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Clarification regarding gender part of MOS:IDENTITY

In the following sentence from MOS:IDENTITY, does "gendered nouns" include gendered names, for example William and Mary?

Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 03:22, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

My understanding is that preferred names and name changes (e.g. Samuel to Samantha) are covered under different parts of the MOS and WP policy, and are a separate issue that may coincide with gender identity issues. So including names here would be redundant at best and conflicting at worst. If someone says I’m wrong, I will be happy to have learned something new. —Frungi (talk) 05:38, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I think proper nouns are not included; those are covered by other sections of the guide. Gendered nouns are things like "actress". FWIW, we should change the examples - chairman/chairwoman are kind of old school. Actor/actress - at least the actress part is gendered. We could find a few others.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:29, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Don’t we generally attempt to avoid gendered nouns, anyway? —Frungi (talk) 04:12, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I think that's an essay. Admittedly, I don't think we'll be creating articles about aviatrixes anymore, but there are a few which remain in wide use, like the aforementioned actress.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:29, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Template:MOS-TRANS

Seeing that this has to do with the wording of MOS-IDENTITY I could use some more feedback regarding the template's deletion. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 19:37, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Flaw in MOS:IDENTITY

I have just realized that there are some fundamental flaws in MOS:IDENTITY... To start... as Jc3s5h notes abouve, the "Identity" section asserts: "When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself."
I think this statement is flawed. The most commonly used term for a person is not the one used by the person or group themselves... but the one that is used by the most number of sources. This may or may not be the same as the term used by the person/group. When the sources use a different term than that preferred by the person or group, our NPOV policy tells us to note both terms, but to give more WEIGHT to the majority view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Blueboar (talk • contribs) 16:53, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I think this may be a non-issue. The part you've quoted is preceded by "Disputes over how to refer to a person or group are addressed by policies such as Verifiability, Neutral point of view, and Article titles where the term appears in the title of an article." Then the part you've quoted begins "When there is no dispute, ...". So that part isn't negating NPOV etc at all. --Stfg (talk) 17:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. If the party in question prefers a different term to sources, that would be a dispute, would it not? So this wouldn’t apply. —Frungi (talk) 18:57, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Blueboar, can you name any examples?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:43, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

How about the following change,

When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person most commonly uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms used for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself.

Here it is with the struckout parts deleted and without the underlines for the added parts.

When there is no dispute, the term used for a person will be the one that person most commonly uses for himself or herself, and the terms used for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 19:43, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

On that note, shouldn't it be "those [that] the group most commonly use for themselves," not "those [that] the group most commonly uses for itself"? Ananiujitha (talk) 21:14, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Either is acceptable, I think. One or the other might be preferred in certain dialects of English, but words like “group”, “company”, “team” may be either singular or plural. See MOS:PLURALS. —Frungi (talk) 01:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

OK... I get it... When there is no dispute, the person/group will use the same terms that the sources use. But why do we say this in the MOS? Wouldn't we follow the sources anyway? Why confuse readers by mentioning what the terms used by the subjects themselves... why not simply say "Use the terms that are most commonly used by sources". It applies in all situations - both when there is a dispute and when there isn't. Blueboar (talk) 03:36, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

After reading your message, and rereading the whole bulleted paragraph beginning with "Disputes over how to refer to a person or group...", it's not clear to me what that paragraph is trying to say. --Bob K31416 (talk) 10:38, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

You're just repeating the discussion at the top of this page, guys. Read that over, then comment in that section if you have anything new to say. – Smyth\^talk 11:44, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Huh... you're right Smyth... and sorry for that. Given what has been said in both discussions, I am going to be bold and amend the section. Blueboar (talk) 22:37, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I just reverted MOS:Identity to how it was before this diff that was very bold. The discussion regarding this isn't closed yet, so it seems inappropriate to substantially rewrite it. I think Smyth was inviting you to join that discussion, not take on closing it all by yourself. __ E L A Q U E A T E 20:15, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Given what has been said both above and here, it looked to me like there was consensus. But if you feel it needs more discussion, no problem. Blueboar (talk) 22:00, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

A suggested addition to the gender paragraph

I realize that the gender paragraph of WP:IDENTITY is still being discussed extensively above... but I would like to make the following suggestion independently of those discussions, and have it be considered on its own merits/flaws without it being conflated with the issues and debates of the prior discussion. Note that I am intentionally not changing the current language of the paragraph at this point, and merely suggesting an addition to it. Suggested addition is in BOLD type...

• In Biographies of Living People, an extra degree of sensitivity is called for. It is appropriate to give extra weight to the terms and names a person uses for himself/herself. As long as the sources do not overwhelmingly indicate otherwise, any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. Direct quotations may need to be handled as exceptions (in some cases adjusting the portion used may reduce apparent contradictions, and " [sic]" may be used where necessary). Nevertheless, avoid confusing or seemingly logically impossible text that could result from pronoun usage (for example: instead of He gave birth to his first child, write He became a parent for the first time).

I think this puts the paragraph in better context and ties it into the rest of the IDENTITY section. Thoughts? Blueboar (talk) 02:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The statement says "As long as the sources do not..." However, if the sources do indicate otherwise, then... Georgia guy (talk) 02:24, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Then obviously you would follow the sources, as per usual. —Frungi (talk) 03:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I like the change, and I personally agree that we shouldn’t adhere to the subject’s personal preference if no one else does, either. But if sources are split, then I don’t see a bias problem. —Frungi (talk) 03:37, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

we don't deal with people who reject he/she. Should we? see the tortured language here to avoid pronouns Justin_Vivian_Bond. Previous discussion Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_146#Other_pronouns, never really came to a conclusion. also not sure I like "overwhelmingly" - I can see the arguments already - 7 out of 10 is not overwhelming, yes it is, no it isn't. I would just say something like "As long as the weight of sources do not indicate otherwise"--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 04:37, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Re: "we don't deal with people who reject he/she. Should we?" Yes... its called maintaining a Neutral Point of View and that is one of the core policies of Wikipedia. Blueboar (talk) 14:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

What I meant was, the guidance doesn't give us any direction on what to do; it only talks about gendered pronouns. Should we explicitly state that made-up pronouns are not to be used unless those pronouns start being used in a wide variety of sources?--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 14:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I don’t know if a wording exists that people would not use to argue when they shouldn’t. Maybe we should have a highly paid lawyer write it up in strictly worded legalese? And my stance on alternative pronouns is no, until and unless they become widely used by reliable, relatively unbiased sources. —Frungi (talk) 05:56, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I am not insistent on "overwhelmingly". I was looking for a wording that would clearly indicate that a) In a BLP we should give extra weight to what the subject calls himself/herself (more than we might do in non-BLP articles)... and this extra wight may or may not be enough to off-set what others call him/her. As an example... a person might self-identify as a "Freedom fighter", while sources call him a "Terrorist". Which term should Wikipeida give more weight to? That depends on both the quantity and quality of the sourcing. The reality is that assessing due weight is always a bit of a judgement call. You can't simply draw a bright line and say: you need X% of sources to off set the subject's self-identification. Assessing DUE WEIGHT is more an art than a science, and there will always be the chance of debate. Blueboar (talk) 13:06, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The problem that has arisen here is that since grammatical gender, according to our rules, has no dependence on biology, then there's nothing wrong with the sentence "he gave birth." Saying instead "he became a parent" is a euphemism; there's no call for censoring the fact of giving birth (as opposed to, say adopting or becoming a stepparent through marriage) because the gender mismatch offends someone's biological sensibilities. Mangoe (talk) 15:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

@Mangoe: that part of it, which has been tinkered with today, was part of the stable version. Blueboar showed the part that he added in bold at the start of this section. What you have done is to remove existing, stable text without seeking consensus here to do so. Please restore it and discuss. --Stfg (talk) 16:15, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I reverted the text to the wording that is being discussed in the open RFC above. I have made no "suggestions" and only restored the text that is under discussion. People are wholesale ignoring the "disputed or under discussion" text banner. If there's a consensus I don't know about please point it out, otherwise it should be discussed here. Is that reasonable? __ E L A Q U E A T E 16:43, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the examples used are particularly bad. Instead of "waiter/waitress", use the gender neutral "server". Instead of "chariman"/"chairwoman" use the gender neutral "chair" or "chairperson". -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 18:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

You mean, kind of like to you transgender people are of intermediate gender?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:26, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I think you mean "indeterminate". —173.199.215.5 (talk) 03:29, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I mean intermediate between male and female. Georgia guy (talk) 20:54, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

TheRedPenOfDoom, Please note that "waiter/waitress", etc. are examples of gendered nouns and go with the preceding text, whereas "server" etc. don't. --Bob K31416 (talk) 18:53, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Please also note that "server" would not be understood by the majority of British readers. --Stfg (talk) 20:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The tale keeps wagging the dog... Please look at my proposal again. I have intentionally not proposed any change to the part of the paragraph you guys keep arguing about. While the debates on Gender Identity were the inspiration for creating the section, Gender is not the only IDENTITY issue that this section can be applied to... it is not the only IDENTITY issue we have to deal with. I am attempting to address a broader issue, while leaving the gender issue for a different discussion.
For example: Take our article on Usama bin Laden. I doubt he used the term "Terrorist" when describing himself. Yet we use that term in our article. And appropriately so... because the sources use that term when describing him. Yet WP:IDENTITY could easily be construed as saying we should not use that term because bin Laden didn't use it himself. Sensitivity to the terms people use for themselves is great... but not in the face of contrary source usage. Blueboar (talk) 19:47, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Please note that the first paragraph of MOS:IDENTITY is the more general case, which would include your Bin Laden example. Whereas the second paragraph is about a subset of that more general case, i.e. gender. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:32, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

"avoid confusing or seemingly logically impossible text"

So, to advance the discussion: this sentence is advocating a euphemistic approach to the "seeming logical impossibility". Saying "he became a parent" rather than "he gave birth" is misleading, precisely because of the "impossibility": the same reader who would be drawn up short by the factual statement would be led to conclude that parentage came about because somebody else had given birth. Since we have adopted the convention that pronominal gender is according to the designee's choice, then the statement that "[grammatical] males don't give birth" isn't true in our text. Readers shall have to wrap their minds around the assertion that some males do given birth, as well as other apparent but now false paradoxes. If we're going to stick to the principle of self-designation we need to be bold about it. Mangoe (talk) 16:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense. But talking about giving birth is a bit medical. More normal (at least in BrE, I'm not sure about other kinds) would be "He had his first child", or "His first child was born", both of which seem to me to be almost glitch-free. However, if the topic of a sentence really is the act of giving birth, then I agree we should avoid euphemism and say exactly that, and that would be a situation we need to expect readers to "wrap their minds around". --Stfg (talk) 20:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Just throwing this out there… Would it make sense to use the self-identified gender in general and social contexts, and to use the biological gender in physical and biological contexts? Use the pronoun that makes the most sense in context? —173.199.215.5 (talk) 03:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Nah, then we'd end up with sequences like "He married in 1994. She gave birth to a daughter in 1995." It would make it seem like two people were being discussed. -sche (talk) 08:34, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The right solution, as I keep saying, is not to use pronouns. This "he gave birth" sentence, rather than being an example of a style issue, simply illustrates why the advice given in the rest of the paragraph is wrong. The sentence seems logically impossible because, in normal English usage, someone with the biological makeup allowing them to give birth is not a "he". Therefore the use of pronouns that is being recommended here is not normal English usage. "He gave birth" sounds very odd, but at least it lets the reader know what we're doing. "He became a parent" sounds very normal, but the message it conveys is of someone fathering or adopting a child, not giving birth to one, and it is therefore knowingly misleading. The lesser evil, surely, is to be odd-sounding. But as I say, this whole situation shows that the premise on which the whole paragraph is based is a wrong one. W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:47, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not interested in the politicized discussion over what pronouns to use, and personally I find the total avoidance ponderous and clumsy. All I want is to suppress the sentence which advocates euphemism as a solution. No alternate text; just leave it out entirely. Mangoe (talk) 14:09, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Mangoe's take on this. I realize that there is a natural desire to have firm "rules" to settle disputes, but sometimes creating a "rule" results in more disputes than we started with. When this happens, it is better to not have any "rule". Blueboar (talk) 14:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Strongly support removing or replacing “He became a parent for the first time.” It really is a horrible way of saying he had his first child. —173.199.215.5 (talk) 19:36, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

• Strong support. It's a fact of life that transgender men can have given birth. I don't know that it is frequently going to a useful thing to include in an article, but it is absolutely abysmal and without purpose for us to have guidance saying we ought to pretend like it never happens. Formerip (talk) 21:18, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

• Support - it seems clear that a person who identifies as a man can give birth if he has female biology. I don't know why we can't say that. Sure it's jarring, but transgender issues tend to be jarring. SchreiberBike talk 21:57, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
• Support I agree with those, and Blueboar makes a good point we should often apply. --Stfg (talk) 00:09, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

A further thought... A lot of this will be article specific - and within that article usage will be influenced by context. If an article has properly established that a (biological) woman identifies as a Trans-gender man (and does this before discussing the birth of children), the reader will not find the sentence "In 1998 he became pregnant and gave birth to a child" all that jarring. If, on the other hand, the sentence is presented without properly establishing that necessary trans-gender context, they will. In other words... the issue of potentially confusing pronouns in articles about Trans-gender people is resolved by establishing the needed trans-gender context within the article, not by making sweeping "rules" in the MOS. Blueboar (talk) 13:53, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Essays?

Given the ongoing debates over the IDENTITY section on this page, I would expect that several essays (with contrasting opinions) have been written about various IDENTITY issues. I would like to read them... are there any that you would recommend? Blueboar (talk) 14:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

RfC: Capitalization of adjectives for groups

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.

---

MOS:IDENTITY says that we use the terms that groups use for themselves. WP:DOCTCAPS says to capitalize adjectives only when they derive from proper names. But when a group, culture, and community defines itself by a capitalized common adjective, such as Black, Deaf, or Gay, should we capitalize it as well? And should we amend our guidance to support this? Please note that this is not asking specifically about the word “Deaf”, but about group labels in general. MOS:IDENTITY says “the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself. Wikipedia should use them too.” Does the group’s capitalization of those terms matter to us? —Frungi (talk) 22:59, 17 November 2013 (UTC) edited 04:40, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Question Who capitalizes gay? Maybe the men do, but as a lesbian, I don't, and I don't know anyone who does. Ananiujitha (talk) 23:05, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

  If you have better examples, please feel free to edit my text. Thanks. —Frungi (talk) 23:13, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

  Since there is already a discussion about this just above, it might be best to close this discussion to avoid confusion and incorporate it above. Malke 2010 (talk) 23:19, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

  Actually, I started this discussion because the above one seemed too narrow and specific. It really isn’t a question of one word and one subculture; it’s a question of how we should represent them in general. —Frungi (talk) 23:40, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. It's not standard practice among most generalist publications in the real world AFAIK. Sure, some publications and writers might capitalise such terms in some contexts, but specialist fields often capitalise high-profile or defined local terms and there's no reason for us to follow. And at what point could one ever make the definitive judgment that a group or community, as a whole, does use the capitalised terms and define itself by them? Some activists and specialists might, others will not. And what about those in the group in question who are not active that way? Plus if we allow it, say, when deaf or any similar term is being applied in a political/identity sense, I'm sure we'd just end up with endless squabbles as to whether each instance of use is such a case or simply a more ordinary "lower case" sense. N-HH talk/edits 23:29, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose changing standard capitalization rules unless a clear, indeed dominant, majority of standard reliable sources, including both academic and popular sources, outside the community in question use this form. Sources from inside the community should be of zero weight, as they are apt to be engaged in, or subject to, political advocacy and/or pressure, or may be biased on the issue. When a specific entity has a proper name (e.g. "Jones Foundation for Xyz") of course its name will be capitalized as a proper name. DES ^(talk) 23:56, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

  So should our rules say this? —Frungi (talk) 00:02, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

  We could, but at present MOS:CAP says "Wikipedia avoids unnecessary capitalization. Most capitalization is for proper names or for acronyms. Wikipedia relies on sources to determine what is a proper name; words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in sources are treated as proper names and capitalized in Wikipedia." and none of the listed exceptions to this general rule apply to this case. I see no great need to change that, it seems a case of WP:CREEP, but if there is a desire for a clear rule on this particular point, I would favor a rule along the lines of my statement above. DES ^(talk) 00:24, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

  You’re right; I somehow missed the lead there when I was trying to find guidance on this. I agree that that would suffice, since it doesn’t seem to exclude non-nouns. —Frungi (talk) 00:36, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• The "Identity" section asserts a relevant fact: "When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself." It then goes on to state the MOS position: "Wikipedia should use them too." So if the absence of any dispute, in combination with the mysterious forces that shape the English language, lead to an adjective being commonly capitalized throughout the spectrum of publications (when used in connection with a particular group) then Wikipedia should follow suit.
  Adjectives aren't really any different than other words in this context. We shouldn't begin to capitalize any word used to specify or describe a group on the say-so of a limited number of activists; reliable sources such as dictionaries and style manuals should be used to decide.
  An exception to the need for dictionaries and similar sources is proper nouns for corporations. For a few hundred dollars a group can incorporate, and we can then refer to the property and official activities with the name assigned by the government, even if no dictionary or style manual has taken notice of the name. And since, as far as I know, governments only assign names, not adjectives, to corporations, the same concept doesn't apply to corporations. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose the capitalisation of "Deaf" in contexts such as Deaf community as it is not a proper noun (or a noun at all), whatever the community may call itself. Indifferent as to whether this merits a mention in the MOS, but may be helpful to avoid disputes if there is consensus. I do feel that this RFC unnecessarily doubles up on the earlier Capitalization of the word deaf RFC; although it seems that RFC was not ideally located, it has a lengthy discussion, and it would be better to direct the conversation there (or move that entire RFC here) rather than have two on ostensibly the same issue. (This over-specificity syndrome is WP:USPLACE/MOS:COMMA all over again.) —sroc 💬 00:33, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
• I agree, this RfC here is unnecessarily doubling up. It's also a distraction since the question of a capital D for Deaf is more specific to a change occurring in society. Nobody is trying to change the capitalization of adjectives in general. Malke 2010 (talk) 01:34, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

  I think I need to rephrase the RfC… As I mentioned above, this RfC is not asking about the word “Deaf”. I’m asking here about a broader issue than the treatment of a single word. We currently don’t seem to capitalize terms like “Black” or “Gay” when referring to their respective cultures, but there’s debate over whether to capitalize “Deaf”, and I could find no specific guidance on group labels beyond MOS:IDENTITY and possibly WP:DOCTCAPS, so I thought an assessment of the whole practice in general was in order. When a group—any group—uses a capitalized term for itself, should we capitalize it as well? Does MOS:IDENTITY support this? Should it? —Frungi (talk) 04:34, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. It is not normal to capitalise these terms and therefore we should not be doing it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:42, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. The rationales above are very good, and I agree with them. Also, this RfC is the right one and should supersede the one at Talk:Deafness per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. --Stfg (talk) 10:34, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose I frankly have a problem with any group declaring that they are special and that the rules of grammar should be broken for them. For any reason, but especaly if thier reasoning is it offends us. CombatWombat42 (talk) 15:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
• Neutral - Follow the sources. If the sources routinely capitalize, so should Wikipedia. If the sources do not, then Wikipedia should not. Blueboar (talk) 16:34, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose both capitalizing descriptors and using "x community" at all. Too vague and too politicized, suggesting a hive mentality. But yeah, that's not the issue here. Neither is which team this guy scored for. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:38, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
• Neutral - Follow the sources. I believe this generally means Oppose in the case of the current examples, deaf, gay, etc. The fact that a number of vocal members of a group (i.e. "a political group") want to stylize themselves by capitalizing or italicizing or leet-ing their name, is no reason for us to follow that style when referring to all people that share a trait (e.g. deafness) with them. There are probably cases where it is appropriate, like when referring to that particular political group's actions, but this should not be the norm until/unless WP:RS do so in a broad variety of articles about the trait (not just those primarily about the political group). —[AlanM1(talk)]— 03:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose It is courteous and proper to use the same words that people use for themselves, but courtesy does not require us to use incorrect English and propriety requires that we do not. In this case, following the sources means following the style guides. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:MOSCAP, as well as standard capitalization guidelines.--JayJasper (talk) 18:41, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

SNOW close?

I've just reverted removal of the {{rfc}} template from the top of this section because the RFC at Talk:Deafness#Capitalization of the word deaf is still open. If we close this while that is still open, we're at risk of a local consensus on what should be a global question. I wouldn't object to a snow close here once that one is closed, although even then, imo it should be a proper close, not merely a removal of the template. --Stfg (talk) 10:35, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Stfg, I asked at AN for someone to close the RfC on Deafness talk but so far no one has responded. Malke 2010 (talk) 16:08, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Requests for closure of RFCs often suffer considerable delay. Editors are allowed to snow-close RFCs even if they have taken part in the discussion -- see the second paragraph of WP:AN/RFC for details. Would you be prepared to snow-close the one at Talk:Deafness? I would do it myself, but I opposed that one, and you having supported it are in a better position to. Then we could also close this one. (By the way, the place to request closure of RFCs is WP:AN/RFC, which is transcluded into WP:AN, rather than in a section of its own at WP:AN.) --Stfg (talk) 16:39, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

 Done Malke 2010 (talk) 18:39, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Doing this one now. --Stfg (talk) 18:49, 23 November 2013 (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.

Names of musical artists.

I couldn't help but notice that there are huge inconsistencies between the spelling of certain artists names. I noticed that some of their names were spelled incorrectly due to what many articles claim to be a policy against stylization. I couldn't find a section in this article referencing it (although it is a very big article). Furthermore, searching "stylization" just redirects to the bottom of an article on style in art. But I have noticed that the rules do not seem to be enforced the same way on all of the artists. For example, B.o.B, will.i.am and 3OH!3 seem to be spelled correctly, but Ke$ha, fun., P!nk and A$AP Rocky are all spelled incorrectly. This is most annoying when comparing fun. to will.i.am, which is pretty much the exact same case. They are both lower case names with periods in them. B.o.B also has varied capitalization and periods in his name, but he is spelled accurately. So why treat one different than the other? Another similarity can be drawn between P!nk and 3OH!3. If P!nk's explanation point is automatically reverted to a lower case i, why is it not 3OHi3? Or if you have a thing against explanation points in an article title, why not 3OH3, or 303, or 3 O 3. Why spell one correctly, and the other incorrectly? Again, there is incongruities between Ke$ha and A$AP Rocky. Why is Ke$ha's dollar sign reverted to a lower case s whereas A$AP's is converted into an upper case s? I propose we change all of the artist names to how they appear in official texts. This whole stylization thing is not professional or encyclopedic and it's just disrespectful to the artists. It makes the whole site seem naïve and dilettante and it really takes away from the credibility and reputation of the site in general. TBWarrior720 (talk) 02:17, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I think there are generally two explanations for this, either of which may be true for any given name:

1. Reliable, independent sources do not consistently write it the same way; some use English-standard letters and capitalization, and we opt to follow their example.
2. Lacking a solid rule, these articles have a local consensus to ignore how sources consistently write the name.

I honestly have no idea why a real solution hasn’t been worked out by now, given how often debates break out. Opinion is just that split, with too many on both sides unwilling to compromise, in my estimation. My own opinion is that, for each name, we should use the style that’s most commonly found in the most reliable and respectable sources, regardless of how well it matches up with either standard English names or official primary sources. —Frungi (talk) 02:47, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

This has all been discussed before, of course. Each case has its own situation. However, I think we do have a reasonable general rule – expressed in MOS:TM and WP:AT (incl. WP:TITLETM), which is that we follow "standard English" formatting unless practically all reliable sources use the stylized form of the name. Of course, there are always localized consensus effects, but that is the general principle. —BarrelProof (talk) 03:04, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

And in the music artist naming disputes I’ve seen, there’s always wide disagreement over how MOS:TM should be interpreted, how many sources is enough, the quality of the sources, etc. And as the OP pointed out, it’s rather inconsistently applied here: Why don’t we use Ke$ha when sources like CNN do? Why do we use will.i.am when many sources capitalize the W? (Not trying to have those debates here, just grousing about the inconsistency.) —Frungi (talk) 04:50, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

"Why don’t we use Ke$ha when sources like CNN do?" Because there are other sources that don't use it. As for the lowercase 'w' in will.i.am, I am not sure I can explain that. That aspect doesn't seem to be discussed much at Talk:will.i.am. Maybe you should start a discussion about that there. Perhaps the idea is that once you've gone as far as inserting two full stops in the middle of a name, there isn't much point in resisting using lowercase. —BarrelProof (talk) 05:07, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Again, I’m just complaining about how inconsistent we are with these things. The fact that there hasn’t been significant discussion at Talk:will.i.am seems indicative of that. Consistency is (or should be) a project-wide concern, not just per article. And I don’t just mean consistency among article titles, but consistency among what editors think the consensus is; as I said, there are varying interpretations. —Frungi (talk) 05:19, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

What exactly is the big deal here? All the examples objected to are merely redirects from pausible search terms. (Plausible because those stylizations exist.) We do that all the time, to make the encyclopedia more searchable. --Stfg (talk) 11:55, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Exact measurement parameter for use of em for Reflist

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.

---

Its a standard practice to break the references section into multiple columns. Though the standard can be assumed to be 2 columns, a greater number might be suitable for wider screens. But in case of only one single page-wide column, following it throughout the entire length of a line becomes inconvenient. Though I appreciate that the em system for measurement using {{Reflist|xxem}} is an advancement over the fixed width {{Reflist|2}} format, the former vaiable xx needs to be defined such that it gives a non-inferior output. But as per my observations in multiple setups, 30em gives inferiior results in certain cases and forces one single column though 29em or less gives acceptable results. I have tested my observations on multiple setups varying between 12" netbook, 15" desktop, 14" laptop and 15" laptop screens; some running windows xp while others running windows 7 with or without specific display drivers installed, using default settings on different browsers. By observations have been confirmed by Epeefleche having similar findings.

Unless too small, most screens have the capacity to display a two column layout and for wider screens a three or four column might also be fine if it is that much wide, but I feel that it looks shabby unless at least a two column layout is displayed on a page with several references. My experiements suggest that a 29em code works good to serve the purpose although 30em does not. For people with wider screens it hardly makes a difference but for people with slighly smaller screens, it works perfectly to split the number of columns to two (from one). Most editors use {{Reflist|30em}} not knowing that their purpose is not being served for 13.75% users (of 1024px screen width) as on Global browser statistics in an attempt to benefit 19.73% users of higher screen resoulution. But using {{Reflist|28em}}} they could have well benefitted 13.75% + 19.73% users achieve the same task satisfactorily. I insist that the text on the reflist template and other similar templates documentation page be modified to replace 30em with 28 or 29em and also insist to popularise its use. The measurements are given below for reference.

Users would also probably be benefited by reading How Big is an Em? and/or this, this and this.

I have tried to take the matter forward on the Template talk:Reflist#Basis 30em standard for multiple column but no consensus has yet been reached. Need your opinion. Diptanshu^Talk 04:20, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I would think this depends on the system, including the user’s preferred text size and whatever custom CSS may be used. The “right” width for a split also seems highly subjective to me; seems to me it might be best to make that user-configurable, rather than setting the number or width of columns ourselves. —Frungi (talk) 05:03, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

• Why is the discussion taking place in more than one location? --Redrose64 (talk) 07:50, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

  Apparently he wants the discussion moved here, as he's edited his last post there to indicate (without responding to my [Frungi] points in either place). Just so everyone is aware. —173.199.215.5 (talk) 11:24, 24 November 2013 (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.

Do not introduce new and specialized words when more common alternatives will do

Should this sentence be deleted? I think it should, since (a) we already say "minimize jargon", which expresses essentially the same thought, in so far as it is valid; and (b) it is not generally good advice, since we will often be providing the reader with useful and desired information by introducing the specialist vocabulary associated with a topic. It will often be helpful to explain that vocabulary, and this point is already made in the same paragraph. W. P. Uzer (talk) 16:09, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we should keep the sentence. It's an example of itself; it explains and expands on what "minimizing jargon" means. I don't see how it's harmful advice to suggest using more common words when there's a choice. (Or, to put it another way, I don't visualize how it's disadvantageous advocation to intimate utilizing supplementary recurrent expressions when there's an alternative.) __ E L A Q U E A T E 12:31, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Commas

All right, I don't want to be in a lame edit war over commas. It doesn't matter that much. But I have to raise a protest over an unpunctuated sentence as complicated as

[d]o not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do

particularly in the Manual of Style. In terms of strict grammar, Good Olfactory is correct, the commas are not strictly required; the sentence is not a run-on. But leaving the commas out is terrible style. It presents a logically complicated thought as a monolithic whole, and thereby makes it harder to read and understand. --Trovatore (talk) 22:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. I think whether or not it's easy to understand is basically a subjective manner that depends a lot on a reader's background, education, reading habits, etc. Personally, I have a much more difficult time comprehending the non-grammatical form. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:08, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Wait a minute, what non-grammatical form? Both forms are grammatical. The form with the parenthetical set off by commas is better style. --Trovatore (talk) 22:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • I would regard the form with the commas as bad grammar—whether you call that "non-grammatical" or something else doesn't matter to me. I am not a native American English writer, however. Maybe it's grammatical in USA English. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:59, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

How is it non-grammatical? It's a parenthetical remark. Parenthetical remarks may be set off by commas. --Trovatore (talk) 23:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I would regard it as "bad" or "butchered" grammar—whether one calls it "non-" or not is just semantics, really. To me, it reads as if the writer has learned about a technical rule whereby parenthetical remarks may be set off by comments and has attempted to put his or her knowledge into practice, but they just haven't quite mastered the art of writing fluent English. You would never see commas used in a sentence like this in any formal writing that is edited. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:05, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I think you're incorrect. --Trovatore (talk) 23:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

That's fine, but realize that the reverse is also true. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:08, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The difference is, I'm right :-) --Trovatore (talk) 23:09, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I think this demonstrates my initial point—it's largely a subjective issue that depends a lot on a reader's background, where they learned English, education, reading habits, etc. If I saw this construction in a formal work I was assessing, I wouldn't necessarily get out the red pen and make a case of it, but I would think, "that's kind of weird". Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 23:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it is, a little. I don't entirely like the parenthetical construction either, because a parenthetical is ordinarily something you can remove without changing the meaning. But I think it's better than no-internal-punctuation; that's just too clunky. And formal writing usually has more punctuation than informal, not less. But the best bet is probably to reword somehow. --Trovatore (talk) 23:19, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, I dunno. We must read entirely different types of formal writing. What you're calling clunky I'm calling fluently elegant, and vice versa. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 00:48, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• Comment – I personally wouldn't use commas here, but American English might favour commas in this case. I find the commas slightly irksome. It's really not a complicated sentence and a speaker may well not pause, but I would suggest rewriting the sentence somehow to avoid the problem. It's definitely not worth an edit war. Bretonbanquet (talk) 22:12, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
• I do not think this sentence calls for commas:

• Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do.

Adding paired commas sets off simply to teach them to the reader as a parenthetical remark, which is unnecessary and seems unnatural, IMHO:

• Do not introduce new and specialized words, simply to teach them to the reader, when more common alternatives will do.

Having only one comma is just wrong:

• Do not introduce new and specialized words, simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do.
• Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader, when more common alternatives will do.

—sroc 💬 22:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, having only the first comma is clearly wrong. Having only the second one strikes me as OK. That comma introduces a trailing subordinate clause. --Trovatore (talk) 23:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I disagree on the latter point. I don't think "when more common alternatives will do" works as a subordinate clause as it is vital to the meaning of the sentence: the rule only applies if there is a more common alternative that can be used as a substitute. Also, with only the second comma, it may be interpreted as the start of a list of circumstances when to avoid specialised words (e.g., Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader, when more common alternatives will do, or if the specialized term is not explained.), and the abrupt end to the sentence may force the reader to read it again to understand the intended meaning — so the sentence would be poorly constructed if punctuated that way, in my opinion. —sroc 💬 09:53, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• I agree commas would be required in this case:

• Do not introduce new and specialized words, which may be unfamiliar to the reader, when more common alternatives will do.

Could this be simplified in order to avoid another comma debate?

• Do not introduce new and specialized words when more common alternatives will do.

—sroc 💬 22:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

That's a good point on its own, but it loses some of the point — there is sometimes an impulse to introduce unnecessary terminology for the principal reason of teaching it. It's probably good to call that out separately. How about putting that point at the end?

• Do not introduce new and specialized words when more common alternatives will do, especially if your main purpose is to teach these words to the reader. --Trovatore (talk) 23:13, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• imo, "simply to teach them to the reader" isn't parenthetical at all, it's adverbial. You don't say "I went to the supermarket, to buy some bread.", do you? (On the comma after "reader", I'm not really sure.) --Stfg (talk) 00:13, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, you certainly could put a comma after "supermarket", absolutely. It's not required, but it's perfectly legitimate. The downside of it is that it makes the reader spend too long on too simple a sentence. In the "simply to teach" case, that's not so; it's a sufficiently complicated thought that a speed bump is useful. --Trovatore (talk) 00:19, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Sufficiently complicated is insufficiently uncomplicated. Are we fine with leaving out "simply to teach", given the context of the paragraph? InedibleHulk (talk) 01:09, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

It seems to be resolved now (unless someone is wanting to re-insert “to teach them to the reader”), but in my view, the single comma in that sentence was a grammatical error. A comma does not mean, “Pause here if you’re reading this out loud”; the comma may coincide with pauses in speech, but you don’t pause on every comma and you don’t punctuate every verbal pause. —Frungi (talk) 03:10, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I agree, commas are not exactly a one-for-one match with pauses; nevertheless the connection is strong enough that, in my view, the example sentence was not acceptable without punctuation somewhere. I don't agree that the comma after "reader" is an error — it just opens a sentence-final subordinate clause. A single comma before "simply" would surely be an error, though. --Trovatore (talk) 03:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

My first Google hit when searching for “subordinate clause” [1] says:

When you attach a subordinate clause at the end of a main clause, you will generally use no punctuation, like this:
main clause + Ø + subordinate clause.

—Frungi (talk) 03:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Never heard of that site before, but in any case I don't entirely agree with it. Take the example sentence: Tanya did poorly on her history exam Ø because her best friend Giselle insisted on gossiping during their study session the night before. I think that's fine, but I also think it works perfectly well with a comma between "exam" and "because".

For that sentence, I might do either one. (Maybe there's a subtle difference in emphasis?)

The point, though, is that that sentence is sufficiently straightforward that the reader doesn't really need additional cues. The sentence we were talking about is not; the transition between "reader" and "when" is slightly awkward. I think it requires the reader to backtrack up the parse tree, or something. --Trovatore (talk) 03:37, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I maintain that, per the rules of English grammar, a comma is not appropriate there. It serves no grammatical purpose, and I can find nothing that advises placing a comma before a conditional clause. But you’re right that the sentence is slightly awkward, so the best solution would be to rewrite it. —Frungi (talk) 03:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Commas don't have to be grammatically required, simply to be licit. Sometimes their function is not purely grammatical; it's to indicate how the writer wants the sentence to be read. Take for example my first sentence in this paragraph: That comma is not required, yet it is absolutely allowed, and I put it there because it better conveys my thought. --Trovatore (talk) 04:07, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

To my eye, the first comma of your post is absolutely not licit. But I couldn’t help but notice you opted not to use a comma after “Sometimes” in your second sentence, which is acceptable either way. If you have or can find a grammar or style guide that supports using commas where they are not necessary, or that says they are necessary before a sentence-ending conditional clause, I will concede your point. But I really don’t think there are any; most guidance I’ve seen cautions against overuse. —Frungi (talk) 04:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

This is just a quick note to say that Tanya's best friend, Giselle, could really use a couple of commas in the example sentence above. *ducking* – Jonesey95 (talk) 05:31, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Good catch, you’re right. Tanya did poorly on her history exam because her best friend, Giselle, insisted on gossiping during their study session the night before. —Frungi (talk) 05:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Or, also correct, with a comma between "exam" and "because". --Trovatore (talk) 08:32, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Not according to any sort of guidance I’ve ever seen. Still waiting for you to share. —Frungi (talk) 08:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

It's clear to me. I'm sure you can find lots of instances in texts. As for style guides, probably older ones would be better (as they are in general). --Trovatore (talk) 08:50, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

As I’ve said, everything I’ve seen—ever—says to use a comma if the dependent clause is at the beginning of the sentence, and use no comma if it’s at the end of the sentence, with the exception of when the clause is about the last word of the main clause (as in, “He gave a treat to the dog, who did a backflip”—the dog did a backflip) or when it’s connected by a coordinating conjunction. And I’ve seen abundant advice to avoid comma overuse by not using them unless they’re absolutely necessary. Have you seen anything that instructs otherwise? I notice from your userpage that you’re multilingual (which is awesome, in my opinion); maybe you’re confusing the rules of another language with those of English? —Frungi (talk) 09:02, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

There are no definitive "rules" of English grammar and punctuation that cover every single possible use of a comma within national styles, let alone across them. There are cases where it would be universally understood as an error to either use or not use a comma, or commas, but there is a massive grey area in between, where it is more about subjective style, and where there is no "right" or "wrong". Also the idea that we need to rewrite perfectly understandable and well-written sentences to avoid the possibility of falling into any such grey areas is a little crazy. As to the sentence in question that kicked this all off, please leave the commas in. Or take them out. Very few people will care, and those that do should find something else to worry about. N-HH talk/edits 09:58, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

But when all available guidance agrees that a thing should or should not be done in English, it's a good idea to follow their advice in what strives to be a formal reference work. —173.199.215.5 (talk) 11:15, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, as I said. And where there is no such agreement, arguing about what is "correct" or "incorrect" or what therefore supposedly has to be done or not done, especially in respect of such trivial issues, is an utter waste of time and serves no constructive purpose. N-HH talk/edits 11:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

But… there is agreement on this. What authority disagrees? —173.199.215.5 (talk) 11:46, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, where has it been suggested, let alone explained, that there is general agreement on whether or not commas should or should not be used in the sentence that sparked this off? What "authorities" agree? No one has cited evidence confirming that there is a "rule" here one way or the other. And that's the point. Anyway, having said this whole debate is trivial and pointless, I'm not going to add any more to it, especially in trying to respond to non-sequiturs and random assertion. Fill your boots everyone else. N-HH talk/edits 12:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Don't use a comma with a dependent (or subordinate) clause, such as a conditional clause, at the end of a sentence. That is the rule. If you insist, I can go looking through various guides, but a contrary rule should be simple to find if I'm wrong. —173.199.215.5 (talk) 15:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I'm going to call everyone's bluff here... please DO cite which guides say to use a comma, which say not to use a comma, and which say it is optional. It is obvious that we (individual Wikipedia editors) disagree on the issue... so seeing which guides say what would help a lot in resolving the question. Blueboar (talk) 15:42, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe pretty much every somewhat reliable search result of a relevant Web search would back up my claims here; anyone is, of course, free to disprove this. As for authoritative guides, Chicago says of commas (emphasis added):

Especially in spoken contexts, it usually denotes a slight pause. In formal prose, however, logical considerations come first.

And specifically on dependent clauses:

A dependent clause that precedes a main clause should be followed by a comma. […] A dependent clause that follows a main clause should not be preceded by a comma if it is restrictive, that is, essential to the meaning of the main clause. For instance, in the first example below, it is not necessarily true that "we will agree to the proposal"; it is, however, true that "we will agree" to it "if you accept our conditions."

We will agree to the proposal if you accept our conditions.
Paul was astonished when he heard the terms.
He wasn't running because he was afraid; he was running because he was late.

If the dependent clause is merely supplementary or parenthetical, it should be preceded by a comma. Such distinctions are occasionally tenuous. In fact, as the third example below makes clear, the meaning in such cases can depend entirely on the presence or absence of a comma (compare with the third example above). If in doubt, rephrase.

I'd like the tom yum, if you don't mind.
At last she arrived, when the food was cold.
He didn't run, because he was afraid to move.
or

Because he was afraid to move, he didn't run.

Is that sufficient? Two sources (this and Grammar Bytes above) against a comma vs zero for? In my experience, chances are if you can name a guide, it’ll agree here. If there’s still doubt, I’ll grab a few tomes next time I’m in the local library. —Frungi (talk) 21:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

By the by, I realize that this quote does not completely match my earlier claims of when a comma is appropriate. This is because I neglected to check Chicago first. It describes the reasons why those earlier-mentioned exceptions are exceptions, rather than just listing off one or two possible cases. —Frungi (talk) 02:41, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I think this pretty much directly refutes you, Frungi. It says the distinctions can be tenuous, and that the comma can be acceptable. --Trovatore (talk) 01:20, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I actually thought it went without saying that in this particular sentence, "when more common alternatives would do" was rather essential to the sentence. The meaning wasn't that we are to avoid introducing and teaching new jargon to the reader, full stop; we're to avoid it when this is true, which is not always the case. The clause is thus not "merely supplementary or parenthetical"; what leads you to believe it is? —Frungi 173.199.215.5 (talk) 01:37, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Another way to look at it, I think, is to put the clause in parentheses if you think a comma is warranted, and then see if it still makes sense. Using Chicago’s examples:

• Paul was astonished (when he heard the terms). (The reason for his astonishment is too important.)
• At last she arrived (when the food was cold). (The two coincide, nothing more.)
• Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader (when more common alternatives will do). Make your own judgment.

—Frungi (talk) 07:01, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I have no meaningful opinion about the commas, but as to the substance, as a reader, I expect and often want Wikipedia to teach me the technical vocabulary associated with the topic at hand. We surely don't want Wikipedia to be written like this. W. P. Uzer (talk) 18:41, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

We already have one like that. This one will teach you new terms, but through the magic of Wikilinks. That way, those who already know what an Elamo-Dravidian language is don't hit speedbumps (a low raised ridge across a roadway to limit vehicle speed, used here figuratively) in their reading. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:07, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

• I'm a bit surprised that there is so much debate about this. For me, it is clear-cut that "do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do" is correct, and putting commas before and/or after "simply to teach them to the reader" is incorrect. 86.128.4.226 (talk) 02:34, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Thumbnail in infoboxes

I see some images in infobox uses thumbnails for example Edward Norris. Is there a guideline about this? It looks really ugly to me. Beerest 2 talk 21:14, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I doubt it was deliberate; just fix it like this or something. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:23, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

@ErikHaugen: looking through the contributions of the uploading user would suggest hes doing it on purpose. What is policy on this? Beerest 2 talk 01:32, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I doubt there's a policy, considering how out in the weeds it would be to use "[file:" there. That just isn't how you use that template, unless I'm mistaken. Maybe just drop a note on the user's talk page? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:07, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I see this has already been raised on the user's talk page, and I have added a follow-up comment. —sroc 💬 07:44, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Why "unspaced" em dashes?

Regardless of what —#En_dash_versus_em_dash says, I think spaced em dashes look better.

Another "planet" was detected — but it was later found to be a moon of Saturn.

Another "planet" was detected—but it was later found to be a moon of Saturn.

It's easy to follow conventions, but should we?

67.252.103.23 (talk) 18:26, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• Comment. That's the problem with basing conventions on totally subjective criteria. Others probably think that the unspaced emdash "looks better". My understanding is that the unspaced emdash convention is based on most common usage and recommendations of external sources and styleguides, not some group of Wikipedians' personal sense of aesthetics. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 18:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  I believe you are correct. I wonder if it would be nice to have some kind of pointer from the prescription to the justification of the prescription. Maybe a footnote? It would be nice to not have to trawl through the epic mudslinging from 2 1/2 years ago when this was rewritten to find out exactly why we don't space our emdashes. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  I've always thought that the general understanding was (or at least should be) that most everything in the MOS is justified by the same rationale—consensus supported by common usage and recommendations by external sources and styleguides. If that's the case, we don't need a footnote for every individual instance. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 19:48, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

• What Good Ol’factory said. Happens I prefer spaced too, but I still strongly believe we should follow conventions, not personal taste. --Stfg (talk) 19:00, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
• Here, I found this: "Every style guide I checked, except the AP Stylebook, stated there should be no spaces between an em-dash and the adjacent words." —173.199.215.5 (talk) 07:58, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Why not use spaced en dashes? Those should probably be the default choice – they look fine don't they? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

No. Spaced en dashes have a different grammatical meaning entirely. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 01:28, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

You'd never know that by reading the beginning of WP:EMDASH. Fat&Happy (talk) 03:20, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

What meaning is that? I'm only aware of unspaced uses, like ranges (pages 20–32) and combined names (Hale–Bopp comet). —173.199.215.5 (talk) 07:58, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

As punctuation marks in running prose, pairs of spaced endashes or unspaced emdashes are equally common alternatives that have precisely the same grammatical meaning (as noted, ranges and other uses are a different case). Currently the MOS accepts both/either as valid on WP, so long as there's consistency within an article. I believe it's fair to say that the emdash is more common in American writing and publishing, the endash in UK English. Either way, the emdash is usually unspaced and, per the first response, I don't see how and why we should be contradicting that on the basis of what might happen to be individual editor preference when it comes to aesthetics. N-HH talk/edits 08:48, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

That's my understanding too. By the way, the appearance of unspaced mdash depends on the typeface: in some typefaces it touches the adjacent letters, but not in all. --Stfg (talk) 10:02, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, if you prefer the spacing, use spaced en dashes, not spaced em dashes. Kaldari (talk) 16:39, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:OR suggests that the reason unspaced emdash "looks worse" to many folks, myself included, is partially due to the difference in computerized emdash, as opposed to typesetting emdash. The style guidelines were traditionally written for the older technologies, and in the older technologies,[2] they looked good. Partly, that is because typeset text was effectively *thousands* of dpi. Typical computer screens are 72dpi, 96dpi, 127dpi ... *rarely* you might have a tiny smartfon screen over 200dpi. The difference—sad to say—can be drastic — perhaps even exceedingly drastic. I predict that someday the traditional style-guides will change their tune, and at that point, somebody on wikipedia will write a bot which finds and replaces all the non-space-delimited-mdash-instances, and puts the spaces around them. Until then... HTH. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 21:29, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I would argue that it’s an implementation/presentation issue, and that font designers need to fix their fonts so that the dash looks better when used as intended. —Frungi (talk) 23:33, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Capitalization of the word Deaf

Currently, the Deaf community uses a capital D when referring to Deaf culture, Deaf community, Deaf person, as a proper noun. There's a Wikipedia article about this, Deaf culture. They see it as being the same as Gay culture, etc. Currently, there's an RfC on the Deafness talk page about using the capital D. I'm not sure an RfC on that talk page is the proper way to do this. Adding/changing the MOS is new to me. Is this something that should really be getting discussed and decided here? If so, could someone please make a comment on the Deafness talk page? I'd appreciate it. Thanks. Malke 2010 (talk) 05:22, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Capitalize an adjective when used as a proper noun referring to a community? Makes sense to me. I don’t know if this practice is mentioned anywhere in the MOS, though; if not, it should be, whether for or against. —Frungi (talk) 05:43, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Capitalization of the word Deaf embodies political claims, and WP should be neutral in regard to these. Whether the MoS is really the right place to state that principle is somewhat doubtful. If we were to do so, though, I think it would go something like this -- when talking about a self-conscious "Deaf community" with all the assumptions inherent in that term, then yes, capitalize the D, but when you just mean a person who can't hear, or people that can't hear but who may or may not consider themselves part of a "community", then use the small d. --Trovatore (talk) 05:58, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Agreed; I should have caveatted that it only makes sense to me when referring to a community. —Frungi (talk) 06:10, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with that. It's similar to Gay culture, Gay community, etc. but I don't think we'd say "Gay person." I think it's small g then. Malke 2010 (talk) 06:35, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Which makes it inappropriate for the deafness article, I think; that's primarily about a medical condition, not a self-conscious community. --Trovatore (talk) 08:32, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

The argument on Deafness seems to be about the use of any capital D's. [3]. I think the Deaf community uses big D for person, also. But in terms of community and culture it's appropriate. Also, one editor is insisting that the only way the big D can be applied in any context is if entities like the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.K. government, and the NIH sanction the use of the big D. I couldn't find that as policy any where on Wikipedia. Malke 2010 (talk) 16:19, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

We actually do have a policy that covers this sort of thing... It's called WP:CONSENSUS. The policy is that editors should discuss the issue at the article level, and try to come to a consensus on what they think is the appropriate way to capitalize (or not capitalize) the word in various contexts. Blueboar (talk) 16:56, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the practice in general—“Deaf”, “Gay”, and whatever else—is worth discussing, and MOS would be the more appropriate venue for that. —Frungi (talk) 00:19, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I think there's something iffy with the argument that certain articles are "primarily about [a] medical condition" and therefore shouldn't also [or primarily, in some cases] be about the people described/affected. I think that's appropriate with regard to, say, the common cold, since it affects everyone and only for short times, but it's increasingly inappropriate if the condition is either associated with its own culture, or is inseparable from who someone is. (Of course, someone can be Deaf without identifying with Deaf culture.) Ananiujitha (talk) 00:36, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not that it's not about the people described. It's that it's not about the self-conscious political movement that affects the right to speak for those people. Wikipedia must not do anything that appears to endorse that movement. --Trovatore (talk) 07:27, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

How do the majority of sources deal with the issue. When in doubt, follow the sources. Blueboar (talk) 03:41, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why using an adjective (such as deaf or gay) in reference to a particular community automatically converts it into a proper noun. The deaf community is not the name of a particular group and thus should not be capitalised, IMHO. There is no need to capitalise fewer than five percent of deaf people have a Deaf parent[4] if this is merely meant to say that the parent is deaf (i.e., suffers from deafness), as distinct from saying that they are specifically members of some collective group called Deaf. Contrast this with the proper names of organised groups, such as the Deaf Federation, which should be capitalised as such. If there is some reason to treat these adjectives differently in some contexts, then it warrants further discussion to build consensus, but I suggest there should be broader discussion to promote consistency between comparable examples such as gay community, black community, etc. (I have, for example, read books that refer to Black people and white people.) —sroc 💬 07:13, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Everyone has made very helpful comments and asked good questions. So I'll try to explain the best I can. Regarding sources. I've found these:

• Massachusetts Dept of Health: Understanding Deaf Culture
• Colorado Department of Human Services regulation 12 CCR 2516-1: Deaf (uppercase)
• Penn State University guidelines Scroll down past the video for definitions.
• Harvard University Press, 1988
• The Deaf Way]
• New York Times Magazine: Defiantly Deaf.
• List of articles Journal of Deaf Studies

• I don't think it could be called a movement like for instance, the Gay rights movement, or the Civil Rights movement, etc. Rather it's a differentiation of deafness, so to speak. As there are those who are born deaf or acquire it in infancy before language development, while others have acquired it as a result of trauma, infection, or medication after they've acquired speech. The sources I've posted explain this to varying degrees. Apparently, those who are born deaf, have a different culture and way of coping as naturally they would because they've never acquired speech. They are essentially isolated from the speaking world and by necessity, have developed a way of life, a culture, if you will, that facilitates meeting their needs of daily living.

• Please understand, I'm in no way advocating for anything, I'm simply attempting to explain it. And apparently, this desire to be differentiated with a capital D has gained enough recognition to cause health departments in various states to make use of the capital D their policy. I've listed a few of them above and apparently Colorado has made it a state regulation. What I'm asking here is, should Wikipedia incorporate the capital D when speaking about this culture/community? Hope this helps. Malke 2010 (talk) 17:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

If this is something to be adopted, the guidelines would need to be very clear. The Deaf culture article seems to have confusing examples:

• A small proportion of deaf individuals acquire sign language and Deaf culture in infancy from Deaf parents…

Do they acquire sign language because their parents are deaf or because their parents are part of the Deaf culture?

• Although up to fifty percent of deafness has genetic causes, fewer than five percent of deaf people have a Deaf parent, so Deaf communities are unusual among cultural groups in that most members do not acquire their cultural identities from parents.

Deaf parent was capitalised but I changed it because presumably the statistic refers to the genetic trait of being deaf not of being part of the Deaf community (the latter would not be passed on genetically). In this context, does Deaf communities really just mean deaf people in the population?

I can see the Deaf/deaf distinction being lost of many readers and editors, which may lead to confusion. —sroc 💬 21:19, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, you're right, the examples there are confusing. The whole thing can be very confusing which is a reason in itself to be careful with this. From what I've been reading, a person born deaf acquires sign language in infancy from the parent/care giver who either already knows sign language or acquires it in order to teach the baby. When the capital D is used, such as Deaf parents, it is referring to a deaf person within this culture. So to say Deaf parents, capital D, means these are parents who are also deaf, likely were deaf from birth, and have always been part of Deaf culture. Malke 2010 (talk) 23:17, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
• Strongly oppose changing standard capitalization rules unless a clear, indeed dominant, majority of standard reliable sources, including both academic and popular sources, outside the community in question use this form. Sources from inside the community should be of zero weight, as they are apt to be engaged in, or subject to, political advocacy and/or pressure, or may be biased on the issue. When a specific entity has a proper name (e.g. "Jones Foundation for the Deaf") of course its name will be capitalized as a proper name. DES ^(talk) 23:54, 17 November 2013 (UTC)
• Comment We routinely capitalize ethnonyms, and often other 'nyms for comparable groups. Since communities with distinct languages are usually considered distinct ethnic groups, and Deaf communities have distinct languages, that is sign languages [not restricted to these communities, but certainly associated with them], then Deaf communities can be considered ethnic groups for these purposes. So, although I was a bit surprised by the capitalization, I think it's well within the bounds of normal English punctuation, and besides, if Deaf communities prefer the capital D, that's well worth respecting. The question is how to refer to people who are medically, uh, not hearing, who aren't part of Deaf communities. Ananiujitha (talk) 03:27, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

  No, this is not the same. Ethnic groups and languages such as English, Vietnamese, Turkish, etc., are named after the proper names for places (to wit: England, Vietnam, Turkey). The names of organised languages, such as Urdu and International Sign, are also capitalised. This is similar to the use of capitals for the names of organised religions (e.g., Islam, Christianity, Catholic, etc.) but not for ideologies or philosophies (e.g., evangelicalism, fundamentalism): see MOS:CAPS#Religion. There is no organised group named Deaf. —sroc 💬 04:38, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

  There is no organized group named English, Vietnamese, Turkish, etc. either. And we capitalize ethnonyms like English and Roma even when the place names come from the ethnonym, as in England land of the Angles/English, or when there is no place name. And in having their own languages, Deaf communities have some parallels with ethnic groups. Ananiujitha (talk) 05:10, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

  @Ananiujitha: Playing devil’s advocate, those descriptive terms are capitalized because they derive from proper names: “English” from the name of the language, “Roma” from “Romany”, etc. “Deaf” does not derive from any proper name. —Frungi (talk) 05:20, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Comment From what I've been reading, this isn't about ideology or philosophy. Being deaf is a physical condition that creates an obvious need to find and enable alternative forms of communication in order to carry out activities of daily living. That is a huge adaptation to make, and creates, by necessity, its own culture as the ability to communicate affects every aspect of daily human life. Everybody has to communicate. The deaf do it with sign language and TTY, and flashing lights to indicate a doorbell or fire alarm and service dogs to alert them to dangers. I think @Ananiujitha: understands it best. She's making an analogy with the ethnic groups. I found that very helpful. Apparently several state health departments and universities see it the way she does and that is why they've recognized it. Malke 2010 (talk) 04:56, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
• Question: If we use the same word to refer to both a medical condition and the resulting culture, how do we ensure against confusion if the only difference is whether it’s always or occasionally capitalized? These are two very different but closely related meanings for a single word; they occur together frequently. This is my primary concern with this use of the word. —Frungi (talk) 05:09, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

  Indeed. I have no idea when we should say Deaf or deaf when referring to someone who is non-hearing who does not necessarily identify with a/the Deaf community. Ananiujitha (talk) 05:16, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

  • "Deaf- Deaf with a capital “D” refers “to a particular group of deaf people who share a language - American Sign Language (ASL) - and a culture." (National Association of the Deaf)
  • "deaf - lowercase deaf refers to the audiological condition of not hearing (National Association of the Deaf)" The capital D is for any reference to people such as Deaf person, Deaf culture, Deaf community. Lowercase d as in "A person who is deaf, becomes deaf, born deaf, etc. " Malke 2010 (talk) 05:22, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

    And “Deaf” at the beginning of a sentence? My point is that if capitalization is the only difference between the two words (and they are two distinct words, as you just demonstrated), then that’s not good enough. It just invites confusion from any front. —Frungi (talk) 05:32, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Context should prevent any confusion. Capitalization is not the only difference. Apparently, the idea is that referring to a Deaf person is not the same as saying a person who is deaf. "deaf" in that context is obviously referring to the physical condition. And I've tried, but I can't come up with a sentence that starts with deaf that confuses the two. Malke 2010 (talk) 05:40, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

  If we must use “Deaf” to refer to the culture, how about we use a different and distinct term like “hearing-impaired” to refer to the condition? —Frungi (talk) 05:57, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

  I guess that would be okay unless there's a differentiation between deaf and hearing-impaired in medical terms. But I think the capitalization is meant to distinquish them. Small d for the condition, capital D for the culture/social issues. Malke 2010 (talk) 07:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

  That’s assuming the consensus is to capitalize it. As of now, I’d say there’s still no consensus (even assuming it doesn’t fall under the RfC below), and then we can’t use the word alone with the cultural meaning. —Frungi (talk) 10:05, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: It's an interesting question. I'd heard about this in grad school. Right now, it seems it has a way to go before it reaches Wikipedia. Jodon hasn't commented so far which is unfortunate because he raised the issue on the Deafness talk page. If he has input and/or reliable sources to add, that might draw more comments. Otherwise, it looks to me like it's a non-consensus for now. Malke 2010 (talk) 22:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose We are here to simply represent the best available sources. Currently they appear not to use a capital D. I will switch after they do. Wikipedia is not here to drive changes. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:52, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
• Neutral - Follow the usage that is most commonly found in reliable sources... whether that is a capitol D or a lower case "d". Blueboar (talk) 15:34, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
• Comment The distinction is too unreliable for capitalization alone to convey the meaning, like Black vs black but unlike say Polish vs polish. We should try to ensure that the context is sufficiently clear that no capitalization is necessary. That said, it is now common usage in the Deaf community to distinguish a deaf person who lost their hearing at age 80 and communicates through written English, and a Deaf person who has Deaf friends and communicates in sign, and I have no problem with us adopting that in theory. (Similarly, you're not Black just because you have African ancestry, and I doubt you're Gay if you're in the closet.) The problem comes in with ambiguous cases, and with activists who want to capitalize every instance of the word as part of appropriating the narrative. IMO, when in doubt, use lower case. As with punctuation, excessive capitalization is distracting; after a while it also becomes meaningless. It's also distracting to switch capitalization in mid-sentence without any context to back up the distinction, as in some of the examples above. So I'd say less is more: Use "Deaf" when you can clearly justify it, and "deaf" otherwise, but always with sufficient context that someone could recreate your capitalization if it were removed. — kwami (talk) 12:14, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

In your example, "a Deaf person who has Deaf friends and communicates in sign", did you mean "deaf friends"? 8^} —sroc 💬 06:17, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

MOS:IDENTITY RFC: Should the text "When there is no dispute..." be deleted, kept or changed?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The "survey" section shows there is a consensus to change the text. The discussion section seems to have agreed on When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used in reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, Wikipedia should XXXXX to be the text, but not what XXXX should be. Looking back through the survey, suggestion 2 (Use the term that the person/group uses, regardless of what other people call him/her/them.) seems to be the most 'popular' suggestion.and the section below, option 1 wins. --Mdann52talk to me! 2:50 pm, Yesterday (UTC+0) (non-admin closure)

---

This RFC concerns the following bold text from MOS:IDENTITY:

Disputes over how to refer to a person or group are addressed by policies such as Verifiability, Neutral point of view, and Article titles where the term appears in the title of an article. When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself. Wikipedia should use them too. (For example, see the article Jew, which demonstrates that most Jews prefer that term to "Jewish person".)

Should this text be

1. Deleted
2. Kept
3. Changed. And if so, how should it be changed?

Survey

• Delete GabrielF (talk) 02:48, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Change or delete – I'd like to see specific proposals for how to make it meaningful, or remove it. Dicklyon (talk) 04:21, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete - There's a reason the wording is so weak/vague and can only be weak/vague - per GabrielF below, MOS is not the place to address complex or controversial issues such as identity. MOS is about style, formatting, presentation, the superficial stuff. Not questions that get to the core of who a person is, what they are, what they stand for, how to respectfully refer to them, or what their "real" name is. Also, the statement is a tautology. "When there is no dispute," we've already settled on the name and don't need any further guidance. The only people who will care to read MOS are the people who are involved in disputes and seek clarity - which this guideline does not provide. CaseyPenk (talk) 04:49, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete I think it is confusing and serves no real purpose. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 04:48, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• change or delete The preponderance of the sources should determine which name to use (which should be in the guideline)Two kinds of pork (talk) 04:48, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete the last sentence, since the claim is false on at least two counts. (The term "Jewish person" does not even appear in the article Jew, nor is it possible for an encyclopedia article to "demonstrate" a claim; demonstrating an assertion in the social sciences is something that is done by primary sources, not by encyclopedias.) Then reword the rest: I suggest changing "when there is no dispute" (which makes it a tautology) to "In simple cases" or "Typically". In other words, the remaining text is an accurate description of how terms are usually chosen (e.g, why residents of the United States are called "Americans" on Wikipedia) in the absence of any challenge. — Lawrence King ^(talk) 05:09, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• delete it adds nothing, is confusing, and conflicts with commonname. We should point people to the numerous naming conventions besides wp:at as well.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:08, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep or change. The wording may not be perfect, but it is very important that Wikipedia contains guidance about how to deal with people's identity, and there is in my mind no better place for guidance about how to style articles than the manual of style. Removing the highlighted text is not the way to improve Wikipedia's coverage of sensitive issues - rather it would make things worse as the recent Chelsea Manning RFC shows we need firmer guidance not weaker. Thryduulf (talk) 08:48, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete as conflicting with WP:COMMONNAME. GregJackP Boomer! 10:13, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete As being in obvious conflict with WP:COMMONNAME. We can't afford to have any ambiguity whatsoever in issues like these. §FreeRangeFrog^croak 16:56, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete I gave my detailed comments the last time this was proposed, but in short, the history of how this wording was created shows that it was designed to be informational, not instructive, and since it is unclear it is better to delete it. 99.192.87.226 (talk) 23:59, 6 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)
• Delete Well-intentioned, but unclear, liable to be misinterpreted/misapplied, and encroaching on content issues that are best handled through our policies and guidelines rather than the style manual. Abecedare (talk) 00:18, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete as unclear and superseded by WP:COMMONNAME. Edge3 (talk) 01:43, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep or change to "The term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself. Wikipedia should use them too. (For example, see the article Jew, which demonstrates that most Jews prefer that term to 'Jewish person.')" Removing "When there is no dispute" makes the statement true. The term most commonly used is what it is regardless of whether Wikipedians are fighting about it or not. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:39, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
  • What happens if "the term most commonly used for a person" by reliable sources is not the term that person prefers? In that case your text would appear to be stating that the less common term actually counts as being more common just because the article subject prefers it. That completely redefines the words "most common" to mean something that they do not mean. GabrielF (talk) 05:27, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete The language is too loose. Someone knows if they are or aren't male/female and their personal characteristics. The 'dispute' refers to disputes here, in editing, not with the person themselves. Make this as clear so we avoid as many future Chelsea/Bradley Manning problems as possible. KrakatoaKatie 03:54, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep and change Remove the "When there is no dispute" qualification. There is no conflict with WP:COMMONNAME as WP:COMMONNAME is only for article titles whilst MOS:IDENTITY is for style issues in the article body. There may be conflicts between the subject of the article and other reliable sources, but as a source about themselves, a person trumps other sources, in as much as other sources become either out-of-date or are less reliable. Once a reliable secondary or tertiary source says that the primary source (the subject which changed their name) says as much, that's it. No other primary source can even say otherwise: we should follow the Anglo-American common law (think California, home of the WMF, and your TOS choice of law provisions you agreed to) principles which has traditionally allowed name changes by a person "at will" (a common law right especially protected in California), and not follow European practice where one must beg their landlord (aka the King in Council, or in this case the US president) for permission to do so. IOW, that person is the only reliable primary source on the issue. The "him" versus "her" debate I think flows from the same logic, but is unfortunately unclear; this however is not relevant to the text under discussion. Int21h (talk) 10:16, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be looking at this through the prism of the Bradley Manning case. Does your analysis also apply to historical persons and to groups, as the current text does now? For instance, Christopher Columbus did not go by that name - it is a later anglicization. Many historical persons are known in English by anglicized names. Does this policy mean that we have to change them, even if the names are unfamiliar and confusing to readers? What about groups? How do we determine what an ethnic group, the majority of whose members do not speak English, prefer to be called in English? If there is a source that says "group X should be called Y" how do we know that that source represents the wishes of the group as a whole and not of a vocal minority that might have a particular political agenda? GabrielF (talk) 19:49, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

I will ponder this more. I am concerned about conflicts between a majority of secondary sources and the subject as a primary source. This policy would give an enormous to a single primary source, and I'm wondering how the edge cases will work. I am not worried about historical issues or transliteration issues, though, or source reliability issues (which this does not effect.) Int21h (talk) 12:07, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep. As has been pointed out, this doesn't contradict WP:COMMONNAME because that only applies to article titles. As for the rest, it may be that "if there is no dispute" is poor wording, but if that clause is changed, there still needs to be a limiting clause. We can't just pick the subject's preferred name all the time.

Even for Manning, there can be disputes about exactly the scope of the subject's self-identification. It's clear that Manning wishes to be called Chelsea now, but it's not so clear that Manning wishes to be called Chelsea in reference to events that happened before she announced a name change (and likewise for pronouns). But the biggest case I can think of is not Manning, but the case where group A claims to be part of group B, and identifies accordingly, but anyone else who identifies with group B thinks that A is a bunch of posers. Under these circumstances, A's self-identification impinges on someone else's self-identification and therefore should not be uncritically accepted. Ken Arromdee (talk) 22:54, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep. In looking for guidance on the Chelsea Manning dispute I looked through the edit history and talk history for Chaz Bono, which had a similar history of covering someone who was famous first, and came out as trans later. I saw this wording was very helpful there. Helpful enough that it's been adopted for Template:MOS-TM and Template:MOS-TW, used by 130 pages according to the transclusion counter. I'd hate for one heated case to scupper a proven-useful guideline. Metadox (talk) 04:57, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

You are mistaken. Template:MOS-TM does not use any of the language that is proposed for deletion. Template:MOS-TW does not use any of the language that is proposed for deletion. The talk history of Chaz Bono does not use any of the language that is proposed for deletion. They all talk about other parts of MOS:IDENTITY, just not this part of it. 99.192.50.55 (talk) 12:54, 8 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

You're right, I misread/misremembered. I've retracted my entry until I can recruit more sleep or coffee. Thanks for the correction. Metadox (talk) 00:46, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• Keep (but probably improve) per Thryduulf. -sche (talk) 05:22, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete bolded text and reword the remainder. Identity, like anything else on WP, should always be determined by WP:V, RS, NPOV etc. It shouldn't have to wait for a dispute, and it shouldn't be determined by non-policy-based criteria such as self-identification. Disputes should be resolved by consensus, and this should be stated in the guideline. Please see my detailed argument in the section below. Scolaire (talk) 19:50, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep except perhaps for minor changes to make clearer per Thryduulf. Neljack (talk) 00:30, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. For trans people, and others, use of self-identified names and pronouns is a matter of basic respect. --Daira Hopwood ⚥ (talk) 00:39, 14 September 2013 (UTC) To expand on that comment, MOS:IDENTITY is one of the few protections that trans* people have against misgendering on Wikipedia. To remove it would preempt the current policy discussion at WP:AT, and would likely prompt a very negative reaction from the trans community at a point where Wikipedia is already under fire for the handling of biography articles of trans people (Chelsea Manning, Alexis Reich, and others). --Daira Hopwood ⚥ (talk) 00:23, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete Delete "Wikipedia should use them too. (For example, see the article Jew, which demonstrates that most Jews prefer that term to "Jewish person".)" The article does not demonstrate that, as far as I can see, regarding "Jewish person," so that part is nonsensical. "Wikipedia should use them too." is unnecessarily redundant. I think the Christopher Columbus example demonstrates that the name for the subject is not always the one the subject uses. As such, the text under discussion here is clearly not correct. (Also per GabrielF) OSborn ^arf_contribs. 00:53, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. Honor the subject's identity. See also Gypsy vs. Romani People. Startswithj (talk) 15:26, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
• Delete. It's unclear, unhelpful ("When there is no dispute" there is by definition no need for guidance.) and I don't think that the Manual of Style is the right place to be guiding decisions on what names to use in individual cases. I certainly don't think that the term that a person or group prefers is universally going to be the best choice. --Jeude54cartes (talk) 14:28, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep in spirit and reword As others have noted, Christopher Columbus is a counter-example, and the current example is unclear. I suggest keeping the intent – putting significant but not exclusive weight on self-identity – and rewording the bold text as When these policies provide no clear guidance, considerable weight should be given to how the person or group self-identifies. Thus "Christopher Columbus" rather than "Cristoforo Colombo" or similar, due to the Anglicised name being far more common in modern usage and there being no clear indication of the name Columbus used himself, while "Jews" is used instead of "Jewish people" as there is verifiable evidence that this is the group's preferred term. —me_and 21:19, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep anbd improve where necessary. This proposal was worded very awkwardly so my true wishes can't be stated with such narrow options Pass a Method talk 07:50, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep, per Startswithj and Thryduulf. theonesean 01:12, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep because although it may be confusing, I think that removing it would pre-emptively settle the "transgender name dispute" without any sort of broad consensus to do so. It seems like this discussion is really about whether or not, or to what extent, BLP concerns can trump COMMONNAME, but there are valid points on both sides of that dispute and the MOS isn't really the place to resolve it (WP:AT is, I think). So IMO we should leave it until the broader question is settled. Again, removing it would improperly suggest that the WP:AT question is already settled. AgnosticAphid talk 21:12, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
• Keep or (Delete and modify bullet point #2). If we delete it we should modify bullet point #2 (concerning gender) to include the person's preferred name, rather than just preferred pronoun, as this should be an exception (per WP:BLP), IMO. Kaldari (talk) 20:52, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. When I read that part, the first thing that came to mind was Wikipedia's usage of Sioux to refer to an "ethnic group" of native Americans. This goes counter to the guideline in that it is not a word that the Lakota people nor others whom "the white eye" ;>) lumps under the misnomer "Sioux" (an Indian word used by other native Americans to refer to the Lakota, et al., as the "enemy") would use for themselves. Yet it is such an ingrained example of systemic bias that we will probably always refer to Chief Sitting Bull as a "Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux". That probably isn't the only example of bias; however, I do like the way many Wikipedians strive to reduce and eliminate bias on Wikipedia. This text is an example of something that is not yet entirely applied, and something about which Wikipedians must sometimes consider in their editorial judgements. – Paine Ellsworth ^CLIMAX! 13:59, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
• Delete. The passage makes statements that may or may not be true ("the term most commonly used will be..."; well it might be and it might not be, in any given case, so the blanket declaration may well turn out to be a lie). But most pertinently, it states that these matters are dealt with in certain policies, which is exactly where they should be dealt with, i.e., not here. W. P. Uzer (talk) 16:08, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep. Self-determination is a fundamental human right. This, of course, is a moot issue if you're in the majority and can simply control the language and perceptions of a minority group. Sportfan5000 (talk) 23:58, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep or clarify. As per Sportfan. Ananiujitha (talk) 00:22, 23 October 2013 (UTC)
• "'Keep
• Delete - Superseded, and a little in conflict, with WP:COMMONNAME. Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 15:57, 24 October 2013 (UTC)
• Keep and reword per @Me and:, putting significant but not exclusive weight on self-identity – and rewording the bold text as When these policies provide no clear guidance, considerable weight should be given to how the person or group self-identifies. Because really, who are we to tell people how to identify themselves? If Kate Middleton and her family really call her Catherine, then her article should be Catherine Middleton. Nes pa? Malke 2010 (talk) 20:09, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
• Delete - The highlighted text is not needed. The only time when we need guidance on which names and terms to use is when there is a dispute (in which case, multiple policies say we should follow the sources). When the names and terms used are not disputed, we don't need a "rule" to tell us what names and terms to use (and if we did, it would still be "follow the sources".) That said, I would agree that in assessing the sources for BLPs, extra weight can be given to self-identifications. Whether that weight is enough to off-set what other sources say is another matter... that will change from one subject to another. This isn't an area where we can make a one-size-fits-all "rule". Blueboar (talk) 22:19, 20 November 2013 (UTC)
• Change second and third sentences to "As long as no policy violation occurs, try to use the terms for a person or group that they most commonly use for themselves." The paragraph would then be:

Disputes over how to refer to a person or group are addressed by policies such as Verifiability, Neutral point of view, and Article titles where the term appears in the title of an article. As long as no policy violation occurs, try to use the terms for a person or group that they most commonly use for themselves. (For example, see the article Jew, which demonstrates that most Jews prefer that term to "Jewish person".)

--Bob K31416 (talk) 02:41, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

The current text is so poorly worded as to be meaningless. The trouble with this text comes when there is a conflict between how a person or group is most commonly addressed in reliable sources and how that person or group prefers to address itself. If you ignore the phrase "When there is no dispute...", the policy makes a very strong statement that we must use the term that the person or group prefers. However, the phrase "When there is no dispute" renders everything that follows meaningless. If there is no dispute, why consult the manual of style? The entire purpose of a manual of style is to provide some guidance when there are multiple plausible choices. The policy, as written, does not actually tell us what to do if there is a dispute. It is very easy for someone who (purposefully or not) ignores the phrase "When there is no dispute" to come away thinking that the policy is saying something that it is not actually saying.

This is not a hypothetical problem. The lack of clarity has led to different editors interpreting this policy in radically different ways. In the recent Manning dispute an editor said of MOS:IDENTITY: "Some people have argued that this doesn’t apply because there is a dispute over whether to use Chelsea or Bradley. But I think it is clear in context that the reference to a “dispute” does not mean a dispute on Wikipedia; rather it means a dispute regarding what is subsequently referred to in the sentence – “the term ... [a] person uses for himself or herself...”[5] If the wording of a policy is so unclear that editors can take radically different views on what the policy refers to, then the policy is not providing clear guidance and needs to be fixed. This is one example of the practical impact of the lack of clarity of this policy. Many other examples exist.

It is possible to modify this text so that it makes a strong statement that we should prefer the article subject's self-identification. However, I do not believe that the MOS is the place to do this. For one thing, this would put the policy at odds with WP:COMMONNAME. Additionally, the MOS is an inappropriate forum for this discussion. Traditionally, the MOS handles issues of style and presentation whereas other policies, such as those referenced in the first sentence, handle the deeper content issues. The MOS is weaker than those policies - it is considered a "guideline" while BLP is considered formal policy. GabrielF (talk) 02:45, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, no no no no. Yes, the phrase "When there is no dispute..." is confusing. It should be removed. What's left would possibly conflict with other sources that refer to him as Bradley Manning; these sources are trumped by a particularly reliable source: Manning. Once a secondary or tertiary source confirms what the primary source of note uses, all other sources should be deemed to be out-of-date. Deeming sources to be overridden by other sources is commonplace, particularly if one source is newer and reflects changed conditions. I actually don't think that poses much of a problem for current policy. WP:COMMONNAME is plain irrelevant; it only concerns article titles, whereas MOS:IDENTITY concerns content. (The Manning proposal even touched on this.) The MOS should reflect consensus, and I think consensus should reflect my opinion, which I think most editors also hold: it is up to Manning. This is reflected in Anglo-American cultural values which are themselves a reflection of long running legal practice in the common law that allows for people to "call themselves whatever they wish". The European practice is practically unknown to us, and it actually makes me quite angry when I hear a consular officer tell someone that they may not get a visa or whatever unless their driver's license says whats on their "life certificate" (yeah, Europe, what can I say. pfft.), which reflects how difficult and uncommon it is. Even the states where court decrees are required, they are to be granted by default. (European practice, on the hand, is to require a reason for doing so as I understand.) As such, Manning becomes the most reliable primary source on the matter. Int21h (talk) 10:21, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

I have a question, before I comment, because I'm a little puzzled on something. What does this section, "When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself." actually add to the policy?Cam94509 (talk) 02:34, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Before anyone corrects me, I know, I know, "guideline", not "policy". Cam94509 (talk) 02:37, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Some of us are finding that it adds precisely nothing; that it's a tautology. CaseyPenk (talk) 04:53, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

It makes sense in terms of, for example, Jews preferring that term to Jewish people or Israelites, as some people may refer to that group or individuals in that group. However, if there is no dispute then it's likely the case that the correct terminology is being used already... However, for cases where there is a dispute (in the sources, not between our editors), we need some guideline or policy to reflect the prevailing opinion of editors. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 05:02, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

• The sentence: "Wikipedia should use them too." should also be removed as it's redundant. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 03:36, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes. That sentence got added after the rest of the text proposed for deletion was written. I believe it was added by someone who read the rest, saw that it was merely informational, not instructive, and so thought it would help to add the instruction. But it is redundant to say it and the rest, as others have noted, in confusing and not meant to instruct anyway. 99.192.87.226 (talk) 00:03, 7 September 2013 (UTC) (=99.192....)

• As currently written, does the MOS apply only to BLPs? How would it be applied to dead/historical figures (eg, Rajeesh/Osho, Byron/Noel,...)? In such cases would only the last self-chosen name count, or should we look at what reliable sources use? I agree that the current version is a hash and better off deleted, or recrafted more-narrowly. Abecedare (talk) 03:57, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
  • The existing text clearly applies to more than just BLPs since it references groups. I see nothing in the text that suggests it would not apply to historical figures. GabrielF (talk) 04:45, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

As someone who has been involved with the Manual of Style/Ireland-related articles, I can tell you that self-identification as a principle does not work. It has proved unworkable to such an extent that it was taken out of IMOS altogether, having been there for years as a criterion for a person's Irish-language name, and having also been used informally as a criterion for a person's nationality. The simple reason is that it is extremely rare to find reliable sources that say unambiguously what a subject's personal preference is. There was a particularly lame dispute recently at Talk:Michael Gambon where one participant actually claimed that a 2010 interview where Gambon said he didn't "feel" Irish trumped a 2004 interview where he said "I am Irish"! The case of Chelsea Manning is relatively unique, in that the subject's personal preference made banner headlines. The only similar case I can think of off-hand is Muhammad Ali, and we call him Muhammad Ali because that is how he has been referred to by every sports writer for the past forty-odd years, not because he "self-identifies" as Ali. "Jew" is also a bad example, because even if that statement is correct, it is not a principle that is universally applied. Quakers are called Quakers, although they call themselves "Friends", and Hispanics are called Hispanics regardless of whether, as a group, they have ever expressed a preference. To say that "the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself", therefore, is simply untrue. This is not to rule self-identification out altogether, by the way. Where RS, NPOV and other policies do not point to a single answer, identity will be decided by discussion and consensus, and self-identification is a perfectly valid argument in a discussion. It just doesn't belong in a MOS. Scolaire (talk) 20:35, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

?OK, question: what do we do when there are multiple names for a subject, like with Octavian? Would that not be a similar situation? Int21h (talk) 01:00, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

My answer would be, discuss it on the article talk page. It's an article-specific question, not a question of style. This page is only for giving general guidelines. Scolaire (talk) 08:08, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

As an addendum to my !!vote, I would prefer that there be an accordance between the MOS and COMMONNAME/ARTICLETITLE. Situations like what's currently at Bradley Manning, where the article title and the name used for the subject in the article are not the same, seem very strange. I'm not aware of any reason (or argument for) the article body would differ from the article titling. We have separate policies for these, but internal procedural matters should not be overtly visible to users like this. A simple fix would be to adopt the article title as the name to be used for the subject. (Obviously, this will not be favored by those who are currently opposing the use of Bradley in the current scenario. However, I think a consensus could form around this at a later date.) OSborn ^arf_contribs. 01:02, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

This is actually borderline illiterate:

When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself. Wikipedia should use them too.

• "When there is no dispute" does that mean "When there's no dispute here among us Wikipedians" or "When there's no dispute in the real world"?
• "the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself". This is not a prescription but an observation. It's not even a true observation I don't think. For instance, I think that Quakers mostly call themselves Friends, Mormons call themselves Saints, and there are lots of cases like that. I think what the sentence is trying to say is "As you look around this world, you will find that what people are called is also what they call themselves". If that's it, then 1) so what? and 2) it's probably not true.

How about:

When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used for a person and the term that person uses for himself or herself, or between the term most commonly used for a group and the term that the group most commonly uses for itself. Wikipedia should XXXXX.

What XXXXX should be I don't know. It could be

1. Use the term most used in sources, unless it's close, in which case use the term the person/group uses.
2. Use the term that the person/group uses, regardless of what other people call him/her/them.

Number 1 would be more in keeping with our usual practice, Number 2 would be kinder. That's the crux of the matter isn't it? So this passage solves nothing. We need to rewrite and figure out what we want XXXXX to be. Herostratus (talk) 05:22, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I think you pointed out the problems with the current version very well. Regarding your proposed text in green, note that the first sentence is a fragment that can be corrected with a comma instead of a period. How about the following simplification, addition of "reliable sources", and punctuation correction?

When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used in reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, Wikipedia should XXXXX.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 12:47, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree that this is a good simplification. But what puzzles me is why we are focusing on sources on or statements by an individual, when it would be simpler to focus on sources relating to the group (except perhaps in very particular cases where a subject as strong views about their membership of that group).

Taking the example of Jewish people, it's probably quite easy to determine that the term "Jewish" is the most common in sources and also the one that most Jewish people prefer. But it is not uncommon and not necessarily offensive to find other terms in sources, particularly "Jew". So, if we focus on sourcing relating to individuals, every so often we will some across someone who is a "Jew" according to sources, just as a statistical artifact. Equally, every so often, an article subject will have referred to themselves in a magazine interview as a "Jew" a "Semite" or whatever. Why should this be a particularly important thing to factor in? Why should one article go against the grain just because, at random, the sources fall in a particular way?

If we got rid of the focus on individuals, wouldn't it be a lot simpler? It seems to me that the result would suit both those who want everything to the expressible in terms of arithmetic and those who want to respect the wishes of particular social groups. I can's see where this proposal falls down or why, except in very specific instance, anyone would think we need to tailor-make our terminology for individual cases. Formerip (talk) 13:47, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Would the following rewrite help address your point about focusing too much on individuals?

When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used in reliable sources for a group or its members and the term most commonly used by that group for themselves, Wikipedia should XXXXX.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 16:18, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would be the best formulation. I've just copyedited out a comma. Note, though, that the cases where there will be a discrepancy are now much more limited. Formerip (talk) 16:24, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that there is a significant group of editors who want this guideline to address cases like Bradley/Chelsea Manning, where the problem is determining the name for the individual, not the term used for a group. If you look at the survey section above, the discussion is dominated by concerns over individuals, particularly transgendered individuals. Group names are more of an afterthought. I think we should separate the guidance on individuals from the guidance on groups, but simply dropping all guidance about individuals doesn't seem like a conclusion that would reasonably satisfy the editors who have expressed opinions above. GabrielF (talk) 16:30, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure if that's correct. It's true that there was a lot of discussion of sources about Manning in that discussion, but that's mainly because out guidance at the time instructed us that this was important. Perhaps it is something that a few editors have become hung up on, I don't know. But take a step back. There surely cannot be many editors who would say we ought to treat Chelsea Manning differently from someone else in the exact same situation (?). That would seem irrational, but it is what our guidance currently advises. Formerip (talk) 16:51, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

• GabrielF, Would my previous version be acceptable?

When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used in reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, Wikipedia should XXXXX.

• FormerIP, Reconsidering your previous comments, the situation you mentioned may not have a significant enough impact or frequency of occurrence to warrant considering it in the guideline. Using the example given in the guideline, it would be the case where someone commonly referred to themselves as "Jewish person" instead of the most commonly used term of the group, which is "Jew" (according to the corresponding Wikipedia article). This type of situation may not occur often enough or have enough of an impact on the subject person or the readers of the article, to be of significance.

--Bob K31416 (talk) 18:17, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think your formulation is much clearer. The big question is what replaces XXXXX. GabrielF (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

The editor who started this thread, Herostratus, wrote the following in that regard.

What XXXXX should be I don't know. It could be

1. Use the term most used in sources, unless it's close, in which case use the term the person/group uses.

2. Use the term that the person/group uses, regardless of what other people call him/her/them.

Number 1 would be more in keeping with our usual practice, Number 2 would be kinder. That's the crux of the matter isn't it?

--Bob K31416 (talk) 01:07, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

My preference between the two would be number 1. It follows the reliable sources yet defers to the person/group when there is no clear consensus of reliable sources. Note that number 2 would mean that anyone convicted of war crimes who refers to themselves as a "hero" would require Wikipedia to refer to them that way too even if a consensus of reliable sources use a less flattering term. --Bob K31416 (talk) 07:17, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Without changing its meaning, I would slightly rewrite number 1 as, "use the term most used in reliable sources, unless there's no clear consensus among those sources, in which case use the term the person/group uses." --Bob K31416 (talk) 07:33, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Closure

A request was made at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure on 12 October. – Smyth\^talk 11:53, 16 November 2013 (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.

Cultural MOS:IDENTITY vs personal identity

Is there a reason why guidance concerning an individual’s personal identity, such as his preferred name and gender, is lumped in with guidance about groups, how to refer to cultural labels and group membership? They seem like two different things to me that should be treated separately, and I just don’t get how that section could be considered cohesive. I mean, I guess you could say they’re related in that they both may prefer some names over others… Thoughts? —Frungi (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

The current guideline says: "When there is no dispute, the term most commonly used for a person will be the one that person uses for himself or herself, and the most common terms for a group will be those that the group most commonly uses for itself. " This is nonsensical because there are cases where the most common term for a group is NOT the term the group uses for itself (for instance Gypsy vs. Roma). But more to the point of what Frungi is saying, there may be a different process for determining the name that a person uses and the name the group uses. A person can put out a clear statement about their preferences, as Chelsea Manning did, but in a group of, say, millions of people, there may be strong disagreements within the group over what term to use. Sorting out what a group actually prefers may require more specific guidance than what the MOS currently offers. We should also consider the fact that Wikipedia offers stronger protections for living persons than for historical persons or groups. Yet this guideline treats the interests of Chelsea Manning, Christopher Columbus and a particular ethnic group as equal. We should consider whether that choice reflects Wikipedia's principles. GabrielF (talk) 06:40, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I totally agree. Having sat on the sidelines while name disputes went on for artists whose name is now dependent on the most popular museum his work hangs in, I recently came to the defense of a personal relation whose name is misrepresented in his BLP. We really need to split these policies off into specific pages and the issues are not style, but content. Also, individuals should be treated differently than groups. Jane (talk) 13:22, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Manual of Style Question?

Which manual would be one that can address [[6]], or [[7]] this? My main issue and I'm certain there is at least one manaul of style that can confirm or list the appropriate way these should be listed but I do not know which one. If anyone can help me I'd appreciate it. Hell In A Bucket (talk) 08:19, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Naturally, Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Bulleted and numbered lists, and Manual of Style/Lists includes much guidance, though ultimately deference is given to editorial discretion; bearing in mind that competence is required. Articles should be written in a summary style and therefore extensive lists, where less inclusive prose would convey the encyclopedic point intended, are misplaced. If an article's embedded list is excessive, overwhelming the articles prose, a stand-alone list should be created with a {{main}} link to the list included where the abbreviated summary list is presented in the article. When the prose introducing the list extenuate its partial nature, closing prose should not include the superfluous redundancy achieved with statements like: amongst others, to name a few, or, and many more. I hope this imparts helpful advice in your quest for a better answer. Cheers.—John Cline (talk) 10:33, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Addendum; Insight may be gleaned in the archives of Wikipedia:WikiProject Laundromat; a semi-active WikiProject whose goal is to "reduce the number of inappropriate laundry lists in Wikipedia articles." It may be a project worthy of revival—and our support.—John Cline (talk) 11:58, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Dotted underline

I am not a fan of the distracting profusion of dotted underlining that decorates sections such as this. To me it looks like Web 1997, when links used to be underlined. Is there a policy on this? 86.151.119.98 (talk) 00:41, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Well that template does say it follows {{glossary link internal}} which does not use the weird formatting. So maybe someone changed the template? Vegaswikian (talk) 03:03, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the formatting is very weird. The dotted underlining is usually reserved for tooltips that explain the underlined term without a link (e.g., {{circa}} → c.). The {{glossary link internal}} template results in two tooltips:

• "See entry at…" followed by the glossary article title and the term in the glossary (e.g., "See entry at: Glossary of cue sports terms: Knuckle")
• The term in the glossary (e.g., "Knuckle"), which is usually the same as the underlined text.

Which tooltip is displayed depends on precisely which pixel the mouse cursor hovers over. This is not an acceptable state of affairs.

The template was last changed on 1 July 2013 by User:Frietjes. I'm not sure if that did it, but I'll try reverting the last set of changes by that user and see if that resolves it. —sroc 💬 11:12, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Nope, that didn't fix it so I put those edits back. —sroc 💬 11:15, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

This is actually derived from the {{glossary link}} template. See Template talk:Glossary link. —sroc 💬 11:29, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

There, that should do it, at least until someone comes along and does a better job at it. —sroc 💬 11:37, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Self-designation trumps reliable sources?

Is there really consensus to insert the following sentence, as is claimed to result from the RfC currently at the top of this page: When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used in reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, Wikipedia should use the term that the person/group uses, regardless of what other people call him/her/them. To me it seems far stronger than anything that was intended before, or that may have been agreed on in the RfC. Wikipedia has traditionally taken quite the opposite approach - preferring to follow reliable sources than the preferences of interested parties. I could understand it if it said a discrepancy between the terms used in various reliable sources (then we might as well go for the self-identity term out of politeness), but if there is no doubt about the reliable sources' usage, that's what we ought to stick with. W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:34, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

• No, revert. I don't recall seeing a consensus for that at the RFC, except in the case of an individual's name, pronoun, and possibly adjectives. The "current" version is a significant change not supported by consensus. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:50, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
• concur, revert I think this was a messy RFC, and the closer make a good faith effort but the result is far beyond what I expected. Bob's framing above - e.g. if there is dispute amongst RS, might as well use what the people use - ok; but if RS have a pretty clear consensus, we should follow RS.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 09:53, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
• Revert - self-designation most certainly should not "trump" contrary usage in reliable sources. Saying it does is directly contrary to several of our core Policies (especially WP:V and WP:NPOV#UNDUE). I think it is reasonable to favor self-designation in tie-breaker situations... when a) no other term is commonly used by a significant majority of sources, and b) a significant number (but not necessarily the majority) of sources use the self-designation... but we should not favor a little used self-description over a significantly more common alternative. Blueboar (talk) 12:43, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

(as side comment... I have just realized that all of the proposals (so far) seem to assume that there is just one single "self-designation". I don't think that is realistic. Groups, and even individuals, often have multiple self-designations and terms for themselves. Even if we do reach a consensus to favor self-designations over external-designations, we would need guidance on which self-designation to use... which brings us back to sources.) Blueboar (talk) 12:48, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I have changed it to reflect consensus here; Sorry about that... --Mdann52talk to me! 17:01, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

• Revert - yeah, I know it has already been changed, but I agree that we should go with RS, not self-designation. GregJackP Boomer! 18:45, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
• Revert. Absolutely. No mandate for this and goes against everything Wikipedia usually preaches. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:06, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Is a main header needed for small articles

Is a main header needed for small articles? For example the topic has come up at George Touche. My opinion: The header "Biography" lets the reader know that the micropedia version (the lede) of the article is over and the macropedia version (the main body of the article) of the article is beginning, and the chronology has been reset. In biographies it is reset back to the birth, for companies, the founding. It lets the reader's eye skip right down to the main article from the lede, otherwise you struggle to find where the chronology restarts and the lede ends. This is especially true when the main article does not begin with "He was born ..." It also facilitates machine learning so that Google and Watson and Siri know where the lede ends and the main body of the article begins. What do others think? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 18:55, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

As the person who opposed Mr Norton here, I absolutely disagree that there is any need for a header in a short article. There is certainly no need for a header "Biography" or "Life", which I regard as the most pointless header anyone can ever add to a biographical article. Where at least two headers can be added then they are obviously worthwhile, but a single header in a short article? No, absolutely not. I'm sure there used to be a sentence in one of the style guides which deprecated adding single headers to short articles for the sake of it, but I can't now find it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:11, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

• At 1,100 characters, I wouldn't put any headers in this article except for the reference section. My personal cut-off is around 2,000 characters. There does not seem to be any hard limits in the MOS. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:19, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Contradiction about month abbreviations

This guideline says it is acceptable to use periods after month abbreviations (search for "Sep."). The Manual of Style/Dates and numbers strongly implies this isn't allowed. See WT:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Abbreviated months in citations. Despite the title of the thread, the period issue is not confined to citations. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:09, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Formatting of captions

I propose that the rules for when the period in captions are amended.

"If any complete sentence, or any other punctuation, occurs in a caption, all sentences and any sentence fragments in that caption should end with a period."

The reason: there are sometimes constructs (place names) with a comma, and it seems illogical and inconsistent to have one type of punctuation, and not the other.

• Example: "The new blabla stadium in Place, State". I think there should be a period too in these cases.

Another case that could be discussed is sentences that are incomplete, but a verb is still present.

• Example 1: "The flag of South Africa flying at the Sydney Cricket Ground.". Should there be a period? I'm unsure.
• Example 2 (from the same article): "South African Ambassador Harry Schwarz unveiling the new flag to the United States in May 1994.".

HandsomeFella (talk) 18:08, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

None of these are complete sentences. If we adopt the rule that captions do not require terminal punctuation, I don't see any reason why the presence or absence of other punctuation in the sentence should affect this. We do not require a matching comma after "Place, State" because this would be nonsense, but this is an obvious exception to the general rule. —sroc 💬 22:11, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Do you think the period looks awkward in the captions in the above article? HandsomeFella (talk) 18:51, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I do. It's comparable with captions on TV news and documentaries, such as "Boris Johnson, London Mayor" or "Kiev, Ukraine"; or headlines in news tickers, etc. — you don't expect terminal punctuation in those cases because they are not complete sentences (unlike quotations shown as supers, for example). —sroc 💬 22:11, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

Mid to late or mid-to-late?

I have an ongoing ACR discussion for an article I wrote, and one point brought up is regarding whether "mid to late" should be "mid-to-late". The MOS doesn't seem to clarify this case, so I wanted to ask and see what the general opinion was. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 03:49, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

A Google Ngram of mid to late, mid-to-late and mid- to late shows mid- to late as the most common. I think that makes sense as you are effectively saying "mid-1950s to late 1950s". That's one general opinion. SchreiberBike talk 05:28, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

It definitely looks better with no dashes. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:27, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Prior to asking I looked up the answer, and found that the prevailing school of thought was "mid- to late", as mid was a prefix without an accompanying term. Wanted to make sure there wasn't a prevailing guideline. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 21:47, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I think "mid- to late" is correct, for this reason (e.g., mid-1990s, late 1990s, mid- to late 1990s). The The Chicago Manual of Style Online has a hyphenation table with these examples:

century: the twenty-first century; fourteenth-century monastery; twenty-first-century history; a mid-eighteenth-century poet; late nineteenth-century politicians; her style was nineteenth century

mid: midthirties, a midcareer event, midcentury, but mid-July, the mid-1990s, the mid-twentieth century, mid-twentieth-century history

I have underlined the pertinent examples which show that, preceding a specific month, decade, century, etc., "mid-" is hyphenated but "late" is not. —sroc 💬 02:00, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

But it depends on the context. Sometimes the second hyphen is needed, like here. Dicklyon (talk) 05:17, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Then it's a style issue. Chicago uses "late nineteenth-century" as an example (i.e, "late" is not hyphenated as a prefix); your source adopts a different style ("mid- to late-century"), but is there a reputable style guide endorsing this? —sroc 💬 05:29, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I just found this from Chicago's FAQ:

Q. Is it your recommendation to still use a hyphen in a phrases like “mid-1985”? If so, then would it be best to write “mid- to late 1985”?

A. We are still apt to consider mid to be a prefix meaning “middle” in expressions like “mid-1985,” hence the hyphen. The status of prefix means that mid- forms one word in combination, unless it is joined to a capital letter or a numeral, in which case a hyphen is employed: midsentence, midcentury; but mid-July, mid-1985. Your solution of “mid- to late 1985” (short for “mid-1985 to late 1985”) is impeccably logical, though some editors prefer the rather odd “mid-to-late 1985,” because the stray hyphen might be misleading to some readers.

Perhaps life would be simpler if we could just say, following Webster’s, that mid is not a prefix; rather, it is an adjective (sometimes it is an adverb or preposition) of the type seen in expressions like “mid Atlantic,” but it tends toward hyphenated combination form. That would allow us to write “mid-1985,” giving in to the tendency toward combination, and “mid to late 1985,” arguing that without proximity, there’s no attraction.

I would recommend having it both ways, especially if you don’t like either of the “mid to late” solutions involving hyphens. Continue to grant prefix status to mid, allowing words like “midpurgatory,” but when mid strays from its partner, drop the hyphen, allowing “mid to late 1985,” an expression that I think is entirely clear (it’s essentially the equivalent of “middle to late 1985”).

Several options, but no hyphen after "late". —sroc 💬 05:51, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I think it's more of a grammar issue. You use the hyphen after late when it's part of a compound used as an adjective. That's standard hyphen grammar, not relevant to the examples you found and quoted. Look at my source again, where "late-century" was part of a compound used as an adjective. Dicklyon (talk) 06:43, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I understand the use of hyphens in compounds such as mid- to long-range (where both mid-range and long-range would be hyphenated) and open- and closed-minded (where open-minded and closed-minded would be hyphenated}, but I think mid- to late-century is wrong because late-century would not be hyphenated on its own. —sroc 💬 08:06, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

It sounds like you do NOT understand the use of hyphens in compounds used as adjectives. In the book I cited, "late-century" is used as an adjective. It would not take a hyphen otherwise. Similarly, "long range" would not take a hyphen if not used as an adjective; e.g. "the plan covers a mid to long range." (I'm less sure what to do about the mid in this contrived example.) Dicklyon (talk) 08:31, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I do understand, but my contention is that the book you cited does not follow the Chicago style guide and a prominent style guide trumps a random book you found on a question of style or grammar. Note that the examples given by Chicago use these constructions as adjectives: "mid-eighteenth-century poet; late nineteenth-century politicians". Your argument would be better served if you referred to a style guide or grammar book on this issue. (In your contrived example, I would use "medium" in place of the prefix "mid", as I would not use "mid" as a stand-alone word.) —sroc 💬 11:48, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I found an example using "mid- to late nineteenth century": Writing Off the Hyphen: New Critical Perspectives on the Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora. —sroc 💬 11:53, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

No, you're not understanding. In your example "spent time in New York as political exiles in the mid- to late nineteenth century." the late nineteenth century is a noun. In my example "mid- to late-century plebian poets" and "mid- to late-century period", late-century is part of a compound used as an adjective. This requires a hyphen. Does Chicago say otherwise? It would be better if you would learn the basics of hyphens before trying to take on the complicated cases. In the case of late nineteenth century, the adjective form gets two hyphens: "late-nineteenth-century poet" in most sources, but that's another complicated case where you'll find some variation. Dicklyon (talk) 19:26, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

I did not find any references to this case in my research from Chicago (I do not have a full copy on hand) and it is not clearly documented at Hyphen, Compound modifier or English compound (nor have you referred to any other style or grammar guides), so I would hardly call such an exception "the basics of hyphens", but I understand what you are saying now that you have explained it. I can also understand why some writers might hyphenate "late-twentieth-century poet" to avoid the interpretation that the poet has died. —sroc 💬 23:48, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

It is documented at Hyphen#Compound_modifiers that "the compound modifier is often hyphenated to prevent misunderstanding", which leaves it open as maybe optional when misunderstanding would not result from omitting the hyphen. But many guides do call for the hyphen more generally in such compounds used as adjectives, at least when used before a noun (sometimes not when after); it gives the reader a quick clue for how to parse a long string of words, even when they would have figured it out without that clue; here's one. That's why even "late-nineteenth-century poets" get the hyphen after late. And if you wrote "His style is very late-nineteenth-century", the hyphens would be appreciated by the reader even though the compound adjective is not before a noun, as it clarifies the intended parse. Dicklyon (talk) 06:24, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I think you're reading a little into that quote from Hyphen#Compound_modifiers and your "late-nineteenth-century poets" example contradicts the "late nineteenth-century politicians" example from Chicago, but I don't wish to argue over this. I think either mid- to late 1950s or mid- to late-1950s would be preferable to mid-to-late 1950s or mid-to-late-1950s. Can we agree on that? —sroc 💬 09:22, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

I recommend that relevant information be added to Hyphen#Prefixes and suffixes instead of WP:MOS, which is already very large.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:10, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Graeme Bartlett, if you're going to make comments here, could you please understand the difference between hyphen and dash?

SchreiberBike: I'm advised that Google ngrams cannot distinguish "mid- to late" from "mid-to late"; and they misinterpret "mid - to late" as having a dash (of indeterminate type): n gram. The ngram, I suspect, ignores the crucial question of context. Tony (talk) 06:58, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

RFC - is Identity a style issue or a content issue?

I realize that there is an open RFC about WP:IDENTITY. However, the question I am asking here is not about the language of WP:IDENTITY, but about whether the MOS is the best place to cover the issue. Or to put it another way, the question I am asking is not what Wikipedia's policy/guidance on identity issues should be, but where Wikipedia should say it. Blueboar (talk) 16:15, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

• Content - To my mind, choosing the most appropriate names, terms etc. for a person or group is not really a style issue, but one governed by WP:NPOV, WP:SELFPUBLISHED, etc. For example, take the question of whether Wikipedia should use the term "patriot" or the term "rebel" in discussing someone involved in a civil war. Even if the person self-identifies as one or the other, it is not really a style issue... it is a WP:NPOV issue. I think the same is true for other IDENTITY questions. Blueboar (talk) 16:29, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
• Content - in line with my comment in the (first?) RFC, which is still open. Although style issues do arise; for example, some people apparently think that routinely replacing he/she pronouns with personal names in order to avoid gender-assignment issues is unacceptably bad style, while some of us think it's not so bad (and should actually be encouraged as a lesser evil). W. P. Uzer (talk) 20:47, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
• The question of which pronouns to use and whether to use them may arguably be a style issue. But even given that, everything else is clearly a content issue, I think. —Frungi (talk) 00:01, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
• I think we need to define what we mean in this discussion by the terms "style" and "content". I think that "content" means the facts about the topic of an article, whereas "style" means how those facts are presented. So I think that WP:IDENTITY is about style. --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:07, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

  But in choosing which terms we use to describe the subject, are we not stating facts? Blueboar (talk) 17:35, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

  It depends on the terms. In your example of "patriot" or "rebel" it may be stating a fact to choose one over the other. In that case, the first sentence of WP:IDENTITY refers editors elsewhere for guidance because it's a matter of content. In the example given in WP:IDENTITY of "Jew" or "Jewish person", these two terms are synonymous, have the same content, and it's a matter of style. In this case WP:IDENTITY gives guidance. --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:29, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

  The thing about Jews doesn't give any guidance, though - it's simply an attempted statement about the real world, probably false in general, "backed up" by a reference to a specific case in which it may be true. If it's supposed to be guiding us towards anything then it does so hopelessly unclearly. W. P. Uzer (talk) 09:53, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  I didn't understand your comment since it looks to me that the paragraph is giving the guidance to use "Jew" instead of "Jewish person". --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:08, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  So why doesn't it say "Use..." instead of "The most commonly used is..."? If it were phrased as a recommendation, and that recommendation could be shown to have consensus support, it would be fine. But it is in fact phrased as a fact about the world, which may be true in the particular case of Jews, but won't necessarily be true in all cases. And even if it did happen to be true, it wouldn't have any reason to appear on a guidance page, unless it led into some actual guidance. W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:13, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

  After it mentions "most commonly" it says, "Wikipedia should use them too." Perhaps the two sentences could use a better wording. Could you propose a specific rewording? --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:55, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

  Yes, sorry, I missed that. But it's all still very unhelpful, because of the potential falsity of the real-world statement. There is also the strange preceding condition "When there is no dispute" - what is that supposed to mean? W. P. Uzer (talk) 18:32, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

  Looking at the context given by the preceding sentence, it's referring to the situation where there is not yet any dispute among Wikipedia editors. In other words, when someone is contributing new content this is advising them what to do. The two sentences could be rewritten as the one sentence, "As long as a dispute doesn't arise regarding what terms to use in an article, try to use the terms for a person or group that they most commonly use for themselves." --Bob K31416 (talk) 19:06, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

  W. P. Uzer, Maybe a better rewrite is, "As long as no policy violation occurs, try to use the terms for a person or group that they most commonly use for themselves." --Bob K31416 (talk) 20:27, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

  OK, I agree that seems a good rewrite, assuming this advice has consensus. (Personally I would tend to oppose it, since I think we should prefer to use the terms that reliable sources most often use.) W. P. Uzer (talk) 20:51, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

  W. P. Uzer, Did you mean that you would support the rewrite over what is presently there, but you would prefer to simply delete the two sentences presently in MOS:IDENTITY instead of rewriting them? --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:02, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

  I would support the rewrite if it could be shown that the advice has consensus support (even though it doesn't have my support). If no consensus (but no consensus to delete either), then better no rewrite, since garbled wrong advice is better than clear wrong advice. If it were all up to me, I would delete virtually everything in that whole section and start over. W. P. Uzer (talk) 21:12, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

• Content per WP Uzer. I'm concerned that by handling this issue within the MOS, we're creating confusion by providing contradictory guidance in different documents. GabrielF (talk) 06:42, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
• Why care? There are aspects that are style, there are aspects that are content, and there are aspects that can be called style or content depending on where you consider the boundary to lie. We need to address these issues somewhere, and what we say matters a lot more than where we say it. --Stfg (talk) 10:49, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  The reason we should care is that we have a conflict between policy/guidance pages ... WP:NPOV indicates that we should use terms favored by reliable sources (per Due Weight)... however, the MOS indicates we should not do this, and should instead use terms favored by the subject. Which policy/guidance page should editors follow? Until we resolve the conflict we will have endless arguments. Blueboar (talk) 13:08, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  Let me put the question another way... consider two decisions: a) whether to call George Washington a "Patriot" or a "Rebel" and b) the decision whether to call Bradley/Chelsey Manning "he" or "she"? Why is one a Content issue (governed by NPOV) and the other a Style issue (governed by the MOS)? How are these two decisions different? Blueboar (talk) 13:24, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  In the case of a transgender person like Manning, choosing "he" or "she" could be considered a matter of content or style. It would be a matter of content if the pronoun is considered a statement of whether the person is male or female. It would be a matter of style if the pronoun is not considered a statement of whether the person is male or female but rather what pronouns to use in this complex situation of a transgender person. It's a difficult situation, but I think that using "he" or "she" would be thought by readers as stating a fact about being male or female and would thus be a content issue. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:50, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  I'm sure this has already come up here recently. MOS:IDENTITY begins "Disputes over how to refer to a person or group are addressed by policies such as Verifiability, Neutral point of view, and Article titles where the term appears in the title of an article. When there is no dispute, ...". Where policy has nothing to say, the guideline kicks in, but policy always takes precedence. --Stfg (talk) 14:14, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  It has come up before, not just here but on article talk pages, template talk pages, WikiProject talk pages, a few XFDs - at least a dozen different discussions since 22 August 2013, never fewer than about three simultaneously. Some of the discussions are clear WP:FORUMSHOPping. It's very tiresome to have to go over it all again and again. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:17, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  Stgf, I don't understand the logic of saying "If there is a dispute follow the NPOV policy, but if there is no dispute follow WP:IDENTITY guidance"... first, if there is no dispute, then the sources will all use the terms that the subject prefers (if they don't, then by definition there is a dispute)... and that means we can follow NPOV no matter what. Second, the rest of the IDENTITY section is all about situations where there is a dispute (such as trans-gender pronouns). So the guideline is self-contradictory. Blueboar (talk) 17:00, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  Hmm, then you need to revisit to opening of this RFC, where you say "I am asking is not what Wikipedia's policy/guidance on identity issues should be, but where Wikipedia should say it". --Stfg (talk) 18:00, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  True... and I apologize for that. I suppose what is being said here might make more sense to me if it were stated at NPOV. But it causes problems stated here... Right now, NPOV says (effectively) "Follow the sources - always", no exceptions..." while MOS says "Follow the sources - except when..." It's that "except when" that is causing a conflict between the policy and the guideline. We should not be giving conflicting and potentially contradictory instructions to editors. So... either the Policy or this page (or both) needs to be changed. Blueboar (talk) 19:41, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

  Right now, NPOV says (effectively) "Follow the sources - always", no exceptions... It doesn't mean we follow all sources equally. NPOV says to avoid pseudoscience, to use the best and most reputable sources, to not legitimize views that aren't held by better scholarly sources (however popular), and certainly we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public. NPOV doesn't require that we find all sources equally reliable for all purposes, so I don't see a conflict with treating a person as one of the best sources about their gender identity, or a group's statement about how they name themselves, when we can be reasonably certain they're making that statement in a serious and considered way, and it's in line with better reliable sources (and not just some majority of possibly-not-the-most-reliable sources, or sources with less expertise on the subject). __ E L A Q U E A T E 01:04, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

  I agree with that... especially the all important caveat: "...and its inline with better reliable sources." But, since it does depend on sources, then I don't think it can be considered a style issue. It has to be a content issue. Blueboar (talk) 17:53, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

  I couldn't disagree with Elaqueate much more strongly. We prefer reliable sources independent of the subject in all cases. If the majority of sources independent of the subject go along with the subject's self-identification, great: no controversy, everybody's happy. If, for whatever reason, the majority of reliable sources independent of the subject reject the subject's self-identification, we should generally follow the majority and note the existence of the dispute.—Kww(talk) 23:14, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

  That's ethically highly questionable as an approach. But, on a more practical level, it doesn't really help in cases where there are few useful sources to go off, which is where the guidance is most needed in the first place. It's quite easy to imagine the bio of a transgender person where there's just a single source going to the IDENTITY question. Are just supposed to live with the coin-toss that it might be The Guardian or it might be Fox News?

  The obvious solution to this is that there's no reason to insist on considering sources in relation to a particular case when we can much more usefully and meaningfully consider sources relating to a class of cases. Which is the whole point of having guidance on style.

  Think about the "just follow sources" principle in other contexts. Would it be OK for this to give us "The Big Apple" as someone's birthplace in an infobox? Or "ukulele superstar" as someone's profession? Formerip (talk) 23:52, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

  1. People might be able to see that, when there is an absence of contradicting reliable sources, that there are situations we consider the subject one of the better reliable sources for a piece of information (such as whether they've retired, how many children they admit to, whether they like broccoli, if they state a quote was misattributed etc.) and that (again, in the absence of contradictory reliable sources) we go along with it. 2. You would probably also agree that we generally reject sources as being considered reliable for specific pieces of information if it goes against what we know from better expert or scholarly sources, even if we consider them reliable for other things (e.g. we generally accept a lot of the newspaper, but that doesn't mean we cite their astrology columns as fact; we'd rely on sports journalists for scores and analysis of sports, but not for some other random topics).

  Now if you generally agree these situations occur, then you can see that there will be times when there will be a minority of actually good reliable sources for a piece of information and a crowd of other sources (that we might consider reliable for other things) that contradict, but that we shouldn't list in the pool. In some situations of identity, we have a small pool of reliable sources that say "Listen to the subject", and we might have a mass of sources that disagree but are less academic, and less reliable. I wasn't saying ignore reliable sources, but that doesn't mean we accept the whole newspaper for every word and decision made in it, because we accept it for other things. I was talking about how we choose our pool for matters of a group's identity. NPOV is the policy to decide who is in the group, and after that we need something in the MOS to explain how to present it. __ E L A Q U E A T E 00:55, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

  It's not ethically questionable at all, Formerip, and I don't see why you would consider it as such. It's the core of WP:V as well: independent sources are preferred.—Kww(talk) 03:19, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

  There is a difference (I assume we all realize this, but is isn't clear to me how it fits in with the above comments) between Wikipedia stating as a fact that some group calls itself by some name, and Wikipedia itself deciding to call the group by some name. For the first matter, it seems sensible to refer primarily to sources from within the group, while for the second, it seems sensible to refer to sources independent of the group (since that's what we are trying to be too). W. P. Uzer (talk) 20:47, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

  I completely agree... To relate that comment back to my original question (is IDENTITY a content issue or a style issue?) I think both situations are matters of content, and not style... Yes, we (appropriately) base that content on different groups of sources, but we are still talking content and not style. Blueboar (talk) 14:00, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

  "Are celestial bodies a question of content or style?" "Are titles of people a question of content or style?" If we capitalize King, are we taking a stand against democracy? Any guidance about what style to use for various content is beyond obviously going to have both style and content decisions being made by editors at the same time. __ E L A Q U E A T E 14:08, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

  Yes, the capitalization of terms (King vs king) is a style issue (determined by the MOS)... but the choice of terms (King vs. Emperor... or King vs Monarch) ... that's a content issue (determined by sources per WP:V and WP:NPOV). As for celestial bodies ... certainly the issue of whether to call Pluto a "planet" or not is a content issue, and not a matter of style. Blueboar (talk) 14:55, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

  Would the choice between the country names Burma and Myanmar be a content issue or a style issue? My thought is that it is a style issue because the two names are for the same country and thus contain the same content. Thoughts? --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:19, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

  In so far as such choices are bound up with conflicting political viewpoints (I don't know how far that's true of Burma/Myanmar nowadays), I would still say content. If it's purely about clear presentation (which name will be least surprising to readers, etc.), then style. It seems that this whole area of word choice or name choice straddles a boundary in fact. W. P. Uzer (talk) 20:22, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

  I don't think that being bound up with conflicting political (or nationalistic) viewpoints would mean it's a matter of content. For example, in editing a Wikipedia article there is a choice between British and American English that has an element of conflicting nationalistic viewpoints for some editors, but it seems that is still a matter of style. In the case of Myanmar and Burma, I think the following two sentences have the same content, i.e. are expressing the same fact.

  • One third of Burma's total perimeter of 1,930 kilometres (1,200 miles) forms an uninterrupted coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.
  • One third of Myanmar's total perimeter of 1,930 kilometres (1,200 miles) forms an uninterrupted coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea.

  Since the above two sentences are expressing the same fact, I think the choice between Myanmar and Burma is a matter of style, although which style is used could have a different nationalistic effect on a reader, just like the choice between British and American English could have an effect. Also, the example in the guideline of "Jew" and "Jewish person" could each have different effects on a reader, but the choice is still a matter of style, not content, because it wouldn't change the facts of the sentence where the term is used. --Bob K31416 (talk) 21:17, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

• WP:BLP Seems like the most appropriate place to put it IMO. -- Ross Hill • Talk • Need Help? • 01:27, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

  ...except that it (the section currently located at MOS:IDENTITY) doesn't just apply to living people. We have articles on Jewish people who died a long time ago, and we have articles on transgender people who died a long time ago, etc. -sche (talk) 06:10, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

  Your right. Vote struck through. -- Ross Hill • Talk • Need Help? • 19:36, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

• MOS is the better palce in my opinion. I'm only new to wiki, and it's from that perspective I base opinion. Like anything new- finding your way around isn't easy. I don't write, but if I were, MOS would be the primary source. If there are ongoing issues, becuse witters are not going from MOS into MOS/C, then placing the information at the first point of contact should yield better results? Going from MOS:IDENTITY to next link MOS/Content was like chinging worlds. I am a patient person, but going into Content was not something I envisage every bold new writer doing. Instead I imagine they refer to MOS, then jump in. I see no practicle restriction on MOS:IDENTITY being expnaded in size to cover more information. If Content has 'issues', then seems not enough folk click/link htat far to get the information. Experienced users know how to find the page, but would already know the guidelines. To reduce workload on proffing article etc, wouldn't it be worth tring first point of contct in MOS? If time shows any change, the evidence could suppoert future decision on placement.--Andrea edits (talk) 05:54, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

  As someone who isn't new to wiki... My experience has been that most new editors do indeed simply jump in and add content.

  As for the first point of contact with our policies and guidelines... I would not start a new editor at the MOS... they should start off being pointed to our non-negotiable core content policies - WP:Verifiability (or WP:V), WP:Neutral point of view (or WP:NPOV), and WP:No original research (or WP:NOR) - which are highlighted in our "Welcome to Wikipedia" templates). Once they understand those, then they can get introduced to other policies and guidelines (such as the MOS). Blueboar (talk) 13:02, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

• After much thought, I think it is right to have WP:IDENTITY in the MOS. It is abundantly clear (from the dozens of discussions about it on this page) that IDENTITY would benefit from a rewrite, but it is a style guideline. "Is this person Jewish?" and "is this person transgender?" are 'content' questions (which must be answered by reliable sources); "should this person be referred to as a 'Jewess' or a 'Jewish woman'?" and "should this person be referred to as 'he' or 'she'?" are style questions. Other organizations, e.g. the Associated Press, handle such questions in their style guides. (And so it was that numerous style guides' takes on how to refer to transgender people were collected during the last Manning RM.)
  A thing that is "just a question of style" is sometimes dismissed as unimportant, with the implication that any answer to the question is "fine"; it should be clear that these questions of style are not unimportant, and some possible answers, such as "refer to that person as a 'Jewess'", may cause great offensive.
  Nonetheless, they are still issues of style, not content. This is demonstrated by the fact that reliable sources from the 1840s documenting e.g. the trial and conviction of Mr Foobar Smith (born 1807, executed 1843) for murdering two "Jewesses" outside a synagogue can be used to cite a claim in Smith's article that he had killed two Jewish women, and sources from 2009 documenting that "at Brian Manning's urging, Bradley joined the army, whereupon he was sent to Fort Leonard Wood for basic training" can be used to cite the statement in Chelsea Manning's article that she began basic training at Fort Wood. (For a more in-depth discussion of this point, see here.)
  -sche (talk) 21:11, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
• As I mentioned in the section immediately below, I think this one MOS section may be inappropriately addressing two different matters. In that light, I think the guidance about cultural labels should be considered a style matter, and the guidance about personal names and gender labels should be a WP:BLP matter. And I’m thinking about opening an RFC about that split after the conclusion of this one. —Frungi (talk) 02:18, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

  It's tempting to take that view, but as I noted to Ross Hill a few paragraphs ago, Wiktionary also includes biographies of dead people. Unless you're proposing that the choice of "chairman" vs "chairwoman" be governed by separate guidelines based on whether the chairperson in question was dead or alive, it's not a BLP issue. -sche (talk) 06:47, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

  Yes, there should be separate guidance based on whether the person is alive—that’s why we have WP:BLP. For living subjects, we should go with the subject’s own identification, so long as it’s respected by some neutral sources; for dead subjects, we should go with the sources. —Frungi (talk) 07:25, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

  Having such guidance at WP:BLP wouldn't preclude having it at WP:IDENTITY or referring to WP:BLP from here. You might consider just going to WT:BLP and suggesting that addition for that policy. --Bob K31416 (talk) 13:44, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

  True, but that should probably wait until things are ironed out here, rather than trying to get a currently controversial policy added as Policy. —Frungi (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

• Style, or at least appropriate to the MOS, lacking a compelling alternative. Dicklyon (talk) 06:23, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
• It's definitely a style issue. I'd like to repeat some of the previous comments that the line of reasoning that it's very important to the article and how it interpreted, and thus can't be style issue is flat out wrong. Syle issues can have a large impact on how a reader interprets it, and is not just about visual nicities. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 10:01, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

If that last sentence is accurate, then style issues have to be settled in accordance with our core WP:NPOV policy... no? Blueboar (talk) 14:17, 15 December 2013 (UTC)