled on "Glasses" because that term is widely used in all English varieties.
I'll go ahead and make the change. If anyone disagrees, feel free to revert and discuss. —David Levy 07:51, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I reverted this change, because it doesn't make the point of the "fixed-wing aircraft" example. Although "spectacles" is still used in British English by some people, "glasses" is much more common – in fact the Google Ngram suggests that it has "always" been more common (and in American English, "glasses" is more used than "eyeglasses"). The point of the "fixed-wing aircraft" example is to show that we are willing to pay a price for commonality; the chosen neutral term is much less common than either of the ENGVAR variants. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:07, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
As discussed above, we usually aren't willing to pay such a price for commonality. We should provide a typical example.
Many editors argued for "Eyeglasses" and "Spectacles" (both of which were used as the article's title at different points), so it's an actual instance in which we settled a dispute by setting aside conflicting English variety-specific names in favor of commonality.
I'm sure that plenty of other examples are better than "fixed-wing aircraft", which reflects one of the most atypical naming decisions we've made. —David Levy 08:32, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that we are in any disagreement about what point to make, just what example to use. The "price" paid for using "fixed-wing aircraft" is, I agree, high and unusual, so this isn't the best example. But in the case of "glasses", whatever editors argued at the time, in both countries the term is more common (according to Google ngrams) than the ENGVAR specific variants "spectacles" and "eyeglasses". So this is an example where the "price" paid is, in my view, negative – it's a better title in either ENGVAR. We need an example where there is some price paid for commonality, but not such a high one as "fixed-wing aircraft". (I'm not suggesting using such an example because of other complications, but the preference of WP:PLANTS for scientific names to avoid regional and national variations in the use of common names is the kind of example I would prefer.) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:26, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that we are in any disagreement about what point to make, just what example to use.
We're in slight disagreement about what point to make. I disagree that "paying a price" is an intrinsic element. The concept is simply that international commonality often is a deciding factor.
This, of course, doesn't preclude the use of an example in which we favored a term other than the most common one (provided that it isn't uncommon). I just don't agree that it's essential.
But in the case of "glasses", whatever editors argued at the time, in both countries the term is more common (according to Google ngrams) than the ENGVAR specific variants "spectacles" and "eyeglasses".
One of the concerns was that the term "glasses" has other meanings. (Of course, so does "spectacles".) Doesn't the Google Ngram Viewer graph include all instances appearing in the literature searched (such as references to drinking glasses and spectacles of nature)?
If you want to look for a "price", the article's original title ("Eyeglasses") clearly is less ambiguous. We traded that advantage for international commonality. (Granted, we wouldn't pluralize those other topics' names in the articles' titles, nor would we allow any of the three terms to lead to a different article.) —David Levy 12:05, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
In context, "glasses" is pretty clear. It's likely to be used in sentences like "She poured beer into glasses" or "he put in his glasses." Even "I broke the glasses" is likely to be made clear in the paragraph. "He flew overhead in an aircraft" doesn't establish fixed-wing vs. helicopter vs. zeppelin. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:31, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Agreed. And as noted above, "fixed-wing aircraft" isn't an appropriate substitute for "airplane" or "aeroplane" in most prose (though "plane" might be). That's part of why it's a poor example. It's stated that the principle applies "especially in article titles" (which doesn't appear to be true, which is a separate matter), not exclusively in article titles (which certainly isn't true). So the current wording appears to incorrectly indicate that we prefer "fixed-wing aircraft" to "aeroplane" and "airplane" in general.
Conversely, "glasses" generally is preferable to "eyeglasses" or "spectacles" (because of the aforementioned commonality). —David Levy 05:00, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Trouble is, both "glasses" and "plane" have a multitude of other, quite different meanings, so avoiding one kind of obscurity in this way leads to far greater confusion. You can't avoid ambiguity with Mercury (unless you want to use the far-less common Quicksilver for the element and the Greek Hermes for the god), since that's the unique, precise name for the Roman deity, the planet and the element. But where there are several valid synonyms or related terms, it's not a great idea, in my humble opinion, to use a more confusingly-general term to avoid terms that may be less common in one variant of English, but are still understandable (e.g. airplane & aeroplane, gramophone & phonograph, radio & wireless, automobile & motorcar, licorice & liquorice, pharmacy for British eyes, or cardigan for American ones). —— Shakescene (talk) 05:23, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Trouble is, both "glasses" and "plane" have a multitude of other, quite different meanings, so avoiding one kind of obscurity in this way leads to far greater confusion. You can't avoid ambiguity with Mercury (unless you want to use the far-less common Quicksilver for the element and the Greek Hermes for the god), since that's the unique, precise name for the Roman deity, the planet and the element. But where there are several valid synonyms or related terms, it's not a great idea, in my humble opinion, to use a more confusingly-general term to avoid terms that may be less common in one variant of English, but are still understandable (e.g. airplane & aeroplane, gramophone & phonograph, radio & wireless, automobile & motorcar, licorice & liquorice, pharmacy for British eyes, or cardigan for American ones). —— Shakescene (talk) 05:23, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Trouble is, both "glasses" and "plane" have a multitude of other, quite different meanings, so avoiding one kind of obscurity in this way leads to far greater confusion.
It depends on the context.
"Plane" obviously isn't a suitable title for the Fixed-wing aircraft article. But the Glasses article's title is fine. Because its subject is the one sought by most people typing "glasses", it wouldn't make sense for the term to lead elsewhere (such as the Glass article or a disambiguation page). So if the article were titled "Eyeglasses" or "Spectacles", "Glasses" would redirect to it anyway. And anyone reading the article knows what "glasses" means therein.
In general prose, the sentence "Smith owns a large collection of antique glasses." is ambiguous. But the sentence "Smith frequently wears glasses." is not (and is preferable to using "eyeglasses" or "spectacles").
Likewise, we can use terms like "plane crash" without confusion. —David Levy 18:10, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
"fixed-wing aircraft" over "glasses" is like arguing that jamming your toe makes your headache seem better. Or that removing your eyeglasses would make the current spectacle much more bearable. Actually, that's the only way "fixed-wing aircraft" would be unobjectionable. Shenme (talk) 05:34, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Pine trees

Category:Pinus (pine trees) is a hotbed of Manual of Style rebellion. Or to be boring, the capitalization of article titles like Scots Pine doesn't comply with MOS:LIFE. Other trees almost always use the scientific name for the title and therefore don't have that problem, but tree articles like American Chestnut that use the common name for a title are also capitalized. Art LaPella (talk) 04:26, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

The capitalization of the common names of plants (and other taxa) has been discussed endlessly elsewhere. The reality is that there is no consensus supporting the recommendation to use lower-case (other than for proper names) for the common names of plants (nor is there a consensus to use upper-case). (Also there are other quite widely used conventions, e.g. lower-case in running text but upper-case in titles, lists and tables.) Far too much time has been wasted arguing about this already without any sign of agreement being reached. If you want to go round changing to lower-case, you can do so, but accept that (a) in some areas you'll quickly be reverted and start fierce arguments (b) new articles will continue to appear using different conventions. Consistency within articles is enough for many (most?) of us. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:17, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Reasonable, but does that mean you would prefer we didn't have that guideline? Or should it say that trees are another exception like butterflies? Art LaPella (talk) 18:54, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I would prefer us to be able to reach a consensus, but long debates elsewhere have failed to achieve this. I certainly don't want any more changes to MOS:CAPS, which will just start up another time-wasting debate! (Trees are no different from other plants; there is simply no WP-wide consensus on the case to be used for the common names of plants.) Peter coxhead (talk) 10:58, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
If we can't make the guideline match a consensus, then I suppose I should ignore that guideline on the Main Page, and hope nobody else reads the guideline, which I suppose is the usual situation anyway. Art LaPella (talk) 17:23, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Peter on the whole capitalisation debate, however in this particular instance there is the additional question of italics; unless I am overlooking a minor peculiarity of guidelines w.r.t. categories, the common names in that category shouldn't be in italics. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 09:33, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
You mean like Aleppo Pine? It's italicized only on the category page, where italicization is shorthand for "Aleppo Pine is just a redirect, not an independent article." Art LaPella (talk) 18:54, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Ah, so I was overlooking something. Not for the first time.... PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:03, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, this confused me in the past. It's a pity that this convention clashes with the convention for scientific names. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:59, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

More Than "Three Main Uses" of Hyphens

Hyphens are used to improve readability and word flow, especially when adverbs precede a verb:

http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/hyphens.asp [includes this text]:

Rule 5

When adverbs not ending in -ly are used as compound words in front of a noun, hyphenate. When the combination of words is used after the noun, do not hyphenate.

Examples: The well-known actress accepted her award. Well is an adverb followed by another descriptive word. They combine to form one idea in front of the noun.

The actress who accepted her award was well known. Well known follows the noun it describes, so no hyphen is used.

A long-anticipated decision was finally made. He got a much-needed haircut yesterday. His haircut was much needed.

[Text copied from copyrighted material removed -- see below]
[And restored, with square-bracketed explanation now preceding it: see below]

Ryoung122 03:34, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I've removed the text you imported from the grammarbook site -- it's copyrighted material. In any event, the examples given in that text are already covered by the third of the "Three Main Uses" MOS covers i.e. the linking of related terms in compound modifiers. EEng (talk) 15:54, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
EEng, that is certainly not a violation of copyright. It is perfectly normal fair use for criticism or comment. We do such quotation all the time in articles, and of course we do it on talkpages of MOS when we consult compare sources. I have restored what Ryoung quoted, but I added a clarification to precede it.
The post is not very clear in its intent; but for what it's worth, Ryoung makes a good general point. There are other uses of the hyphen, and at some stage they should be added to WP:HYPHEN. I agree on this: the points in RYoung's quote are already covered in WP:HYPHEN.
NoeticaTea? 22:30, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I'm shame-faced -- I over-reacted -- though the commentary-criticism exception is fair-well un-done by the post's total (or, at least, near-) absence of well-wrought thought-provoking use-of-hyphen examples (or counter-examples). EEng (talk) 00:51, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
FYI
 – Just a pointer to a relevant discussion elsewhere.

This RfC should really be happening here, not on some project page no one reads but project members, but here it is anyway, and snowballing in favor of MoS's take on the matter: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#Hyphens. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 00:26, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Although it seems to be getting a wider input than most debates do on this page, which also mostly has a self-selecting and limited readership. N-HH talk/edits 10:07, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
If I see any style-related RFCs that don't have the "style and naming" designation, I'll add it, so that they show up at WP:Requests_for_comment/Wikipedia_style_and_naming. And generally, if I see any style RfCs that are presenting MOS problems, I'll certainly let you guys know. That very rarely happens on the project pages I watch (including WP:SHIPS pages and WP:Milhist pages). - Dank (push to talk) 03:02, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Don't retrieve sections from the archives

I have removed an entire section from this page (in this edit). Please, can we not restore old sections from the archives like that, and present them as if they had been visible on the page and never archived? It distorts the record of proceedings here. As a participant in the archived discussion, even I struggled to work out what was going on.

Start a new discussion as appropriate, with judicious reference to and citation of that old section as you see fit.

Thank you! ☺

NoeticaTea? 01:16, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

It's standard to retrieve archived sections if the archiving is recent and the section not too long. But I will start a new one as requested. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:38, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
Fine, Slim! It's just that the way you did it was confusing, and perhaps it distorted the trajectory of the dialogue. I've been around here since 2005, and it took me a while to figure it out, as I have said. ☺
NoeticaTea? 03:28, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
SlimVirgin, it is not standard to retrieve archived sections period. It is standard to link archived material if it is archived.Curb Chain (talk) 03:04, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
I've unarchived threads that were bot-archived too rapidly, and I've copied large sections from archives when it was critical that participants in a discussion actually read the content (rather than just linking to the archived-thread, and hoping they would click through and read).
It is a standard practice (See this search), but doesn't seem to be explained anywhere (I could've sworn I'd read about it in WP:ARCHIVE, but after searching through about 30 random diffs from the last 6 years, I couldn't see anything). So, I've made a post at Help talk:Archiving a talk page#Archiving loses record of errors, asking for suggested wording (hopefully something very short). Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 21:41, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
I have to concur with Quiddity and SlimVirgin on this. Bot archival causes problems and interferes with the ability of editors to communicate and actually come to real consensus, far more often than I'd like. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:32, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Let's be clear. Once again, I agree also. But signal what you are doing, when you intervene in the normal archiving process. A note at the top of the section, perhaps. Also, if you have started a discussion do not be surprised if it is "prematurely" archived when you yourself have left the scene for many days.
NoeticaTea? 00:00, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Commas section

In the "Commas" section, it says "Commas are the most frequently used marks in punctuation, and can be the most difficult to use well." I do not believe the comma between "punctuation" and "and" should be there, as "can be the most difficult to use well" is not an independent clause; the conjunction "and" is merely joining the two verbs. I removed the comma, another user restored it and suggested we discuss it; this is me opening a discussion.  Chickenmonkey  10:02, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

As with a lot of punctuation, including it in that context is neither necessary nor wrong (something that seems to get lost in a lot of MOS debates). It is however almost certainly redundant in the example above. N-HH talk/edits 10:04, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Honestly, I just happened to be reading that section and noticed the presumably misplaced comma. I'm not extremely invested in the edit and am not sure of my correctness. I will let you all discuss and sort it out. ;)  Chickenmonkey  10:13, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree that the comma is optional; however, I would tend to use one in this instance, because it slightly changes the meaning. I would say it has the effect of presenting the second clause (with the understood subject) as a separate unit of information. In speech, I think, this would be done by using two tone groups, with a (perceived) pause before the "and": "Commas are the most frequently used marks in punctuation [pause] and can be the most difficult to use well." I think this adds weight to both parts of the sentence. --Boson (talk) 10:30, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Chickenmonkey, we don't need that comma. If we want to emphasise the separteness of the second piece of info, switch a "they" for the "and". JIMp talk·cont 04:05, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

In that instance, we would need to then switch the comma for a semicolon. I like that; I do enjoy a good semicolon, or we could insert the "they" after the "and" and avoid ambiguity with the comma altogether.  Chickenmonkey  04:41, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
I think a semicolon would make the sentence harder to parse (and generally don't like that use of a semicolon for this reason). I don't think it's at all ambiguous without the comma – the two clauses are pretty tightly coupled. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 04:09, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The best alternative is to put it back as it started. If you leave out the comma, as in ""Commas are the most frequently used marks in punctuation and can be the most difficult to use well," you have to get a word or two past the "and" to know that it's not to be interpreted as the first obvious parse of "in punctuation and x". The comma tells the reader sooner how to read it. It's optional, but useful to the reader, so leave it in. Dicklyon (talk) 04:25, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Since it is optional, would not the best alternative be to remove the optionality? If we make the sentence, "Commas are the most frequently used marks in punctuation, and they can also be the most difficult to use well", the sentence is easy to parse, the comma is still there, and the comma is no longer optional. Really, the only reason it even matters is that it is the "Commas section" of our Manual of Style; it just does not seem like a good idea for us to throw optional commas into a section where we are attempting to explain the use of a punctuation mark which "can be the most difficult".  Chickenmonkey  05:12, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
I actually think it sounds better as "Commas are the most frequently used marks in punctuation. They can also be the most difficult to use well." Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:05, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Inclusion of sounds

Hi all,

This may sound like a very silly question, but do we have policy/guidelines on when and where to include sound? I can find guidelines on file formats and free content, and some notes on the specific cases of pronunciation and music samples (mostly oriented around copyright). However, there's very little discussing when to use/not use audio content analogous to the general image use policy.

Any suggestions? Andrew Gray (talk) 11:10, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest be bold is the governing guidance at the moment, Andrew. If the MOS offers no advice, then just do it. You may be reverted and have to examine other editors' reasons for not including sound. But consensus will eventually form on when and where to include sound - and at that point you or I or someone else can document that consensus in the MOS. It's the wiki-way! --RexxS (talk) 14:05, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
I suspected this was the answer :-) I guess part of what I'm wondering is whether people know of such conflicts in the past, and what the (undocumented?) result of them was... Andrew Gray (talk) 14:53, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
I usually look for Featured examples, when I can't find P/G/MoS info:
Portal:Featured sounds is inactive, but contains links to much advice and precedent/practice (although it does specify free/publicdomain as a "featured" criteria, so it probably won't get into fairuse examples).
Also, Wikipedia:WikiProject Images and Media/Sound (found via the wikiproject directory) will probably be useful. :) —Quiddity (talk) 00:48, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Using boldface in annotated list items

Should boldface be allowed in annotated list items? Please take a look at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Using boldface in annotated list items?, thank you. --Paul_012 (talk) 16:36, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Cultivar group capitalization

FYI
 – Pointer to a relevant discussion elsewhere.

At Talk:Cultivar#Following MOS and the thread immediately above it there's been some (not entirely collegial) discussion of use or misuse of capitalization of the term "group" in botany, what is called the "cultivar group" in long form. The actual official ICNCP standard in botanical literature is to capitalize the word as "Group" when it appears in a name (just like Genus is capitalized and italicized, species is italicized but not capitalized, etc.; there are real rules for scientific nomenclature of organisms). An example would be "Brassica oleracea Italica Group 'Calabrese'" for Calabrese broccoli (note "Group" not "group").

The issue: At least one editor has insisted on always capitalizing this word, everywhere, if it refers to cultivar group, e.g. "As Group names are used with cultivar names it is necessary to understand their way of presentation." By contrast, at least one other editor feels that this is a WP:SSF problem, and is the same error as always capitalizing "president" simply because it is capitalized when used as an job title with someone's name, or always capitalizing "corporation" because it is capitalized when included as part of the official name of a company. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:39, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Position of navigation boxes

I have never understood why navigation boxes are typically put in the "External links" section when they are actually internal links (see US Open (tennis) for a completely randomly chosen example). Surely they should go under "See also", shouldn't they? Is there a guideline about this, and, if so, is it time to rewrite it? 86.160.221.242 (talk) 13:54, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout (version of 21:40, 17 August 2012). Navigation boxes are not in the section "External links", but they are in their own section, below the external links.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:24, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, but in most articles, as far as I recall seing, they are in the "External links" section. See my random example article, for instance. What should the title of the navigation boxes section be? 86.160.221.242 (talk) 16:29, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
They are demarcated by their structure, and not by a heading.
—Wavelength (talk) 16:36, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
That is not clear. They appear to be external links since they are under a heading that reads "External links" (I have been around Wikipedia long enough to know that they aren't external links, but that's what it looks like from the section structure). Why would they not go under "See also", since that is what they are? 86.160.221.242 (talk) 17:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)
This is the kind of add-on that confuses my Watchlist, but perhaps that's unavoidable. That is, I see "Controversial Article I've Edited and Fancy I Know Something About#External Links" in My Watchlist (or in the article's own history) without an edit summary, and look curiously only to find that it's a navigation box or some Wikipedia template that's been added. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:00, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The OP has a good point; it might be worth raising this with the accessibility project, to see how such links are perceived by users of assistive technologies. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:39, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I also always found it silly to put navboxes right at the end, below stuff that fewer people will want to read such as reference footnotes. IIRC last time I asked they told me it was for aesthetical reasons – IOW it wouldn't look as pretty to have a box and then more stuff below it. — A. di M.  19:09, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

From my point of view, it's a structural decision natural to the WWW as a whole. Page-wide boxes of any sort are not generally placed somewhere in the middle of the page, regardless of internal contents (whether those are internal links, external links, or some other sort of content), unless there are only page-wide boxes placed beneath them. Something like the concept of a pyramid (you wouldn't build a pyramid by inverting it...). The aesthetics are also a concern, I suppose. And before any number of years ago, the boxes weren't collapsible. It's still the case that they are not collapsed for users without Javascript installed. You can imagine how a reader from the global South, rural China, or even users in the modern day who disable Javascript might have an issue with their placement in the middle. --Izno (talk) 01:32, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

If they went in the "See also" section, they would not be "somewhere in the middle of the page", they would be at the end of the article proper. Anyway, there is even less reason why potentially huge areas of space "in the middle of the page" should be taken up by potentially vast lists of references that no one is ever going to read (except individually, if they want to check an individual citation), yet these lists actually appear before the navboxes that people are much more likely to want to peruse. 86.179.116.254 (talk) 03:28, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
  • This was discussed recently, from the other angle, at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout#Move See also to after External links - (Clustering all the "topic-Related" bits (Seealso/Categories/Navboxes/Sistertemplates) into the same location at the Page End, separated from the "topic-Specific" material above.) - It was suggested to make it an optional/alternative layout style, when editors thought it contextually beneficial. (Ie. Not a proposal to change the default and force all articles to conform). I figured it would: prevent some EL spam, cluster related info, and encourage category exploration/use. It didn't get much support though, sadly. —Quiddity (talk) 05:38, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Curly quotes please!

Dear English Wikipedia, please start using correct curly quotation marks (“…” ‘…’). It is 2012 after all. Our Russian section uses correct quots and is still alive. Moreover, think about automatic character replacement for view purposes—let the stupid search engine see what it wants. If your programmers are too lazy to tweak the search engines, that’s their problem. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.229.137.14 (talk) 08:42, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I was unaware non-curly quotation marks had an expiration date, it being 2012 after all. Civility has no expiration date, though, so there's no need to include accusations of laziness in your polite request. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:49, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't understand what is being asked. Can someone explain. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 23:17, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
The IP wants to change MOS:QUOTEMARKS so the English Wikipedia starts using curly quotation marks “like here” instead of straight "like here". There are links to past discussions at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Register#Quotation marks. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:43, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Please don't consider this. We don't need yet another (let alone 4) special character that isn't on anyone's keyboard, and nobody will know about, spawning lots of silly punctuation wars. Hyphen/dash is about all we can stand, I think. People have been using straight single and double quotes for most of the computer age, and some time before that. I appreciate the art of typography as well as anyone, but some things just don't fit any more. IMO. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 14:31, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Spacing stylization

What are the guidelines for musical acts or album/song titles, etc, whose names are stylized without spaces. Eg: 65daysofstatic? Wetdogmeat (talk) 15:52, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Recent addition and editing of within-MOS list

Actually, I did discuss it on the talk page, and I linked to the archive in my edit summary. The recent edits are okay by me; my main quibble is that some are less clear, and the list is meant for people who are less familiar with the MOS. But go ahead with the work and thanks. 23:52, 15 September 2012 (UTC) Nick Levinson (talk) 23:59, 15 September 2012 (UTC) (Accidentally typed too many tildes last time.)

Nick, that seems to be a response to me (best to keep such allusions overt from the start, yes?), and to something I said in my edit summaries when I worked on the subsection you introduced. My first edit was this one. My edit summary: "Without prejudice re the fate of this new section (it needs to be workshopped on the talkpage), rationalise details at the start and in the "Names" subsection; clear labelling avoids multiple loads of same destination page ☺". The rest of my edits have been in the same vein.
Now that I have done those edits, I come to the talkpage to thank you for some excellent work. I do not say that you did not discuss first! I only suggest that your details, and mine too, will need scrutiny. I think I have seen opportunities to clarify; and I think others will do that also. ☺
NoeticaTea? 00:17, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
Nick Levinson, here is a link to your expansion of WP:MOS by 3,778 bytes at 19:08, 15 September 2012.
–Wavelength (talk) 02:24, 16 September 2012 (UTC) and 02:26, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Internal consistency v consistency across articles

[I have restored this section just after it was archived; it includes argument that is relevant to the current RFC (see just below), which explicitly makes reference to it.–NoeticaTea? 08:10, 16 September 2012 (UTC)]

Further information: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_129 § Internal_consistency_v_consistency_across_articles

Noetica removed these words "though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole" – from this lead sentence:

An overriding principle is that style and formatting choices should be consistent within a Wikipedia article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole.

As the lead already mentions internal consistency, this sentence is arguably repetitive without the juxtaposition. More importantly, we don't require consistency across articles, and it's important to stress that. The lead currently implies that we do, or at least does not make clear that we don't:

  • "The MoS presents Wikipedia's house style, to help editors produce articles with consistent, clear, and precise language, layout, and formatting."
  • Consistency in language, style, and formatting promotes clarity and cohesion; this is especially important within an article.

Therefore, the addition of "though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole" (or similar) is needed. SlimVirgin (talk) 02:38, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

The first sentence of this section inadvertently misrepresents what happened. The sequence of events (all on 12 August 2012):

  • SlimVirgin restored some wording that had been long absent from MOS (diff)
  • Curb Chain reverted that restoration (diff)
  • Noetica restored what SlimVirgin had added, except for what Curb Chain objected to (diff)

Slim, would you please amend that first sentence? Best to keep the account accurate. ♥
NoeticaTea? 07:51, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

[Note: I have exhausted my reserves of time for dealing with this issue. I see that Slim did not make the factual correction I requested (see immediately above). For the RFC on this page (#RfC: Internal consistency versus consistency across articles), please refer to the detail in all of my submissions in this earlier section. I explain my temporary absence in that RFC. ☺NoeticaTea? 03:43, 7 September 2012 (UTC)]

Not needed. As these sentences in the lede show, consistency across articles is indeed important. Including your proposal is contradictory and will be a contention of confusion for editors.Curb Chain (talk) 05:10, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
You are mistaken there. Articles do not have a single standard style. When there are two or more acceptable styles, an article can use either of them: English/British spelling, BC/BCE, date formatting, citation style, etc. (this has been said by arbcom, for example here or here) There is no requirement to make all those articles consistent with each other.
The extra phrase is to prevent people from going in style-fixing sprees when they get the mistaken idea that articles need to be consistent among them. This is a real problem that caused many headaches and arbitration cases. For example Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/jguk_2#Findings_of_fact, where someone tried to ensure BC/BCE consistency across articles. A more recent case is Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Date_delinking where people used scripts to adapt hundreds of articles to their preferred style. --Enric Naval (talk) 06:59, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
No Enric, Curb is not mistaken. As things stand, there is nothing in the Manual to support such a spree. If MOS supported campaigns to impose one style choice uniformly across Wikipedia, from among options, it would say so. It would not single out consistency within articles, as it does now. Indeed, it would not present options at all!
Consider three propositions:
P1: There is a hard requirement for consistency within articles, where MOS presents options.
P2: There is no hard requirement for consistency between articles, where MOS presents options.
P3: In groups of articles on similar topics, similar styling is better than an unprincipled or random selection of styles.
Who disagrees with any of those, and why? (Not a rhetorical question.)
We might regard P3 as a motive for our glittering array of subsidiary MOS pages, naming conventions, informal conventions out there in the projects, and so on. It starts as an unspoken presumption; and then, many specialists make it explicit for their own fields.
I think we should not send a message against efforts to unite groups of articles in that established way. I am yet to see an argument that such groups of articles (often cross-linked, often cited together) are improved by a perceived licence for each to take its own independent direction, subject only to the whim of editors narrowly focused on a single article rather than a thematically united group of articles.
NoeticaTea? 07:51, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Noetica's general principles here, but would formulate the propositions to take account of the following.
  • for P1 and P2, "where MOS presents options or is silent".
  • for P3 I think we should make it clear that consistency is expected for closely-related articles (and try to establish that if anyone is inclined to disagree).
Of course, how closely articles are related can be a matter for discussion. Authors should be relatively free to agree the appropriate scope for any consistency.
Apart from being general common sense, an appropriate degree of consistency both enhances the user experience and makes it easier for editors to make corresponding changes everywhere where they are needed.
Nobody should be able to say "MOS says that articles do not have to be consistent with each other" as a pro forma excuse to block changes among such closely-related articles. At the same time we should emphasise that editors should establish consensus before making extensive changes. --Mirokado (talk) 09:51, 22 August 2012 (UTC)
I disagree. The MoS does not require articles, even articles in the same Wikiproject, to match each other, so it is perfectly okay to say so. "Let's make this article match a related one" is not, by itself, sufficient reason for a change in style. However, "I feel like it, I raised it on the talk page, and no one objected within a reasonable time frame," is sufficient reason. To use the language of the thread, we should not put P3 in the MoS. 1. We shouldn't add rules to the MoS unless there is a real reason to do so, like a) said rule is part of the English language or b) adding said rule would solve a non-hypothetical problem and 2. Enric Naval has provided evidence that attempts to enforce cross-article consistency have caused non-hypothetical problems on Wikipedia. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:42, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but adding such a rule will allow editors to WP:WIKILAWYER.Curb Chain (talk) 01:17, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
With what do you disagree exactly, Darkfrog? I don't read Mirokado as saying that any version of P3 should be actually included in MOS. P3 is just a proposition that we are invited to consider. On the other hand, if you disagree with P3 itself, will you please tell us why?
I would in effect reverse your judgement on the two reasons you mention, like this:
  • "Let's make this article match a related one" presents an excellent reason for a change in style.
  • "I feel like it, I raised it on the talk page, and no one objected within a reasonable time frame" is never a sufficient reason for making a change in the style of an article.
To use the reason that you favour (the second reason cited here) is contrary to current provisions in MOS, at MOS:RETAIN:

When an English variety's consistent usage has been established in an article, it is maintained in the absence of consensus to the contrary.

That wording makes good sense. Some talkpages are sparsely attended; but the article in question might have a style that fits well with related articles, for example. A positively expressed consensus should be required, to overturn such valuable consistency.
NoeticaTea? 01:33, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
I disagree with Mirokado's statement, "Nobody should be able to say "MOS says that articles do not have to be consistent with each other" as a pro forma excuse to block changes among such closely-related articles." Yes, they should be able to state that the MoS does not require inter-article consistency and use that to block changes among closely related articles. People should need a reason to make such changes. That reason need not be big. It can be "I feel like it, I raised it on the talk page, and no one objected." However, "We have to make these articles match because they're closely related in subject!" is false. No we don't have to.
I do not believe that we should add P3 to the MoS for the reasons that I stated yesterday. 1) We shouldn't add more rules without a good, non-hypothetical reason. 2) We don't have a good reason to add this rule; E. Naval even showed that we have a good reason not to. If pushing cross-article consistency causes trouble, then we shouldn't require people to push it, even if some people would prefer articles to be written that way.
As for the "I feel like it, I raised it, no one objected" rationale, if only one person has an opinion on the matter, than that person's opinion is the consensus. In that situation, 100% of the people involved would agree. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:04, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
The MOS is also a guide and set of pages to indicate to readers/editors which style to use when there are differing styles. We don't make rules to limit peoples' choices for the sake of limiting peoples' choices; we make rules, and the MOS's purpose, to make it easier for viewers to read our articles so there is some sort of consistency and so that readers can expect a sort of userfriendlyness versus a chaotic page-after-page styled encyclopedia. There is a way to block changes where people quote WP:IAR but that requires the use of WP:COMMON.Curb Chain (talk) 19:54, 23 August 2012 (UTC)
Maybe that's how it should work, CC, but it's not how it does work. 1. We should assume that anything written down in the MoS will be cited as gospel on article talk pages. 2. Because Wikipedia is a crowdsourced encyclopedia, giving people their freedom wherever reasonably possible, as in such proven policies as ENGVAR, allows disparate editors to contribute. Some inconsistency is worth it if it means we don't grossly insult Brits or Canadians or non-native-English-speaking contributors. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:48, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
ENGVAR already is sanctioned at MOS:RETAIN. We don't need this extra statement as it will be used by editors to disrupt pages per their own style.Curb Chain (talk) 13:17, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
It is about other things as well as WP:ENGVAR such as WP:CITE and WP:APPENDIX (and others such as date formats, table formats, quotation styles and any other style of format issue that an editor thinks should be "consistent"), so there is a need for the extra statement over and above the specific ENGVAR. -- PBS (talk)

I disagree with "In groups of articles on similar topics, similar styling is better than an unprincipled or random selection of styles." this has never been a requirement. The problem is what is a group? For example it could be argued that all articles about any subject within the countries of the EU should use British English/Irish English because the EU does. Or all articles on NATO (except those specifically about Britain and Canada) should use American English because the US is by far the largest contributor to NATO and therefore most articles about NATO are about American topics, and As NATO is deployed in Kosovo and Kosovo is not a member of th EU all articles about Kosova should be in American English. This type of argument has never been accepted.

One can see the fun one can have with arguments such as if its in a category its grouped in that category therefore it has to be consistent with all the other articles that appear in that category (An editor at the moment is using that as a justification for using his preferred spellings and ignoring usage in reliable sources). When an article appears in two categories then in which "group" does it belong?

This is why the MOS has only ever agreed that consistency should within an article, not across "groups" of articles.

I am with SV, EN and Darkfrog24 on this one. If as has been said "SlimVirgin restored some wording that had been long absent from MOS" then as it is a sentence that sums up a lot of Arbcom decisions, when was it deleted who deleted it and what was the justification given on this talk page for the deletion? -- PBS (talk) 10:15, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

That's a task for the history search where I pick half way between the latest and earliest version and see if the sentence was present or not and continue this process until I find the version where it was taken out. It doesn't always work, because there could be reverts in between or it could have been added and removed multiple times, but usually it does work. What instances where there that people were changing spelling styles according to like articles and not according to reliable sources?Curb Chain (talk) 20:45, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
But you miss the point, PBS. Please read the exchanges above with more care. The core suggestion is not they we insert P3 in MOS: "In groups of articles on similar topics, similar styling is better than an unprincipled or random selection of styles." I must say, I would be amazed if anyone disagreed with it as a statement considered in isolation. Do you disagree with it? In other words, do you prefer "an unprincipled or random selection of styles" in a group of articles (however defined)? For example, would you prefer that within a group of obviously related literary articles, these two forms be randomly selected: Dickens' novels; Dickens's novels?
With respect, PBS: perhaps you have neatly demonstrated the kind of confusion MOS should avoid inadvertently promoting, in the matter of consistency. Do not conflate "this has never been a requirement" [in MOS] and "this is a bad thing". Those problems you discuss with defining "group" are not weighty. Any competing systematic groupings among articles can be resolved by the appropriate projects, and agreements can be reached. Only if we actively seek difficulties, or manufacture them, can we expect possessive apostrophes to emerge as a casus belli in thematic groups of articles. Editors will generally prefer a consistent look and feel – and take pride not just in a single article but in the appealingly uniform style that greets the reader who follows links to similar ones.
That said, I have always favoured more singularity and less optional variability in MOS guidelines. Apart from British versus American, en dash versus em dash, and some other inevitable diversity, most variability in fundamental style is avoidable and detrimental. The community really does appreciate a well-considered standard that will settle disputes at the 4,000,000 articles. Look, I always prefer the spaced en dash for sentence punctuation, and always will. But I cheerfully use the em dash instead: and that includes across related articles, not just within them. If I got militant about it and sought to promote en dash regardless of such broad coherence, I would be doing a disservice to the readers. Let's all avoid such militancy; and let's not carelessly promote it by including unnecessary text that people will misread, and will use to justify disruption. And the fewer kinds of variability we have at the most basic level of style, the fewer opportunities we give to militants.
NoeticaTea? 21:00, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
"within a group of obviously related" Obviously related went out when it was agreed that article space would not support subpages ("/"). -- PBS (talk) 21:25, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
How about this: "Making this a requirement would be a bad thing." And Wikipedia has a long history of "guidelines" and other unofficial rules being treated like requirements. No, there should be no requirement or any unofficial resolution or declaration that could later be mistaken for one.
The more freedom/variability we have, the better. That way we don't insult people by claiming that their way of doing things is inferior. This is a crowdsourced project. The rule requiring intra- but not inter-article consistency is a good way to strike a balance between neatness and diversity.
Noetica, you state that making this into a rule would settle disputes in many articles. Can you offer evidence, as EN has offered evidence to the contrary? Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:58, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
Darkfrog, I cannot follow some of those points. Making what a requirement "would be a bad thing"? What does that answer, precisely? My point was general; but you seem to have something specific in mind. I do understand this though: "The more freedom/variability we have, the better." I appreciate your being consistent on that point. Unfortunately, maximising variability is not the business of MOS. Quite the opposite. A core function of any manual of style is to restrain variability in a principled and measured way, which improves the reader's experience. And freedom? A robust, clear, and consensual MOS has freed editors from many a wilderness, such as these archived disputes over Mexican–American War, which were only settled by the sharpening of WP:DASH that we achieved here in 2011. Remember those disputes? Wade through all of that archive! Or search for this: "consistent with itself", especially at the exchange following Enric Naval's "Oppose". Read all of that exchange. You will find him insisting on the same line as he does here. I had hoped that the lessons of Mex~Am War were well learned; but no. In that exchange see reference to this provision at WP:TITLE (it stood then and it stands now):

* Consistency – Titles follow the same pattern as those of similar articles. Many of these patterns are documented in the naming guidelines listed in the Specific-topic naming conventions box above, and ideally indicate titles that are in accordance with the principles behind the above questions.

That's the last of five points so salient that they bear this link: WP:CRITERIA. Why should we weaken its force with the "not necessarily" wording at MOS? My example, to answer Enric's evidence: Mexican–American War.
WP:TITLE and MOS have to be in harmony. This is achieved by WT:TITLE settling the choice of title (the wording, as the title would be spoken); and then almost all of the styling is delegated to MOS. As with any publisher. No other arrangement works. If the title were styled without consideration of MOS, we could not even achieve consistency within an article. The title would drift with the inconsistent and untrackable usage of "sources", but the text would follow recommendations at MOS. Or what?
NoeticaTea? 21:55, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
As I've said earlier in this discussion, I mean that making P3 into a requirement or having some sort of resolution stating "It is better for closely related articles to use the same styles" would be a bad thing.
Wikipedia is not a publisher the way other entities are. There's no chain of command. There's no understanding that things are one entity's opinion. The current rule requiring intra- but not inter-article consistency strikes a good balance between the benefits that you cite above and the insult that we would be doing our editors by requiring them to kowtow to other people's whims for no practical reason.
And in case this wasn't clear, let me explicitly state that I don't think that cross-article consistency should be banned, only that it should not be required. If someone writing an article wants to use the same style as any other article in Wikipedia, then he or she should go right ahead. If someone proposes this or any style change on a talk page and a consensus forms that the change would be beneficial, then they should have that option. However, what people should not be able to do is say "We must make these articles match each other because the MoS requires it of us." Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:18, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia is very like a publisher in the relevant respects: it assembles and edits material, and disseminates it in text and related forms to the public. Very early in its history, people decided that it needed a manual of style, in the manner of a publisher. MOS has existed continuously since then. Its role has been tested and certified again and again, as for example in this ArbCom finding of fact:

The English Wikipedia Manual of Style has been built from a number of pre-existing Manuals from numerous fields. The best practices from these have been combined to create a single, unique MOS that applies to articles on the English Wikipedia.(from Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Article titles and capitalisation)

I have repeatedly challenged people here to find a manual of style for collaborative web writing, editing, and publication that is more thoroughly considered, or more comprehensive, or more detailed than Wikipedia's MOS. Like it or not, WP:MOS and its subpages are in their own right a major style guide of our time.
If you object to that, or want to alter the role of MOS, make a proposal to do so. Good luck!
You speak of "kowtowing". No one is asked to do that. MOS is as consensual as we can make it, and a good deal more consensual than WP:TITLE (look at the troubles there at the moment, and over the last ten months), and even than WP:CONSENSUS itself (currently a hotbed of troubles, and recently placed under a month-long protection). If you object to following consensual guidelines, with the occasional application of WP:IAR where they fail to cover a particular set of circumstances, then make a case against guidelines at the village pump. Not here! Here we continue orderly development of a premier style guide for a very special purpose, unprecedented in history.
Finally, you write: "... what people should not be able to do is say 'We must make these articles match each other because the MoS requires it of us.' " That's right; and MOS does not require that. It is policy at WP:TITLE that comes closest to requiring that. Nor should MOS provide an argument for those who would twist its words in support of inconsistency between thematically related articles.
♪
NoeticaTea? 04:20, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
The current discussion is about which rules Wikipedia MoS should endorse. Wikipedia's difference from other entities that disseminate information—its crowdsourced nature—is relevant. People aren't getting paid. People are for the most part nonprofessionals and volunteers. "Do it because I'm the boss and I think A looks better than B" doesn't hold much water here. We have to treat people with respect, and that means not making them adhere to our whims. If we endorse something as a rule, and people are punished for not following it, that is "requiring people to kowtow," as I put it.
For the most part, the rules that are in the MoS weren't made up from scratch here. They were sourced from other, professionally compiled style guides. The majority of those style guides say "using a lowercase s in 'summer' is right and using a capital S is wrong." There's a difference between copying what can be said to be a rule of the English language and making stuff up on our own just to shove down other people's throats.
Do you know of any case in which someone claimed "The MoS requires that we use different styles in these articles"? Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:35, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Darkfrog, of course I don't know of any such cases. No one is claiming that there are any, right?
Wikipedia is not simple anarchistic "crowd-sourcing"; it has policies and guidelines to ensure that a high-quality encyclopedia results. So what, if people are not paid? People have always engaged in voluntary work and subjected themselves to local restrictions and rules – for a better outcome. As I have said many times, the work of this talkpage is to make the best set of guidelines to help Wikipedia be the best possible encyclopedia. If that work is done well, MOS will earn respect. The community will decide on the value and status of MOS within the project that it serves. We cannot decide that here. But ArbCom has decided; and the quiet majority of editors seems to appreciate the consensually derived recommendations and standards that MOS encodes. When they are asked, which is rare enough. No one is "making them adhere to our whims". No one here compels anyone to do anything, in editing articles; and anyway, the guidelines should certainly not be "whims". If any one of them is, let it be challenged. I have challenged in that way from time to time, and I will again. WP:MOS itself ("MOS central") is in pretty good consensual shape, but there are problems at several other MOS pages.
NoeticaTea? 22:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
You said, "Nor should MOS provide an argument for those who would twist its words in support of inconsistency between thematically related articles." This caused me to wonder if perhaps you had seen a discussion in which someone thought that the MoS required different styles, "word twisting," as you put it.
By "people are not paid," I mean that at a regular publishing company, it is okay for one or a few people to hand down arbitrary decisions that could just as easily go the other way. This is because 1. the lower-ranking people are paid to put up with it and 2. the lower-ranking people can assume (sometimes with a great deal of benefit of the doubt) that higher rank was bestowed based on merit or seniority or something else that makes their supervisors worth heeding. Because Wikipedia doesn't have any of that, we should be extra careful that there is a good reason for every rule that we ram down people's gullets. "Y looks neater to me" invites the response, "Well X looks better to me." This is why I think we should be very cautious about adding new rules to the MoS. There are too many whims in it already. Maybe there shouldn't be whims in the MoS, but there are.Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:20, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
And if people can be brought up on AN/I for violating the MoS, then yes, that counts as "compelled." Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:27, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
Read more carefully the answers you have already been given, Darkfrog. I have responded patiently and at length; and at considerable cost in time and patience. No one here is making "rules that we ram down people's gullets"; MOS has guideline status, and is consensually developed. As I have said (see above):

"No one here compels anyone to do anything, in editing articles; and anyway, the guidelines should certainly not be 'whims'. If any one of them is, let it be challenged. I have challenged in that way from time to time, and I will again."

(I will run out of time for this, you know. ☺)
NoeticaTea? 03:44, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
What exactly is it that you want me to discern from your previous posts, Noetica? My last post, the one to which you're responding, consists entirely of my clarifying things that I had said to you. Did you mean to respond to my question about the M-A war article?
By "compelled" and "ram down people's gullets" I refer to anything that people can be punished or censured for disobeying, as in AN/I. The MoS may be only a guideline in theory, but in practice, it's a set of hard rules. That means that we should treat any new additions to the MoS as if they will be cited as gospel on talk pages.
By "whim," I mean any rule that offers no real benefit to Wikipedia. WP:LQ, for example, has been challenged repeatedly and it's still there, even though it directly contradicts the preponderance of reputable sources and discussions have failed to show that the ban of American punctuation gives Wikipedia any benefit. It is a lot easier to keep whims out of the MoS in the first place than to get them removed once they're there.
Bringing this back to the issue at hand, this is why I don't think that the MoS should endorse P3 either officially or unofficially unless someone can offer evidence that doing so would solve a problem that has actually happened. We'd be forcing people to follow rules that we made up solely because we felt like it, and that's a slap in the face. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:33, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
There has never been style consistency across articles on WP, and the MoS makes that clear at various points (e.g. ENGVAR), as do other guidelines (e.g. CITEVAR). So the issue here is only that the lead should properly reflect that. I'd therefore like to go ahead and restore the words in question, because they do make the lead clearer on that point. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:17, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Of course there has been "style consistency across articles on WP"! How could that be a bad thing? MOS assists that; and so do WP:TITLE, the many naming conventions, and other "regularising" instruments across wikispace. But MOS is already very clear: in some areas there are choices. Where that applies, stick to one option within an article, and don't switch to another option without good reason and consensual discussion. No more needs to be said; stressing a lack of consistency between articles only encourages a lack of consistency between thematically related articles, through misreading for "political" purposes. I have given a potent example of such politics: Mexican–American War.
NoeticaTea? 22:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
There has never been consensus to introduce style consistency across articles; on the contrary, there has always been opposition to it. I don't know what you mean by thematically related articles, or "political" purposes, and the example hasn't enlightened me, sorry. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:35, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Sure there has been such a consensus! Style consistency across articles is what MOS is all about. But there has never been a requirement in MOS to implement a particular style option uniformly across articles, where MOS provides for such options. I for one am not proposing any such requirement. Let's be strictly accurate, otherwise we will be misread. It's bad enough when we do express ourselves with precision, apparently. ☺
As for Mexican–American War, it is an infamous example of a battleground. Disregard for reader-friendly consistency of style where MOS did not provide for such options; and it caused protracted conflict. I gave the example at least to show how hotly disputed the matter of conformity to MOS has been, generally. But more specifically, MOS was cited inaccurately: against any consideration of titles that in the relevant respect were precisely the same (based on the pattern "X–Y War", using an en dash). Cited, in fact, against the policy provision at WP:TITLE that I have quoted above (from WP:CRITERIA).
NoeticaTea? 23:48, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
I finally had time to click your link and it's just the article on the Mexican-American War. How exactly does this serve as evidence that having some sort of resolution in favor of cross-article consistency on closely related topics would prevent problems on Wikipedia? I'm not being sarcastic; I'd like to know.
As things stand, I support returning "but not necessarily across Wikipedia as a whole" to the MoS. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:25, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
The link for you to click is clearly marked as "archived disputes" (see above). I then wrote (see above): "Remember those disputes? Wade through all of that archive!" You contributed there, Darkfrog. Read how you made points that are almost identical to those you make now, and read how I referred you to policy at WP:TITLE, then too. Try again.
NoeticaTea? 03:44, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
I mean the link you posted a few days ago, the one that just leads to the war article. (Checks) And today's link just leads to the article too. Yes, there was a big fight about whether M-A War should be hyphenated/dashed the same way in every article, but I am asking you what you think. Wading through the archive would at best facilitate a guess at what your reasoning is. What I want to know is what part of which M-A war dispute you feel is a specific problem that would be solved if the MoS were to endorse P3.Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:38, 28 August 2012 (UTC)
Sorry Darkfrog: I have no time to limn yet again the stance that I have already made quite clear. Just note my response to your last sentence: I have linked you the general archived mess at Talk:Mexican–American War; and I have drawn attention to your own points there, and Enric Naval's. Let us ask: How much progress has been made? Who has worked for that progress, and who has worked against it? Finally (as I hope!), I stress once again: I am not proposing P3 or anything like it as an addition to WP:MOS.
NoeticaTea? 00:29, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

There seems to be agreement to restore "though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole." Enric Naval, Darkfrog, PBS and I are in favour; Noetica and Curb Chain are opposed; Mirokado wants consistency between closely related articles, but not necessarily across WP. I think the more people we ask, the greater the consensus will be against requiring cross-WP consistency, so I'll go ahead and restore those words. I think the lead could use some general tweaking too, but I'll address that separately. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:13, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I would like to add that this is not a discussion about whether we should change the policy. The policy is that cross-article consistency is permitted but not required. The issue is whether the MoS should have the words "though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole" in it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:09, 31 August 2012 (UTC)


Break

The problem is that the second and third paragraphs contradict each other. The second says we have a house style; the third says we do not. Both have redirects (WP:CLARITY redirects to the second, and WP:Stability and WP:STYLEVAR to the third), so anyone reading those in isolation would be misled.

Second paragraph: "The MoS presents Wikipedia's house style, to help editors produce articles with consistent, clear and precise language, layout, and formatting. The goal is to make the encyclopedia easier and more intuitive to use. Consistency in language, style, and formatting promotes clarity and cohesion; this is especially important within an article. Writing should be clear and concise. Plain English works best: avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording."
Third paragraph: "An overriding principle is that style and formatting choices should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia as a whole. Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a substantial reason. Revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable. (These matters have been addressed in rulings of the Arbitration Committee: see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk#Optional styles and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sortan#Preferred styles.) If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor."

SlimVirgin (talk) 16:30, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I see the third paragraph as a clarification of the second. It does not contradict anything in the second. The second says, "Consistency is good." The third says, "By that we mean intra-article consistency." Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:09, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
The second paragraph says there is a house style, but the third paragraph says there isn't, so there's a contradiction right there. It matters less if the two paragraphs are read together, but the separate anchors mean they might not be. The question is: to what extent does Wikipedia have a house style, or to what extent does it allow contributors to choose a style so long as there is internal consistency? SlimVirgin (talk) 00:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Additional discussion

I just want to note that I agree that User:Noetica was correct in removing the discussion that User:SlimVirgin started by pulling the archive instead of linking it, but some comments had been added when she restarted the discussion:[17]Curb Chain (talk) 03:05, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Never mind, Curb. SlimVirgin acted completely in good faith. I only objected because the way she did it left things unclear. I think it would often be fine to restore something had very recently been archived, and to put a clear explanation at the top. I do think that one is generally then expected to join in the discussion that one has wanted restored. I don't see that happening.
☺ NoeticaTea? 20:03, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
I think Curb's point is that, when you removed the discussion from this page, you removed six new posts that had not been archived. So they disappeared. But they're now in the archive along with the others. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:29, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
O yes, of course. Well, that's what can happen when material is retrieved from the archives without clear signalling. I have checked, and it turns out that anyone who made a post in that discussion has joined the new discussion, and can see what has happened. If anyone had been left out, I would have notified them now. Turns out not to be needed.
NoeticaTea? 22:02, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Reversion of non-consensual edits concerning inter-article consistency

I have reverted (see diff) two edits by SlimVirgin. The change in question clearly has no consensus. Editing and discussion for this page are subject to ArbCom discretionary sanctions (see the note at the top of this talkpage); so a high standard of conduct and respect for due process applies. Please discuss more, and if necessary initiate a neutral RFC. If any RFC is not set up in neutral terms, according to the provisions of WP:RFC, I will call for its immediate closure and refer the matter to WP:AE. Please note especially: This is not intended as inimical to any good-faith development of the page; but experience has shown how these things can escalate, and how they can wear away people's time and patience. ♥
NoeticaTea? 00:18, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

When changing subtle things, it's a lot easier on the rest of us if you use "Show changes" a bit, and try to minimize the distracting diff variants. I had to compare sentence-by-sentence, just to figure out that the only thing you changed in that edit was a single sentence, and a number of linebreaks.
This is why plain-reverting is bloody annoying. (The same thing is happening elsewhere at the moment). If you have a partial dispute with an edit, then just revert the part you disagree with (or even better, offer an alternative/compromise edit), not the entire damned thing.
Thanks. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:48, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
The words in question were in the MoS for quite some time, and were removed without discussion. I have restored them because this is an important issue, and one that has caused quite a bit of grief on WP. If you want to remove them, please gain consensus here, or open an RfC to attract more eyes.
I didn't restore your other reverts, but I can't see the point of having six short paragraphs in the lead, so I'd be grateful if you would let them be condensed. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:43, 1 September 2012 (UTC)
Noetica, what was the point of this revert? SlimVirgin (talk) 00:51, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

As Noetica continues to object, I've opened an RfC below. Apologies if it ends up being largely repetitive, but it might attract fresh eyes and we can request a formal closure to avoid arguments. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:17, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I reverted Noetica there in a moment of irritation, but I shouldn't have, so I'm going to revert myself and abide by whatever the RfC decides. SlimVirgin (talk)
  • Comment: It's obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a few seconds that this entire "intra- vs. inter-article consistency" thing is a false dichotomy. There is absolutely no conflict between the two ideas, except that which is purposefully manufactured by people who refuse to write in a way that is consistent between articles, just to satisfy their own personal stylistic preferences at everyone else's expense. The "versus" that is latent in this discussion is entirely artificial. It's what the British call a load of bollocks, and Americans refer to as total bullshit. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:38, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Template:Episode list

Am I the only one who thinks numbered lists should start at one? Please join the discussion at Template talk:Episode list#Number columns. 117Avenue (talk) 21:35, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Embedding foreign terms and names (like names with diacritics) in English Wikipedia

Not many editors seem to be aware of the Wikipedia guidelines for embedding foreign words and names in English Wikipedia; these guidelines are for web accessibility reasons. For an explanation, please see my essay here. I propose that a caution, and a link to these guidelines, be added to Wikipedia:MOS#Foreign terms or to a more appropriate section of MoS. LittleBen (talk) 11:46, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

And as has been pointed out to you in the past, its not that people are unaware, its that people don't agree with you that names with diacritics are Non-English. -DJSasso (talk) 12:00, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
A bit of both perhaps. They are some articles with large chunks of none English text without use of {{lang}} or similar. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 12:17, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
For example:
If you want to find articles with foreign language text try searching with quotes for the following "et a", "para a", "volta a", "an der" "an die", "an den", "es a". Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 16:30, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that the quote should be wrapped in the template. Its the names that I don't believe should be and that is what he is really trying to argue here. -DJSasso (talk) 13:37, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
One should perhaps distinguish between "foreign text" and "foreign terms". Foreign terms (as opposed to names of foreign entities and words of foreign origin) are usually written in italics. --Boson (talk) 13:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Standard English words like resume (think job applications) and naive are both properly written with characters not common in English. The presence of accent marks or umlauts does not, by itself, make the word non-English. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:03, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Please also remember that "foreign" and "non-English" are distinct concepts. The former has no real place on Wikipedia, which is wp:WORLDWIDE both in content scope and in readership. That said, many diacritic-using article titles are of course related to specific countries with major languages that use such diacritics. To find examples of "popular" pages, consider looking at national categories such as Category:Top-importance Finland articles, Category:Top-importance Serbia articles, Category:Top-importance France articles, etc. Of course the equivalent "High-importance" article categories are much more populus. LeadSongDog come howl! 22:04, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
Non-English words and phrases are entirely appropriate to the English encyclopedia. Consider Post hoc ergo propter hoc or Ad hominem: they are not English, and they are important articles. Similarly, the English Wikipedia properly contains thousands of lines of poetry, lyrics, and quotations that aren't in English. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:25, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
  • As discussed here, no major book publisher would use complex diacritics or foreign languages in book titles—except for widely-known words or names. The same argument surely applies to article titles. LittleBen (talk) 05:17, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
The parallel discussion just got closed here]. How often do we have to go over the same arguments? Agathoclea (talk) 13:15, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
  • The trend everywhere is towards simplicity and usability—particularly in book titles, film titles, and article titles. In Mainland China "simplified Chinese" was created to make the language more accessible to the majority.
  • Britannica apparently uses macrons in romanized Japanese names like Tokyo and Osaka—no respectable publisher does that nowadays, but it would probably cost Britannica too much money to bring their style into this century. Local English newspapers and websites represent current majority usage; limited-edition vanity academic publishers cannot afford to keep reference materials up to date with the real world. LittleBen (talk) 15:17, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
You again conflate non-latin scripts with diacritics. These are two totally seperate issues. Also you are saying that tabloid sources are more relevant than accademic? That throws our quest for knowledge out of the window and replaces with trash. Agathoclea (talk) 17:29, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Number signs

The section currently reads

Instead use the word "number", or the abbreviation "No."

While the examples is only No.. I would like to suggest two things. It seems that on most music articles that No. is the preferred method. Can we please get rid of "number" or at least suggest it's not preferred? Secondly, there have been a few editors who have been adding a non-breaking space between the "No." and the following number.

Also, could we clarify that if, when using "number", and the digit is less than 10, that the number should be spelled-out? --Walter Görlitz (talk) 05:23, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

That is already there, below, under Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Numbers. A see also could be added from Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Number signs. Some web users do not like internal links (when they click on a link they expect it to take them to a different page, not somewhere else on the same page}. Apteva (talk) 04:42, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Request for scrutiny and feedback

I've brought a new writing and editing tutorial to the stage where it could do with some feedback. I wonder whether editors would mind taking a look and either directly editing or commenting on the talk page: Spot the ambiguity.

Apart from identifying glitches, I'd like to know whether the tone and structure of the exercises are optimal. Are the explanations too wordy? And is this a useful angle to take in helping writers to improve their article editing skills? There are many more examples I could add, but perhaps already the 19 exercises need to sectionalised into groups of six or seven to encourage users to work through the page in a number of visits. I chose to mix up the types of ambiguity rather than to systematically concentrate on one at a time (e.g., lexical, punctuation, unclear referents, word order). Thank you. Tony (talk) 12:31, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

My main criticism is that there is a limit to how much verbiage should be devoted to clarifying every possible ambiguity, which is relevant because some of these ambiguities are far-fetched. Churchill said "We shall never surrender." He didn't say "'We' means all of you, not just me and my dog. And 'all of you' means all Britons, not just all of you here. Well, not all Britons; we do have some traitors. I mean we won't surrender as a group. Oops, make that the British Empire, not just Britons. And 'never' doesn't really mean never; in a thousand years it may be honorable to surrender to an overwhelming alien invasion. It means we won't surrender to Hitler. Um, or Mussolini, or Hirohito. Um, or their successors. In the near future anyway (I'm not anticipating 21st-century neo-Nazis). And it doesn't mean there won't be surrenders like the Battle of Singapore. And it doesn't mean we won't surrender to a seductress ..."
I wouldn't segregate the examples by ambiguity type. No specialized training is required to determine why any of the examples might be considered ambiguous; the reasoning is plain enough after clicking the answer. So I think the examples should be like real life, where you don't know what type of ambiguity is likely to occur next.
More detailed criticism is on the talk page. Art LaPella (talk) 21:40, 21 September 2012 (UTC)
Verbiage ... ok, I guess it's crap. Tony (talk) 08:00, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. I think Tony deserves our thanks and our encouragement for his sustained efforts. Those tutorials are a largely untold success story. They have been very well received in the past, and deserve wider promotion. Quite an innovation, contrasting with some of the nay-saying and nihilism we observe on the topic of Wikipedia style.
Congratulations Tony! Please continue, and please don't hesitate to ask for input at this talkpage, even if the appreciation is not always made explicit.
NoeticaTea? 08:22, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
O, I meant to add that Art's work on WP:SMOS is surely appreciated also. We should not let that initiative fall away. I want to return to the problem of multiple links to the same large MOS page, in many instances. I've been developing an idea about transclusion, but I have been busy and not felt on top of the technical issues yet. All in good time.
NoeticaTea? 09:16, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Diaspora capitalisation

I started a discussion on the page talk:Jewish diaspora because I think that the word "Diaspora" should always be capitalised when referring to the Jewish Diaspora. If you use "the Diaspora" it is understood to be in reference to the Jewish Diaspora, so in that case "the Diaspora" is a proper noun referring to the Jewish Diaspora. In all other cases, such as with "African diaspora," "diaspora" is simply a regular noun. I've looked through style manuals and can't find anyone saying that it should be capitalised in this case, but it seems to be common practice if you search for "Jewish Diaspora." Wondering if we could make a clear call on this. It would be helpful for sticklers like me. Anyone care to weigh in? —Zujine|talk 01:43, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Google Ngrams doesn't show much preference either way in recent times. Art LaPella (talk) 03:32, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
Art, it is almost always preferable to reduce contamination by title case in ngram investigations. Yours on "Jewish Diaspora,Jewish diaspora" does not achieve that. This one does better: "Jewish Diaspora is,Jewish diaspora is". There would still be headings with that "is" in them, so we can assume that the predominance of lower case is a little higher than indicated by these ngrams.
I will not join in that discussion, as a matter of personal preference these days. But I make two observations, apart from the above:
  • People need to be far more careful with talk of proper nouns and proper names. (Editors might learn from the greatly reformed article Proper noun, which needs just a little more work and a move to Proper name.)
  • The strong representation, indeed the majority presence, of lower case "Jewish diaspora" in sources is decisive under WP:MOSCAPS for denial of any requested move to Jewish Diaspora, if it comes to that.
♫♪
NoeticaTea? 05:26, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
I concur with Noetica, and go further and suggest that Wikipedia, per WP:NOT#SOAPBOX, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, etc., must consistently resist attempts by special interest groups of any kind to capitalize everything relating to them as if somehow magically special. It's irrational, elitist and not helpful to our readers. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 02:25, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Right, like "The Beatles" in running prose. Too much reliance on the magic of capitalization. Binksternet (talk) 03:28, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Exactly! ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 03:35, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Just thought I'd bring it up. I noticed that "diaspora" was improperly capitalised in many articles, which led me to look up the rules regarding the unique case of Jewish Diaspora (ahem, diaspora, excuse me). Thanks for weighing in. —Zujine|talk 06:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Beatles RfC

You are invited to participate in an RfC at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/The Beatles on the issue of capitalising the definite article when mentioning that band's name in running prose. This long-standing dispute is the subject of an open mediation case and we are requesting your help with determining the current community consensus. Thank you for your time. For the mediators. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 03:42, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Relaunching that discussion again is blatant WP:FORUMSHOPping. The debate has nothing to do with [T|t]he Beatles in particular, and is a general MoS issue about whether to change the official names of things that begin "The" to lower-case "the" in mid-sentence just to make the grammar seem better to some people. The discussion should be had here, if it needs to be had yet again at all, which is doubtful. WP:NOT#SOAPBOX and WP:NOR effectively forbid falsification of facts to satisfy pseudo-grammatical whims. This is distinct from WP:TRADEMARK problems, like trying to replicate the all-lower-case font and star-in-place-of-apostrophe styling of the official "Macy's" logo. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 02:43, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
The involved editors wish to get the widest possible word out so that the most people can respond and the issue laid to rest with finality. Thus the spamming of notices that brings you to complain. Of course, pointing the reader back to a central discussion page cannot be forum shopping since the forum is not being changed.
Your stance does not conform to the majority of published style guidelines such as Chicago Manual of Style which recommends lower case "the" Beatles in running prose, and also recommends lower case non-italics "the" New York Times in running prose, even though the trademarked name of that newspaper is The New York Times, with the "the" in italics and capitalized.
There is nothing here about "pseudo-grammatical whims"; there is simply a serious and far-reaching style matter to solve.
Making the "grammar seem better to some people" is not the point; the point is to streamline Wikipedia practices to conform to the majority of published style guides. Binksternet (talk) 03:18, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Actually, the point is to make Wikipedia correct. Capitalizing "the" mid-sentence is an aggrandizing move. Wikipedia doesn't need to do other people's advertising for them. They're "the Beatles," even if whoever designed their official website was either ignorant about correct capitalization or just feeling pretentious. Almost every reputable style guide uses a lowercase T. We should do the same, not make up our own rules. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:17, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree, and FTR, their official website has a mixed usage, not caps throughout. In fact, of their 12 album summaries at least 6 of them use lower-case. ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 04:37, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Trans women once again

Please don't confuse this with anything similar but different.

WP:MOS says that trans women should be referred to with she/her throughout (except in direct quotes, of course.)

However, it looks like (in my experience of studying edits) that many Wikipedians support the rule that they should be referred to with no pronouns at all before their operation, but then we can use she/her after the operation, despite not being consistent with the above statement. Any questions about which rule is right?? Georgia guy (talk) 13:07, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Avoiding pre-op pronouns seems to be the obvious way to avoid conflict. I would support making this the MoS rule. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 02:20, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
So is it your position SMcCandlish that the MoS has got it all wrong when it comes to a definite article in band names but in most other cases we should follow the MoS? ~ GabeMc (talk|contribs) 02:27, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
No, trans women should be referred to as "she" regardless of what part of their lives is under discussion. Avoiding pronouns during discussions of their lives before the operations should be permitted but not encouraged. This way, we won't get people putting the "no-pronouns rule" before good, cohesive writing. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
Not using pronouns at all is a good compromise for people with very short last names, but for people with longer names it can be cumbersome. — A. di M.  15:25, 24 September 2012 (UTC)
What A.M. said. Talking around the pronouns should be allowed where it does not interfere with good writing, but it should not be our go-to answer to this issue. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:41, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Section hatnote templates

I think section hatnote templates such as {{see also}} should be changed to section endnotes, since the information they offer is of little relevance before the reader has read the section. Please take a look at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout#Placement of section hatnotes, thank you. --Paul_012 (talk) 18:09, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

That's not a categorically true assumption; it varies depending on what the hatnote is and the context in question. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 02:45, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Spaced endash in dates with spaces but un-spaced in compound nouns with spaces

At WP:ENDASH, section 1 says to use an un-spaced endash for date ranges except when the dates themselves contain spaces, in which case a spaced endash is used (e.g. "1 January 1970 – 23 June 1993").

Section 2, discussing compound nouns, does not make this exception for components that contain spaces, using an un-spaced endash regardless (e.g. New York–Los Angeles).

Isn't this inconsistent? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 04:58, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

This was a long-argued compromise; not perfectly consistent, but not too at odds with styles used and recommended in various guides. The use of spaces in things like New York–Los Angeles is quite rare, in my impression, whereas it is less rare in dates, and there was very little push to change how we do dates. Dicklyon (talk) 05:59, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
But I don't think AlanM1 wants to change spacing; he wants to clarify the rule. Perhaps add "excluding dates" to "The en dash in all of the compounds above is unspaced." However, "above" could be interpreted to mean section 2 only, which has no dates. Art LaPella (talk) 06:30, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
No, actually I do want to add spacing in the "New York – Los Angeles" case :) This is consistent with the date usage, and looks more symmetrical to me, just like with dates. I did a quick analysis of a google search of "New York – Los Angeles" (and verified it was, as they state, the same result set as with any other separator (i.e. it ignores punctuation chars)). I copied the 561 results that were shown, trimmed the parts before and after the phrase, then removed everything that wasn't "New York" and "Los Angeles" separated by some number of spaces and dash-like characters and sorted the results. This left (unfortunately only) 115 results:
  • 90 were "New York - Los Angeles"
  • 22 were "New York-Los Angeles"
  • 3 were other combinations/typos
There are admittedly problems with the methodology, and a more complete study might be necessary, but 90/20 does seem somewhat compelling, doesn't it?
If we use less-familiar names, I think it gets more compelling:
  • "I took the Alpe d'Huez–Angoulême flight"
  • "I took the Belle Île–Alpe d'Huez flight"
  • "The Villefranche-de-Rouergue–Les Sables-d'Olonne–La Montagne Noire segments were completely full" (Quick – how many segments is that?!)
N'est-ce pas? :) —[AlanM1(talk)]— 05:43, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Infoboxes

I think no one will mind if I close this myself, as the consensus is clear. Those responding opposed adding to the MoS: "Where no consensus can be reached [over the addition of an infobox], defer to the style used by the first major contributor, per WP:STYLEVAR." SlimVirgin (talk) 17:22, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

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

Manual of Style/Infoboxes says that infoboxes are optional ("neither required nor prohibited"). I would like to extend this on that subpage and the main MoS page to read: "The addition of an infobox is an optional style issue that is left to the editors on the page. Where no consensus can be reached, defer to the style used by the first major contributor, per WP:STYLEVAR." SlimVirgin (talk) 20:39, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Survey (Infoboxes)

[No threaded replies in this section, please.]
  • Support. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:39, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I don;t agree with the part about defer to the style.. first contibutor - it just doesn't match policies - I think on the other hand that some deference to consistency should exist - eg most species articles have a species box., ditto habited places - in potential cases of conflict I would suggest defaulting 'to the norm'..Oranjblud (talk) 22:47, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose. Deference to first major contributor is baldfaced ownership. Infoboxes are a de facto standard; there are millions of them, and good faith editors add hundreds per day. It is disruptive for a dis-info band to staunchly oppose these good and appropriate improvements. It retards the project and is toxic to the community. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 23:26, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Support ...Modernist (talk) 23:56, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Why is this section once again placed above the one below? And why has the section bellow been headed "discussion" as though the comments there are not replies to the proposal in hand? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:59, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Because some people think RfCs are essentially a form of voting? — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 15:47, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong Support. If the project has a MOS subset, such as WP:MOSLAW or WP:MILMOS then it should take precedence over projects that do not have an MOS subset. Other than that, I'm fine with the first major contributor approach for any conflicts. I am opposed to them becoming optional in all cases. GregJackP Boomer! 01:28, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Support primarily to halt the battleground mentality that is otherwise brought to the table by the aggressively-pro-infobox-everywhere editors. I'm pro-infobox-everywhere (because metadata is useful, and I personally learn well via bulletpoints and lists and reductionist synopsese, and can extrapolate oversimplifications/archetypes with ease), but not via the tactics currently used (grind down opposition, 'outvote' the person who wrote the article, etc etc), and not without acknowledging the very legitimate problems that infoboxes often run into. It's the rude/siege mentality that is killing us, and causing stress and retirements. I'll add more, in the discussion below, later. —Quiddity (talk) 03:40, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Support, but Oppose a likely interpretation. If people follow what this actually says, and follow consensus when there is one, then any damage this causes is likely to be minimal, and it could possibly help. But I'm pretty sure that some people will read this as an analogy to ENGVAR, and say that the first contributor trumps everyone else ... and that would be a huge mistake, as long as this is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. In military history articles for instance, if certain types of articles tend to have an infobox, our readers notice things that like, and will add a similar infobox to similar articles. If we invent some rule that an infobox is "not allowed" because someone back in 2006 didn't add one, that's only going to generate a long series of frustrated editors who feel slapped down because we reverted what seemed like an obvious omission to them. My main concern here is creating an editing enviroment that's hostile to people who don't "know the rules". - Dank (push to talk) 12:55, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Switching to Oppose: Sorry, I just noticed the last two words ... it's okay to tilt the playing field slightly towards the first major contributor, but ... seeing this issue through the eyes of the wikiprojects I'm familiar with, my point won't work for everyone ... we see infoboxes as primarily a matter of content selection rather than style, and treating it as just another optional style issue is part of the problem. - Dank (push to talk) 15:52, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose as the defer portion seems like it could be used to keep infoboxes off pages just because the first major contributor didn't put one on. Also, I like the boxen. --Nouniquenames (talk) 16:00, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose who is the first "major" contributor? Support that User:A writes a 1000 byte stub, User:B then enlarges that to 10,000 bytes and User:C adds another 20,000 bytes, who is the "first major contributor"? Suppose now that User:B's work was riddled with errors and did not include any citations, then User:C corrected the work and added many citations - who would be the major contributor? Unlike ENGVAR, where an article can start off life without using specifically UK or US English, all articles start off without an infobox, so trying to draw inferences from ENGVAR is not appropriate. Martinvl (talk) 16:10, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose - Martinvl's reasoning above is compelling. Opposing change to an article based on an individual's preference is a recipe for fossilising our content and preventing improvement. The issue of whether an infobox improves an article is not so clear-cut that a rule will work 100% of the time, but I can see sufficient benefit in general that the presence of an infobox may be assumed to be the default. --RexxS (talk) 19:34, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
  • I think there is a general consensus on Wikipedia that infoboxes are useful - this can be seen in the large proportion of articles that include them. I feel infoboxes are part of our "house style" that makes Wikipedia articles distinctive. The question here is different than CITEVAR, where the citation information is included regardless of the form of the citations. With infoboxes, there should be a presumption in favor of them (just as there is a presumption in favor of references). The exact kind of infobox is a separate issue - if there is no consensus on that for a specific article, I agree that the first infobox to be added should be used. But in general we should expect that adding infoboxes is an improvement to the article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:24, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose When I create an article I hardly ever add one of these boxes, I leave that to people who enjoy creating them (so I do not see the argument that because I have created an article without them some other editor can come along later and interpret my lack of adding a box as my opposition to them). The argument about CITEVAR is not a good one because that is strongly opposed by some editors such as myself in the way that some editors interpret what style means. Instead the argument if used should refer to the main MOS footnote 1 where there is general greement. In this case arguing that one should defer to the first non stub contributor is like arguing that if the first major contributor did not use section heading, then section heading can be removed at will and not added without consensus. First major contributor is useful for National Verities of English, but not much else, as it impedes the development of the project as people come up with better ways to present and order information. -- PBS (talk) 15:24, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Strongly oppose 2nd sentence; support and suggest reinforcing the 1st, to make it clear it is telling wikiprojects they don't own articles they feel are within their scope and cannot force them to have or not have infoboxes or any particular form of infobox. I cannot at all support the notion that "style of first major editor" is a good idea here, though. We only ever go that route when there is no other choice (e.g. American vs. British English in a topic with no strong national ties - the choice is 100% arbitrary and no functional/utility argument or other rational preference can be offered, only an entirely personal, subjective "I like it" feeling). This is not one of those cases; there are rational arguments for and against infoboxes, even particular infoboxes, that can be made and discussed and consensus thereby arrived at normally, on a per-article basis, just like 99.9% of everything else about that article. We do not need Yet Another Rule (cf. WP:CREEP) that impedes the ability of editors to arrive at consensus by reason instead of doing something arbitrarily by fiat like "I was here first, so you can go get bent." WP generally never works that way except in the handful of cases where it is an unavoidable lesser evil. Infoboxes aren't one, they're just something that a few people obsess about and won't stop arguing about. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 15:44, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose What if the editor is a newbie and doesn't know how to make an infobox? So because he or she didn't include on when starting g an article that that article can never have one? Dumb. And a terribly foolish enshrinement of ownership issues. Goes against the idea of improvement by current consensus..oknazevad (talk) 18:51, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
    Comment: That's an invalid argument (it's a straw man); no one has proposed that newbies, or any particular editor, be forced to add an infobox themselves. Rather this is about whether any editor or group of editors can force an article to have or not have an infobox at all. Obviously, per WP:CONSENSUS and everything else about how WP works, the answer to that is "no". You may be right (or not) to oppose this proposal, but what you wrote addresses a different, imaginary one. :-)
  • Oppose (sorry) I appreciate the sentiment in trying to resolve a dispute, but enshrining what is essentially first mover advantage in lieu of discussion is not a good idea. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:16, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. Infoboxes are useful. It's not just a style issue as with “12 September” vs “September 12” where the difference between the two is completely immaterial 99% of the time. Just because I didn't bother to add an infobox straight away when I created an article doesn't mean there should never be one. — A. di M.  19:03, 12 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose The problem with using first-major-contributor to resolve a deadlock here is that it is impossible to decide from the edit history who if anyone has decided not to add an infobox, as opposed to lots of editors who have not added one. (I for example mostly don't bother to add infoboxen but have not so far objected if someone else does so). I guess if someone adds a comment saying "<!-- please do not add an infobox to this article -->" that could determine the current-consensus state for subsequent revisions (my addition of a similar comment to an article where an editor had refused to accept {{authority control}} was welcomed). A talk section added at the time explaining why it is not considered appropriate for a particular article would also be helpful. --Mirokado (talk) 12:13, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
    Comment: Huh? Adding a "please do not an an infobox" HTML comment would tell no one anything about consensus, only about the controlling urges of whoever added that comment. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 22:55, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose As pointed out a number of times above, this would amount to a ban on adding infoboxes to anything but stubs. Let's extend this to tables. Tables are optional. If tablelessnesss is a style and the first major contributor didn't add one, then thou shalt never add a table. Pictures are optional ... JIMp talk·cont 15:04, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Agree that in the absence of policy on whether or not articles should globally have infoboxes, the decision should always be made at the individual article level, but consensus should rule the day. This wording just needlessly strengthens trenches and little empires on WP. Applying the 'first major contributor rule' is rarely the way article styles evolve where there is a healthy consensual editing environment. I see this rule invoked almost always a first line of defence of entrenched ownership; it then becomes a substitute for rational discussion and consensus-building. In any case, the absence of an infobox at the hands of the FMC does not mean she/he didn't want one. The FMCs' intentions or proclivities are often impossible to establish, and thus ought never to be used as grounds for turf wars. Even if same was possible to devine, it's no more justified for individual editors to overrule consensus because (s)he got to an article first. -- Ohconfucius ping / poke 03:10, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Infoboxes should be banned entirely :) Kaldari (talk) 23:43, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Articles evolve over time. Most articles do not start off their life with an infobox, and the first major contributor often does not add an infobox. They generally get added at a later time. Besides all the problems trying to determine who was the "first major contributor", you would likely be deferring to someone who probably didn't leave the infobox out intentionally. The "first major contributor" could have wanted an infobox in the article, but didn't feel like putting the effort into making one. Or maybe he just didn't know how to add one. Or maybe he was planning on coming back later to add one. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:32, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose per "first major contributor". Out of the question. --78.35.248.247 (talk) 14:10, 23 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Strongly Oppose. Regardless of the discussion below about who is the "first major contributor", this isn't about who contributes first, it's about a community project where many contribute, and in many cases, subsequent contributions are both more substantial and more beneficial than the first "major" contribution. To tie any special weight to the first contributor smacks of ownership and is blatantly against both the policies and the spirit of Wikipedia. To recommend otherwise is something of which the proposer should be somewhat ashamed. Vertium When all is said and done 16:16, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Discussion (Infoboxes)

Does anyone mind if I add a sentence about infoboxes being optional, with the usual reminder to respect the preference of the first major contributor if no consensus can be reached, per WP:STYLEVAR? I am seeing infobox wars breaking out in several places and pages needing to be protected as a result. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

I would think infobox requirements would be set at the wikiproject level, and when there are conflicts due to multiple projects, the first-editor approach to decide which to use should take precedent. --MASEM (t) 19:27, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Neither Wikiprojects nor "first major contributors" (by whatever metric that might be argued) own articles. This is a core Wikipedia principle. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:33, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but in nearly any case where there are two or more options for the MOS (say: us vs uk spelling, ref style, etc. etc.) our MOS defaults to the first editor's preference with consensus discussion to change later unless it is totally and obviously wrong (eg using US spelling in an article about Buckingham Palace). It's a standard resolution that works well in the other parts of MOS, and should be fine here. --MASEM (t) 14:53, 16 September 2012 (UTC)
I concur with Masem with a proviso - if the project has a MOS subset, such as WP:MOSLAW or WP:MILMOS then it should take precedence over projects that do not have an MOS subset. Other than that, I'm fine with the first editor approach for any conflicts. I am opposed to them becoming optional in all cases. I disagree with Andy in part, in that I do not see that setting MOS standards cause ownership of an article. GregJackP Boomer! 19:41, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Where did I say that "setting MOS standards cause ownership of an article"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:52, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
You did not say that, I said that. You said that "neither "Wikiprojects nor first major contributors ... own articles." I replied that having MOS standards, such as the one proposed by Masem and endorsed by me, would not cause ownership of articles. GregJackP Boomer! 20:11, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
The current guideline is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#Using infoboxes in articles. DrKiernan (talk) 19:48, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, DrKiernan. So it would just be a question of adding the usual wording, per STYLEVAR/ENGVAR/CITEVAR, about deferring to the first major contributor where consensus cannot be reached. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:30, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
And is perfectly adequate (even if it doesn't give as much weight in favour of infoboxes as I would like it to). The problem is with people not respecting that, and not respecting consensus. The proposal above doesn't address that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:55, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
Object; infoboxes are good and useful, and all the deference to first major contributor is thinly masked OWNership by vested contributors. And Wikiproject's don't own anything, either. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:50, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
I don't know that I agree - it is only if there is no consensus that it defaults to the original language. That doesn't imply ownership, it merely means that if there is not consensus to change something, it is left as is. GregJackP Boomer! 20:11, 7 September 2012 (UTC)
(You know me, Greg; Jack Merridew;)
There's years of evidence that first major contributor is used as ownership. We have WP:BOLD, we don't need consensus to change things, we're supposed to. Too many people focus on the R in WP:BRD; they love tripping the bold up. The net effect of their approach is that major topics that were begun years ago, are often stuck in the norms of years ago. They retard articles. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 23:35, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

I oppose WikiProject control here. The official guideline on WikiProject advice pages has given infobox wars as an example of what WikiProjects may not demand for articles within their scope for several years now. It is not good for a group of editors to descend on an article and tell the people who did all the work that they must/mustn't have an infobox, because we're a group of editors who called ourselves a WikiProject, and you're just a group of editors who wrote the article. (WikiProject, by official definition, means "group of editors who want to work together".)

The problem of conflicting advice is not trivial: not only do groups of editors differ in their preferences, they differ in which infoboxes they use. WP Chemistry and WP Pharmacology don't use the same infoboxes, but they do support many of the same articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Look at what you wrote: "tell the people who did all the work that they must/mustn't have an infobox". This is classic evocation of ownership. However much work a group of editors did, they don't own the article any more than a WikiProject does. However, a well-supported WikiProject has the advantage that it can set cross-article standards, whereas a group of editors who worked on an article are less likely to. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:04, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Well said and exactly right. It isn't "control" - it is setting standards. GregJackP Boomer! 14:19, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
Any well-supported group of editors can set cross-article standards. The way you do that is by making a WP:PROPOSAL to the community, and either we adopt your standards or we don't.
What you don't do is get a little group of friends together, name yourself "WikiProject Something", write down your advice, and then pretend that the advice of your little group has to be followed, or even respected, by anyone at all. The community, not little self-appointed fragments of it, is in charge of actual cross-article standards. Any group or individual can put their ideas or preferences forward, but no small group or individual can demand that their preferences be followed.
The actual cross-article standard for infoboxes is articulated at MOS:INFOBOX, and it says that you can do whatever you want. They're never required (even if some group of editors says they are required for some type of article) and they are never prohibited (even if some group of editors says they are prohibited for some type of article). WP:Advice pages specifically says that groups of editors who have decided to call themselves a "WikiProject" get no special say in the matter. Both of these are official, community-adopted guidelines, not just essays made up by a small group of editors.
There are solid practical reasons behind this. Many articles are tagged by multiple groups. We do not want to be in the untenable position of simultaneously requiring and prohibiting an infobox on the same articles. We commonly add infoboxes to articles about chemists. We commonly do not add any infoboxes to articles about classical music composers. And guess what? Alexander Borodin is both, in equal parts. Hildegard of Bingen was a prolific medieval composer—so no infobox, if all that matters is the opinion of the composer's WikiProject—but she was also an abbess and author, so other WikiProjects say the opposite. Albert Schweitzer was both musician and physician, among other things, and the WikiProjects make opposite recommendations. Boris Vian was author, performer, musician, and engineer. You cannot simultaneously allow all of the relevant WikiProjects have their way. It's not actually possible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:04, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Are there advantages or disadvantages to infobox? I started two different BLPs. The first article, someone came and put an infobox on, but it doesn't show anywhere on the page. I added a question about it to the infobox, but no answer. I don't know what it does or if I should delete it. The second article, I found an infobox I liked on another biography and copy/pasted it to the new one. How do I know if that was the right infobox, or if the article would be better without one? There is little guidance anywhere about these infoboxes. Neotarf (talk) 21:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

There are two main advantages to Infoboxes; first, they give a handy summary, in a semi-standardised format, of the key points and data in an article, for the benefit of our readers. Secondly, they emit that data as machine-readable metadata, understandable by scripts and computers, to allow it to more easily be reused elsewhere. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:57, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
The main disadvantage is that a decent implementation may be impossible. They often contain no more information than you would get from the first paragraph. They can reduce complex, nuanced issues down to a thoroughly misleading word or two. They provoke disputes between the "completists" (if the field exists, then we should fill it in) and "selectivists" (let's only put the most important information in the infobox). When they aren't completely redundant, they're often inadequately sourced. WP:DISINFOBOX has more information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:11, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
No; WP:DISINFOBOX has mostly FUD. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:25, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
No, WP:DISINFOBOX is absolutely right. Recently I found three fields in an infobox to be absolutely wrong. No one questioned them because they were in an infobox, and they didn't require a source because they were in an infobox and when I take the page off my watchlist anyone can change them. But that's all irrelevant to what SV has proposed here. This page is a mess now and it's hard to find where to support or oppose her proposal. Truthkeeper (talk) 22:30, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
I did set up a separate section for "support/oppose," with comments from this section copied above, but Andy kept reverting me. I will set up a new, empty one. Otherwise it will be impossible for the closer to read the consensus. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:37, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
You assert that "No one questioned them because they were in an infobox"; you offer no evidence to support that assertion. Your claim that "they didn't require a source because they were in an infobox" is bogus. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:54, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
"Disinfobox", heh. "...for their apparent professional visual appeal". Yes, yes. Useful when you don't have that much information on a subject, and don't want the article to look so much like a stub. :) I have seen infoboxes both footnoted and not, but no indication in policy if the material in the box needs to be sourced, especially if it is presumably sourced in the article. And what do you do if someone who has no interest in the subject whatsoever drops an infobox onto the article, and none of the info is available. Neotarf (talk) 10:12, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Do you have an expame of an infobox used where none of the information is available? I'll wager not. They may indeed be useful to hypothetically niaive editor in your contrived scenario, but that's not why they exist, nor one of their several and significant benefits. Do you have any other straw men you'd like to invoke? (How we might - telepathically? - determine that an editor has "has no interest in the subject whatsoever" of an article they've just edited is left as an exercise for the reader.) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:07, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
It's very rude of you to assume that I am lying. Neotarf (talk) 22:28, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Its extremely rude, not to say unacceptable, of you to falsely assert that I assume that you are lying. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:41, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
If you are going to continue to make accusations about my conduct and good faith, i.e. "contrived scenario" and so forth, this is not the place for it. Take it to my talk page. Neotarf (talk) 00:01, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Note: I have again undone SlimVirgin's duplication of parts of this section (she reverted me the first time I did so). I object to my comments, and others', some of which I had replied to, being shown out-of-context; especially (but not only) when done above the original discussion. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:47, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The RfC tag goes at the top of the discussion, not at the end of it. Please don't move it again, Andy. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:05, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

First major contributor

Martin, regarding who counts as the first major contributor, the idea is to model this on WP:CITEVAR, which resolves disputes about which citation style to use. What happens there is that, when editors can't agree or reach a compromise, people look through the contribs to find the first major contributor who used a consistent style (the first person to make substantive edits who decided to use one style over another, and who did so consistently). Determining who this is may sound tricky in theory, but in reality I've never known a case where it wasn't obvious. And remember that this is only used where editors are falling out over citations. It's just a way to end disputes.

In the case of a dispute about an infobox (where no compromise can be reached, such as choosing a different infobox, or adding or removing certain parameters), you would look to see which one editor, or series of editors, had done most to advance the article to the state it was in when the dispute began, and you would abide by whatever decision they had made about an infobox. Yes, you're right that this tends toward conservatism, in that the status quo ante is the position that's given priority. But that has worked well with CITEVAR and other style issues, in that it discourages prolonged disputes about style issues which – if not discouraged – can end up being pursued from article to article. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:24, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Slim, articles are improved by editors making changes and the use of CITEVAR is merely a mechanism to stultify improvements. It ends disputes by appealing to ownership of articles and that is bad for the encyclopedia. No editor should be given a weapon to override reasoned consensus on an article's talkpage about any optional part of our content. ENGVAR has a series of priorities for deciding on the style of English used and deferring to the first major contributor is merely the tie-breaker in the event that the more rational factors do not apply. CITEVAR on the other hand makes no consideration of the advantages or disadvantages of having a given citation format. Hand-written citations are not a "style". Harvard is a style; Vancouver is a style; APA and Chicago are styles; and yet many articles are prevented from adopting the ease of maintenance, consistency of presentation, and improved reusability that templates can afford. Only the largest of articles display the downside of templates, yet vast numbers of small articles are left with broken references and non-working links because of the dead-hand of the "first major contributor". This proposal is a further attempt to impose a technophobic fossilisation on articles - particularly as all articles start off without an infobox, which gives a kind of 'first-mover' advantage to those who want to remove all infoboxes but can't articulate a reasonable argument to support their prejudice. --RexxS (talk) 19:56, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
RexxS, you left out MLA style, and it really makes not a bit of difference whether the style is achieved via a template (we don't happen to have any that adhere to MLA) or by handwriting. The viewers see the output. Templates are useful for data mining. Truthkeeper (talk) 20:05, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Rexxs, people aren't going around removing infoboxes so far as I know. In all the cases I've seen, people are arriving to impose them on articles they haven't edited before, and then start reverting when challenged. I like infoboxes, and I also add them to articles I haven't edited before. In several years of doing this, I've only been challenged three times, and in each case I backed off, not because I was acknowledging someone else's OWNership, but because I respected that someone else had written the article, and they had formed an educated view about the content problems an infobox might cause (e.g. because of complicated biographical issues), or had formed a view about the aesthetics that I was willing to respect.
Three times in several years indicates that this is not a major issue. It's just that, when it does become an issue, we currently have no way of resolving it (except by people turning up to vote for their overall preferred position, which turns it into a numbers game). This proposal – that this is a style issue that should be handled like any other – would offer a resolution in the small number of cases where no compromise can be reached. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:58, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
You're mistaken. Editors allied to the classical music/ opera projects systematically remove - and presume to issue bogus instructions against re-adding - infoboxes. This is in direct contravention of the outcome of an RfC which they instigated. Recently, another editor has taken it upon herself to purge infoboxes for a significant number of articles, usually obfuscating with two-or-three letter edit summaries such as "rm" and "org". Your suggestion that Wikipedia does not have a method of resolving content disputes is a curious one; though there is an issue that some small but vocal groups of editors reuse to use that process or abide by its outcomes. It is naive in the extreme for you to assume that your proposed remedy would not be abused by such people in an attempt to enforce the removal of infoboxes from significant sections of Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:23, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Andy, I'm not familiar with the classical music wikiproject issues; if you have a link that would be helpful. We could add an explicit caveat to this proposal that people should not go around adding or removing infoboxes across the board, per WP:STYLEVAR and per the ArbCom (see the footnote in the STYLEVAR link for reference to the cases that formed the principle): "Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a substantial reason. Revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable." SlimVirgin (talk) 21:34, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers/Infoboxes RfC. Infobox use is not merely a matter of style. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:41, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
This proposal would prevent WikiProjects from ruling that articles within their scope must or must not have infoboxes. That is, if someone were to create an article about a composer and were to add an infobox, no one could remove it on the grounds that one of the projects interested in that article had decided against infoboxes. The decision about an infobox would always be made at the individual article/editor level. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:11, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Your second sentence does not guarantee your first. The current situation is already that the decision about an infobox is made at the individual article level; your proposal is thus, at best, redundant. Giving article creators control of the future development of articles would be contrary to core Wikipedia policy; and would be a monumentally stupid thing to do. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:37, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Everyone can't be in control here, not the people who want to remove the boxes, or the people who want to add them, or a WikiProject that has placed the article within its scope. It's an either/or thing at the moment: we either have a box or we don't. Perhaps in future someone will create an option whereby readers can choose to see or hide infoboxes, or perhaps we should create a template for a completely collapsed infobox. But for now, we need a mechanism to decide in those rare cases where no compromise can be found by refining a box's parameters.
The most obvious mechanism is to prioritize the status quo ante. That will sometimes mean the box is retained and sometimes removed. As more people who like boxes create articles, they will become the first major contributors and the status quo ante will increasingly mean the box stays. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:09, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Collapsed has already been tried, and widely detested: see the disaster that was Ponte Vecchio for 3 years, because everyone got completely burnt out discussing it (80% of that talkpage is about the infobox), until some IP finally came along and fixed it per the very relevant MOS:COLLAPSE. It's an wp:accessibility problem at the least, and a hindrance/overcomplication at best. —Quiddity (talk) 00:37, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Truthkeeper, I missed out Bluebook as well, but it was never intended to be an exhaustive list. To the point: it actually makes the world of difference whether a citation is achieved by hand or by template. The latter guarantee a consistent style; can be checked and updated much more easily by bot or script; and can emit metadata, which (although you can't see it) can be used by re-users like Google to pick up important facts. It is a mistake to assume that just because two options look the same, they are identical.
Slim, I think you'll find that infoboxes are being removed sometimes without even the courtesy of an explanation in the edit summary. I am very disappointed at such behaviour from colleagues who really could do much better and engage in a proper discussion. I hope I'm not an unreasonable editor and I'm willing to accept that some articles are not best served by infoboxes, but I'm unhappy that the issues are not being explored. You are quite right, of course, to defend the principle of decisions being made at article level. Given goodwill between the editors discussing, I believe this still represents the fundamental 'wiki-way' of finding a consensus. I honestly don't think that STYLEVAR actually helps that process, as any mechanism that uses a rather arbitrary factor to favour one side or another denies the very principle of looking for common ground when seeking a consensus. --RexxS (talk) 00:29, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
I agree that it's always better to find common ground. I also think that just about every objection to infoboxes can be addressed by refining the parameters, and by finding ways to express key points succinctly. Editors who oppose infoboxes may not realize that you can use the generic {{Infobox}}, and create your own headers and parameters. Having said that, I still wouldn't want to see editors who had put a lot of work into an article forced to accept them by sheer weight of numbers. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:50, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Classical music

Terry Riley (before)
Birth nameTerrence Mitchell Riley
Born (1935-06-24) June 24, 1935 (age 89)
OriginColfax, California, U.S.
GenresMinimalist
OccupationComposer
Instruments
Labels
Websiteterryriley.net
Terry Riley (after)
Born
Terrence Mitchell Riley

(1935-06-24) June 24, 1935 (age 89)
Colfax, California, USA
EraContemporary

@Andy: The classical composers project DOES have and use an infobox, called {{Infobox classical composer}}. The RfC you link to is where it came from. You've tried to delete it 4 times, including once by replacing [18],[19] remaining uses with {{infobox person}} and then claiming it was "unused" at both of the TFDs, plus reverting editors that try to use it. Plus two 1-month older removals, in the same way. How many times have you replaced it before?

Instead of complaining about it "losing valuable data" abstractly, and ignoring legitimate objective objections, I strongly suggest you read the section Template:Infobox classical composer#Fields that are specifically excluded, and try to understand the perspective of the many editors that agree with those summaries. Then start a clear and non-confrontational discussion on the talkpage, suggesting additions/changes that you believe would be both widely-applicable, and unlikely to result in misinformation being added to unwatchlisted-articles.

We're trying to inch the discussion forward, over time, solving each of the objections slowly and carefully. It'd be really great if you'd stop shooting us in the foot. —Quiddity (talk) 00:37, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Again, though, if someone were to create an article about a composer, and were to add a non-minimalist box, that would take priority. This is why I feel the "first major contributor" rule is the only one that's going to work, because it's an entirely "blind" process. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:50, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Indeed it is a blind process - although not a neutral one because of the starting point. I would not object to the idea of "FMC" if it were to be to be used to reach a decision when all other options have failed to reach consensus, but I fear that in reality the side that FMC favours would simply use it as their starting point in discussion, ignoring reasoned argument from the opposite viewpoint. In that case it becomes the antithesis of a tool for finding consensus; without some means of ensuring that it is to be treated as a tie-breaker, not a trump card, I remain convinced that including it here is not helpful in improving the encyclopedia. --RexxS (talk) 10:41, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
I have to side with Whatamidoing, RexxS and others raising concerns about the "first major contributor" clause, but also about wikiproject dictatorialism, which the first half of this proposal does appropriately address. We (meaning the WP community in general, but also MoS gnomes more specifically) have let WikiProjects run roughshod over the principles of Wikipedia for far too long, and to a terrible extent. The level of WP:OWN nonsense out of these things is worsening by the day. And I say that as someone who has started wikiprojects myself and finds them useful when they are not operated like little dictatorial fiefdoms. That said, I'm entirely sure that "whatever I did first is the rule, and I was the first major article, so everyone else can just go jump off a bridge" is not a good model for how to go about this. We don't normally form consensus this way, so I can't support this proposal. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 15:52, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
The only time members of that project use "their" infobox (which was recreated out-of-process after being properly deleted) is to replace a better one, in order to deny editors the ability to use the latter's parameters (and we've already discussed this, recently; I pointed out that you were duped into creating it for them). I can provide evidence of this if you doubt that; can you provide evidence of the infobox being used by the project's active members, in other circumstances? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:25, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
The fact that they're using an infobox at all, is good.
As stated, there are rational reasons to exclude certain parameters that continually get misused (#Fields that are specifically excluded). You always just skip over those parts, in discussions.
I was not "duped" into helping them come to a solution, as you keep saying, and it's rude to assume or state that I was. I'm fully aware that it is "incomplete" or "imperfect" from your perspective.
There are a mixture of humans here, and as WhatamIdoing explained very clearly above, the disagreement between "the 'completists' (if the field exists, then we should fill it in) and 'selectivists' (let's only put the most important information in the infobox)" is not simple.
Yes, I have seen that most of the current uses were added by Mishae and Magnus; and Yes, I'd be very happy to see diffs where the project-members are actively implementing the template. Most of us think it is a good thing, if they're willingly using an infobox. It certainly displays more adaptability and open-mindedness than your own actions I value their adaptable and open-minded attitude. —Quiddity (talk) 21:26, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
It's all very well and good to have some recommendations that standardize the use of boxes for specific topics, especially if there are enough experienced editors on a topic to reach a consensus, but my understanding is that most content is created by new users. Can't some guidance be provided for us? Maybe not on the level of MoS, but more of a recommendation or tutorial thing. Really, there are other users with even fewer edits than I have who go around templating stuff that I have no idea what it is. Wouldn't it be best for the person who wants to use the box to source the information to put in it? And is there a minimum amount of information needed on the box? For instance, I have found very little about Abdullah al-Hamid, other than his full name and his age on a particular date, still, I like the box, especially since there's no photo yet. And what about sourcing? I have seen boxes with ref markers; it looks cluttered, but is it a good practice for other reasons?
Also, there is something called a persondata; not sure if it is covered by this part of MoS.
Neotarf (talk) 23:44, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
  • Infoboxes are only useful if uniform, and uniformly used. Projects may need special features, but as much as possible should be standardized. ENVAR is not a parallel case--in that matter, there were several equally good standards and choosing one or the other is necessary. This is a case where we either have a standard, or total inconsistency. As Wikipedia matures we need a way to provide formally formatted data. Personally I wish we had never chosen this particular obtrusive and unsightly way of doing it, but if we use it at all, it should be used systematically. Perhaps The Wikidata project will find a better technique. DGG ( talk ) 23:52, 14 September 2012 (UTC)
This might also be a good place to remind participants of the template at the top of the page, and that the MoS pages are subject to Arbitration Committee discretionary sanctions. See this remedy which includes the reminder " All parties are reminded to avoid personalizing disputes concerning the Manual of Style, the article titles policy ('WP:TITLE'), and similar policy and guideline pages, and to work collegially towards a workable consensus."
Neotarf (talk) 23:53, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
To clarify why my vote above - editors should have a choice concerning the use of infoboxes. I oppose mandatory use and I also oppose giving the decision to first users as in WP:ENGVAR. However respect and deference should be accorded editors who create hundreds of edits to an article and who render an opinion - weight should be given to those opinions...Modernist (talk) 00:24, 11 September 2012 (UTC)
Quidity: You claim that "that they're using an infobox at all, is good"; event though they are not using an infobox, other than as a tool to remove better infoboxes. That is far from good. I invited you to provide an example of them using it in a positive manner; you have failed to do so. I addressed your "Fields that are specifically excluded" point ("in order to deny editors the ability to use the [better infobox's] parameters"), but, for clarity, those edge cases are being used to prevent the inclusion of valid, cited and relevant information, such as that Terry Riley (you cite me reverting its replacement, above), whose lede says he was "intrinsically associated with the minimalist school", wrote minimalist music; that the man we say is "currently performing... as a solo pianist" plays piano; hides his own website (readers are invited to compare the infobox before and after its emasculation; above) and removes the fact that he is a composer. That's a disservice to our readers, and harmful to the project. That and similar examples are evidence enough that your naive good faith in creating the template was abused. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:09, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Time to close

There's much opposition, well-reasoned at that, to this proposal. Tome to close it? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:31, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but see below. This proposal has obviously failed, yet the underlying issue remains unresolved. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 22:55, 13 September 2012 (UTC)
Any objection to simply removing the RfC tag without formally closing the RfC? The presence of open RfC's has precluded archiving this page. It it is removed, archiving can resume, and previous discussion on this topic can as always be found in the archives. Apteva (talk) 20:53, 29 September 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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