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Capitalization of animal breeds

There is no mention of capitalizing animal breeds in the MOS, but a group of editors over at Talk:Brumby seems to think this is an accepted practice and/or possibly a "gray area." I would like to see some mention of this in the MOS, either pro or con, so that the area is no longer gray. This would obviate a lot of future conflicts. For the record, I don't see any reason to capitalize breed names -- this goes against the rules of standard English in just about any recognized professional style book or dictionary you care to name. Krychek (talk) 15:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:HOWEVER

This used to redirect to Wikipedia:Avoid thread mode ("Don't "However" a position in the middle of stating its case."), but User:BarrelProof redirected it to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Semicolon before "however" last year explaining that "this shortcut has been very seldom used for its original intended purpose". I count eleven usages of it, all of them talking about its original thread mode context, and none using it to talk about semicolons in the past year. Is it worth moving this back? I've tripped over it a couple of times recently because I can never remember the WP:ATM acronym for thread mode. --McGeddon (talk) 14:22, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the courtesy of bringing it up rather than just changing it back. (There is also MOS:HOWEVER, created around the same time as that change.) To me it seems a lot less cumbersome to use and to remember WP:HOWEVER than WP:HOWEVERPUNC, and it seems difficult to remember that the two strimgs could lead to different places; however, I guess I have to acknowledge that my modified version of the shortcut hasn't proved so popular thus far. Perhaps that is because the article doesn't mention that it exists, whereas it does mention the WP:HOWEVERPUNC shortcut, although it appears that WP:HOWEVERPUNC / MOS:HOWEVERPUNC is even less popular. The uses basically all seem to be in old archives from before the change of destination. Anyhow, I suppose I won't feel obliged toward seppuku if it gets changed back the way it was. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:15, 15 September 2014 (UTC)
Fair point on the article not mentioning that WP:HOWEVER exists - it's also hard to know how much either of these have been used in edit summaries over the years. Given that a badly-structured article is (I think) more of a problem than a badly-punctuated one, and that people seemed to be using WP:HOWEVER more than HOWEVERPUNC before the redirect changed, I'll go ahead and put the WP:ATM essay back where it can be chanced across more easily (I assume I'm not alone in occasionally plugging WP:WHATEVERTHETHINGIS into my browser when I'm sure there must be a guideline about something), with a hatnote link to the punctuation page. --McGeddon (talk) 08:39, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
That hatnote is a nice addition. —BarrelProof (talk) 15:22, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Notice re: RFC: Are fictional characters people or objects?

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

There is an RfC concerning whether it is appropriate to use pronouns such as "he", "she", or "who" when referring to fictional characters in out-of-universe portions of articles. The discussion is at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Comics#RFC: Are fictional characters people or objects? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 22:46, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

(Not on topic?:) Preferred format of section titles?

[Moved from MOS:DATE talk page but applies to both/all pages..]

1. First, note I'm not talking about how section-titles appear to the general Wikipedia readers (they never see a difference, I'm discussing what looks/works best for editors of article or talk-space). I'm only talking about how they appear in edit mode.

Now that I noticed how the MoS itself is formatted (first example vs how Talk pages are formatted) I wander is it preferred?:

==General notes==
===<span id="ExternException" ></span>Quotations, titles, etc.===
{{see also|WP:MOSQUOTE}}
Quotations, titles of books and articles,

vs.

==General notes==

===<span id="ExternException" ></span>Quotations, titles, etc.===

Quotations, titles of books and articles,


That is, is a blank line before the general text (after previous section title) NOT preferred? I know the bytes (disk space) do not cost much (but add up..) but mostly I would want the newlines gone for other reasons.. Because then more content lines fit on a page but Talk-page sections are created with newlines (can it be "fixed" as it sets the tone?). [Of course space after a section, before a header are mandatory for clarity.]

I try to fix sections to a consistent format within articles. Often both conventions are used, newlines after titles, and not, in a single article and I just fix the few "errors" to the more common variant (depending on article going either way). [Note, I do however add newline after a section-title with "no text" (when another section "immediately" follows) such as in the "General notes" example above, for clarity (e.g. I use a hybrid of formattings above)..]

2. Another thing, often spaces are added before and after the title itself ("== General notes =="), I at least try to keep either format in an article, but do not like or find the spaces helpful.

3. In cases with * or # I, however, prefer spaces after.. (and what about a newline after the colon):

  • bla bla
  • bla bla bla
  1. first
  2. second

4. [While I'm asking, I've seen "anchor" (also below section title) and now "span id" in section titles, not sure what the latter is or if including is preferred.]

comp.arch (talk) 09:55, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

There are no particular preferences. {{anchor}} is a template that creates a span HTML tag - which provides a place for other articles to target in links. 'anchor' is a bit better than span because the template can add all sorts of features to allow for browser weirdness without requiring every article to be changed. There is no consensus about whether it should be above or in the section title but don't put it after the section title. Just keep it neat and it will work out fine.  Stepho  talk  11:37, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm less concerned about anchor vs. span (not sumething I use). I guess the MOS will not dictate that you shouldn't use extra newlines. Maybe I could file a bug to get rid of them as the default on talk pages. Mostly the extra newlines bug me and then some use them and others do not and you get a mix of both in articles.. Changing the default would indicate the better approach to editors. comp.arch (talk) 14:05, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Personally I like the extra lines - they visually break things up into easily seen pieces. Notice that the start of my comments are easily found in edit mode while yours are hard to find :) But there's no compulsion either way and the MOS only addresses what a reader sees.  Stepho  talk  15:57, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
"Notice that the start of my comments", means there is a misunderstanding. I see your point and actually agree and added newlines for my comments. What I was strictly talking about is newlines after section titles. [Sometimes I fix when there isn't one preceding (I think all can agree there newlines are mandatory).] See my changes to this thread, what I just did in the edit I making right e.g. deleteing the newline after "== Preferred format of section titles? ==". The <newline>"== ".. seem to me, on their own, to make new sections, stand out just fine. comp.arch (talk) 10:54, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
"the MOS only addresses what a reader sees", yes.. that is probably (not?) the way it should be.. I just noticed that the article space of the MOS (not talk-pages) actually do what I'm talking about and not what is auto-generated (in talk-spaces). That is why I brought it up here. Maybe there is a better place to address this. Everyone sees the "bad ways" from what the software does.. Like I said a bug-report would help, not sure where/how, or if there is any place to discuss the software. comp.arch (talk) 11:28, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Often a quote in an article will tangentially mention topics that are not otherwise mentioned elsewhere in an article. In such cases it appears obvious that wiki linking inside the quote greatly helps the reader to understand the meaning and context of the quote, but the current wording of the mos supports removing such wiki links entirely. (A cumbersome alternative is to follow up such quotes with redundant but wiki linked paraphrasings, although this also violates the advice to link the first instance of a new term.) What is best practice, and can we update the mos to give some examples? Cesiumfrog (talk) 00:49, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

One possibility is the use of tooltips.
—Wavelength (talk) 05:06, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
Even if it is technically possible to put a wikilink inside a tooltip, I think that would break accessibility. Cesiumfrog (talk) 05:42, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
A wikilink inside a tooltip is not necessary. John F. Kennedy said "Ich bin ein Berliner." (See "Ich bin ein Berliner".) Just hover your mouse cursor over the underdotted text.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:28, 6 October 2014 (UTC) and 15:53, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
And what of people on portable devices? That's increasingly something we must consider. oknazevad (talk) 23:44, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
My question is, for stylistic reasons, in this example why wouldn't we prefer simply: John F. Kennedy said "Ich bin ein Berliner"? That is already what the current JFK article does, but the current MOS opposes it. Cesiumfrog (talk) 01:19, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

MOS templates at TfD

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussions elsewhere.

Some templates MOS uses for its example formatting have been listed at TfD under the mistaken impression they're redundant quotation templates:

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:05, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Infobox titles - both English and non-latin spellings?

Resolved

At the top of infoboxes of BLPs we usually have the person's name as found in the article title or perhaps the first line in the lead. What I'm noticing in some tennis bios as that some editors are putting the foreign non-latin spelling right under the English spelling... as in Peangtarn Plipuech. Is this the correct way to do it? Isn't the Thai spelling in the lead enough? I notice that the King of Thailand doesn't have his infobox this way. Is there something in the manual of style I missed that tells us the correct way of doing this? Thanks. Fyunck(click) (talk) 08:38, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

I've just replied to your near-identical question, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes#Foreign spelling below English name Please don't multi-post. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 08:48, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
The infobox has a |native_name= parameter for a reason.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:37, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
But to be fair, it didn't have until late this afternoon. Bagunceiro (talk) 21:08, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, I mean the basic one does; any derived one that need that feature can simply enable it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:23, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Objection to "Group"

I object to the insertion of ICNCP's jargonistic use of capitalized "Group" for cultivar group:

Cultivar and Group names of plants are not italicized, and are capitalized; cultivar names appear within single quotes (Malus domestica 'Red Delicious', Cynara cardunculus Scolymus Group).

Having it actually appear in MOS itself is rather like putting a cube of rare beef in a vegetarian's soup. We don't care if it's "official" ICNCP internal jargon or not. They only just changed to this style recently, most sources still use "cultivar group" not "Group", and we still wouldn't capitalize group like this even if they did, any more than we'd start capitalizing the word "comet" just because the IAU started doing so in their own publications for some reason. ICNCP is doing it because they're trying to impress upon people that an actual group name is capitalized (along with the word "Group") in a scientific name (e.g. as in "Scolymus Group"). That kind of skull-drilling is up to them, I guess (I think it's a bit intelligence-insulting), but it's not something we should emulate.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:37, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

My only concern is that it might cause confusion if we keep the word "group" but de-capitalize it? I am thinking of those (like myself) who are not familiar with the scientific nomenclature. By capitalizing, we indicate that we are talking about a specific (scientific) meaning of the term, and not just any kind of "group". Blueboar (talk) 12:50, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Just use cultivar group like most sources and like our own article.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
  • I don't like the use of "Group" versus "group" either, but "I don't like it" isn't a sufficient reason. As Blueboar notes the reason for the capitalization is to distinguish the scientific use from the general use; it's not at all the same as it would be if the IAU decided that the word "comet" should always be capitalized. Official bodies can't tell us how to treat general English words; they can tell us how their specialized terminology should be styled if we decide to use it. A possible compromise for the present (this part of the ICNCP is newish and we need to see how far the usage spreads) might be to say that we will normally use the older full phrase "cultivar group" rather than the newer term "Group". What we should never do is to write just "group" when "Group" = "cultivar group" is meant; this is just sloppy and hence unencyclopedic. (Note that the actual name of a cultivar group must contain the capitalized word "Group" if it is to be in accord with the ICNCP.) Peter coxhead (talk) 16:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Agreed; I wasn't suggesting we replace "Group" with "group", but rather "cultivar group" like most sources and like our own article prefer. [A case can be made that linking it as "group" would be okay, but we have to anticipate that some re-uses of WP content, like printed copies, won't have links. And really, just capitalizing "Group" doesn't somehow make it mean "cultivar group", to anyone who wouldn't already recognize that "group" in this context meant cultivar group anyway.] ICNCP can tell us to capitalize "GroupNameHere Group" inside a scientific name, but they can't tell us to capitalize "group" outside that context, any more than ICZN and ICBN can tell us to capitalize the words "order", "family", and "genus" (and I'm pretty sure one of them tried at one point, but gave up; it used to be not terribly uncommon to encounter a academics here and there, like 30 or so years ago, capitalizing these words in running prose, but no one does any longer).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
It's not normal in English to use capitalisation to distinguish between homonyms. That's not an answer as to whether a capital letter should be used in this particular instance, but avoiding confusion should not be part of the rationale. If confusion is likely in a particular context because the reader is unlikely to have ever heard of g/Group, then the answer is to explain what is meant. Formerip (talk) 17:39, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
@FormerIP: it's perfectly normal to use capitalization in English to distinguish homonyms. What's unusual in this case is that one of the homonyms isn't being treated as a proper name; most (but not all) other cases are like "white house" vs. "White House". Peter coxhead (talk) 17:08, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
Yep. The fastest route to that result is to use the full phrase "cultivar group" and link it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  20:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

It's perhaps worth pointing out that "cultivar group" was never the ICNCP term; it used to use the hyphenated "cultivar-group" before it adopted "Group". Peter coxhead (talk) 17:04, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure we care; ICNCP's internal "we hyphenate, no now we capitalize it this way, or else" varying jargon practices are being and long have been ignored by the rest of the world, who overwhelmingly prefer "cultivar group". I personally went through a bookshelf full of botanical and horticultural books, and that's what they were also using. Why else would our article be at that title (WP:COMMONNAME trumps WP:OFFICIALNAME. Ngrams show that of "cultivar group", "cultivar-group" "cultivar Group" and "Group of cultivars", only the first appears in statistically significant numbers.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:15, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Support de-capitalisation (preferred) or a presentation of both options as "group/Group" or "Group/group" or similar. If the members of ICNCP staff who initiated the change "cultivar-group" to "Group" were Wikipedia editors, they would have been laughed off the page. I can't see merit to this prescriptive terminology. In relation to article titles I also think that, despite notification from SMcCandlish that it is the lowest ranked item in WP:CRITERIA, I still think that consistency applies. Parallel terminologies to cultivar-group are not capitalised and I think there is an argument to adhere to this trend. In regard to article titling all the needed guidelines are found at WP:AT which should overrule any other concern. Gregkaye ✍♪ 13:15, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Discussions on italicization of quotations

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussions elsewhere.

I've opened an RfC at Template talk:Tq#Removing the italics option that could affect the frequent problem of quotations being italicized simply because they're quotations. See also Template talk:Qq#Italicization disputed for some related discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:41, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Do not invent abbreviations or acronyms

USU.S. is not the best example to use in this section. I suggest it is changed to some other country where full stops are not an issue described higher up the page eg New Zealand (NZ). -- PBS (talk) 10:57, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Sounds fair enough. That one section mentions the country 21 times (23 if you count "American"). They've had their fill, full stops aside. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:24, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
I concur.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:23, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Ampersands in section headings

I just read both MOS:HEAD and MOS:AMP, but I'm still uncertain if ampersands are appropriate in section headings (e.g. ==Rankings & performance==). Would anybody be able to advise me on that? Also, could we maybe add a sentence to either MOS:HEAD or MOS:AMP to make this more obvious? Thanks in advance! – voidxor (talk | contrib) 18:54, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I read MOS:AMP as saying pretty clearly that we generally don't use ampersands, but that there are a few places where it is OK. Section headings generally wouldn't be OK. SchreiberBike talk 21:12, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

There are two reasons that wasn't clear to me. First, MOS:AMP says, "In normal text..." What does "normal" mean? I took it to mean prose, and section headings aren't prose. Second, it says, "Ampersands may be used...in tables, infoboxes, and similar contexts where space is limited." Well, space is somewhat limited in section headings, is it not? – voidxor (talk | contrib) 21:57, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Ampersands save exactly two characters and usually look overly casual or affected. I don't think section headings are limited in space, compared to more fixed-width situations like tables and info boxes. I think the current guidance is fine, and any situation where two characters would make any difference in a section head is probably incredibly rare. Exceptions for set phrases, corporate names, and common abbreviations (like R&B and AT&T) are already covered in the existing wording. Singling out all of the non-exceptions to the general rule is probably instruction creep.__ E L A Q U E A T E 23:10, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm not arguing the rule; I'm saying that it's not very clear. If I got confused, others will as well. Sure, you and SchreiberBike were able to read between the lines, but you guys are more familiar with the general policies than myself. Would it be fair to add a bullet to MOS:HEAD that says something along the lines of, "Headings should not contain ampersands, except as part of set phrases, corporate names, and common abbreviations (e.g. R&B or AT&T)." – voidxor (talk | contrib) 00:28, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

I think you are right that it could be more clear. The MoS is already very long though, and if we add just one more thing again and again, it becomes too long and less helpful. On the other hand, it's fine to ask here for clarification and usually people are happy to help (if a little snotty - I apologize for my tone). SchreiberBike talk 02:22, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Logical quotation

I noticed that Slim Virgin has been improving the section on logical quotation; nice work! I also noticed that there appears to be an error or omission contained therein. I'm specifically referring to this statement:

"On the English Wikipedia, place all punctuation marks inside the quotation marks if they are part of the quoted material and outside if they are not, regardless of the variety of English in which the article is written ... It does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside the quotation marks all the time, but maintains their original positions in (or absence from) the quoted material.

This is not 100% accurate to LQ as described by Fowler, because a reproduction of what is technically a complete sentence does not necessarily justify inclusion of the full stop inside the quote marks, even when the full stop is present in the source material. E.g., if the quoted fragment does not represent the author's complete thought as presented in the source material. Fowler gives this sentence as an example:

Do not follow a multitude to do evil.

If we quoted a portion of that material that was also a complete sentence, such as We need not "follow a multitude to do evil", the full stop would not, according to Fowler, belong inside, because the quoted portion does not reproduce the author's complete thought. I'm not sure if I've explained this all that well, but hopefully others will understand what I mean. Rationalobserver (talk) 17:39, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I also think it might be helpful to re-order the text a bit to make it clearer earlier that the final period of the quoted sentence is retained only when the end of the quoted sentence and the end of the matrix sentence coincide ("[w]here a quoted sentence occurs before the end of the containing sentence, a full-stop inside the quotation marks should be omitted"). I suppose that rule also applies when the only remaining part of the matrix sentence is a bracket, as in my last sentence. Similarly we should clarify (if correct) that the first word of the quoted sentence is capitalized only if the beginning of the quoted sentence coincides with the beginning of the matrix sentence; I couldn't find this anywhere, and there does seem to be some confusion about it. --Boson (talk) 21:17, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
The capitalization issue is discussed in Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Typographic conformity. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:23, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Thanks! I thought I'd seen it somewhere. It still seems odd that capitalization of the first word and terminating a sentence with a period are dealt with so far apart. --Boson (talk) 23:57, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

This is one of the most contentious parts of the MOS, with multiple RFCs and pages of debate, from as early as last month. Adding advice about non-logical punctuation is confusing, since that's not what we use. The wording has been heavily debated too, and I think reverting to pre-debate versions is just likely to create the exact same debates all over again. __ E L A Q U E A T E 21:46, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

For now I think we should revert to the wording that was settled from the last few debates. I don't think SlimVirgin had a clear consensus to revert to wording that is guaranteed to cause major drama, as it is the exact wording that caused major drama in the past.. If people want to suggest changes to this section, suggest the wording here and get consensus, otherwise we'll have a lot of angry editors who invested days of their lives in the last few debates. __ E L A Q U E A T E 21:54, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
This section has an inline note, that I hope was just accidentally not noticed by the editor making the change: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Changes to this section may escalate into heated dispute. Please consider raising any proposed changes for discussion and consensus-building on the talk page before editing. __ E L A Q U E A T E 21:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
  • We ought to retain a description of aesthetic punctuation, given that it's what most Wikipedians use (and probably most of the publishing world). It's otherwise not clear what the choice is. We also need a description of LQ. Was there consensus to remove it, and if so, can someone point me to the discussion? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:12, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
If we say what to use on Wikipedia, then it's clear what we use. I know there's a choice in the greater world. That's true of every other section in the MoS. We don't list everything we don't use, and in this case, we have a large number of examples in that section. Any attempt at describing LQ in greater detail to everyone's satisfaction have led to acrimonious debate. I can't dig up every discussion right now, but if you look in the archive under "Logical quotation" you'll see how heated and protracted the discussions were. __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:18, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I think this was the last discussion to attempt consensus: [1]. I don't think anyone wants to do this from scratch by reverting to a version all of these editors squabbled over.__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:27, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Someone removed the long-standing warning that LQ does not involve placing all periods and commas outside, which is what most Wikipedians think it means. I can't find consensus to remove that, so if it exists, please show me. I have added:

This practice does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside quotation marks all the time. (In contrast, when using aesthetic punctuation (common in the United States, and much of British fiction and British journalism), periods and commas are always placed inside the closing quotation marks, whether or not they are part of the original quoted material.

From "in contrast," sourced to R. M. Ritter, New Hart's Rules: The Handbook of Style for Writers and Editors, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 155–156. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:39, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Someone removed it after months of discussion. If you want it returned please discuss first. All it takes is one look at the archives to see that making broad undiscussed changes to this section is like starting a forest fire of wasted editor energy. __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:42, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
This instant reverting is really unacceptable, especially when it's a long-standing sentence that's being restored. The way that section is currently written is very unclear. Please point to the discussion where it was agreed to remove that sentence. Otherwise let me restore it. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:44, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
I think the fact you ignored the inline note to seek consensus first was regrettable first. Since that was changed with discussion on the talk page, it's now a bold addition to change it to the pre-discussed version. I think you should show you have a consensus for your change. This is a perennial hot issue, and big changes should be discussed first. I pointed you to this earlier discussion and you should also consider talking to FormerIP about the addition. What the other involved editors ended up with doesn't look my proposed text, so I'm not attached to it. But I do know that what you're attempting to add was seen as inadequate by multiple editors. I think you're making it in good faith, but past discussions haven't shown a consensus for that text.__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:56, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
It was in there a long time (for as long as I recall), and was removed on 1 June by Darkfrog. It needs to be restored, because it's an issue that most Wikipedians get wrong (which is why recommending LQ is a bad idea, but if we're going to recommend it, we must at least make people aware of that point). SlimVirgin (talk) 23:43, 19 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, it was there a long time, and people constantly fought about it. There was a huge discussion after that, and the text was not re-included after it. At this point, I think that if we are putting Coca-cola on the menu, then we don't need a couple paragraphs explaining exactly what Pepsi is in great detail and how we don't have it. If you can think of a new way to explain it that will meet some kind of consensus, more power to you, but defining it as "part of the quoted material" was also fundamentally confusing to people. (Maybe I'll just come back here in a week and see if this newly opened can of worms was successfully dealt with, or if it's just a lengthy re-hash of all the arguments given a couple of months ago.)__ E L A Q U E A T E 00:05, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
Elaqueate, I've been watching this page for years, and I don't recall anyone fighting about that particular sentence (This practice does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside quotation marks all the time). We do need to warn editors that LQ does not mean sticking periods and commas outside. Can you point me to the discussion where there was consensus to remove it? SlimVirgin (talk) 16:21, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
I've pointed you to the vigorous talk page discussion regarding the total wording of the section twice previously. The current section had its examples expanded to address that periods and commas shouldn't be placed outside in all situations. The very first example has the period on the inside, and currently illustrates what you say needs illustrating.__ E L A Q U E A T E 16:59, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
  • I think that the line, This practice does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside quotation marks all the time should be restored, because the key feature of LQ is that there is no definitive answer for every situation, or as Fowler says, "all signs of punctuation used with words in quotation marks must be placed according to the sense."(original emphasis). Rationalobserver (talk) 22:47, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

You know... if policy/guidance really is descriptive and not proscriptive, then I would suggest the entire MOS could be shortened to: Just write as comes naturally to you. Someone will follow up and correct what ever errors you make (even if they are not errors). Then someone else will follow up and correct the correction... after which everyone will get into a long debate about what is and is not correct on the MOS talk page. Meanwhile you can go back to writing articles. That would accurately guide editors on what actual practice is. Blueboar (talk) 23:59, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Too logical__ E L A Q U E A T E 00:08, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
  • (edit conflict) If LQ is required of all articles, then this whole section is proscriptive. The guideline is also missing Fowler's suggestion to replace a full stop with a comma and include that comma inside the marks when quoting a fragment that ended with a full stop mid-sentence. As written now, this section is sorely lacking in its attempt to explain what LQ is according to Fowler. It sounds like some editors made this up. Rationalobserver (talk) 00:05, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
I think the LQ recommendation ought to go. Most publishers (and most Wikipedians) use inside punctuation. LQ is difficult to use correctly, and difficult to explain. But at the very least, the long-standing This practice does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside quotation marks all the time should be restored, as should a description of inside punctuation for contrast.
I agree with Rationalobserver that the current version does not explain it well. Perhaps we should revert to before the May 2014 edits. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:14, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
This was the section on 28 May before the changes began. It seems clearer to me. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:16, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
Okay, that's two of you. There was a massive RFC on this last year. Are there any new arguments that weren't brought up then? __ E L A Q U E A T E 00:22, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
That RfC wasn't worded neutrally (it made AQ sound as confusing as LQ, and mistakenly implied that Brits always use LQ), and it should have been hosted in a neutral venue. The MoS ought to be descriptive on this point, not prescriptive. We ought to describe both systems (using sources, rather than making up our own descriptions and examples), and request only internal consistency. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:29, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
Well, I don't think that a name like J. R. R. Tolkien should have that many spaces after the initials, but it's Wikipedia's default style by consensus, and I would not demand that we include a paragraph about how my preferred way is popular and sensible. It's our style convention, even though it's not one I prefer myself. It sounds like you have a problem with the style and past consensus more than the wording.__ E L A Q U E A T E 00:43, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
Place all punctuation marks inside the quotation marks if they are part of the quoted material and outside if they are not. As has been pointed out above, this doesn't always hold. As it is often described, LQ is about placement according to sense (i.e. *not* source).
This practice does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside quotation marks all the time. I'm not sure that guidance of this type is needed. It is something that should only be added if there is clear consensus for it. In the event of such a consensus, I would say that wording is unclear and, as it is, not correct. In my experience, LQ does indeed place final stops and commas inside or outside quotations marks all the time. Never above, below or in the same place, but always inside or outside.
On the question of whether we should cite sources, we generally do not in the MoS, although I don't see why it should never be done. However, in the current case, there is consensus to use LQ on en.wp, nothing more. Which means we need to ensure that we are not taking an over-prescriptive approach, so we need to be sure that anything we cite is uncontroversial.
I don't think we should revert to May. Even if the current version can be improved upon, that particular action would definitely not be an improvement. Formerip (talk) 00:25, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Elaqueate, it's both. I think LQ shouldn't be recommended on WP because it's fussy and difficult to get right. It's a measure of how difficult it is that MoS editors have not been able to describe it clearly.

Most publishers don't use it. Most editors don't use it either, and of the few that do, most don't get it right. It's particularly difficult to use correctly on Wikipedia, because to do so you need access to the source, but our articles have multiple authors, many of whom don't have that access.

Given that we have STYLEVAR, CITEVAR and ENGVAR, it's puzzling that the MoS takes a different approach with this one, difficult, style issue – and now goes so far as to remove even a description of the more widely used, and much easier, alternative. SlimVirgin (talk) 14:42, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Looking at the WP:MOS, we don't list all of the alternatives, just because there are alternatives. There are different standards in the world for where to add a possessive "s", for how to capitalize titles, for how to add punctuation to abbreviations, etc. This isn't an article describing all of the world's options when it comes to these issues. (We do have an actual article for that, where all styles are documented.) There are many popular styles we don't mention, because there's no consensus to recommend using them. I don't agree with every convention we have in the MoS, but it's a document to show where consensus has fallen on certain broad style issues in the past. For the less common examples where the advice isn't helpful, there's common sense. I don't want to get into a drawn out debate over why there's a consensus of one over the other or why you prefer one. You're welcome to your opinion, some people share it, most others on Wikipedia seem to have disagreed. __ E L A Q U E A T E 15:32, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
(ec) I was amused to see such a collection of statements with which I disagree (I am referring to SlimVirgin's last post here):
  • That a practice cannot easily be codified to the last jot and tittle is no argument to abandon it. In this instance, when what is "right" is confusing, the detail probably does not matter that much. We may as well abandon English.
  • "Most ... don't use it"; "more widely used": this has no real relevance and sounds overstated anyway – which style to use is a choice; there are real benefits in a coherent choice of style; which style dominates in other contexts is not important.
  • xxxVAR: These are all symptoms of a lack of uniformity, but at root they are a rule to keep the status quo rather than warring. They are not at root motivating an introduction of style variation, which is what you seem to be motivating. ENGVAR is a particularly thorny one, not to be emulated.
—Quondum 15:38, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
@SlimVirgin: your comments above reinforce my concern that you are attempting to change the consensus view rather than clarify it. If you have such strong feelings against LQ, then you probably shouldn't be making these edits. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:15, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment The situation is somewhat more complicated than some of the discussion above implies. The English Wikipedia uses the same quotation marks for different purposes, including actual quotation, scare-quotes, and indicating a mention of a word rather than a use. For the last two, the advice is very simple: never include the punctuation within the quote marks. For quote marks used to indicate actual quotation, it is indeed hard to give clear advice, as we discovered in previous RfCs and discussions. However, TQ doesn't solve the problem entirely since it only applies to commas and full stops/periods. You still have to decide where to place colons and semicolons, for example, although these cases are admittedly less frequent. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:10, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment I think an issue that is complicating this process involves the varied interpretations of multiple editors. I suggest that we start by identifying which source we should use as a primary guide. I assume that source is Fowler, so why not re-write the guideline as a direct paraphrase of what Fowler actually suggests, and limit this section in perpetuity to only that which can be directly sourced to Fowler? In my Burchfield edition from 2004, Fowler outlines what we call logical quotation with two overview sections and eight sub-sections. Maybe we should attempt to structure this guideline similarly. I.e., as long as this section is subject to the opinions of editors we will not achieve a lasting consensus. However, if we all agree to only add that which is consistent with Fowler, we will arrive at a lasting consensus that is both accurate to external style guides and relatively easy to follow. Rationalobserver (talk) 18:10, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the degree to which there actually are varied interpretations of multiple editors here, RO. AFAICT, no-one actually disagrees with what is in the current version (unless I've missed it). It's more about whether we should be recommending LQ in the first place and/or particular introductory remarks would be useful. But what I would say is that we should not defer to any particular usage guide. If there are differences between different authorities, then what we should do is advise both or neither. Plus, from a copyright point-of-view, we can't just paraphrase Fowler's. Formerip (talk) 22:03, 20 September 2014 (UTC)
As I said above when opening this thread, the guideline as written is not 100% accurate to Fowler.

[LQ] does not require placing final periods and commas inside or outside the quotation marks all the time, but maintains their original positions in (or absence from) the quoted material.

This is not 100% accurate to LQ as described by Fowler, because a reproduction of what is technically a complete sentence does not necessarily justify inclusion of the full stop inside the quote marks, even when the full stop is present in the source material. E.g., if the quoted fragment does not represent the author's complete thought as presented in the source material. Fowler gives this sentence as an example:

Do not follow a multitude to do evil.

If we quoted a portion of that material that was also a complete sentence, such as We need not "follow a multitude to do evil", the full stop would not, according to Fowler, belong inside, because the quoted portion does not reproduce the author's complete thought. If we aren't basing this guideline on Fowler, then which style guide are we using? Have we invented a system that we call LQ from consensus of editor opinion? Rationalobserver (talk) 15:47, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Umm, that's not the guideline as written; please note that you seem to be quoting the removed sentence as if it was in the guideline now. Many editors agreed with you that the description that contained "maintains their original positions" had problems of sense. That's why we don't have the wording now, and why it was removed in June. __ E L A Q U E A T E 16:06, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
My bad. I hadn't looked back the guideline since SlimVirgin's recent edits were reverted. Rationalobserver (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Technically, it does not matter whether whether WP follows any external style guide, nor whether it chooses to apply the name LQ at slight variance to other style guides, and indeed it does not matter whether the style can be sourced. The purpose of a MoS is to set a style, and this inherently will be done via a consensus between the editors.
That said, using another style guide in refinements to the MoS can be helpful. —Quondum 16:18, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
I hear you, but that's not really my point, which has more to do with attempting to gain consensus amongst numerous editors without any frame of reference. I would bet that 90% of our MoS is taken directly from external style guides anyway, even if they aren't mentioned in-line by name. The way I see it, our style guide should be consistent with external style guides whenever it's not Wikipedia specific. This years-long dispute will never end as long as you and others hold the opinion that we can make this up as we go, and that we can create an LQ system that is not consistent with any one particular style guide. Having said that, I guess local consensus does trump all external logic and reasoning, and I think I'll just disengage here, as this is a mess that nobody wants to correct in any lasting way. Rationalobserver (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
One last point that I'll reiterate is that the guideline is currently missing Fowler's suggestion to replace a full stop with a comma and include that comma inside the marks when quoting – mid-sentence – a fragment that originally ended with a full stop. E.g., if the source material reads: Some dog breeds are obedient, and others are gentle but not obedient., and we quote the last portion: According to John, some dog breeds are "not obedient," but others are., because the quoted fragment ends with a full stop, that full stop should be replaced with an inside comma, per Fowler. Rationalobserver (talk) 17:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Understood, and I don't disagree. But what we have is probably going to remain a poor reflection of a comprehensive style because it does not make sense to devote as much space to it as a comprehensive style guide does.
The example that you give here is unfortunate, since one would never include the period terminating the sentence with a sentence fragment. Hence, it would not be there to be replaced by a comma. Besides, the MoS already does in a sense include your final point: it says: "Where a quoted sentence is followed by a clause identifying the speaker, a comma should be used in place of a full-stop [...]", though I've now reworded this to apply to other clauses. —Quondum 19:54, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
I think it looks better now, and to clarify, all I meant was that because the source material being quoted included a full stop – e.g., "not obedient.", that full stop is replaced with a comma that is included, whereas the full stop, as you pointed out, would have been omitted because the quoted portion is not a complete sentence. However, if the quoted portion was "John is not obedient.", the same rule would apply when quoting this complete sentence mid-sentence. I.e., the full stop should be swapped out with a comma that is included inside the quote marks even though the original text did not have a comma in that position. Rationalobserver (talk) 20:04, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I apologize for being obtuse; I should have phrased my reply to acknowledge what was obviously your intent. —Quondum 21:35, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Rationalobsever, please could you give a citation for this thing about commas mid-sentence? As far as I can see, Fowler's recommends on p 647 that closing points should generally be omitted if the quote occurs before the end of sentence and not replaced by a comma (this is in section iii), but that a comma is used to represent the stop where what follows is "such words as he said" (section iv). This is the same advice as given by the Oxford Guide to English usage. So, I'm very unsure that the change made to the page was appropriate. Formerip (talk) 22:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
FormerIP, on page 647, in IV, a semi-colon is turned into a comma, and included inside the quote marks. Fowler says that "any punctuation at the point where it is broken off, a comma is placed within the quotation marks to represent this." Rationalobserver (talk) 00:49, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
You've quoted half a sentence, though. The full sentence is

When a quotation is broken off and resumed after such words as he said, if it would naturally have had any punctuation at the point where it is broken off, a comma is placed within the quotation marks to represent this.

This only seems to apply in the specific case of a clause identifying the speaker, as per the current guidance, not to any case where a quotation occurs mid-sentence. Formerip (talk) 16:38, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
How so? It seems to apply to whenever the quotation is interrupted, and has little or nothing to do with identification of the speaker. If you want to interpret the example too narrowly, you risk confining it to the specific phrase "he said". The simplest alternative is to interpret it as any interrupting clause. —Quondum 19:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
That's a different suggestion to what has been made above. I'm not sure, though, that it's really possible to have a clause interrupting a quotation other than one identifying the speaker particularly in an encyclopaedic style. Can you think of an example? Formerip (talk) 21:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
How about, "It has been said, 'we need not follow a multitude to do evil,' but Wikipedia editors do not necessarily agree." The speaker has not been identified, but the quoted fragment ends with a full stop that ought to be replaced with a comma. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
There's no interrupting clause in that example, so even if you take a wider interpretation of "words such as he said" than I think is warranted, the example is not supported by Fowler's (because the quote does not resume). Maybe you could have an interrupting clause as an editorial note, but that should really be placed as a footnote or in square brackets. So I think we may be talking about a situation that will never arise. Formerip (talk) 22:03, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
How about, According to Fowler, "it cannot be done," so Wikipedia accordingly recommends that we accept his advice and "give up the task". Notice that I did not include the full stop inside because, although a complete sentence, it does not represent the author's complete thought, which is another aspect of LQ that is currently not represented in the guideline. Rationalobserver (talk) 22:18, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
This example is also not supported by Fowler's because it doesn't contain a single quote which is broken up and resumes. It just contains two separate quotes. Formerip (talk) 23:19, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
How is this syntactically distinct from: "It cannot be done," he said; "we must give up the task.", which is the example that Fowler gives? Rationalobserver (talk) 23:28, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Because you've attributed the first part to Fowler's and the second part to Wikipedia, so what you've ended up with two separate quotations. Also, because your sentence does not contain any "words such as he said". Formerip (talk) 00:00, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Above you said, "I'm not sure, though, that it's really possible to have a clause interrupting a quotation other than one identifying the speaker particularly in an encyclopaedic style."
Source material: "It cannot be done; we must give up the task."
Possible quotation: Nonetheless, it was decided that if "it cannot be done," then "we must give up the task." The need to identify the speaker can be established by the preceding material, and in the proper context the above example is perfectly encyclopaedic. Rationalobserver (talk) 00:11, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
This example provides a good example of why the rule you are supposing is mistaken, whichever version of it we are talking about. Most people would recommend separating off the relative clause in your sentence with commas, which can be understood more easily if we convert to reported speech:
Nontheless, it was decided that, if it could not be done, then the task should be given up.
This is just common-or-garden punctuation, nothing to do with LQ. But if we also apply your LQ rule, we end up with this:
Nonetheless, it was decided that, if "it cannot be done,", then "we must give up the task."
Formerip (talk) 17:13, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
FormerIP, if your point is that we ought not include any language that refers to unlikely scenarios, will you please indicate which, if any, of the current examples are likely constructions on Wikipedia. Except maybe from an article about a movie or book that details a plot summary, every current example is incredibly unlikely to occur in encyclopaedic writing. Rationalobserver (talk) 00:24, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't think it matters very much one way or the other if we describe a rule about something that is unlikely to occur, so long as following the rule will not produce an error.
Here's a challenge: can you find examples of a comma coming immediately before a quotation mark, where what follows is something other than a "he said" type clause, on the websites of The Guardian, The Times, The Telegraph or The Independent? Formerip (talk) 17:34, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Here's one that took me about 10 minutes to find: "As Basil Fawlty famously exclaimed, as he struggled to start his car: 'If you don't go, there's little point in having you,' and Nico Rosberg might have sympathised with those sentiments on Sunday when his team-mate Lewis Hamilton roared off to win the Singapore Grand Prix, leaving the German stuck on the grid." Rationalobserver (talk) 18:30, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
My copyedit that you reverted was just trying to make it read better. But there's a bigger issue in the immediately preceding edits, such as this one in which the advice for whether the comma goes inside or out seems to be explicitly contradictory now, whereas before it was only slightly so. We need to decide which to recommend, or clarify the conditions that would make it go one way or the other. Dicklyon (talk) 22:57, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, that was just me not paying attention to my own revert. I've done it properly now. Formerip (talk) 23:05, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
I've been trying to formulate a short description of the rules behind LQ, which has resulted in me feeling that the bit on the comma that is already there is an intrusion of an AQ rule into the LQ framework. Whatever the case may be, the piece on the comma substitution seems a little inconsistent as it stands. It would be nice to clarify the position on this. —Quondum 23:35, 21 September 2014 (UTC)
I can't follow who is arguing what here, but I want to support Rationalobserver's point about sourcing this to Fowler (and citing it), not making up examples and descriptions of our own, and not leaving out key points. I also can't see a reason to leave out a brief description of the more-common alternative style (commas and periods always inside). SlimVirgin (talk) 16:29, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
FTR, Fowler addresses the "alternative style" in Quotation marks, section 3, which he calls the American English style. Rationalobserver (talk) 16:42, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
FWIW, my Cambridge Guide to English Usage calls this a North American practice,(2004, p.454) and my edition of New Hart's Rules calls it a US practice.(2005, p.155) Rationalobserver (talk) 19:42, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Most style guides refer to these as British and American, or North American, style. The obvious solution is to make it an ENGVAR choice. There has been resistance to doing that, because American style is also used in the UK (in British fiction, in particular).

But that just makes it all the more puzzling that we force the less-popular and more-difficult style on the entire English Wikipedia, including in North American articles, where readers are less likely to have encountered it before. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:25, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

It's interesting to look back at the archives and see how many editors deny this obvious fact. It's almost as though they know it's an EngVar issue, but they take the approach that it is not so that nobody can say that the BrE system is being forced on AmE articles, but as far as I can tell, it is. I agree that punctuation within quotations should be dealt with in the same way that we deal with the other EngVar issues, but I would be very surprised if a consensus would form around that, though I'm really not too certain why it isn't an option. Implementing LQ can be tedious for many AmE editors, whereas the so-called American Style could not be more simple. The previous RfC's suggest that this is – for no apparent reason – Wikipedia's EngVar exception, whereby AmE editors are not afforded the opportunity to reject LQ in favor of the American style, even if local consensus agrees, which seems like a very strange situation indeed. Rationalobserver (talk) 20:46, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
My own preference is that it be a STYLEVAR issue, i.e. the first major contributor chooses. But failing that, ENGVAR would solve the years-long controversy about it, and would make the MoS consistent with what most editors do anyway. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:56, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
"we force ... more-difficult style" that is an opinion not a fact (I think LQ is simpler and less confusing) and I think you ought to qualify such statements by indicating that it is you opinion and not a fact. You are in favour of wording in the MOS that forces reference tags after punctuation, is it not hypocritical of you to support one universal rule that you like and then complain about another that you do not? -- PBS (talk) 21:03, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
PBS, one of my objections to LQ is that we're forcing a minority preference onto the majority. Your ref preference is also a minority one. My aesthetic objection to LQ and your ref tags is that they leave dangling periods and commas, "like this", and this[1]. If you like the danglers, at least you're consistent! SlimVirgin (talk) 22:24, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
  1. ^ 1
For those who understand LQ's subtle machinations, it is not really more difficult, but it does require that the person checking for compliance with LQ has access to the source material, which is not always a convenient thing for a collaborative project like Wikipedia. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:21, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
It seems to me that you don't really have to do that. You can just always put the period outside the quote. That always complies with at least the idea of LQ — even if the period was part of the original quote, so was the part without the period. Similarly for commas. Question marks and exclamation points, if part of the original, need to go inside, but for those there's a clear difference in meaning.
Admittedly this becomes problematic when you're quoting multiple sentences inline. I think (I certainly hope) that that's a rare case. When quoting multiple sentences, editors should consider a pull quote instead. --Trovatore (talk) 21:29, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
"You can just always put the period outside the quote." That is decidedly not LQ; that's the North American style that is expressly forbidden on Wikipedia. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:32, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Possibly I'm not following you — I thought the "North American" style was "always inside" rather than "always outside"??? If I had to give what I was talking about a name distinct from LQ, it would be something like "programmers' style". --Trovatore (talk) 21:48, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, in NA style it is "always inside", so that wasn't really accurate. What I meant was that to always do one thing or the other is not at all LQ, which explicitly suggests to place "according to sense", not to place based on a rule-of-thumb. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:54, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
It's not a "rule of thumb". It follows the logical structure. The period always has the meaning of closing the sentence at the same logical level at which it appears. You just might omit to close off the quoted sentence, but that's not as bad as omitting to close off the "main" sentence (the one doing the quoting).
To do perfect logical quotation, what you should do, when quoting a complete sentence, is allow a period, followed by a quote mark, followed by a period. The "inside" quote mark closes the quoted sentence; the "outside" one closes the main sentence. This seems to be disallowed for purely aesthetic reasons. So which period to omit? If you omit the "outside" one, my programmer brain says that the main sentence was never closed off at all, and it bugs me. Omitting the "inside" one bugs me much less. --Trovatore (talk) 22:17, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
RE: To do perfect logical quotation, what you should do, when quoting a complete sentence, is allow a period, followed by a quote mark, followed by a period." Sorry, but, according to Fowler, this is also wrong; he addresses this point in 2(v), and he recommends that "the point should be set inside the quotation marks and the point closing the main sentence omitted." Rationalobserver (talk) 22:28, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not talking about Fowler. I'm talking about logic. --Trovatore (talk) 22:30, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
(ec) That isn't LQ, Trovatore (and logical quotation has nothing to do with logic). The problem is that Wikipedians use their own punctuation style now, because they've had LQ forced on them, but few know how to use it. So our articles are internally inconsistent. This is bad for new editors, who need to be able to look at an article and discern consistent styles (punctuation, spelling, citations) so they can copy them. SlimVirgin (talk) 22:33, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Ideal would be to use programmers' style consistently, and completely short-circuit the nationalistic aspects of the discussion. --Trovatore (talk) 22:36, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Arb break

(ec) Right, Trovatore, and Fowler agrees that one could logically come to that conclusion, but as a matter of style, it would be absolutely ghoulish to have redundant full stops, so, despite its apparent logic, the suggestion is slightly absurd. To take it one step further, if a two-sentence quote ends with a complete sentence, then why wouldn't you do the same thing that you would do if you quoted only one complete sentence? Why would John said, "that dog is obedient." be correct, but John said, "That dog is obedient. He also said that the dog is gentle." be in correct? I don't see why the preceding material should help determine the placement of the final full stop, so that one sentence might have it included but two or more would not. Rationalobserver (talk) 22:41, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Why would you quote two sentences inline? Use a pull quote. Granted, not always — rigid rules like that rarely work well. But for the most part we shouldn't have long quotations inline.
I think there's a key issue here that's not often discussed: Most of the disputes over quotation styles involve using quote marks to, you know, actually quote something. But that's not the main use model in context! In an encyclopedia, we should not be quoting stuff very much.
The main good uses for quotes, I think, are in order (1) use–mention distinction, (2) scare quotes (including the case of indicating that you're duplicating the nomenclature of a particular author which may be idiosyncratic), and only finally (3) actual quotations.
Now, for the first two uses, putting terminal punctuation inside the quotation mark just makes no sense at all, as far as I can see. --Trovatore (talk) 23:09, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Italics are more appropriate for "mention distinction", and LQ does not apply to scare quotes, i.e., you would never under any circumstances include a full stop in them. Rationalobserver (talk) 23:13, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Italics don't always work well. They work OK for words-as-words, provided you aren't using them elsewhere for emphasis. But use–mention is much more than words-as-words. --Trovatore (talk) 23:31, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
That may well be true, but, as with scare quotes, I cannot foresee an example where you could correctly include a full stop inside the quote marks while using them as |mention distinction; can you? Rationalobserver (talk) 23:38, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
Sure. In so-called "American style", how about this? There is considerable dispute over the correct use of the adjective "American." (Note by the way that I've given you an example where "American style" would require moving the comma inside scare quotes.) --Trovatore (talk) 23:42, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
In LQ, the full stop would not be included because the quoted portion is not a complete sentence, so I'm unsure what relevance this example has to this discussion, except to illustrate that American style might accept this. Per the Wikipedia MoS, the so-called American style is not an option. Rationalobserver (talk) 00:21, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Oh right, for LQ there's no problem at all. I'm adducing it as a reason to avoid adopting AQ. --Trovatore (talk) 00:44, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
I think LQ is absolutely fraught with problems; I was merely pointing out that the current consensus is to disallow AQ and require LQ of all Wikipedia articles regardless of the variety of English in use therein. If it came up for a !vote, I would support allowing local consensus to adopt which ever they wanted, with some respect to EngVar if that's what editors of a particular article wanted. FWIW, the Chicago Manual of Style is 100% AQ, and as far as I can tell, that's the manual that is most often followed here, not that that has any particular bearing on consensus. Rationalobserver (talk) 00:55, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Many of the problems would be obviated by modifying LQ to prefer to keep the period that ends the main sentence, rather than the one that ends the quoted sentence. Yes, I'm aware that it would probably be an innovation in terms of published style manuals, although it's the style that many have used on the Internet almost since the beginning. --Trovatore (talk) 01:00, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Trovatore, I'd be interested to hear what your objection is to AQ. For example, what is wrong with this?

Discussing the view that "LQ is absolutely fraught with problems," Travatore recalled that placing periods outside is "the style that many have [always] used on the Internet."

It's easy to remember, it notes the comma pause, it uses a period to signal the end of the sentence, there's no dangling punctuation, you don't need access to the original source material, and new editors learning the style will know what to do with commas and periods in future based on this one example. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:14, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Extra ping for Trovatore because I mistyped. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:15, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Well, my objection is that it doesn't follow the logical structure. The quotes include punctuation that is not logically part of the material quoted (or mentioned — the "fraught" quote is a mention rather than a quote, given that no one is actually being quoted). And the main sentence omits punctuation that is logically a part of it; there is no period to close the sentence, because the last period that appears is part of the quote and not part of the main sentence. --Trovatore (talk) 01:22, 23 September 2014 (UTC) Oh — on further reading, the period at the end of the "Internet" quote actually does belong to it. Still, the period to close the main sentence is not there. To my mind, if you really can't stomach ."., it is worse to omit the period at the top level than the one inside the quote. --Trovatore (talk) 01:26, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Wow — having trouble getting this quite right. Actually, you were directly quoting Rational, whereas you were not directly quoting me, so my previous "on further reading" intervention is more-or-less backwards. Still, with the obvious modifications, I hope my point is clear. --Trovatore (talk) 01:35, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure how you're using the word logic in this context (the fraught fragment is a quote from Rationalobserver, and the other fragment is a quote from you – just not the whole sentence).
These are just choices about how to present pauses visually. If you listen to someone speak, and you're transcribing, you have to make these choices. And if you're copying someone else's text, you can make your own choice about how to present the pauses (which is AQ), or you can use a mixture of their choice and your own, depending on the context (which is LQ). My question to you is: why not make the choice that is easier to follow, for you and those watching (e.g. new editors)? SlimVirgin (talk) 01:34, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
Come on, "logic" should be clear, shouldn't it? In the sense of Tarski, if you like. Punctuation to some extent does reflect pauses (sometimes I add commas that are not logically necessary, for that reason), but more importantly, it is a guide to the logical structure of the sentence. --Trovatore (talk) 01:38, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
I don't think we should be requiring British punctuation on articles written in non-British varieties of English, but as long as this rule is in place, we should get it right. If British punctuation doesn't really require original placement, then neither should the MoS. That being said, I don't think SlimV did anything wrong. The in-text warning advises editors to consider posting changes here first; it's not required.
Trovatore, the most logical way to write and punctuate is the way that will be understood and recognized as correct by one's readers. The human brain does not process visual information the same way that computers parse text. Example: Some fonts are easier to read with some light sources. We don't need colors to be inside the lines to recognize objects in paintings. The numerical ratio 1:1.66 usually looks uncannily appealing to most people.
Under actual use, American and British styles are roughly equal; neither of them causes non-hypothetical problems under real-world or Wikipedia conditions. They also have their particular ups and downs: American style is easier to learn, use and copy-edit (this last being an advantage on Wikipedia), but British style is more familiar to computer programmers, who make up a disproportionate number of Wikipedians (though not so much as in Wikipedia's early years). Darkfrog24 (talk) 07:45, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
OK, let's be a little careful here. It is important to distinguish between two senses of the word "logical". I am using it to mean "transparently reflective of the underlying logical structure"; you appear to be using it to mean "that which humans, using a rational process, conclude to be the most opportune course to take".
Now, I think the two senses happen to give the same answer here, but that is a different argument. When I use the term "logical" for a style of punctuation, I am referring to the first sense, not per se the second. --Trovatore (talk) 09:37, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
If you'll pardon the digression, where did you find that first definition. It's not quite what's in the OED. Is it a specialized definition, like the way "gender" differs in ordinary English and the social sciences? Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:43, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
  • For the record, I support the efforts to trim down the verbosity of that section, and concur that we do not need to describe or label typesetters' quotation. Labeling it "aesthetic" is terribly PoV-pushing; to anyone not used to it, it's very unaesthetic. Labeling it "American-style" is a factual distortion. Just give our rule, and move on. MOS is too long as it is.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:46, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Examples

Does anyone else think that we should construct new examples that are representative of the kind of encyclopedic writing that one might actually expect to find on Wikipedia? As they are currently written, I cannot imagine any of these constructions occurring on Wikipedia outside a plot summary. Rationalobserver (talk) 16:42, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

What did you have in mind? (If you're referring to the use of Finding Nemo characters, I don't think it's a problem.) Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
It's not the characters per se, it's the content. I cannot envision any of these actually occurring on Wikipedia outside a plot summary, which is okay for one or two, but at least some of the examples should represent things that Wikipedians would actually write in other types of articles. Also, I wonder if there are any copyvio issues involved with directly quoting material from the movie outside article space. We essentially have 10 quotes that we've made no attempt to justify based on fair-use. Maybe I'm wrong about this, but we could never include 10 unattributed quotes of material from a copyrighted work elsewhere on Wikipedia. Could we? Rationalobserver (talk) 15:53, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
We're probably okay for copyvio, but I see what you mean about focusing more on the type of quotation that would happen in an article. Things like song titles are more common than long dialogue-style quotations. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:13, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
I would be happy to come up with a few alternates, but I get the feeling that FormerIP will revert any attempts to remove the existing examples. Rationalobserver (talk) 19:15, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
Whenever the issue of converting WP:LQ to an ENGVAR-based rule comes up, I usually return to these.

Bruce Springsteen, nicknamed "The Boss," wrote "American Skin." for American style and Eric Clapton, nicknamed "God", wrote performed "Cocaine". for British.

Is this more like what you had in mind? Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:16, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Yes, that much closer to what I would expect to see on Wikipedia! Rationalobserver (talk) 18:03, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Adjust that for accuracy; Eric Clapton did not write Cocaine (song). Better go with "Wonderful Tonight" if you want a Clapton solo composition. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:12, 28 September 2014 (UTC)
Egad! Fixed. (And of course the American examples wouldn't go in under the current MoS rules, though I live in hope.)
Well let's make a list of the sorts of things Q marks are regularly used for on Wikipedia: 1. song titles (covered), 2. words-as-words (covered by the nicknames), 3 direct speech quotations (Darla and Marlin have that). What else? Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:55, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
In the same group as song titles are episode titles and short story names. Also, nicknames when included in part of a non-nick-name ("Weird Al" Yankovic). --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:56, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

A partial revert

I am going to partially reverted the outcome of a series of edits made on 21 September. from "Where a quoted sentence is followed by a clause that should be preceded by a comma, its full stop should be replaced with a comma," to "Where a quoted sentence is followed by a clause that should be preceded by a comma, its full stop should be omitted". The reason for this is because to replace a full stop with a comma inside the quotes is not logical punctuation (as it implies that the comma was part of the original quote). Also the placement of the comma inside the quotes was directly contradicted by the next example in the MOS (as was a missing comma on the second example). I have placed commas after the quote to match the recommendation of the next sentence in the MOS (but I am not fussed about whether the commas are retained in the sentences or not).

Where a quoted sentence is followed by a clause identifying the speaker, a comma should be used in place of a full stop, but other terminal punctuation may be retained. Again, a question should end with a question mark.

Dory said: "Yes, I can read", which gave Marlin an idea.
Dory said: "Yes, I can read!", which gave Marlin an idea.

However this example also has a problem. The clause identifying the speaker (unlike the one I am changing) is flawed because the "clause identifying the speaker" precedes the quoted sentence rather than following it.

-- PBS (talk) 12:52, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Good catch. And feel free to propose alternative wording, though this one seems clear enough to me.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:48, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Latin incipits

See discussion here: WT:AT#Italicization of Latin incipits --Francis Schonken (talk) 02:20, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Please review changes at WP:ORDER

I changed WP:ORDER to be a text summary and list overview of Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Layout. I would appreciate anyone commenting at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Layout#WP:ORDER_and_a_master_list_for_the_layout_order on the changes I made. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:19, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Someone asked for the diff - I am now sharing it here, but please put comments on the layout page because that is the natural place to archive discussion. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:06, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

The Key to lists. No style guideline exists.

I have requested a discussion on whether the explanatory key to a list should be prominently displayed before, to the side or after a list, or is there a better, smarter, but still fully accessible to all users, alternative method of providing a key. As far as I can see, the key is not mentioned in any MOS guideline. Whilst the discussion started at a FLC review and continued at WT:CRIC, it is bigger than a single article or project, so should be discussed at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Lists#The_List_Key. The-Pope (talk) 01:54, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

NOTUSA in template parameters

We say here, "Do not use U.S.A. or USA, except in a quotation or as part of a proper name (Team USA), because these abbreviations are also used for United States Army and other names."

The rationale pertains to prose. Is there any reason to shorten or expand USA in template {{infobox person}} [2] and {{Persondata}} [3] birthplace and deathplace parameters? I doubt it.

--P64 (talk) 16:59, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

No means no. Radiopathy •talk• 23:17, 29 September 2014 (UTC)
In relation to {{infobox person}} I have submitted a proposal to promote entries on "Citizenship" in a relatively prominent position or instead of "Nationality". The idea here is to better facilitate patriotism rather than nationalism but in a way that would give editors more freedom of expression. Nationality only permits entries such as "American" or "British" while citizenship permits these entries but will also permit entries such as "U.S.", "UK", "United States" or "United Kingdom".
It also may be of relevance to note that enemies of the United States make consistent use of the term America and that the terminology "United States" is pretty well country specific while the term America is applied to two continents.
Gregkaye ✍♪ 15:27, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Enemies such as the BBC? Radiopathy •talk• 23:05, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Ah yea, and that proposal is dead. Not the best place to propose something as far reaching as that. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:51, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Interesting discussion concerning ENGVAR

Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games. --John (talk) 21:58, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Is close paraphrasing acceptable?

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 116#Is close paraphrasing acceptable?. A WP:Permalink to that discussion is here. Rationalobserver (talk) 20:11, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

RfC - Animal breeds in lower case

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capitalization

The capitalization of animal breeds is not specifically called out in the Manual of Style. This has led to numerous disputes, and it seems to me the MOS should provide some guidance in this matter. There is no reason to leave it up to the individual editor. Obviously this would not apply to proper nouns within a breed name. Should 1) the Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms section, 2) the Common names subsection of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Animals, plants, and other organisms, and 3) the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna) page be amended to add animal breeds to the list of items that are generally lowercase? Krychek (talk) 19:11, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

@InedibleHulk: See below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Details as promised above: See outline at User:SMcCandlish/Capitalization of organism names#Capitalization of breeds and cultivars for why this is complicated for breeds. Most of the disputation over animal breed article titles (see the large number of ongoing WP:RM discussions about such article titles) is not about capitalization of the unique part of the breed name, which has been done throughout almost all articles on formal breeds already. (Whether one wants to make a WP:FAITACCOMPLI argument about that is a different matter.)

    The issues usually are:

    1. Whether to use natural vs. parenthetical disambiguation ("Siamese cat" vs. "Siamese (cat)". WP:NATURAL policy clearly tells us to use natural disambiguation over parenthetical, and WP:COMMONSENSE tells us to do this in article prose any time the usage isn't clear. E.g., use "had a Siamese cat" not "had a Siamese" in a bio article, since readers may have no idea what "Siamese" means in that context otherwise.
    2. Whether (in some cases or in all cases) the species name is included and capitalized as part of the breed name (Siamese Cat vs. Siamese cat). This is a WP:RS (but not exclusively specialist sources) matter: Do most reliable sources indicate that it's always part of the name (as in cases too ambiguous for anyone otherwise, like American Quarter Horse and Norwegian Forest Cat? In most cases the answer is "no".
  • I wrote most of the WP:Specialist style fallacy essay, and am not entirely convinced it's applicable in this case, because most breed names are are composed of adjectival forms of proper names to begin with (Persian, etc.), thus capitalized by everyone, and for those that are not (or contain parts that are not, e.g. the "shepherd" in "German shepherd" dog), the usage in general, non-specialist sources is much more mixed than it is for species common names; "German Shepherd" is actually quite common. Even Chicago Manual of Style contradicts itself on this, suggesting lower case, but showing "Rhode Island Red", with "Red" capitalized." Virtually no non-specialist sources capitalize species names. (When's the last time you saw "I was riding my Horse after I fed my Dog and Cat, when I saw a Mountain Lion chasing a Red-tailed Deer"? No one writes like that.) However, a non-trivial number of general-readership sources do capitalize names of standardized breeds. I agree that MOS definitely should say something specific about this, but lower case across the board probably isn't it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:48, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Comments
  • It would be helpful if we used "title case" vs. "sentence case" rather than "capitalization" vs. "non-capitalization"; everyone agrees that words like "German" or "Rhode Island" are capitalized regardless.
  • If you try Google ngrams on commonly used breed names, like "German Shepherd" vs. "German shepherd" (as here) in my experience the sentence case form is always more frequent when there are sufficient cases to make the comparison meaningful. As with other aspects of capitalization, there's an ENGVAR difference: title case is less common in American English than in British English.
  • most breed names are proper names to begin with – well, no; most breed names seem to contain words that are conventionally capitalized, like geographic locations, but in their entirety they are not proper names, any more than the English names of species are. The grammatical evidence is quite clear. Thus if "German Shepherd" were a proper name like "Germany", you couldn't use an article with it or make it plural, but "I have a German Shepherd" is perfectly ok, as is "I have two German Shepherds". Grammatically, breed names are most often used as count nouns but can also be used as mass nouns (as in "The German Shepherd is a reliable dog").
  • a non-trivial number of general-readership sources do capitalize names of standardized breeds – it's hard to do the statistics, but most serious generalist sources don't seem to use title case. The National Geographic, for example, has had several articles about dogs in the last few years – most recently in the June 2014 issue – and never capitalizes words like "shepherd".
  • If we have to have a general rule (personally I'm happy with just consistency within articles), the easiest for everyone to follow is the style generally preferred in the MOS, namely sentence case. This avoids all the disputes over whether the species name is part of the breed name and so capitalized. The rule is simple: capitalize only those words in a breed name which would normally be capitalized in a normal English sentence. Remember that editors writing in articles not about breeds and so not specially interested in them may need to mention a breed and need guidance from the MOS.
  • Whatever is decided, both forms will continue to be commonly used throughout Wikipedia articles, as they still are for the English names of species regardless of the long and bitter battles over this.
Peter coxhead (talk) 08:08, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: It'll itemize a response; none of it's earth-shaking, and may not affect the outcome much, so I'll collapse-box it to avoid a text-wall in mid-RfC.
Detailia...
A lot of people don't know what "sentence case" and "title case mean", and MOS and AT and NC pages have been pretty consist about saying things like "do not capitalize, except in the case of a proper name" (we also sometimes say "or at the start of a sentence" and so. I'm thinking we need a MOS:STANDARDCAPS section where we spell out proper names, start of sentence, start of list item, table heading, etc., and then just refer to this: do not capitalise (aside from the [[MOS:STANDARDCAPS|standard exceptions]]). It'll make the wording less repetitive and also less subject to WP:GAMING if there's some spot where an exception wasn't mentioned.

Ngrams: Yes, this is why I was initially of the "down with breedcaps" mindset, for several years. However, most more specialized sources do capitalize, and they do it pretty much universally across all species (orders, really), in all anglophone countries, and in every field in which breed names come up frequently. These include the show-breeding fancy, animal sports, livestock management and breeding, genetic resources conservation, veterinary medicine, and many others. I.e., it really is a de facto inter-disciplinary standard. The huge difference between this and bird species common name capitalization is that the latter was an ornithology jargon practice rejected even for ornithology articles by more general peer reviewed journals. Not only was the convention not applied to mammals, etc., it was thrown out by everyone even for birds, except in most (not even all) ornithology journals (and bird field guides). It would be as if no one ever capitalized the names of domestic animals, except WP:WikiProject Cats insisted that they (well we; I'm in that one) had a unique special standard to capitalize cat breed names. So, the WP:BIRDCON stuff and the breeds cases aren't very comparable.

NB: There's an army of dog people who will argue with you until you keel over dead that the formal breed name of the canine you mentioned is German Shepherd Dog (and a few who will fight them to the death that it's really German Shepherd dog), not German Shepherd, but conversely that in most breeds the species name is not part of the breed. I'm sick of this constant squabbling over minutiae, so I've proposed a simple sources-based solution in #Alterantie proposal, below.

Proper names: I agree with you against, and was not making any argument for, the idea that breeds are intrinsically proper names like "Germany" or "Charles Dickens". Rather, a majority of breed names are "officially" of the form Proper_Name (Samoyed, Plymouth Rock), not Proper_Name Something_else (Australian White, German Sheperd), so a majority are composed of proper names, to be more precise, and those that are not usually contain one. This means most will be capitalized, anyway.

General-audience sources: Agreed that a majority do not capitalize, but the number of those that do (at least some of the time - it often depends on the writers/editors in question) has been increasing, probably because almost all specialist sources do it, so anyone doing actual research, e.g. for an article on Pit Bull violence statistics, rather than just mentioning the senator has Border Collie, are likely to encounter consistent capitalization and be more likely to use it, especially since CMoS directly contradicts itself.

Consistency: The number, frequency and heat of disputes about this stuff are more than adequate to demonstrate that "just do whatever, as long as it's consistent inside the same article" isn't working.

It's also taken years (still not entirely done) cleaning up all the improper capitalization of mammals and whatnot that happened because participants in that one project keep pushing for species capitalization across WP, against sources. Goes both ways. It's not a pain in the backside only when one side vs. the other gets what they want, nor is it more a problem this time than it was before just because the one side doesn't prevail in the face of the other. Goose/gander. :-)

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:24, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Comment: CMoS may have one seeming contradiction in it, but that doesn't exactly open the floodgate or prove that it's a useless model to follow. The reasoning behind their main entry is still solid. Capitalization is not a matter of respect, which is the main argument the breeder crowd seems to keep taking. We capitalize a word to show that it refers to a specific, unique, individual instance of a thing as opposed to category of things. A breed is, by definition, a category of things. We capitalize German because there's only one Germany. We capitalize Tara Reid because we are referring to a single person who goes by that name (even though there may be others). If we were to capitalize Cocker Spaniel, it would imply that there is only one dog in all the world that is a Cocker Spaniel, or that we are always referring to a certain specific individual dog when when use that term. I think it's important to remember the reasons behind the rules before we start making exceptions. Krychek (talk) 15:51, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

@Krychek:@Peter coxhead:I'm not going to vote, but I hope a grammatical comment is in order. We often capitalize categories of things. As an American and a Jew (who has never been to any of the Hamptons), I know this, and as a white man and an assistant professor, I know we don't capitalize other categories. (Well, some people capitalize racial "white" and "black".) The way to answer this question is not by whether "golden retriever / Golden Retriever" is more like "Berber" than it is like "white person". —JerryFriedman (Talk) 16:58, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
I was punning upon Emerson, to point out that very thing about those who insist on a one size fits all ironclad rule of capitalization. It isn't going to work! Your comment that capitalization is common across most specialist sources actually lends credence to my point; show respect for the experts! Birdcon also is a case in point; after much hue and cry, the experts were discredited and some of them left altogether in disgust. This does not lead to WP being viewed as a reliable source for anything; rather it embeds its unreliability in people's minds. Montanabw(talk) 19:17, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
@JerryFriedman: In general, adjectives inherit the capitalization of the proper nouns they derive from. We capitalize the word "American" because it is derived from "America," of which there is only one. We capitalize the word "Jewish" because it is derived from "Judaism," of which there is only one. Of course, breed names in WP article titles are nouns, so this may be slightly off-topic. Krychek (talk) 20:01, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
@Krychek:I meant "American" as a noun, and I used the noun "Jew", not the adjective "Jewish". If you want a proper name that "Judaism" is derived from, it would be "Judah" (if there was such a person), not "Judaism". But that's beside the point. A number of categories of people that aren't named after singular proper nouns are still capitalized: Berber (which I mentioned), Apache, Nama, Vlach, Orthodox, Presbyterian, Sunni, etc. A number of others aren't: black, atheist, artist, woman, etc. Grammar won't help with the names of animal breeds. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:22, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
@JerryFriedman: Grammar won't help with the names of animal breeds. Absolutely – any more that it did with the English names of species (see my essay English species names as proper names, which applies equally to breed names). Capitalization is a convention; one which varies in time, by variety of English, by topic area, by kind of publication, etc. Where there is such variation the English Wikipedia is free to choose its own conventions. Consistency with the choice already made for the English names of species (which I disagreed with at the time) and clarity of explanation for non-expert editors suggests to me that sentence case – capitalizing only those words normally capitalized in running text – is the best convention to adopt. But it's clearly just a convention, and the alternative proposal below is equally clearly just another one. Neither has any particular claim to grammatical authority. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:38, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
@JerryFriedman:Well, "Vlach" comes from "Walachia," a singular geographical region, and "Sunni" comes from "Sunna," a singular subset of Muslim holy law. The Presbyterian Church was originally a singular institution, though it may no longer be considered as such by some people. And we do not capitalize the word "orthodox" unless it is used to refer to a specific religious sect. I'll grant you "Apache" as the exception that proves the rule; no rule of grammar is 100 percent consistently applied, even in standard English. But in general, my guideline remains solid. Krychek (talk) 14:37, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
@Krychek:"Vlach" doesn't come from "Wallachia" (OED)—it's more like the other way around. And since you granted Apache, what about Navajo, Pueblo, Blackfeet, Iroquois, Nama, !Kung, Ashanti, etc., etc., etc.? This saves me from having to argue about the others, some of which I admit are in grayer areas. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 22:31, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Oppose. English names of domestic animal breeds, hybrids, and lines are invariably capitalised in Wikipedia as in all reliable sources, such as (to name a couple of the most obvious) DAD-IS (the world reference agricultural breed database), the thesaurus of CAB International or the standard printed reference work: Valerie Porter, Ian Mason (2002). Mason's world dictionary of livestock breeds, types, and varieties. Oxford; New York: CABI. ISBN 9780851994307.
There are some grey areas. One is the capitalisation of foreign-language names that are current in English: should our article be at Cinta senese (correct Italian capitalisation, the name of the breed) or at Cinta Senese, following English capitalisation rules? Another area that is grey to me is the capitalisation of colour variants and the like in pet and fancy breeds; is it Black molly or Black Molly (our article has both)? We don't have an article on the Black Pewter; when we do, will it be at Black Pewter or Black pewter? There are about a hundred chicken colour patterns, not nearly all of them in the List of chicken colours; when those become articles, will they be capitalised? However, these are largely academic, though I'd appreciate views on the foreign-language names. Overall, we capitalise, as do the sources. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:15, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Notification?

  • Question for Krychek and SMcCandlish: which of the WikiProjects potentially affected by this proposal have you notified of this discussion? Or is the idea to have the discussion without the participation of those affected by it, and then tell them the plans have been on display in Alpha Centauri for fifty years? Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 16:45, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
    • People at wikiprojects who care about style matters should watchlist this page. The current discussion has mostly been among people who edit and care about the MOS and AT, to see what support or objections would be raised and on what basis, before any disruptive WP:OWN/WP:LOCALCONSENSUS histrionics muddy the waters. If this discussion were to conclude with a likely consensus, something more specific will be drafted and formally proposed, with other forums notified for broader participation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:06, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Alternative proposal

I think the chaos in treatment of animal breeds can be fixed with a simple addition to MOS:LIFE (with conforming instructions at MOS:CAPS), grounded in WP:Verifiability and WP:Reliable sources:

The name of a breed of domesticated animal is capitalized only where published breed standards consistently capitalize the name; when standards do not agree on capitalization of a term, or in the absence of a standard, use lower case. The names of breed groups, landraces, traditional varieties, feral populations, and other groups or types of domestic animal are not capitalized except where they contain a proper name.

Plus a conforming change to WP:NCFAUNA (and conforming, more concise edit to WP:NCCAPS), also grounded in WP:V and WP:RS, as well as WP:NATURAL policy:

An article about a domesticated breed is capitalized, after the first character, only where published breed standards consistently capitalize the name; when standards do not agree on capitalization of a term, or in the absence of a standard, use lower case except for proper names. For other varieties or populations, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms. Use natural disambiguation, not parenthetical, for names that may be ambiguous or confusing to the average reader: Mustang horse, Himalayan cat, Blue Grey cattle, Netherland Dwarf rabbit, as reliable sources do; avoid constructions like Romagnola (chicken). Use the common name of the species (cattle, sheep, pig, etc.) for this purpose, unless a conventional alternative is usually applied in reliable sources (e.g. fowl, hound, swine). Do not capitalize the species unless reliable sources consistently indicate it is a formal part of that breed name (as in Norwegian Forest Cat, American Quarter Horse). Add the species after breed names that use terms applicable to more than one species: Peppin Merino sheep and English Merino cavy, German Red Pied cattle and Aksai Black Pied pig. Do not use it when names are unique enough to be recognizable, precise, and not confusing: Wessex Saddleback, Rosecomb.

This would be consistent, easy and compatible with the largest number of reliable sources, both specialized and general-audience. The only likely objections are:
A) Some sources capitalize all words in the names of all distinguished populations, even landraces and mongrelized feral groups. But WP doesn't care; per WP:NCCAPS, WP:MOSCAPS and WP:MOSLIFE, we use lower case when the sources do not agree. This was the central issue in the WP:BIRDCON dispute, which concluded in favor of using lower case for common names of species even when specialized sources capitalize.
B) Some may not understand the distinction between names of the format "Foo Bar baz" and "Foo Bar Baz". This doesn't matter, however; per WP:DIFFCAPS it is good enough, and per WP:AT, the purpose of article titles is to identify the article subject, not explain it, that being the job of the article text. Animal breeds, and landraces, and types, and whatever, are best distinguished by clear wording in lead sections.
C) "It's a Siamese, not a Siamese cat! That's a made-up name!" No, it's a formal breed name followed by WP:NATURAL disambiguation, and it's the way everyone, all the time, everywhere disambiguates these names in the real world, in both speech and writing. Except to be a snooty twit, no one would ever say or write just "I have a Yokohama", except in a context where the reader/listener was certain to already understand that a Yokohama chicken was meant.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:31, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

  • My take on this issue is that we are seriously over thinking it. I don't see any significant difference between Yokohama Chicken, Yokohama chicken and Yokohama (chicken breed). All three options are sufficiently clear as to what the article is about... all three sufficiently disambiguate the topic from other topics that could be entitled Yokohama (such as the city in Japan).
That said... I do think it makes sense to reserve the form: X (animal type) for articles about a specific (notable) animal named "X" (for example, I think it makes sense to reserve the title Yokohama (chicken) in case there is a specific (notable) chicken named "Yokohama").
Consistency is a good goal, but it can be over done. And when it rises to the level of a forced conformity, imposed simply for conformity's sake, it becomes pointless and disruptive. An insistence on conformity simply leads to needless arguments. Blueboar (talk) 12:33, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
Agreed it's a distinction the average reader doesn't care about. Agreed on "Name (species)" format implying a name for a notable individual of that species (though it could also be other things, such as a feature pertaining to the species, those are also better done with natural disambiguation, e.g. "Horse hoof" vs. "Hoof (horse)"). Article titles of the form "Foo (species breed)" or "Name (species)" are undesirable as breed article titles for other reasons, too, e.g.: simply because they're longer than "Name species", no one is searching for such a text string, it's unnatural, people really expect "Foo species" for any breed they're not already familiar with, and various other reasons. "Forced conformity", meh. That argument is used against every single rule in MOS and AT by someone. The point of this alt. proposal is that every other breed "expert" has some deeeeeply held view about this crap, and will editwar you into the ground about it for a year. This nonsense should just be put to bed permanently, by application of extant policies/guidelines and reliable sources. If someone is really, really, really sure that the formal breed name "officially", genuinely, definitely is "Name Species", they can cite sources to prove it, otherwise we should just use normal English, which is "Name species"; if they don't even have a breed standard to cite that capitalizes, then it's "name species". That's not over-thinking it at all. Overthinking it is when we entertain fanciful ideas like that WikiProject Guinea Pigs gets to make up its own standards, that contradict WP:AT policy and WP:MOS, and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy based on a handful of individuals' POV-pushing interpretations, and then that WikiProject Ferrets gets to do likewise, but in a way that's not even consistent with WP:GUINEAPIGS. Well, frankly, to hell with that. Everyone but the people playing these precious little "my project, my articles, my names" games is sick of this silliness. We don't have different AT/MOS standards for how to refer to cars and their parts based on manufacturer, or rivers based on which direction they run, or trees based on whether they're deciduous or not, or whatever. There's no basis on which to make a special case for "let chaos reign" when it comes to animal breeds.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:02, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
The use of lower case "landrace" needs a RS. According to OED, the upper case "Landrace" is a Danish breed of swine, the lower case "land race", is two words, and applies to non-pigs. —Neotarf (talk) 13:51, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
OED is about 50 years outdated on this one; we have a well-sourced article at Landrace covering all this. Don't confuse actual landraces (local varieties of domestic species that are adapted to their environment without much in the way of selective breeding by humans, at least not within living memory and then some, e.g. 200 years) and standardized breeds with "Landrace" (capitalized) in their names; the latter are formal breeds derived from landraces, and aiming to "capture" and breed-true their most defining phenotypic characteristics; but being formal, pedigreed breeds, selectively bred to a standard, they're essentially the opposite of an actual landrace.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:02, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I second the comments of Blueboar. Also, one size fits all approach is not suitable, Breeds are not species, governed by an internationally-understood set of nomenclature. There is significant variation, particularly where breeds are given proper names, and sometimes the registries even trademark a name (I know of one example of this right off the top of my head, Pintabian). A classic example is the American Quarter Horse, which NO ONE calls an "American Quarter" and likewise it is not proper to call it an "American quarter horse". (one occasionally, in informal use, sees "quarterhorse") It is a very specific breed, with millions of registered animals. WP is not supposed to engage in OR or SYNTH, and that includes naming of things. Montanabw(talk) 00:15, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
@Montanabw: Oppose on what basis, though? This (the alt.) proposal would in fact having us use American Quarter Horse not "American Quarter horse" much less "American quarter horse", precisely because the reliable sources support the name American Quarter Horse as the formal breed name. And it would prevent us using "Calabrese Horse" for Calabrese horse, because reliable sources generally do not support that overcapitalization. No one said breeds are species; not a related point. Trademarks would be capitalized as such, regardless of other concerns, so again not a related point. What, exactly, is the objection to following the sources and our WP:AT policies? This is really a no-brainer, and it actually directly supports everything the horses project is doing in its present article naming. It prevents, however, someone forcing overcapitalization because they say without proof that the breed name "really" is "Calabrese Horse" just because they like it capitalized that way, or decapitalizing the other to "American quarter horse" because the capitalization is "wrong". This kind of perennial debate has stop, or you can see where this going; people proposing a "decapitalize them all, let God sort 'em out" solution will eventually pop up frequently enough and in sufficient numbers to see that happen. The solution is to use extant policies and reliable sources, and drop the opinion-mongering entirely.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:33, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
Comment:  : The you are describing pretty much the status quo on the horse breeds, but I am actually unclear what your actual position is on this issue - do you and I actually agree on something for a change? (That would be cool, unfortunately, your walls of text tend to obscure your position, not clarify it.) We already do use reliable sources, etc. The problem is that, if you go way back in the history, the Quarter Horse article actually HAS been edit-warred over exactly this issue (look at the redirect pages...) I also am not certain that AQHA has trademarked Amerian Quarter Horse, as I am not sure you really can give this sort of breed a "copyright" - unlike a plant cultivar or a prescription drug. The truth is that the real reason WP uses sentence case and not title case (like the rest of the world) is not due to it being consistent with any style manual that I know of, but because the software seems to insist that Capitals and lower-case letters are two different things - for Caps, at least. Montanabw(talk) 18:09, 4 October 2014 (UTC)
@Montanabw: Yes, we do agree on this. I know it's been editwarred over; all of these articles of any note have. The fact is that alleged "subject-matter experts" (many of whom are not, they're just breed aficionados of one kind or another) are all individually convinced they have the One True Answer, and they often contradict one another. If we just use extant policies/guidelines and reliable sources we arrive at what the appropriate answer for Wikipedia is: Use the formal breed name, avoid capitalization otherwise, use WP:NATURAL disambiguation when we need to disambiguate (don't add parenthetical except in the rare case of need to disambiguate a landrace from a breed, and breed from a cross-breed, a breed from an anatomical feature or classification, a breed from a different species, etc.). Ultimately, I firmly predict it's going to this way anyway, because that's just how we do thing. I'm trying to save us all further drahmaz by spelling it out now. It won't satisfy everyone perfectly – there's the camp that want to decapitalize entirely other than for proper names embedded in breed names, and there's the camp who want to capitalize all of the names, even types and groups and species (they've already been overturned), and there's the type who revolt at the idea of "Horse" being capitalized in the case of "American Quarter Horse" but not others. But ultimately, they kind of have to go along with the policies and sources. It's just what we do, especially when opinion-based approaches are never, ever going to compromise and come to agreement.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:58, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: if this is the best compromise – and I'm not saying it isn't – the problem with accepting it in the MOS is that it's an example of basing styling (here capitalization) on sources, which is precisely what has been rejected in so many other cases. It would certainly be a very good precedent for re-opening some of these. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:40, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: I'd be fine if this were considered a WP:AT discussion that will affect MOS rather than a MOS discussion that will affect AT; AT spends more time handwringing over sources than MOS does. MOS does actually base most of what it says on sources, usually generalist ones, like other style manuals. But sometimes specialist ones; most of MOS:NUM, for example, is direct from ISO, ANSI, ITU, IAU, etc., etc. MOS doesn't do what specialist sources do when they want something that conflicts with overwhelmingly preferred usage in general-purpose publications (e.g., WP hasn't adopted "gibibytes" because the computer press doesn't use it, and WP isn't capitalizing common names of species because it's not standard except in a handful of ivory towers). Animal breed names are kind of on the cusp of this. There are many non-specialist sources that do and do not capitalize them, while all the specialists sources, almost without exception, and across all relevant fields do so (contrast this with species common names - almost no specialist sources ever do this either, except ornithology ones [not universally or consistently], and a few botany and entomology sub-field ones, while other fields and even general science journals will have none of it). But it probably is more of an AT (WP:COMMONNAME) thing, anyway. We don't want a situation where MOS "wants" to call some breed by a particular name, but it's not what we use for the title because of WP:CRITERIA concerns. It's more that MOS:LIFE needs defacto rules for what to do when AT tells us what name to use; AT doesn't tell us style matters, like how to capitalize, so it's fine for MOS to say "capitalize the species, if included, only when it's part of the formal breed name".

Honestly, I would be okay with just decapitalizing them entirely except where they contain proper names (it's the position I used to advocate), but after WP:BIRDCON and some otherwise valuable editors actually leaving the project over the matter (for a while, anyway, other than to show up as anons to post hatemail about it and me fairly regularly), I'm trying to be more conciliatory toward specialist views. Here, I've been trying to spell out a way that everyone can have their cake, and basically it seems like a) most people don't care, and b) those who do are too invested in verbally fighting with me to bother to analyze what I'm saying. I thus think the eventual likely result, whether I participate any longer or not, is decapitalization. The opportunity to settle on a standard people could accept is being wasted.

As I outlined at my organism caps subpage, the actual case to be made for capitalizing standardized breed names isn't the same as for species; it's stronger for std. breed names than species names in several ways. I think this is true even from the "what the reader will tolerate". Virtually no readers are going to be happy with "Mountain Lion" or "Horse" or "Bottle-Nosed Dolphin". I know the birders hate it when I say this, but it frankly, really, truly does look ignorant to most readers, like when grocers write "special today, Orange's 3 for $1". It may make sense in field guides and (supposedly) in orn. journals, but no one else will accept it, even when prublishing orn. papers. It's a lost cause. Far too many people's minds immediately rebel against it as obviously incorrect. Hardly anyone has this kind of "WTF?" reaction to Golden Retriever or American Quarter Horse or Rhode Island Red; we're all used to seeing breed names capitalized at least some of the time.

But if each wikiproject wants to keep pretending that WP:AT and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS don't exist and they can just make up their own, conflicting rules on the fly, I think we all know how that will end, after several more months or years of squabbling. BIRDCON tells us how that ends pretty clearly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:50, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I understand well all the points you're making, and as you know I'm generally sympathetic to trying to find compromise positions. I'm just not convinced that it will work. A general rule in the MOS needs to be simple – consensus page by page documented on talk pages can allow for more complexity. I worry that trying to distinguish between "Yokohama Chicken" and "Yokohama chicken" will end up like trying to distinguish "Wilkes-Barre" (a city named after two people has a hyphen according to the MOS) from "Hale–Bopp" (a comet named after two people has an endash). Guidance that most editors can't understand discredits the MOS. Your alternative proposal may be a case of the search for the best driving out the good. Anyway, I've written enough (probably too much) on this issue, so no more. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:11, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
I could go on but there is enough to show (to any that really care) that there is a super diverse naming across Wikipedia that, far more often than not, has nothing to do with what is used in reliable sources. I checked so many names my eyes hurt and I found that consistently the breed was used in the body of a reference. I suppose it just makes too much sense to call cattle as cattle, a bird a bird, a chicken a chicken, and so forth as natural disambiguation. Otr500 (talk) 23:17, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Partial oppose, partial support: this will set a precedent for more capitalization wars, I fear. While I favor capitalization and I favor natural disambiguation, a dogged consistency can be the Hobgoblin of small minds. The Billy (dog)/Billy dog/Billy (dog breed) situation was a case in point; so long as there is IAR in the real world and in real use, I favor allowing things to be worked out species by species, and if needed, article by article. Most organizations use title case in their naming schemes (German Shepherd, etc.) and while I like that, the reality is that many other situations are ambiguous (is it a Shetland pony or a Shetland Pony?). I went through some of this in the classical music project (where there are huge fights because, in part, sometimes capitalization is inconsistent between different published editions of various works) and it is just a no-win. Montanabw(talk) 23:56, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
    • You're misinterpreting Emerson; his "hobgoblin" quote is about the "foolish consistency" of refusing to change one's mind in the face of the facts; it has nothing to do with this sort of consistency (we was a professional writer with a distinctive style, quite fond of consistency in English language usage). In the context, it (ironically enough) applies to the other side of the debate from mine, who are prepared to continue "capitalization warring" despite two policies, WP:AT and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, telling them they can't win. If the handful of people who care about breed article names enough to argue about it won't stop, WP:BIRDCON tells you how that's going to end. The bird species common name capitalization debate, with dragged on for years, was eventually shut down by a single, simple WP:RM (the wikiproject challenged it as WP:MR and did not get it overturned, and then tried in an RfC, and did not prevail). The problem for the "@#$% you, wikiprojects make up their own rules" camp is that the policies don't permit that, and there is no foolishness to that kind of consistency. When editors (including wikiprojects) convince a broader audience than their own camp that the rules as written don't properly account for a case they need to account for, the rules get adjusted (MOS is built that way). After BIRDCON, the idea that WP:GUINEAPIGS and WP:FERRETS or whatever get to make up their own conflicting disambiguation and capitalization rules, instead of convincing the editing community as a whole to change the underlying rules, is simply not going to fly. The categories are a mess today largely because of accidental WP:FAITACCOMPLI processes, but if you look at all the concurrent RMs, it's clear that no one but three editors support this chaos, and one explicitly said they were supporting it just because I opposed it, leaving a whopping two editors fighting the inevitable. For no reason. The alt. proposal above actually will give them everything they need. At this point, I'm about to just give up trying to help them, and throw my weight back behind the "just decapitalize it all, other than proper names" crowd. There'll be plenty of support for it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:50, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
I am personally a tad wary of the adoption of one size fits all schemes beyond (or much beyond) the species level. My view is that RS references in relation to any specific genus/family/order etc. may or may not prefer a particular style of presentation. Certainly, in relation to capitalisation I think that relevant topic specific conventions may perhaps be followed. The important thing for the reader, however, is that, where possible, sufficient title information is given so that an article title "indicates what the article is about". I haven't fully digested topics like birdcon but my natural inclination would favour the idea that different conventions might be developed in relation to different topics. I appreciate that this may be an idealistic attitude. As long as editors can place themselves behind the eyes of the average reader with the pillars et al in mind then I would have thought that positive contents should result. Please forgive any naivety in these statements. Gregkaye ✍♪ 15:09, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Perhaps it's not my place to pipe in since I'm not very active in things of this nature, but I do believe we ought to better respect the formality of nomenclature, and favor the capitalization of terms which we would find capitalized in the more professional outlets. We ought not be infected towards lackadaisical style by the shrugging informality of less careful authors. So I would tend to support a standard which capitalizes where better-written works capitalize, and ignore those where the style is otherwise informal or unprofessional or just poor. DeistCosmos (talk) 04:37, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
The trouble with "most professional" sources is that they may be "most specialized" and therefore most likely to emphasize their own terms by capitalization. See WP:SSF. Therefore, what we respect is high-quality sources written for a general audience, and we look for consistent capitalization as a clue that something really is considered to be a proper name, per MOS:CAPS. I think SMcC's proposal sounds logical in light of all this. The trouble is mostly that the people who are most knowledgeable about, or fans of, animal breeds tend to also like to emphasize their stuff as specialists do, just as the birders like to do with bird common names, while sources and authorities have no agreement on doing so. Dicklyon (talk) 04:55, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
Um, Dicklyon, SSf is not a guideline, it's just an essay of MC's personal opinions. @DeistCosmos: raises a very valid point. Professionals are worth experts, let's not act like WP:RANDY and declare that experts are all full of crap. Montanabw(talk) 07:37, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
Straw man; no one has advanced any argument that can be reduced to "experts are all full of crap". The logic in the essay in question, which no one has successfully refuted, or probably can, is that experts in explosive ordnance or neutrinos or coin collecting or naval law are not experts in how to best write encyclopedic English for a general audience. You can pretend this is some kind of attack on experts if you like, but it's a pretense and everyone can see that it's a pretense.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:55, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose: The Modena pigeon is a pigeon(breed) from the city Modena. Modena (pigeon) is a breed of English origin. The Triganino Modena is the Italian breed. The Lahore pigeon is not a pigeon from Lahore, in fact it is unknown in Lahore. It is a modern European breed derived from 2 or more breeds from the Indian subcontinent. With the proposal it will be impossible to identify, if a 3-sentence-stub-article (with outdated 1970s literature) is about a landrace, a breed, an ancient breed or a breedgroup and therefore to link it correctly to commons categories or wikidataitems. The outcome will be, that it is even impossible to distinguish breeds from species. The incident with the Pheasant pigeon on Talk:Strasser pigeon was only a foretaste of what is to come. More breeds will be moved without thinking to improper names like Sebright chicken or Modern Game chicken or Black pied cattle... Wikipedia gets stultified and who gets the blame: the authors, that have to deal with some strange worshipped naming-rules that override reliable sources. This is where the fun starts, trouble is sure to follow. --PigeonIP (talk) 20:26, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
additional comment: Today I had the pleasure to see the Danish Landrace sheep, that was moved from Danish Landrace (sheep). Danish Landrace sheep is like Dutch Landrace goat and Dutch Landrace sheep a very uncommon name.[4]. I was more specific on Talk:Dutch Landrace#Landrace breeds --PigeonIP (talk) 22:03, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

antiquated use of dashes?

MOS:DASH states: "When naming an article, do not use a hyphen as a substitute for an en dash that properly belongs in the title, for example in Eye–hand span (since eye does not modify hand)..."

However:

I fail to find support for the use of dashes in real world applications. Arguments in favour of the use of hyphens include accessibility on keyboards. It is easy to search for strings containing hyphens as the hypen key is readily available.
Gregkaye ✍♪ 12:45, 7 October 2014 (UTC) updating with Google scholar results Gregkaye ✍♪ 14:54, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

@Gregkaye: if you search the archives you'll find that this issue has been the repeated subject of debates, all of which have ended in support for the status quo. It's not worth discussing all over again. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:32, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead: I have seen the archives. It seemed to me that there was no clear consensus. It seems to me that Wikipedia holds to conventions that clearly smack against regular use of punctuation, at least as it appears on the web and in books. Gregkaye ✍♪ 13:43, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Well, there was no consensus for change and I'm sure there won't be now. In the absence of such a consensus, the status quo rules. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:48, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
How can you be sure? Every form of usage checked supports the use of hyphens in place of dashes. Gregkaye ✍♪ 14:00, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Not really. For one thing, a general Google search doesn't differentiate between the two. If you search "books" for "boyfriend—girlfriend problems" (emdash), "boyfriend–girlfriend problems" (endash) or "boyfriend-girlfriend problems" (hyphen) you get the same results (actually you also get "boyfriend/girlfriend problems" too). We really have been over all of this – read the archives! Peter coxhead (talk) 14:12, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
I appreciate that the non alphabetic characters don't influence the search and only put them in for the sake of readers that may have considered the inclusion of hyphens or dashes into searches to have been relevant. As I've said, I've taken a look at the archives and still don't see how we can fly in the face of common use of grammar. Gregkaye ✍♪ 15:39, 7 October 2014 (UTC)
Greg, there's a difference between common practice on the free-for-all web, and best practice in published sources. I'd be looking at Googlebooks and Google scholar. You might also account for Google's erratic transmission of hyphens and dashes (you have to check the actual sources), and on encyclopedic versus general usage. In 2011, under ArbCom supervision no less, all of these issues inter alia were dealt with rationally and thoroughly by consultation of unprecedented duration and breadth for any style issue on Wikipedia. Tony (talk) 01:00, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
The trouble is TONY that someone has decided to use dashes in a whole range of situations even when no-one else does the same. I have been through scholar and there are still only a few formats in which dashes are used. The Wikipedia use of dashes is the typographic equivalent of someone choosing to speak in Shakespearean English so as to appear more educated. Its nonsense. Gregkaye ✍♪ 15:02, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
It is indeed annoying that when Bill Gates copied the Mac he decided the skip the part about making nice typography available easily on the keyboard, resulting in so much modern amateur online content being dashless. That's not really a good reason for WP to give up on doing it better. By following best practices as articulated by grammar and style guides, we aim to make a high-quality encyclopedia. Many amateurs will use slashes, spaced hyphens, double hyphens, and other constructs when they realize that the hyphen sends the wrong signal; if they were aware of the en dash and how to type it they might do a better job following best practice; but they don't; sad. Dicklyon (talk) 03:46, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Yes, Microsoft's keyboard is really stupid—a profound disservice to proper writing: they include guff that would be rarely or never used by most people (^), and exclude basic (not "nice", Dick) typography. You can't even access a dash using alt or opt, but the now almost obsolete underscore and circumflex, among several others, are readily available. It's almost wilful. Then they put this half-assed auto fix-it thing in their Word program for interruptor dashes that – can you believe it - does this to a nested phrase. It's ignorant. WP goes to some lengths to make dashes available to editors, not least through buttons under the edit box. Any Windows user is well-advised to make a work-around macro for both en and em dashes. Tony (talk) 07:00, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
Also, the MOS clearly states, "The guidance contained elsewhere in the MoS, particularly in the section below on punctuation, applies to all parts of an article, including the title. (Wikipedia:Article titles does not contain detailed rules about punctuation.)" As the other editors said, there are substantive reasons to prefer a dash to a hyphen. Whether hyphens or dashes are more common is pretty much irrelevant. AgnosticAphid talk 23:26, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
The MOS guideline may state that, but it has never been accepted as part of the AT policy which has its own methods and procedures on deciding article titles. If you think there is a consensus for that sentence please show me the place in the talk pages of the MOS guideline and the AT policy prior to its insertion into the MOS where there was consensus for the inclusion. -- PBS (talk) 11:55, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass... -sche (talk) 05:52, 9 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, this is perennial rehash. Short version: Google is useless here because it mostly reports website results, which mostly use hyphens whether they're correct or not, because they're right on the keyboard, and convenient, and most websites are written by amateurs who don't even know dashes aren't hyphens. MOS is not the Manual of Whatever Is Most Popular on Google anyway; it's based on more than one sort of source, and most of all based on what best serves our readers. Yhe clarity differeniating between using dashes for what they're for instead of operator-overloading hyphens to serve the same purposes is worth the very minor editorial hassle (click on the dash character in the toolbox below the editing window) to use them correctly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:43, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
And it's perhaps worth adding the OCR used in digitizing books almost invariably doesn't distinguish between the different lengths of dashes and hyphens, so nothing can be deduced about the original text unless you know it came directly from a digital source. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:56, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Have any of you petitioned Google, Microsoft and/or Mozilla to as them to facilitate in page searches for dashes that use hyphens as the operator? If not then this is one additional reason why the perennial question will continue to be raised. Google books show an overwhelming trend for the use of the hyphen. An equivalent to WP:UCRN should apply. Gregkaye ✍♪ 14:13, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
Google books show an overwhelming trend for the use of the hyphen – please see what I wrote above. You simply don't know what characters are being used in books unless you have access to the paper or original digital source. (However, I suspect that you're right that there is a trend away from the correct use of dashes as typesetters and trained typists are replaced by authors being expected to prepare text themselves. Whether this is an trend that Wikipedia should follow is another matter.) Peter coxhead (talk) 17:17, 11 October 2014 (UTC)
I found that, having checked through several searches through several book, in the vast majority of cases Google books got it spot on. In some cases the application of the dash rule is pretty ridiculous. When searches are done on certain terms and Wikipedia is the only result, even amongst RS type sites, that uses a dash we end up looking pretty stupid. Gregkaye ✍♪ 16:15, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
Except no one bases their judgement of the intelligence of third parties on the nearly indistinguishable typographic results of some Google searches. Let's not be melodramatic.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:39, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish you write "based on what best serves our readers". Which best serves our reader "Comet Hale–Bopp" or "Comet Hale-Bopp"? Do you base best on usage in reliable sources or on the rules in the MOS? -- PBS (talk) 11:55, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

That's putting the cart before the horse, and you're quoting me out of context, and inverting the very meaning of the point I was making. Reliable sources differ in their approach, so MOS has to pick one solution or another. Reliable sources about writing mostly recommend using dashes for what MOS uses dashes for, and hyphens for what MOS uses hyphens for. Reliable sources on every other topic – comets, cities, gun, dogs, poker, whatever – which we can observe as to what they do rather than what they advise (since they don't advise anything to do with these glyphs) are all over the map, but of little to any use in telling us anything about hyphens vs. dashes. This is because a) we can't be sure what they're using in many cases (see Peter's point above, which is one I've made many times too, every time this WP:PERENNIAL issue comes up; the glyphs are indistinguishable in many fonts), and b) because specialists in rocket engines or marine biology or Serbian history or Pokemon are not experts on English language writing to begin with. See the essay WP:Specialist style fallacy for reasons we cannot reasonably rely on specialist publications for stylistic decisions when writing encyclopedic material for a general audience. Because works that are at least arguably authoritative on style do recommend dashes for particular cases, and do so on logical bases that clearly distinguish names that use dashes from those that use hyphens, in a predictable, meaningful, information-conveying way, the consensus at WT:MOS (which is all of Wikipedia that cares to weigh in on style matters, no some secret club) has been that using dashes for what dashes are advised be be used for is the most reader-helpful approach, vs. using hyphens for everything, the most editor-expedient approach. MOS almost never favors editorial expedience over reader benefit, and even when it does it's because the technical problems inherent in providing the reader benefit have not been solved (e.g. we still "ban" curly quotes because they mess with searches and have other negative side effects, even if they look better to our readers. We don't favor straight quotes because they're editorially expedient; that's just a coincidence.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:39, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
I appreciate that we are both writing for a wider audience than each other, so some of the points that you make I assume are made for third parties as I assume that you already know that I must be aware of both pages to which you link. There are some real structural problems with WP:PERENNIAL and as such it needs radical surgery before it is fit for purpose (you will find my comment on that in the talk page and archive of perennial). Comments like "even if they look better to our readers" is a matter of opinion not a fact. The purpose of following usage in reliable sources for article titles is to make sure that Wikipedia articles are found when searches are put into a search engine, I think it is wrong to imply that such a policy exists as "the most editor-expedient approach". I have commented on the essay WP:Specialist style fallacy--which by and large is your own work presenting a point of view that you favour--on the talk page of the essay, I am disappointed that you did not consider it appropriate to include any of the points I raised in "your" essay. -- PBS (talk) 13:16, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Is removing false starts from a transcript "akin to lying"?

There is a discussion on my talk page about whether the goal of transcription should be "a literal word-by-word accuracy". This discussion came out of a post on Jimbo's talk page about a transcript of his civility speech at Wikimania 2014 that has just been posted by Cirt at Wikisource.

I despair of spending what's left of my weekend in a fruitless discussion there, and hope to move the question here, for wider input. A related question: Is it time to add some transcription guidelines to the MOS? FYI, there is a short list of online guides in my user space at Standards for editing transcripts. —Neotarf (talk) 16:16, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

No, removing false starts from a transcript is not akin to lying. That's not what I said. Please don't misconstrue what I actually said. I said you had literally the wrong words for things in your transcript, and then wholesale reverted all my changes, not just little minor ones you may have disagreed with, but everything. That's your prerogative, it's your userspace, but it's wrong, because I found words that were wrong. Not "false starts" but other actual wrong words. — Cirt (talk) 16:18, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
Several examples of things that are simply wrong with the transcript: DIFF. Thanks. — Cirt (talk) 16:41, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
In that case, my second question still pertains, as I have spent the better part of a weekend, which I hoped to spend doing a second pass on my own transcription, trying to answer endless objections from someone who wants to use my user space to work on their own transcription project. It would really really help to have some useful MOS statement about standards for editing transcriptions, so one can just give them a link. —Neotarf (talk) 00:02, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
The user has apparently ignored my suggestions at DIFF, even refusing to fix the date of the speech itself, which is still wrong. — Cirt (talk) 00:04, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Possible WP:GENDER issue in example

I don't know whether this has been brought up before (I did a quick search in the talk page archive and didn't spot it), but the pluralization example "the boss's wife" may appear to reinforce the notion that bosses are generally male, which could be "an unnecessary reinforcement of traditional stereotypes" per WP:GENDER. We could, e.g., substitute 'spouse' or 'car' or 'desk' instead of 'wife' to avoid that. —BarrelProof (talk) 01:04, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Quite so. I've changed "wife" to "partner". Tony (talk) 01:34, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Hmm. I may have been guilty of some gender stereotyping myself by assuming that having a wife implied being male. Personally, I might have sidestepped the question and used "desk", as I think it is a simpler-to-understand phrase (e.g., I'm not sure whether "partner" has MOS:COMMONALITY across different varieties of English). —BarrelProof (talk) 15:47, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
An object would better. How about "penis"? Wait no, that's no good. "Desk" is. "Partner" could mean business partner, and if the boss has a partner, (s)he's not really the boss, is (s)he? InedibleHulk (talk) 17:14, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
I went ahead with "boss's office". Sounds "official" and rolls off the tongue better than "boss's desk". I'm still going to carry on dropping the S after an apostrophe elsewhere, though. InedibleHulk (talk) 17:19, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Even people who like to drop them wouldn't do it here, because it's pronounced "boss-ez desk" not "boss desk".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:47, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Ranges in compound modifiers

The topic of this section is ranges in compound modifiers.

  • According to MOS:ENDASH, en dashes are used "[i]n ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through": "20–30".
  • According to WP:HYPHEN, sub-subsection, point 8, "[v]alues and units used as compound modifiers are hyphenated only where the unit is given as a whole word": "a 30-day journey".
  • Those guidelines indicate that, when a range of values occurs with a unit in a compound modifier, then an en dash occurs with a hyphen in the same expression: "a 20–30-day journey". Is this construction supported by the Manual of Style?

—Wavelength (talk) 01:42, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Too awkward; just rewrite it in plain English: "a 20- to 30-day journey". Doing so highlights the fact that this is actually a contraction of a "a 20-day to 30-day journey", so "a 20–30-day journey" is arguably incorrect as well as awkward. It's not "a 20-to-30-day journey". Breaking the construction down, it has this structure: "count range( value-[unit] to value-unit ) referent", not "count range( compoundValue-unit ) referent".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:21, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
SMcCandlish ☺, thank you for your reply. Even before I posted my question, I had already decided that the best alternative to a version with a punctuation mark for "to" was "a 20-to-30-day journey" [article, compound adjective, noun]. Your version, "a 20-day to 30-day journey" [article, compound adjective, preposition, compound adjective, noun], is inconsistent with standard English syntax.
—Wavelength (talk) 23:31, 20 October 2014 (UTC)
Not true, or we couldn't say "a 40-minute to two-hour nap", or "a blue-green to yellow-green hue", which we certainly can. The fact that the construction is redundant when the unit is the same is why we collapse it, but that doesn't somehow transmute the underlying "value-[unit] to value-unit" into "compoundValue-unit"; the optional [unit] is simply omitted, leaving "value- to value-unit". A "compoundValue-unit" construction is simply coincidentally similar but for its spacing, and the rationale behind it is different: A compound value is one that cannot be separated, as in "a forty-seven-day journey", "a two-thirds-day journey", "a two-percent increase". In any "value-[unit] to value-unit" construction, the value can be compound: "a forty-six- to forty-seven-day journey" and "a forty-six-day to two-month journey". Would anyone write "a 40-minute-to-two-hour nap", "a blue-green-to-yellow-green hue", and "a forty-six-to-forty-seven-day journey"? That's the case you're making. I'm unaware of any style guide that would recommend this. PS: If you'd already made up your mind, there was no point in asking the question, especially if you won't take the answer. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:10, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
I would write "a 40-minute-to-two-hour nap", "a blue-green-to-yellow-green hue", and "a forty-six-to-forty-seven-day journey", although I would prefer "a nap of 40 minutes to two hours", "a hue of blue-green to yellow-green", and "a journey of forty-six to forty-seven days". My question was about using an en dash and a hyphen in "a 20–30-day journey", and the question is not pointless. I had already decided that the best alternative to a version with a punctuation mark for "to" was "a 20-to-30-day journey" [article, compound adjective, noun]. There can be more than one correct version. (I vaguely sensed that someone might be confused by this, but I hoped that careful reading of my post would prevent such confusion.)
—Wavelength (talk) 15:45, 21 October 2014 (UTC)
Best of all, avoid all of these ugly compound modifiers whenever possible and write instead "a journey of of 20 to 30 days", "a nap of 40 minutes to two hours", "a hue from blue-green to yellow-green" (or "between blue-green and yellow-green" depending on the meaning intended). Peter coxhead (talk) 10:37, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

MOS:GLOSSARIES's templates nominated for deletion

FYI
 – Pointer to relevant discussions elsewhere.

Please see WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 October 22#Glossary templates (and the related WP:Templates for discussion/Log/2014 October 20#Template:Gbq), as the outcome will strongly affect MOS:GLOSSARIES.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:59, 22 October 2014 (UTC)

Book titles in foreign scripts

The guidelines currently say "Proper names (such as place names) in other languages, however, are not usually italicized, nor are terms in non-Latin scripts." But does this apply to book titles? I don't think the restriction should apply to them. Say I am quoting (for what-ever strange reason) someone in Korean who is referring to a Korean book or translation. Doesn't it make sense to have 해커스 토익은 좋다 rather than 해커스 토익은 좋다 ? Kdammers (talk) 09:55, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

No. Many writing systems, such as Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic, do not have an italic style. Attempting to force italics on these writing systems can render them unintelligible. In Korean, the equivalent to italics was to put dots over the characters, but this has fallen out of fashion and would not be appropriate for the English Wikipedia. The more current practice would be to use quotation marks 「」 but again this is not appropriate here. There are other writing systems where the equivalent would be indicated in a larger font, but again not appropriate here.
So we currently recommend that you do not modify these writing systems. The Citation Style 1 templates now have |script-title= to include these writing systems without modification. --  Gadget850 talk 10:45, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein

Having a problem on this article. It is about a German pilot who fought in action exclusively against the British in WW2. He shot down 83 RAF bombers at night, the 3rd highest in history. The original editor spelt the article in American English. In the interests of having "strong national ties", I argue that it should be in British English - for obvious reasons. There is no American connection whatsoever. At least three editors won't listen, and their defence centres on the right (or whim) of original writer to do as he pleases. This maybe a violation of WP:Own (which would be ironic as he added template warning of that on the talk page Please advise. Dapi89 (talk) 17:36, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

The arrogance of Dapi's post is staggering, as is the misrepresentation of the situation. It's not that five other editors won't listen to you, it's that your argument is based on a fundamentally flawed misunderstanding of what WP:TIES means. And his assertion that following WP:RETAIN amounts to ownership is ridiculous.
Dapi, you already have been advised, by five other editors, all but one of whom had nothing to do with writing the article. Drop the stick. Parsecboy (talk) 22:18, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
1. It is possible for five guys to be wrong and one guy to be right.
2. Dapi, if by you mean "right (or whim) of the original writer to do as he pleases" you really mean "follow the precedent set by the first major contributor," then your opponents have a good point. That's a longstanding default rule on Wikipedia.
3. If the subject of the article is a German pilot, then the article doesn't have a direct national tie to either the U.S. or Britain. You could say that he was an enemy of Britain but he was active until 1944, so he was an enemy of the U.S. too. There might be a tie to Britain but—based solely on what you've told me here—it's only a little stronger than the tie to the U.S. In that case, we go back to the default rule which is to use whichever style of English the first major contributor to the article happened to use.
However this third point of mine is debatable. There is a tie to England and to the U.S.; the question is whether it is strong. Since, for whatever reason, you don't find the other five participants in this debate convincing, consider writing an RfC and publicizing it so that more than just your current participants give their thoughts. However, it would have to be worded neutrally (which means it should be very different from the post you'd left here, saying something like "Should the article on Heinrich Prinz zu Sayn-Wittgenstein be written in American English or British English? The first major contributor used American English, but there is a case for a strong national tie to Britain (see below)" and then you write your own position in your own words below the RfC header). Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:34, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
I am going to ignore Parky since discourse with him has proven rather pointless. It isn't that he can't see, it is that he won't.
I think you've misunderstood slightly. Please explain why you think there is a tie to the United States. This man fought exclusively against the British. He did not engage American forces at any point regardless of the 'grander' scheme of things. That is the issue. So to dispute that is doesn't have a direct national tie to the British is something seems to be illogical. At least I suppose you concede the stronger tie lies with the British connection which is something. Advice is appreciated. Dapi89 (talk) 23:50, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
  • WP:Ties refers to "strong national ties to a topic" -- the examples it lists are people of a certainly nationality, events that took place in a specific country, or cities in a specific countries. When the tie exists but is not to this obvious strong extent, it is better to just follow the ENGVAR standards and use the original style. We don't pick the policy down to smaller points, where we judge the relative strength of ties -- it's really an all or nothing issue.--Yaksar (let's chat) 00:04, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
  • Or pretty much, in other words -- is the topic Australian? Australian English. British? British English. Irish? Irish English? Romanian but has lived and worked only in New Zealand? Probably New Zealand English. Beyond that, WP:RETAIN the original style.--Yaksar (let's chat) 00:11, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
In my experience, Dapi, making up diminutive nicknames for people only insults them. If you actually want to make progress, don't call Parsec "Parky." He's not a puppy.
The article does not have to have a tie to the United States. I'd say that this article has no strong tie to either the U.S. or Britain. In that case, we leave it the way it is. The default setting for any article is the status quo. If it were in British English and I wanted to change it to American English, then I'd have to prove a connection to the U.S. The first person to do a large amount of work on the article is the one one who gets to choose the arbitrary things about it. "Well it's a little bit closer to British than to American or Irish or Australian" isn't enough. You have to show that it has a strong tie to one country or the other. The tie you've listed is weak, not strong: The British were not his only opponents, just the only ones who spoke English. However, because strong-vs-weak is a subjective matter, consider using an RfC. That could give you some closure on this issue and maybe bring in some new voices with new points to make. But write it carefully and invite your other participants to work out text with you ahead of time. A biased RfC will not resolve your conflict because your opponents might not accept its results as valid. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:04, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
I've called him Parky before. No complaints. Now we're in the midst of a dispute, all of a sudden its offensive. That's that.
The tie you've listed is weak, not strong: The British were not his only opponents, just the only ones who spoke English - What I didn't get from your first point is whether you have read through the article. Have you? Because they were. Dapi89 (talk) 19:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
I ignored it before, but you kept needling me - certainly everyone has a point at which their patience is exhausted. My earlier silence does not mean your condescension was acceptable behavior.
There's absolutely no reason for an RFC, Darkfrog - there is no strong tie to an English-speaking nation as prescribed by WP:TIES, and in the absence of said tie, the default is to WP:RETAIN the existing variety, as pointed out by Yaksar above. Parsecboy (talk) 22:39, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
For the record, the choice of English variant, right or wrong, was established at the WikiProject A-class review. If the community decides that it should be the British variant, I would expect this change to be implemented through proper procedures to maintain the quality level. And for those who have actually read the article, or claim to have read the article, as night fighter pilot, Sayn-Wittgenstein claimed 83 aerial victories in total, 23 of which on the Eastern Front of World War II over Russian and 60 on the Western Front over British opponents. MisterBee1966 (talk) 20:37, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
There is every need for rfc.
Last time I checked, the Russians did/do not speak a variant of English. Dapi89 (talk) 23:10, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
No, there isn't. That you have a fundamentally flawed understanding of what WP:TIES means is your problem, not anyone else's. There are now at least seven editors who disagree with your interpretation. Here's a bit of advice you really ought to take to heart: when you're alone in your position and everyone else who has commented on a topic disagrees with you, it's rather unlikely that everyone else is a pack of idiots.
I'll ask you an easy question: TIES gives several categories that constitute strong national ties to a given country - what category does zu Sayn-Wittgenstein fall under? Now, keep in mind that the line of reasoning you're advancing – that a subject from a non-English speaking country that only interacted with one English-speaking country ought to be written in that version of English – has been raised specifically in the past and overruled (which is why, an example I have pointed out before, Japanese battleship Musashi is written in Canadian English despite never having even come within eyesight of a Canadian warship or aircraft).
As to what language was spoken in the Soviet Union, you said above that the British were his only opponents (in response to Darkfrog's comment about the British being his only English-speaking opponents, which was in turn a response to your assertion that he only fought British aircrews) - MisterBee was simply correcting you. Parsecboy (talk) 23:59, 28 October 2014 (UTC)

Endash in metro station names?

"A hyphen is used by default in compounded proper names of single entities." Does this apply to Franconia–Springfield (WMATA station), named after the communities of Franconia and Springfield? --NE2 08:06, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

Logical punctuation

Punctuation styles are being discussed at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Punctuation (version of 21:55, 5 November 2014).
—Wavelength (talk) 22:20, 5 November 2014 (UTC) and 22:43, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Remedy six of the infoboxes arbitration case

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Quality Article Improvement/Infobox for an initiative regarding this recommended remedy. --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:20, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

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