Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 188

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Plural or singular?

Which is correct?

"Xxxxxx is a genus of butterflies in the family Yyyyyy."
"Xxxxxx is a genus of butterfly in the family Yyyyyy."

I can't find clarification in the MoS and I see it both ways, so I don't know which way it should be. Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 00:11, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

User:SchreiberBike I believe that when it is genus it is butterflies, however when it is species it is butterfly. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 01:11, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Sminthopsis84 Can you help us out here? – Corinne (talk) 01:16, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

My personal opinion is that it should parallel "is a family of", because genera and families are almost always groups of multiple species. There are a few cases where there is only one species in a genus, and even some where there is only one species in a family, but I don't think that biologists would argue that the singular form should be used for that reason (undiscovered species might turn up, creating a need to go back and change the phrasing). The singular might be based on "Xxxxx is a type of butterfly", but I suspect it also comes from the form of names for genera and families. Families have plural names in Latin (Hominidae, Asteraceae) but genus names are singular (Homo, Aster), and I suspect that is the reason that some people use the singular form above. My personal opinion is that it is hypercorrect to do that, and much more in keeping with English norms to use the plural. People used to use Latin grammar on stray words in English, such as Rubi as the plural of Rubus, but nowadays I think we use the Latin words as if they are English. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 01:38, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

DuckDuckGo has search results for "is a genus of butterfly", and search results for "is a genus of butterflies". I prefer the singular form, for the reasons mentioned in your third and fourth sentences, regardless of whether the genus contains only one species or more than one, and I do not consider it to be hypercorrect. (If a guideline is adopted, then it can be added to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Organisms.)

—Wavelength (talk) 03:01, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Chevrolet is a brand of automobile by General Motors.

—Wavelength (talk) 05:33, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I would go with singular for species and plural for genus, since most of the biological sources seem to do so, for reasons Sminthopsis outlines. It's semantically meaningful, because the species within a genus are generally quite distinct. Felis catus [yes, you can also treat it as a subspecies, but just go with the simple version for the sake of this example] is a small species of cat, in a very particular way: any member of this species will happily breed with other members of the species from anywhere in the world, and regardless of their often marked phenotypic differences. By contrast, Felis is a genus of cats; they are distinct from each other, and will usually not interbreed unless forced to by captivity or (in the wild) desperation due to lack of an available mate of their own species, even when some of them look more alike than do various different domestic breeds of F. catus. It's fine for a WP editor to use the singular for a monophyletic genus; all of WP is under constant revision, so "it might not be monophyletic forever" is irrelevant in this publication. It wouldn't make much sense, really, to write something like "Mezzettia is a genus of plants in family Annonaceae" when there is only one Mezzettia. However, it doesn't make good sense, either, to have (as Alphonsea does right now) "Alphonsea is a genus of plant in the family Annonaceae" when there are dozens of Alphonsea species of plants. If I eat a big bag of gummy bears, I do not say "I ate almost half a pound of gummy bear, at least three dozen of it." If I eat one large sandwich, however, I also don't say "I'm very full from eating so many sandwiches." I.e., let the language do what it normally does, and don't try to hammer it into unnatural WP:SSF molds, especially when we (and more importantly, our readers) don't get anything useful out of the endeavor. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:16, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

The gummy bear example is illuminating. If you say "I ate a big bag of gummy bear", you are suggesting that they had become damp at some point and what you ate was an indecipherable mass. Similarly, "Xxxxxx is a genus of butterfly" invites the reader to suppose that there may be only one species in the genus, or even that it was a species described on the basis of one individual butterfly whose like has never been seen since. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:15, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

BT;DT, though it was due to leaving a bag of gummies on the dashboard in the sun. [1] So sad. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:01, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Your bag of gummy bears can have your favorite color of gummy bear (one or more gummy bears of your favorite color). Your collection of butterflies can have your favorite genus of butterfly (one or more butterflies of your favorite genus).

—Wavelength (talk) 17:07, 4 December 2016 (UTC) and 20:36, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

:-) Actually, I disagree. A collection inherently implies diversity, so to say that it includes one's "favorite genus of butterfly" suggests that it is a genus with only one species/individual, it calls attention to the singular nature of that genus. A collector would be more likely to call attention to their "favorite genus of butterflies" in all its diverse beauty. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:45, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Usage varies, is all I think we can say, and there may be dialect differences, where "dialect" is taken broadly. Thus I hear the birders I sometimes go birdwatching with using the singular where I would use the plural: many of them say "There are a lot of swan on the water today" when I would say "There are a lot of swans on the water today". The singular here emphasizes the kind rather than the number of individuals, or so it seems to me; it's stressing what kind the birds on the water are, rather than their number. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:46, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I've read several kinda-sorta treatises on this with regard to fish versus fishes, with the idea being that the singular-form mass noun indicates a quantity ("I ate too much fish last night") or a generality ("all the fish are dying out in the lake"), while the pluralizable count noun indicates types ("there are 27 different fishes in the lake's ecosystem", "I have four fishes, amounting to 32 fish, in my aquarium"). In reality, I can't find any evidence anyone takes this idea seriously, outside a handful of specialist publications, and rarely even then. I virtually guarantee that you'll never in your life hear someone say "I eat at least 3 different fishes when I go out for sushi", and only a total prat would write something like "there are 27 different fishes in the lake's ecosystem" instead of "there are 27 different fish species ...". We can't depend on people internalizing largely fictional distinctions like this that make doofuses giggle to themselves about show clever and learned they are. Thus my "let the language do what it normally does" position. People are naturally inclined to use the plural with a genus with more than one species, and to use the singular with a monophyletic one. It's simpler to observe this than to try to force them to do something different on the basis of alleged specialized practice that we don't really have consistent evidence of anyway. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:33, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, which sense of prat do you mean?

—Wavelength (talk) 16:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Didn't realize they were so many! The usage I'm most familiar with derives from English, Etymology 2, noun 3, and is a minced version of a similar-sounding word that starts with "t". >;-) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 18:34, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't know if it help here, but I sometimes notice that others use a plural for math. In US English, math is a collective noun, and used in the singular form. It seems that in other English speaking countries that this isn't true. It might be that some of the other collective/non-collective distinctions also are different between different English speaking countries. Gah4 (talk) 10:23, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

That just coincidentally looks like pluralization. It's actually a difference in dialectal abbreviation of the same word, mathematics, much like the difference between TV and telly for television. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:58, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

We've had four opinions, three in favor of plural and one for singular. Searches of Wikipedia and Google for "is a genus of (butterfly/butterflies) (moth/moths) (bat/bats) (etc.)" show that the plural is more common but not overwhelmingly so.

We can (a) let it go and continue to let people do as they wish and be inconsistent like the rest of the world, (b) be prescriptive and settle on plural following the majority, (c) make it another VAR thing where what was written first shouldn't be changed without good reason, or, I'm open to other suggestions.

I suspect we'll compromise on (a), though I'm a prescriptive sort and would prefer (b). Is there a need for any further discussion? Thank you. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 23:15, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Retaining existing styles

@Hmains: You removed "Where there is disagreement on the style to use in an article, and the guidelines do not give a reason for using one over the other, then editors should defer to the style that was first used in the article." In essence, this is what is said in all four of the specific guidelines. It is just a summary of what they say. I take it you do not agree with the passage, but it is surely a fair reflection of the guidelines. SpinningSpark 21:19, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

The four specified style areas where the established style is to be retained (variety of English, date formats, era, and citations) are all areas that have attracted a lot of campaigns to change to a certain editor's preferred style, and these campaigners typically would change large number of articles without paying attention to any other aspect of the articles edited. Furthermore, if one were to submit an article to a writing instructor or copy editor (outside Wikipedia) for grading or correction, the instructor or editor would expect consistency in all of these four areas. Other style matters do not necessarily require consistency throughout an article.

Thus, there is scant evidence that Wikipedia needs style retention language for aspects of style other than these four. Generalizing the language would run against the expectations of educated English-language writers for those style matters where variety within an article is considered acceptable. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:10, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

The language is already generalised in the top of WP:MOS:

Where more than one style is acceptable under the Manual of Style, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason. Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable.^[a] If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, see if a rewrite can render the issue irrelevant.

^ These matters have been addressed in rulings of the Arbitration Committee; see WP:Requests for arbitration/Jguk § Optional styles and WP:Requests for arbitration/Sortan § Preferred styles.

And at WP:MOSNUM:

Where this manual provides options, consistency should be maintained within an article unless there is a good reason to do otherwise. The Arbitration Committee has ruled that editors should not change an article from one guideline-defined style to another without a substantial reason unrelated to mere choice of style, and that revert-warring over optional styles is unacceptable.^[1] If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

^ Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk § Principles, Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/jguk 2 § Principles, and Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Sortan § Principles

There is long history of editors changing styles according to their own personal preference (even against MOS recommendations) in some areas outside the four addressed explicitly - to the point where sanctions have been required - and it seems to me that the basic sense of the rule is applicable generally. If there's a good reason to change, the rule does not apply. But if it's just personal preference or a purely style-based reason, then - for every aspect of style that I can think of - insisting on changing it is probably a bad idea. Kahastok talk 22:31, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Exactly, I am not trying to introduce new guidelines, just to summarize the existing ones in a centralised place. As I originally phrased the section, I only referred directly to the four existing guidelines. It was changed to "examples" by another editor making it more general. The section needs some sort of wording indicating that there is a common thread running through all four of these guidelines. I am going to put in an exact copy of what is written in the lead. I can't see how anybody can possibly object to that. SpinningSpark 23:09, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I think the wording before the recent changes could be read to mean that anything that could be expressed in several ways should be expressed in a consistent way. But, in quality English writing, this simply isn't the case. Most external style guides will agree that many of the things standardized in MOS and its sub-pages should be consistent in any well-written article, and there are probably a few other areas where most external style guides would require consistency, and our MOS doesn't. But there are also areas where intra-article variety is normal, and the MOS wording shouldn't encourage carrying consistency further than normal.

One example that comes to mind is a campaign currently under way at Wikidata to avoid classifying as a mother, father, brother, or sister of another person, but rather use the terms parent and sibling. That may be fine for a database where terms should accommodate the ambiguous cases that modern medicine makes possible, but isn't necessary in an article where it is known the ambiguities do not apply to the persons being described. Another example is astronomy, where certain equations and quantities are customarily expressed in certain units, and it would be confusing to depart from these customs in order to use the same units throughout an article. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:27, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm hoping you don't have a problem with this wording If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, see if a rewrite can render the issue irrelevant. That is exactly the same wording as in the lead. If you have a problem with that, then there was a problem before I touched the page and I can't understand why user:EEng has reverted me again. This is only about how to deal with disputes about style. It is not about cases when contradictory styles in an article may be appropriate. That may need addressing as well, but as I say, that issue already existed on the page an my edits made no difference to that. SpinningSpark 00:35, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

As I've explained several times in my edit summaries, I have no opinion on this but recognize a change which is bound to create some kind of controversy. I urge you to get explicit consensus, for a precise wording, before attempting any further edits touching on RETAIN or infoboxes. E Eng 01:06, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

This issue is entirely separate from whether infoboxes should be included in retain. I fail to see how this wording can be controversial when the page already says exactly that. It just doesn't say it in a convenient place for readers who have gone directly to the MOS:STYLEVAR section through a link. SpinningSpark 14:57, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Retaining

SlimVirgin recently undid this edit [2], as have I. The edit summary "Closing another WP:GAMING / WP:LAWYER loophole" seems to be somewhat unusual - there is no loophole in the rule that, unless a particular style is required by the MOS, in areas where there are many acceptable styles the existing one should generally be maintained unless there is consensus to change it. That longstanding principle of the MOS is a key aspect of the MOS and should not be changed lightly, and particularly not in that manner. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:50, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

It is also not clear what "acceptable under the Manual of Style" means. The way that the MOS works, any style which is not prohibited, and for which there is no other style prescribed, is "acceptable", whether that style is explicitly mentioned by the MOS or not. So it is not clear what the modifier "under the MOS" means exactly. In what other sense could a style be acceptable? — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:03, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that it's not clear. It could end up cementing in any change someone makes to this page, so that anyone could go around changing style decisions that other editors have made. For several years, WP:STYLEVAR said:

Style and formatting should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia. Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason.

In April SMcCandlish changed "[w]here more than one style is acceptable" by adding "under the Manual of Style", with the edit summary "closing another WP:GAMING / WP:LAWYER loophole". [3] I noticed the change in September and reverted. [4] I only realized this evening that he had restored it eight days later, [5] so I removed it again. It needs strong consensus before being restored because this is a key issue. It would be good if regular MoS editors would not make significant changes without discussion, especially with unclear edit summaries. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:09, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

To be fair, if there is consensus on the MOS that some style is required, or that some style is prohibited, that will take precedence over other styles, even if they were previously established. It's only when multiples styles are acceptable that the existing style is retained. That has always been the point of STYLEVAR: things which are not determined by the MOS do not need to be standardized. (Of course, it takes more than one editor to change the styles that are required according to the MOS.) — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:45, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I oppose anything that treats the MoS as policy. A good example is SMcCandlish's efforts to stop quote boxes being used in a certain way. He makes changes unilaterally or holds discussions but expects people at FAC not to be alerted; if they are alerted, he accuses whoever did it of canvassing. So changes go through (or might go through) here that conflict with what lots of content editors do. In those cases, the MoS should be ignored. That's one of the reasons STYLEVAR matters.

Another example: for years AWB editors added white space between headings and sub-headings, even though it made no difference in read mode, was unhelpful in edit mode, and it helped to fill up the watchlists. It was added to AWB only because someone believed the MoS mandated it. It didn't (it was a misunderstanding), but it led to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary edits. Again, had the MoS insisted on the white space, it should have been ignored. SarahSV ^(talk) 04:02, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I view it as a two-way street. If someone wants to enforce a particular style across all articles, they need to get consensus at the MOS first - otherwise WP:RETAIN applies. On the other hand, if someone wants to keep a particular style in articles they edit, they need to participate in discussions on the MOS, to make sure their view is represented. If the MOS nevertheless ends up with consensus that a certain style should apply to all articles, though, then RETAIN doesn't apply any more. This is what the current language already says -- if the MOS says something is forbidden, then that style is not "acceptable" on Wikipedia, trivially. Of course, this is why the MOS is mostly written in a descriptive way: very few things are actually required or forbidden. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:18, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

The wording has been there for years, and it matters, for the ultra-obvious reason that it does not mean "acceptable to any random person for who-knows-what reason", it means "acceptable under WP's own style guidelines". Otherwise, it would mean that any article full of "ain't" wouldn't be editable to remove that since "ain't" is acceptable in many forms of vernacular English. And so on. It would enable a firehose of WP:SSF editwarring. I won't speculate on why SlimVirgin every several months comes and makes this drive-by deletion without consensus, but it's tendentious. I do know that a lot of editing gaggles that are overly proprietary about "their" content would like to see that wording removed so they can push all kinds of style quirks found only in specialist publications, but that's a WP:NOTHERE can of worms we can't open. This is not the Give Me My Specialized Style or Give Me Death WP:BATTLEGROUND. It's taken a decade and half to actually get WP into a state that mostly complies with WP:TECHNICAL, MOS:JARGON, and related guidelines. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 14:57, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

"The way that the MOS works, any style which is not prohibited, and for which there is no other style prescribed, is "acceptable", whether that style is explicitly mentioned by the MOS or not." Yes, exactly. There are literally thousands of possible style points on which MoS says nothing at all, on purpose (read through New Hart's Rules, The Chicago Manual of Style, and Scientific Style and Format some time; we'd have to grow MoS by around 5000% to encompass all that stuff). WP's MoS leaves most matters to editorial discretion. What it can't do is throw itself in the trash after years of hard-won compromises on the style items that editors will fight about incessantly, by allowing pundits who "accept" some MoS-conflicting style to declare it "accepted" and editwar to impose or defend it in little fiefdoms. There's also a clear subtext that's been running around lately that older articles should somehow be completely exempt from compliance with later guidelines, starting with MoS. This obviously can't happen. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 15:04, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

SMcCandlish: you say that the language "has been there for years". Could you please show the diff where it was originally added, and a link to an archive of any discussion at the time? It seems to me that you added it without discussion in this diff [6], but I might be wrong. The language "under the Manual of Style" does not appear to be in this revision from January 2, 2016. [7]. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:57, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Separately: what exactly does "acceptable under the Manual of Style" mean? Isn't a style that is not mentioned by the Manual of Style acceptable under the Manual of Style, by virtue of not being prohibited? This is why I think the language should not be included, because I think it does not change the meaning. Other editors may have other concerns with the language, of course. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:00, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I already addressed that in my post immediately above this. I'm sure the wording can be "smithed" a bit, as long as it's clear that it is not a loophole for editwarring against MoS compliance, especially to fight for either personal quirks, or jargon usage that is not understandable by average readers. That problem was long rampant, and is why the wording was added. Without getting into details that irritate some people, one example would be approx. 11 years straight of constant conflict over capitalization of something in particular, including several years (2008–2014) of not just direct defiance of MoS and RfCs on the point (including by multiple admins who refused to accept consensus was against them), but multiple attempts to directly PoV-fork other guidelines to contradict MoS when consensus to get "special snowflake" exceptions to a capitalization rule did not succeed here. Just one of innumerable examples. I really don't see the point of attempting to wikilawyer about who added the wording, when, and whether an RfC was held. WP:EDITING is policy; we do not have to seek permission before we add material, though of course people can WP:BRD such an addition in a timely fashion. WP:CONSENSUS is also policy, and it clearly indicates that material that has stood in a page for a considerable time has presumptive consensus by the very virtue of the fact of its acceptance. One or a couple of editors popping by with poorly explained or unexplained objections once in a blue moon is not an indication of lack of consensus (or we would have no guidelines or policies on anything) especially when multiple editors revert the attempt to delete the material. I know I've reverted this deletion, as has EEng, and I'm pretty sure others have too in previous attempts to delete it. The time for this "slow-editwar" system gaming is over. There is no "right" to keep reverting without a rationale indefinitely. If you (plural) think there's something wrong with the language, please explain what that is and suggest something better. The "I don't understand why it's there" thing has already been addressed. Was there something else? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 18:59, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

SMcCandlish added the new words in April 2016. [8] I didn't notice the change until September, when I reverted. He has since restored them three times: 09:35, 11 September, 14:45, 8 December, 15:10, 8 December.

The same sentence has been in the lead (without SMcCandlish's addition) since at least December 2011 (e.g. 31 December 2011) and earlier versions said something similar. For example: "It is inappropriate for an editor to change an article from one style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so ... Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable" (17 May 2008 and 25 September 2007). SarahSV ^(talk) 17:20, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd added it in some form earlier, but I'm out of time for nit-pick diff digging for now; it doesn't matter who added it when. I've provided a clear rationale for its presence, and refuted the only reason provided to remove it, without that being rebutted yet, and I'm not the only editor to revert the deletion. Let discussion continue. If the wording needs improving, I'm sure we'll figure out how to do that. That's what we do. :-) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 18:59, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I asked who added when because you claimed the language "under the Manual of Style" has been in the text for years. You have not yet provided a reason I see as clear for its presence, and just claiming that your rationale is clear is no substitute. If possible, because me reading comprehension may be poor, could you write a very short explanation of the difference between "When more than one style is acceptable," and "When more than one style is acceptable under the Manual of Style," ? What exact difference in meaning is there between the two? — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

For the record, my position is that there is no difference: a style is "acceptable" for Wikipedia if and only if it is "acceptable under the Manual of Style", because the MOS is by definition the place where a style could be deemed unacceptable. Certainly the new text cannot mean that only styles explicitly mentioned by the MOS are acceptable, because as SMcCandlish wrote "There are literally thousands of possible style points on which MoS says nothing at all, on purpose ...". I do not support including meaningless language in the MOS. I do think that if something is required by the MOS, no other style is "acceptable", but that is not the issue I am concerned about in this discussion, which is just about the words "under the Manual of Style". — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:53, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it is possible to construct an argument that the addition does change the meaning; ironically it seems to me that such an argument actually allows gaming, which SMcCandlish wishes to avoid. If you interpret "under the MoS" to mean only those styles explicitly described in the MoS, then the addition allows styles not so described not to be retained. This may be an implausible interpretation, but it's not entirely ridiculous. So not only is there no need for the addition, given the most sensible interpretation, it's actually harmful under a more extreme one. Consistent style variants that are acceptable should be retained, regardless of whether they are acceptable because they are not covered in the MoS or are acceptable because they are explicitly covered in the MoS. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:03, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Dicklyon has restored SMcCandlish's words. [9] This kind of forcing in of new words over objections is one of the reasons people have concerns about the MoS. SarahSV ^(talk) 06:52, 9 December 2016 (UTC)
- They're not new. Material that has been stable in a guideline for over a year should not be removed without consensus; you're getting this backwards. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:18, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

RfC on retaining existing styles

Should the passage If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, see if a rewrite can render the issue irrelevant., or similar wording, be added to the "Retaining existing styles" section? 15:13, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Support. All four specific guidelines referenced in the section say essentially this, it is consistent with Arbitration Committee rulings on this matter,[10][11] and is precisely the same wording as already in the lead of the MOS. Placing it here (or something similar) puts all the summary information regarding style variations in one place for the convenience of readers linked to that section. SpinningSpark 15:13, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Conditional support. I will support this only if an explanation is added that consistency for matters not addressed in the MOS should not be enforced unless there exists a consensus among reliable external sources, such as printed style guides, that the matter should be consistent within an article. We should not enforce consistency to a greater degree than typical quality English writing. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:30, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with that, but am reluctant to roll it into the current RfC unless we already have a guideline on that. If we don't (as I suspect) then it is already an issue with the current MOS because this is not new wording. A separate thread for that suggestion would be more appropriate. Compare your suggestion to my original wording before it was generalised by others. SpinningSpark 15:58, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I would strongly disagree with this. Good writing (especially of our sort) frequently imposes consistency of thousands of kinds that MoS does not address, and could not address, because we would need a huge database to even identify them all. Random example: both "amphiumids" and "amphiumas" can be used to mean "the amphiumia clade, in general, being the genus Amphiuma and monogeneric family Amphiumidae", and if an article throughout uses "amphiumas" but someone comes along and adds a sentence that uses "amphiumids" we should change that to "amphiumas", and also revert an attempt to change all the instances of "amphiumas" to "amphiumids" just because someone likes "amphiumids" better (if they provide a solid rationale for such a change, that's another matter, to be taken to the talk page). Another example: Thomas Malory's name, like Shakespeare's and Walter Raleigh's, was spelled many different ways during his lifetime and shortly thereafter, but a common version is now favored in reliable sources. Our article should use one consistently (probably that common one), aside from identifying others, once, as alternatives and mainly to provide search targets. If someone tries to rename him "Malleorre", "Maleore", etc., on WP, this should be resisted, as should mix-and-matching spellings in the article from sentence to sentence or section to section. Another example would be a theory, business practice, religion, or other such thing with more that one name. We should provide all the names in the lead, and not switch back and forth between them thereafter "for variety". While this is a common tactic in editorial writing, it's a dreadful idea in an enyclopedia because it will give readers the false impression that we're providing details about a particular formulation/variant/faction/whatever in one place and distinguishing that from a "competing" one in another, when no such competition might exist (or some might exist but have nothing to do with what those paragraphs are saying). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:27, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Sometimes quality writing, or if you prefer, quality academic writing, imposes types of consistency that is not explicitly mentioned in the MOS; SMcCandlish's example of the spelling of the name of the article's subject is a good example. But consistency can be carried too far, and considering the proliferation of gnoming bots, I fear that some, especially some bot editors, will seek to enforce every kind of consistency they can think of, which is not appropriate. One example of going too far would be that if an article uses the word "too", it can't also use the word "also". Another example would be insisting that if an astronomy article uses the unit of length "kilometre" for one quantity, it can't the unit of length "astronomical unit" for a different quantity. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:16, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I thought there was a rule against bots making trivial style edits. (I don't pay much attention to the bot stuff, honestly, unless it affects my template cleanup work – there are template redirects lists I have to update for bots.) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 18:37, 8 December 2016 (UTC)
There is such a policy: WP:COSMETICBOT. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:22, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Conditional support: It also has to remain in the MOS lead. It was put there as a general principle, not just a line-item about ENGVAR/DATERET/ERA/CITEVAR matters in particular, and this is important. The ArbCom action that has involved MoS has been about a) infoboxes (and mostly about whether to have one at an article at all, which is not an MoS matter but a content dispute); b) date anto-formatting and auto-linking, which doesn't even exist here any longer; and c) nationalistic campaigning about punctuation nitpicks that are not actually subject to ENGVAR. So, none of the things for which that language was added to MoS to address are actually ENGVAR/DATERET/ERA/CITEVAR concerns at all. That said, yes, it would help to have all three of these points included in MOS:STYLEVAR. If anyone objects to using the lead-copied wording, be clear what these points are:

Try to resolve through discussion, as usual.
As a last resort (i.e., if discussion fails), then and only then defer to what the first major contributor did historically at that article, provided that is still within the range of what MoS accepts. Note that it does not mean "the first major contributor and/or their pals in some wikiproject have more say about present and future development at this and related articles". Nor does it mean "older articles are immune to later guideline changes". This point is often misunderstood, in both these incorrect directions (often simultaneously), especially among particular factions who mistake it for (or try to bend it into) some kind of supervoting and escape-clause privilege, along the lines of "if you put the most content into the article, you control it as the 'author', and the community can never tell you otherwise".
If people still won't stop fighting about it, try to write the problem away completely, by blank-slating the problematic content and recrafting it.

The principal danger we have here in inserting something to this effect directly into MOS:STYLEVAR is wording it poorly, in a way that increases rather than dispels proprietary/territorial/WP:OWN behavior. I would support using the MOS lead language quoted above, verbatim, since it encapsulates all of the points very concisely with careful word choices ("If", "an article", "used" in past tense, etc.). Any rewrite of it to "customize" it for STYLEVAR would need very careful examination, and I'm highly skeptical the quoted wording can be improved upon without negative side effects. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:27, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Comment One thing we want to avoid is giving a perception that discussion about style matters is the intended outcome. The intention is that, unless the MOS says otherwise, existing styles should be silently left alone, and new changes should be brought into line with the existing style of each article. The underlying motivation for these principles is that discussion about issues with no objective "right or wrong" has a particular tendency to waste everyone's time (cf. bikeshed effect), and so we want people to focus on more productive matters, not on which optional style should be used in an article. I am afraid the proposed language doesn't convey this clearly enough. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:01, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. I would like to have included a sentence like "editors should normally follow styles already established in the article" before going on to talk about what to do in case of disagreement. However, as I have been knee-jerk reverted three times trying to add what I thought would be a pretty uncontroversial addition as the MOS already says this in multiple places, I thought it best to frame the RfC with wording identical to that found in the lead. The already established style could, of course, be parsecs for astronomical distances and kilometres for terrestial distances for instance. Mixing units in an objective scheme like this is still a consistent style to my mind, so long as it still complies with WP:UNITS and #Units of measurement. SpinningSpark 23:39, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

How to indicate which person is which in a caption

I thought that, when there are more than one person in a photo, and the caption mentions the names of one (or more) of the people in the image, it is a good idea to indicate which one is which with at least one word, "right" and/or "left". I also thought that normally, those words ("right", "left") are in italics. I thought I remembered seeing that in art books and catalogs. In this edit, Mitch Ames removed the italics from "right" that I had just added. I didn't understand the reason for using regular font for "right" and "left", but before I reverted, I decided to see what the WP:Manual of Style had to say about it. I found the following in MOS:CAPTION, the section "Formatting of captions", third bulleted item:

The text of captions should not be specially formatted, except in ways that would apply if it occurred in the main text (e.g., italics for the Latin name of a species).

If I understand this correctly, and we follow this, Mitch Ames is right. However, I prefer italics for "left" and "right". Compare:

I didn't start a discussion with Mitch Ames because it appeared that, according to the MOS, he was right, and I've been busy, but I thought I'd start a discussion about this.

I would like to point out that if the image is of a painting, the painting title will be in italics, but the necessity of indicating which person is which, or where a building or object is in the image, with "left" and/or "right", would occur more often in the caption of a photograph than in the caption for a painting, so the likelihood of having a title in italics and a word such as "right" in italics in the same caption would be minimal. – Corinne (talk) 03:27, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I could've sworn there were directions to put things like that in both parentheses and italics: (left). I've been doing it wrong all this time? Or has something changed? Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:32, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that italics are the more common way to go and therefore will commonly be preferred, however, if there is already guidance on this I don't see a need to alter it. Primergrey (talk) 07:21, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

The statement that The text of captions should not be specially formatted simply means that the whole caption doesn't go in italics, or small caps, or anything else, to distinguish it from article text, as you sometimes see in some publications. It's silent on what one might do with stuff like (r) and (l) or (right) and (left) or (foreground). E Eng 19:53, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The guidance quoted by Corinne above is for captions in general, not for a "stage direction" separate from the caption. I think Corinne (and CT) are both correct and the revert was unwarranted, but don't see any discussion on the article talk page. Miniapolis 19:58, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I think you're saying what I'm saying, but you're saying it better. E Eng 23:38, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't say italics are usual in art history books, but you do see them. Note the concept of proper right which can be useful when talking about "his right hand" etc. Johnbod (talk) 20:11, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Is there any specifc advice for band members' names? Usage seems to vary widely, e.g. The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, Sex Pistols, The Moody Blues, ZZ Top, etc., etc. No italics in sight... ? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:54, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't know. I did this a few days ago, and kinda guessed (on the style, not the identities). --Redrose64 (talk) 23:54, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Parentheses usually look right to me. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 00:32, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Whether parens or commas, I'm OK, but but the italics seem unusual and wrong to me. Are there guides that suggest italics? Dicklyon (talk) 01:55, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Before we get too far into this, where's the evidence that MOS needs to opine on this? If not, we should leave this to the editors of individual articles. I feel strongly that making up guidelines in the abstract, without actual parties, to actual article disputes, who have actual opinions and reasons for them, is a bad idea. E Eng 02:08, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

The OP used italics, and that got reverted, so it does seem like an actual dispute. I don't necessarily think the MOS needs to say anything, if we mostly agree already that there's no good basis for using italics. I tried book searches such as this looking for examples; found one using bold, none using italics. Dicklyon (talk) 02:11, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

MOS:CAPTION doesn't mention "stage directions" (eg left, right), but it doesn't need to. MOS:ITALICS and MOS:ITAL list the cases in which italics are used, and stage directions is not one of them. By implication, then, italics ought not be used. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:13, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

MOS isn't a Talmudic text and is incomplete in many ways, and one reversion does not mean MOS needs to step in. Let's see multiple articles where editors have been unable to work this out for themselves. E Eng 02:19, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Italics are used an alternative to parentheses (round brackets). I would say we should admit both styles and probably prefer the latter usually, as clearer, for the same reason that we permit both italics and quotation marks for words as words: there are some constructions in which one will be easier to read than the latter. In an illustration the caption of which already has a bunch of stuff in italics, italicizing the left/right indicators will not be help. In caption already using parentheticals, using that style for left/right indicators will be confusing. I would suggest avoiding things like "(r)" as not as meaningful to as many readers as one might assume, but we don't need to spell that out, either, since we already have MOS:ABBR saying to avoid randomly abbreviating things. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:05, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

The cramped confines of captions are a great example of a place in which the balance shifts toward using an abbreviation where we wouldn't otherwise. E Eng 09:27, 2 December 2016 (UTC)

Captions are not so "cramped" that dropping a handful of characters from a single word makes any practical difference in length, yet doing so makes a major (negative) intelligibility difference, especially for non-native speakers.

I agree with SMcCandlish that we should admit both styles, italics, or regular font in parentheses (round brackets). (I prefer italics if there aren't other italics nearby; I think it reduces attention to the words "left", "right", and "foreground", or at least makes it clear the words are not part of the thought of the caption, while parentheses are distracting, but that's just my preference.) So, if it is agreed that both are acceptable, then are we saying that regular font without parentheses, like this ..., right. or ..., right,... is not acceptable? – Corinne (talk) 01:28, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

...makes it clear the words are not part of the thought of the caption... — But the words are explicitly part of the thought of the caption. The caption describes the picture, and the positions of the people in the picture are a legitimate part of the description. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:24, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

And the point of bracketing parentheticals is to minimize their impact, by framing them out of the central flow of the sentence. This is literally the function of parentheses/brackets in natural language. By contrast, italics have the exact opposite primary function, indicating emphasis. (The fact that they're also used for many Latinisms and other non-English insertions, and that these are often editorial in nature (cf., ibid., etc.) is probably why anyone wants to italicize left and right in captions at all.) It's probably the less practical of the two common approaches. We don't need to explicitly try to "ban" not using one style or other and just using plain style. There's not anything intrinsically wrong with something like "Nixon, right, shaking hands with Mao, left". It should be enough to generally recommend the use of parentheses or italics, whichever works better in the context. There are cases (especially increased specificity), when using either style (especially italics) may not be the best idea, e.g., "Salamanders of the eastern United States: Notophthalmus viridescens (eastern newt), top right; ...", where both parentheses and italics are already being used for something else, too, and in a collage of 6 images or whatever, the locators may be things like "second row, right" or "middle right", and so on. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:37, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Is there any reason for me to stop using italics with parentheses, as I've consistently been doing for probably a few years now? Somehow I'd gotten it in my head that that's how we were supposed to do it, and it seems to avoid some of the problems some folk have brought up above. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:44, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Seems redundant and likely to inspire someone to remove either the italics or the parentheses (as they would if you simultaneously italicized and quoted a words-as-words case, or both italicized and boldfaced something for emphasis). But, if that's all that happens, no big deal I guess. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:20, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

A comment from S. McCandlish so uncharacteristically laissez-faire that we should notify the media! E Eng 16:40, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I actually oppose most ideas for additions/changes to MoS as unnecessary or unhelpful. This thing has been here for 15+ years. It's pretty solid. The two major bits I've been working on for an extended period of time that are still nominally drafts (MOS:GLOSSARIES and MOS:ORGANISMS) already seem to be treated as de facto guidelines, other than the latter has a neutral position on "breed caps" and has a couple of bits that need additional research. I would also like to generalize a "MOS:SPORT" from MOS:CUE and some other pages. But there's very little in the main MoS that should be significantly changed, nor in its more vital subpages like MOS:NUM. Virtually every case they'll ever need to cover is already covered. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:49, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

MOS:ORGASMS??? Is there no limit to MOS overreach? E Eng 18:24, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@EEng: That would be MOS reach-around. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:48, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm sorry -- come again? E Eng 13:14, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Best avoid italics, I think. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:14, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

As mentioned above, italics are for emphasis, and so personally I think it is unusual to emphasize a position indicator. isaacl (talk) 16:23, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

No, italics are for distinguishing something, often (but not always) for emphasis. When a dictionary says –

I·tal·ic (ĭ-tăl′ĭk, ī-tăl′-) adj. 1. Of or relating to ancient Italy or its peoples or cultures.

– it's not emphasizing that the word is an adjective. E Eng 16:40, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I was trying to get at that when I said "italics have the exact opposite primary function, indicating emphasis. (The fact that they're also used for many Latinisms and other non-English insertions, and that these are often editorial in nature (cf., ibid., etc.) is probably why anyone wants to italicize left and right in captions at all.)" Because they're "operator overloaded" for emphasis and some other functions, they tend to be parsed as emphasis until the reader figures out they're something else – an unnecessary, distracting "time out" for the reader. Meanwhile, parentheses/brackets have the opposite function, which is why I would suggest they be preferred for this by default, though I don't care all that much, for reasons Herostratus gets into below. I agree we need not have MoS say anything like this, unless the issue comes up repeatedly and wastes more editorial time than it will take to get consensus to add it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:49, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

This is certainly something that should be left up to the individual editor, for various good reasons. One good reason is that (as we can see above) there is no one clear correct or better way. A second good reason is that adding another needless rule bogs down the MOS with more detail and makes it harder to learn and harder to use. A third good reason is that creating a rule means enforcement, it puts interactions about the matter into an enforcement mode where editors are playing rules cop with other editors and this is not as functional as peer-to-peer interactions. A fourth good reason is that there's zero evidence that it matters to the reader.

A fifth good reason is that micromanaging editors to this level is demoralizing and not how you attract and nurture a staff of volunteer editors (for instance we have a stupid micromanaging rule that I have to write "in June 1940" and not "in June of 1940" which is how I naturally write, and every stupid micromanaging rule like this is just another reason to just say screw it. As the Bible says "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn" (1 Timothy 5:18, paraphrased from Deuteronomy 25:4) which updated means "Let the editor who did the actual work of looking up the refs and writing the friggen thing -- you know, the actual work of the project -- be at least allowed the satisfaction of presenting it as she thinks best, within reasonable constraints".

That's five and that ought to be enough although I'm sure I can come up with more if pressed.

If you run into a situation where (as the OP noted) "In this edit, Mitch Ames removed the italics from "right" that I had just added" then play it as it lays, guided by WP:BRD. Anything that you add is subject to redaction and then discussion per WP:BRD. In this case, Mitch Ames would have been well within his rights. WP:BRD in these cases just means "I liked it better before, prove your edit is objectively an improvement". Your options are to let it go (recommended!) or open a thread on the talk page and maybe you can convince Mitch Ames and the other editors that, after all, the italics are an improvement in this particular case (if that's how you want to spend your energy).

Conversely, if the italics had been there for a while (sufficient to be part of the stable version of the article) then the removal of the italics would be subject to rollback per WP:BRD and you would be within your rights to roll back the change.

This means different articles will do it differently. This annoys a certain type of editor. Oh well. Herostratus (talk) 17:10, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Herostratus, that's possibly the most beautiful and powerful indictment of MOScreep/overreach I've ever read. Here's what I always trot out in these cases:

A. It is an axiom of mine that something belongs in MOS only if (as a necessary, but not sufficient test) either:

1. There is a manifest a priori need for project-wide consistency (e.g. "professional look" issues such as consistent typography, layout, etc. -- things which, if inconsistent, would be noticeably annoying, or confusing, to many readers); OR
2. Editor time has, and continues to be, spent litigating the same issue over and over on numerous articles, either

(a) with generally the same result (so we might as well just memorialize that result, and save all the future arguing), or
(b) with different results in different cases, but with reason to believe the differences are arbitrary, and not worth all the arguing -- a final decision on one arbitrary choice, though an intrusion on the general principle that decisions on each article should be made on the Talk page of that article, is worth making in light of the large amount of editor time saved.

B. There's a further reason that disputes on multiple articles should be a gating requirement for adding anything to MOS: without actual situations to discuss, the debate devolves into the "Well, suppose an article says this..."–type of hypothesizing -- no examples of which, quite possibly, will ever occur in the real life of real editing. An analogy: the US Supreme Court (like the highest courts of many nations) refuses to rule on an issue until multiple lower courts have ruled on that issue and been unable to agree. This not only reduces the highest court's workload, but helps ensure that the issue has been "thoroughly ventilated", from many points of view and in the context of a variety of fact situations, by the time the highest court takes it up. I think the same thinking should apply to any consideration of adding a provision to MOS.

See [12] and [13]. Perhaps we should collaborate on an essay.

E Eng 04:29, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Generally agreed with both of you, and these are among the reasons I so strongly resist changes to MoS, which can affect literally millions of articles. That said, two quibbles:

1) There is no "stupid micromanaging rule that [you] have to write 'in June 1940' and not 'in June of 1940'"; there's just a rule that you can't editwar tendentiously to prevent others from removing the unnecessary "of", or to force the "of" into existing content. This applies to similar guidelines, too; e.g. no one has ever been banned or blocked for adding bare URLs as citations despite WP:CITE advising against this. Editors get into "MoS flamewar" trouble – they self-demoralize and demoralize those around them – when they try to stop changes to "their" content by others seeking guideline compliance. It's almost always over-asserting personal (often professional or niche) preference ("what I learned in school", "how we do it at the newspaper I work at", "what the journals I submit to expect", etc.) in defiance of what WP's own guidelines want to see. This is a territorial, WP:VESTED urge, and people have to resist it, since there are thousands of editors and it's inevitable (WP:MERCILESS) that content will be changed by later volunteers, who all have radically different preferences. The War of the Preferences is only kept in check by a style guide and agreement to follow it as a WP guideline. Every time someone takes a "don't you dare change my beautiful prose" position over style trivia, they are exhibiting a WP:COMPETENCE problem.

Making editors happy is a bottom-rung WP goal to the extent it is one at all; satisfying readers is the main public one, and being successful as a project is the main internal one; both of these require a minimization of strife so the work can continue, through compromise, i.e. through editors learning they cannot always get what they want and that their individual wants take a back seat. Those who refuse to write any way but their way should go be bloggers or novelists. MoS is not micromanaging editors, only content. This is necessary to a limited extent, and participation in that nit-pick management is optional, just as are all the other forms of chrome-polishing around here, from GAN and FAC, to categorization details, to filling out infoboxes and navboxes, etc. We resist willy-nilly expansion of MoS's extent, for all the reasons you two just outlined. A personal feeling of micromanagement can, in my experience, be traced directly to over-identification with the content (a failure to actually release it to the community except in name), and over-investment in winning style-related disputes (as some kind of sport debate or holy war), or both of those issues at once. (I initially arrived at WP and MoS exhibiting both, and had to unlearn those approaches.) MoS's stability and its conflict-reduction effectiveness are more important than its line-item details.

2) The "demonstrate that it's a real problem" process only applies to adding something new. It's fallacious reasoning when applied in an attempt to remove something long-standing from MoS (or any other policy, guideline, etc.); the very existence of the rule makes the incidence low or non-existent. "I want to delete the rule to not capitalize for emphasis because people aren't capitalizing for emphasis" is invalid logic. We do sometimes remove a rule, but it's almost always on the basis of obsolescence, or it being an implausible addition no one bothered to question back when it was added (especially on some of the more nit-picky subpages that aren't watchlisted enough).
— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:49, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with the point of view that says this isn't something the MoS needs to concern itself with. As long as the result is clear to the reader, the exact format can be left to the editors working on the article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:51, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

I was specifically describing the use of italics within a sentence in prose. Italics in this situation is for mild, local emphasis, whereas bold within a sentence is for stronger emphasis. isaacl (talk) 03:52, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Bold is specifically discouraged except for special cases such as the title in the lead. Just as in most external styles, italics is preferred for emphasis, not bold. Dicklyon (talk) 06:28, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, in case there was any confusion, I wasn't providing any guidance on the use of bold but simply describing a high-level view on how its role differs from italics. As stated, bold is used very sparingly in published material (much like how in speech, shouting for emphasis is best saved for very specific circumstances). isaacl (talk) 06:53, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate all the comments here. Everyone is right – the best formatting for the position-indicating words ("left", "right", etc.) may depend upon the formatting of the rest of the caption; the question of whether one is justified in reverting a change in formatting may depend upon how long a particular format has been in the article; since various formatting styles seem to be acceptable, there is no good reason to require one style over another in the MOS, and doing so may cause more problems than it is worth; and finally, it is not important enough of an issue to spend a lot of time on, including reverting and arguing about it. Thanks again. – Corinne (talk) 17:26, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

It's worth noting that, while MOS silence may be deliberate, there is no way to make that apparent to future editors. We should consider which is worse: Adding a sentence to indicate that this is up to editorial discretion, or having the issue brought up from time to time, possibly without awareness of previous discussions by any of the participating editors, to eternity or the end of Wikipedia, whichever comes first. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:00, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

The "it keeps coming up at WT:MOS" thing hasn't usually proven all that problematic, though it is the reason a few "it's up to discretion" statements have been added here and there, and the reason for MOS:FAQ, which needs expansion. When it keeps coming up in the talk pages of articles is usually when we add something to MoS itself about it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:49, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Words to watch – mention protologisms?

Comments are requested at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch on whether it would be useful to mention "so-called 'protologisms'" in the Manual of Style section on Neologisms and new compounds – if so, why, and if not, why not? This was the subject of an earlier discussion on the same page with no clear consensus being reached. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 09:04, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

As always, I'd like to see diffs of actual problems that have arisen that your proposal would have avoided. E Eng 09:44, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Can I point out that the link to protologism redirects to neologism where the only mention is a see also for protologism. Could spend a long time on that if ones short term memory is failing. SpinningSpark 18:30, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

It was recently redirected. Then it was un-redirected. And now it's at AfD. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:46, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Very interesting indeed. Andrewa (talk) 16:59, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Quotation marks

In reading MOS:STRAIGHT, I noted that my PC's keyboard does not have curly quotes, so I have no option other than straight quotes. I submit that this needs to added to the MoS subsection as a prime reason to standardise on straight quotes.

In reading MOS:SINGLE, as a long-time professional proofreader, I disagreed with the (now old-fashioned) style '[e]nclose quotations inside quotations with single quotation marks'. Current British practice is 'normally to enclose quoted matter between single quotation marks, and to use double quotation marks for a quotation within a quotation': [e.g.] 'Have you any idea,' he said, 'what "red mercury" is?' --Per New Hart's Rules (2005) p.85. The source also states 'People writing for the Internet should note that single quotation marks are regarded as easier to read on a screen than double ones.' Bjenks (talk) 01:21, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

The text already says Straight quotation marks are easier to type. As for single vs. double, please search the archives for what the enormous discussion on this, then come back here if you have something new to offer. E Eng 01:33, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Searching previous discussions would not be productive. MOS:COMMONALITY states: 'Insisting on a single term or a single usage as the only correct option does not serve the purposes of an international encyclopedia'—with which I agree. Whatever MOS:SINGLE now says, editors may happily choose to use double quotes within singles as long as this is consistent within an article. Bjenks (talk) 02:11, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

If you favor disregard for SINGLE as to quotemarks, what do you seek on this MoS talk page? Permission? ―Mandruss ☎ 02:20, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, I'd like to know that too. COMMONALITY is about diction, and as a professional proofreader you don't need to be told what a house style is. Stuff like this has been an enormous time sink for literally a decade. E Eng 03:12, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Please don't go there. If you want to disregard SINGLE, or re-open a discussion about whether it's a good idea, you'll waste a lot of everyone's time and end up back in the same place. Dicklyon (talk) 04:28, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, DL—I hear you and promise to desist from further discussing here the questionable wording of SINGLE. Bjenks (talk) 06:00, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Shortcut MOS:VAR

RGloucester reverted what is supposed to be the shortcut to the section about English varieties. If that is not a suitable shortcut, where else? --George Ho (talk) 18:38, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

We already have the universally used WP:ENGVAR for that section. There is absolutely no need for another shortcut. Not to mention that there are other 'VAR' shortcuts, such as MOS:DATEVAR and MOS:CITEVAR. There is no justification for using the bare 'VAR' as a shortcut to ENGVAR. It ought be deleted. RGloucester — ☎ 18:42, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I created it as far as I did. I don't want to delete it. What if I can turn this into a disambiguation page? Would that help? --George Ho (talk) 18:44, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I suppose that redirecting it to the same place as MOS:STYLEVAR might make some sort of sense. RGloucester — ☎ 18:49, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Done. --George Ho (talk) 19:16, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Unknown Pleasures#RfC: Italics for Pitchfork (website) magazine?

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Unknown Pleasures#RfC: Italics for Pitchfork (website) magazine?. — JJMC89 (T·C) 04:42, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Dashes and Engvar

Those who don't remember Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Date delinking are advised to read it to discover how dim a view the rest of Wikipedia takes of this kind of squabble over minutiae of formatting; those who do remember it should ponder what happened even with a relatively relaxed Arbcom in charge, and how well a repeat is likely to go down with the Defenders of the Wiki among the new intake. No reader of Wikipedia cares how the dashes are formatted on any given article, provided it's consistent, and unilaterally changing them is never going to be appropriate except in a few exceptional circumstances, none of which apply here. ‑ Iridescent 22:01, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

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

Hello MOS editors. Is there a difference between BR Eng and Am Eng with regards to use of endashes and emdashes? I cannot see anything described at Comparison of American and British English. Please see this short thread for context. Thanks. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:07, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

No, by WP's standards it's an arbitrary choice which should be consistent within articles but has nothing to do with Br vs. Am. You're right and Neilinabbey is wrong [14] – it's amazing how often we get "professional editors" pontificating without apparently understanding what a house style is. This is exactly the kind of worthless style-warrior busywork being discussed elsewhere on this page. E Eng 22:27, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

While both are acceptable, em dashes are primarily used in US English, eg 'the President—who at that time was Obama—approved', while British English generally uses en dashes, nowadays with spaces (unless when used in a range, such as 2010–2016), eg 'the Prime Minister – who at that time was Cameron – approved'. See https://www.gsbe.co.uk/grammar-the-dash.html and many other sources.

And thank you, EEng, I am perfectly aware of what a house style is, having written several for different organisations. You may wish to see this, which confirms what I have said is, contrary to your view, correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash

Neilinabbey (talk) 22:37, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, you apparently still don't know what a house style is, because if you did you'd have recognized that WP:MOSDASH (to which PaleCloudWhite so helpfully directed you in the thread linked in his OP) ends the discussion. Instead you replied, "I would also add that my opinion as an individual is at least as valid as yours and if I want to make these changes - which are not a waste of time - I will do so!"

As for what someone or other wrote in our article Dash to which you link, that has zero weight here. But for the sake of argument let's suppose it does. Hmmmm. Well, what is says is,

In the United Kingdom, the spaced en dash is the house style for certain major publishers, including the Penguin Group, the Cambridge University Press, and Routledge. However, this convention is not universal. The Oxford Guide to Style (2002, section 5.10.10) acknowledges that the spaced en dash is used by "other British publishers" but states that the Oxford University Press, like "most US publishers", uses the unspaced em dash.

That hardly supports your claim that endases are universally used in the UK. But thanks for playing our game. E Eng 23:08, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

At no point did I claim that en dashes (not endases) are "universally used in the UK", I clearly said "generally". I am sorry you are unable to differentiate between the two things - until you can, I suggest you stop pontificating in so arrogant and aggressive a manner. What you have posted confirms my point, showing that several UK major publishers use en dashes, while only that prefers em dashes, the OUP, is named. What is more, the OUP has long been known to prefer styles more normally associated with the USA, such as the Oxford comma. Moreover, WP:MOSDASH says that either style can be used, placing more emphasis on consistency. I have applied consistency in the article that started this - therefore I am perfectly in alignment with its requirements and the house style, so get off your high horse. Neilinabbey (talk) 23:21, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

What part of I have never seen em dashes used in British books about British topics, only in American books or books by US writers do you not recall writing? It's nice, though, that you've now seen the wisdom of backpedaling to generally.
Again, we don't use our own articles as style guides, for reasons that surely must be obvious. I'll take OUP as outweighing Mr. Dobbs' class-handout style guide any day.
Contrary to what you say, you have not "applied consistency in the article". What you did is change the unspaced emdashes—the established and consistent style of the article—to spaced emdashes (huh?) in at least one case [15] and spaced endashes in other cases, [16], and leave the rest alone. Hardly consistency.
It's cute how you took time to point out that I mistyped endashes as endases. Devastating!

The view from up here is fine, so I think I'll stay. E Eng 00:17, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

It's not that hard to find other British guides that mandate the serial comma—from the serial comma article, there's also MHRA Style Guide nd Fowler's Modern English Usage. Usage is mixed on both sides of the Atlantic—where do Brits even get the idea that the serial comma is an Americanism? I hope Neilinabbey can at least avoid sniping at typos. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:11, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Wait until he focuses that steel-trap mind of his on the fact that you mistyped "and" as "nd". Then we'll really get put in our places. E Eng 01:28, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Oh, but that's Canadian ENGVAR. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:58, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Pretty smart, eh! E Eng 02:05, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

That I em! In fact, I can recite the whole alphabet from "eh" to "zed"! Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:22, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it's quite understandable to want to ensure that style points within an article adhere to the most common usage in a particular variety of English. Dashes are more commonly rendered as spaced ens in Brit English, in Australian English also. JG66 (talk) 23:56, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you, JG66 Neilinabbey (talk) 00:10, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

No, it's not understandable, because people have an astonishing variety of ideas about what's common or appropriate, and such efforts lead to timesinks such as the one we're in right now‍—‌see [17]. If you want MOS to say one form of dash is preferred in this or that variety of English, propose it and get consensus. E Eng 00:17, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

EEng is correct. Editors are wise to respect community consensus, which is not established in content disputes at articles or on MoS talk pages. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:38, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Tearing myself away for a moment from the warm glow of your validation... If consensus on style matters isn't established on MOS talk pages, where are they established? E Eng 01:47, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

LOL. Yeah, the MoS talk page (or one of it's sub-guidelines' talk pages) is about the only place consensus on style matters is established on WP. That's pretty much why these particular talk pages exist. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:01, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

I was referring to unstructured little discussions between a few editors (hence the words "content disputes"). That is not how to achieve change to any community consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:42, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Ah. I parsed your comment as not established (in content disputes at articles) or (on MoS talk pages). E Eng 14:30, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Agreed the answer is "no"; there is no evidence of any national divide on this issue, and even if a faint preference could be demonstrated it would not rise to MOS:ENGVAR level anyway. The distinction is one of genre not of geography (and is not "arbitrary" as someone suggested above). En dashes are used in formal, academic writing, distinctly from em dashes, hyphens, and minus signs, but two of these essentially do not even exist in journalistic writing. I mean that literally; if you check news style guides like the AP Stylebook they do not mention the existence of the en dash or minus glyphs at all, and only recognize the hyphen and the em dash. This is a historical artifact of pre-digital typesetting for multiple-editions-per-day speed, and really doesn't have anything to do with what WP does or should. The consensus to use en dashes and minuses the same way as other academic publishers has been stable here for years. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:58, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

On the contrary, there is a clear difference between British English and American English with regards to use of endashes and emdashes (to capture PaleCloudedWhite's original question phrasing). Anyone who reads, writes or edits British English recognises that the em-dash is a rarity, seen almost exclusively in USEng examples. In general, where BrEng separates interjections and subsidiary comments by a spaced en-dash, US writing applies the unspaced em-dash. Fortunately MOS reflects and accommodates the different usages in English VARiants, and so the spaced en-dash can properly be used in BrE articles.Onanoff (talk) 05:15, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree that there is a correlation, with spaced en dash being more common in British publications, and unspaced em in American. But keep in the mind that these are style choices, quite orthogonal to the English language variant. On WP, all combinations are acceptable per the MOS, just as all combinations are found in sources. Dicklyon (talk) 05:23, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't see a strict boundary between US–UK usage. Tony (talk) 07:36, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Agree that endashes are more common in British English and emdashes in US, but that it's not a fixed or official thing. Nor has any evidence been presented that explicitly makes that claim. User:Neilinabbey seemed to accept that when they stressed endashes are "generally" preferred in the UK not "universally" (although they did initially deploy the often-seen-on-WP fallacy that because they've never seen something, it doesn't exist), but it should then be clear that the distinction doesn't fall under Engvar; and in any event MOS is clear that either is OK so long as used consistently. N-HH talk/edits 21:11, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

In the name of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the saints and apostles, someone please close this. E Eng 21:47, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

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

Internal links

Regarding this edit: the link prefixed with an unadorned section symbol, §, is an indication that the link is an internal link. From my writing experience, positional indicators such as "above" and "below" are discouraged, and with the specificity now available through hyperlinks, readers can easily locate the appropriate section by following the link. I appreciate, though, that some people may be accustomed to these indicators. Does anyone have any other views? isaacl (talk) 15:53, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Then convert the "above" and "below" to [[#Whatever|above]], etc., as appropriate (and it would not be useful if it's in the same section, of course). Tony1 is correct that "above" and "below" are important cues that the material is on the same page, even as your own point is valid, that the material can be directly linked to. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:15, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

even if capitalized in a religion's scriptures

Does this mean that if our article quotes a portion of text from a religion's scriptures that does so, we should use square-brackets to decapitalize the "He" in "but He did not have regard for Cain and his offering". Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:22, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

No; see MOS:QUOTE. Doing that would be changing the intent of the original material in the quotation. When a Christian capitalizes "He" in references to God or Jesus, this is a special theological signifier. WP doesn't do that in WP's own voice (per WP:NPOV – WP is not a Christian publication endorsing a particular religious view), but we're not in a position to strip it from the voice of those we're quoting directly. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:50, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

PS: If we think it necessary, we can add a clause in that section at MOS:ISMS to indicate not to make such changes in directly quoted material, but I'm skeptical this is necessary, since the question is rarely raised (this may be a first, in fact). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:35, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Capitalized "The" University of `Foo`

At some point (I haven't dug it out of diffs yet) someone added the following to MOS:INSTITUTIONS:

The word the at the start of a title is usually uncapitalized, but follow the institution's own usage (a degree from the University of Sydney; but researchers at The Ohio State University).

I have reverted this as clearly controversial and against consensus. This idea has come up very frequently at university and other organization articles, and in every single case I can recall, the consensus was that this was specialized-style fallacy overcapitalization, in particular just marketing-based aggrandizement, and was not some magical exception to MOS:CAPS. I note that it directly contradicts what has long been at MOS:CAPS, including specific wording to the contrary at MOS:CAPS#Institutions, and there is also no such exception at its subsection MOS:THECAPS, or MOS:TM. So, this was a guideline WP:POVFORK, and one that runs counter to years of consistent consensus against this overcapping, and three applicable guideline sections. If people want to see consensus change on the matter, open an RfC about it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:35, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

That came in with this diff on a particularly busy editing day many years ago, with edit summary indicating that "The Ohio State University" is the only institution he knows of that it would apply to. So, should this institution get a capitalized "The"? If so, doing so as an exception might be a better idea than writing it into the MOS such that we turn over the style to arguments about editors' opinion of what institutions want, sort of like what we backed away from in cleaning up MOS:JR. Just undo it. Dicklyon (talk) 05:07, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I already have, putting it in line with the three other guidelines. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:15, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

And as the article says, the basis for the cap The is actually pretty sketchy; essentially just a logo. See this ref. Seems overblown, or over-interpreted, to interpret that the institution cares much about the caps on "the". Dicklyon (talk) 05:20, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I.e., it's precisely what's addressed already at the other guidelines. We just need to cross-reference them with a note at MOS:TM that "The" isn't capitalized in the name of organizations even if their own materials style it that way. It's just a missing line-item at that page, that you have to look in MOS:THECAPS or MOS:CAPS#Institutions to find. (Publications are an exception, per MOS:TITLE, and rarely an organization can "inherit" the capitalization by including the full name of the publication in the company name ("The New York Times Company", "The Hunger Games Fan Club", etc), but we need not get into that.) If we update MOS:TM, and cross-ref it to MOS:THECAPS, while MOS:CAPS#Institutions already has the rule, there's no need for the main MoS page to have a line item about it. It's already implicit in all the other rules, and it doesn't come up often enough any more that MoS-main has to address it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:15, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Update: It was also already covered at MOS:THEMUSIC. I've now cross-referenced all of these at MOS:TM, and we can probably just remove the line item from the main MoS page. Either that, or replace it with a more general one that is not specific to "institutions", a minor sub-matter of the general rule. Scratch that; it's concise and seems to fit there, and as a more general matter is already covered at WP:MOS#Capitalization of "The" and its cross-reference to MOS:THECAPS. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:58, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I think it's important to make clear what we mean by "publication". Thus there are websites and online databases that are effectively "publications", such as The Plant List. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:25, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I would think MOS:TITLE would cover that. I agree that we do need to clarify (because it keeps coming up again and again – just saw it early today in an RfC, and people keep trying to re-litigate it article by article by article) that an e-publication is still a publication, and receives the same capitalization and italicization as a dead-trees one, when it's being addressed as a published work not as an organization (my go-to example for this: "She had an article published in Salon", versus "He left his job as the webmaster at Salon.com in 2009". This is the same distinction as The New York Times (the publication) and The New York Times Company (the legal entity). For one thing, our citation templates are always going to italicize it when cited as a work, and for another it just doesn't make sense that an online publication is less of a publication and doesn't get the same stylistic treatment as one printed on wood pulp. What next? Does my song not get "The Conventional Song Quotation Marks" because I released it online instead of on a CD? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:58, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Guidance on use of italics

Regarding this edit: note the link that was removed pointed to additional details on a separate page. I feel it is more appropriate for a manual of style to give a link to the appropriate guidance, rather than just saying "the usual way". Would anyone else like to weigh in? isaacl (talk) 15:43, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

The solution is to either link to #Titles on the same MoS page (which does not cause a confusing reload of the same page), or to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles#Italics, a more detailed drill-down on the same topic. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:13, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

The removed link was to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Italic type, which does not cause a reload of the same page. isaacl (talk) 14:01, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

"Retain existing style": finding common ground

A return to shared and neutral principles is long overdue. We have just seen fruitless discussion of provisions in the lead under the dubious and concealed title "WP:STYLEVAR", and the addition of a new section called "Retaining existing styles".

What and where is WP:STYLEVAR?

My inquiry addressed to SlimVirgin on this talkpage yielded no answer:

... this mysterious WP:STYLEVAR. You say it has always been around, pretty well; and that it once had a section of its own. But I do not find "WP:STYLEVAR" anywhere on this main page of MOS. Please help us here. Where did that name come from? In what edit was the name invented? Who made the redirect that takes us there, and for what purpose? What documentation and discussion accompanied those actions? I ask you, because you seem to be the main supporter (and certainly the main protector and user) of that invisible location in MOS and the seemingly "official" redirect that you present as a documented and consensually settled feature of MOS.

So I went looking for an answer myself. Slim Virgin turns out to be responsible for attempting to make that shortcut a "thing", in this edit to MOS on 31 August 2015. Among the addition and shifting of other stuff, note the insertion of "STYLEVAR". SV's two-word edit summary was "per talk". But there was no discussion of that insertion here at WT:MOS. What we do find is SV then using the shortcut at this talkpage as if it were something long-settled, fully transparent, and presumably discussed. It was never discussed.

With an edit summary reading "+ red", SV minutes before had created the redirect called "WP:STYLEVAR". Such an "official" WP shortcut is normally subject to scrutiny and discussion; this one never was discussed, anywhere by anyone.

The new section "Retaining existing styles"

Apparently because WP:STYLEVAR was nowhere to be seen, though SV often referred to it, someone added a new section in MOS with the shortcut MOS:STYLEVAR. We have seen more confusion since then. The section had other problems, apart from duplication and mixed-up signage. It incorporated a shortcut that reloads the huge MOS page itself, where an internal link would be the proper procedure (heaven help mobile-device users). It had a note (a "footnote") that takes us not to the foot of the page but to the section dealing with italics. It perpetuated one set of contested interpretations of ArbCom decisions and ignored others. All of this it did without discussion, though there was some tinkering of the section later by others.

My own edits: back to transparency and shared principles

This sort of to and fro has been going on for far too long: SV removes wording from the lead that has stood for about 12 months; others restore it; SV or someone else reverts, appealing to "consensus" and using a spurious WP shortcut that was never anything like consensual.

I've removed contested material from the lead altogether. It was never consensual, and it is now redundant given the new section "Retaining existing styles". I've put WP:STYLEVAR among the shortcuts to that section, so at last it is visible to everyone (not just those who edit the lead).

I've shortened that new section, reducing it to something minimal we can all accept. Perhaps that is enough; but if anyone wants to add content, let them justify it here. This page is still under ArbCom sanctions, and we are quite rightly required to get consensus for the provisions of MOS.

Looking forward to that discussion, and to no insertion of controversy again.

Tony (talk) 10:18, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I have never in my life heard of the priniple that shortcuts should be discussed beforehand. Perhaps you can link to it? A shortcut is just a shortcut; in itself, it says nothing at all about policy or anything else. The page loading issue is easily dealt with. No need to remove anything to achieve that.

The purpose of the section was merely to gather together in one place links to places where the MOS has specific guidance on style variation. It also notes that there is a common thread running through this guidance, and that people shouldn't edit war over style issues. None of that invents anything new, nor was it intended to. It links to existing guidance, the existing lead establishes a general principle, and edit warring is against existing policy.

On arbcom, I don't think that arbcom should be mentioned at all in the text. It should be reworded so that it does not sound like a threat to editors, with the arbcom ruling relegated to a footnote. SpinningSpark 11:01, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I was the one who added (or rather transcribed) the reference to Arbcom from the lede to the section. Before I got there, it read like the rule applied only to those four specific areas. Better not to leave the point open to debate: it applies across the board to any style choice where different options are available. Don't matter if it's variety of English or infobox styles or whatever else. If there are multiple options, people shouldn't be changing between them unless there's a good substantial reason (beyond personal preference) to do so.

This is per the existing guideline. The general principle has been at the top of WP:MOS for a while (or was, until Tony just removed it to this new section this morning) and is also at the top of WP:MOSNUM. Whether we mention Arbcom in the text or a footnote, I'm not overly bothered. But I would be very concerned if the general nature of the rule were to be downplayed or removed. Kahastok talk 11:22, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting that the principle shouldn't be stated (don't think we should call it a rule though). My point was we can state it without invoking the threat of arbcom. SpinningSpark 11:40, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

...and ha ha, an IP has just reinstated Tony's edit. How convenient. SpinningSpark 11:40, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Tony, I have a question for you. As far as I can see, you are the originator of the modern form of what we are now calling 'STYLEVAR'. At the time of its introduction, in 2007, it read:

In June 2005, the Arbitration Committee ruled that, when either of two styles is acceptable, it is inappropriate for an editor to change an article from one style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so (for example, it is acceptable to change from American to British spelling if the article concerns a British topic, and vice versa). Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable. If an article has been stable in a given style, it should not be converted without a style-independent reason. Where in doubt, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk.

This piece of the lead has continued on since then in various forms, and I believe it should stay. It has been an important principle, and I believe that consensus supports it. I do not think that it was wise of you to remove it, and can't understand why, given that it seems to have originated with you. Prior to that edit, various forms of the same passage had been part of the MoS from 3 March 2006, with an addition by the above mentioned party following an arbitration case. In any case, I do think it is important that editors are made aware of the fact that ArbCom has issued multiple rulings on this matter, and that discretionary sanctions have the potential to apply. Furthermore, anything we can do to discourage edit-warring, whilst also maintaining the primacy of the MoS, should be done. RGloucester — ☎ 16:57, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Where is your question, RGloucester? I don't see one.

You point out that SV first inserted a version of the contested wording. She started a new section for it: "Disputes over style issues". Back before we suspected what use SV would make of her text, all I did was to trim the version I found and join it into a tidier lead. Note my clear edit summary, inviting discussion. Just two weeks ago we find Slim wishing it back into its own section: "This used to have its own section within the MoS, but it was moved to the lead. Perhaps we ought to move it back so that it's clearer as a principle".

I agree. Given the use her wording has been put to over the years (most often by SV herself), the surreptitious addition of "WP:STYLEVAR" (which took the hapless reader merely to the top of the MOS page), and the fact that there is now a separate section (called "Retaining existing styles"), I've done what SV has wanted. I've also removed SV's extra provision: "Where in doubt, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Jguk." But this is not supported in any of the ArbCom links.

Here is what we do find from ArbCom (my underlining): "Wikipedia does not mandate styles in many different areas; these include (but are not limited to) American vs. British spelling, date formats, and citation style. Where Wikipedia does not mandate a specific style, editors should not attempt to convert Wikipedia to their own preferred style, nor should they edit articles for the sole purpose of converting them to their preferred style, or removing examples of, or references to, styles which they dislike". But we have seen SV herself appealing to "WP:STYLEVAR" to do just that: to go against MOS:LQ, which has always enjoyed sturdy consensus despite all attempts against it from SV and others.

Does anyone think ArbCom is happy for an editor to alter style that Wikipedia does mandate? ("As for punctuation, I don't use LQ ...".) Hmm.

Have I answered your implicit question, RGloucester? Your last sentence: "Furthermore, anything we can do to discourage edit-warring, whilst also maintaining the primacy of the MoS, should be done." This is what I've done, in my minimalised common-ground text. For which I invite further discussion—and any additions that are demonstrated, here at talk, to be necessary and to reflect current consensus.

Tony (talk) 01:59, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

My question was about the reason for your surprise at the nature of the so-called 'STYLEVAR', despite your having edited said passage as far back as 2007. In any case, you've answered the question. And, I agree whole-wholeheartedly with the ArbCom principle as you've recounted it, and I would like some form of the above passage to remain in the lead (not in a separate section), with that principle as a basis. The recent revisions on both sides have created a mess. RGloucester — ☎ 08:46, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

Five steps toward stability: fixing "Retain"

RGloucester, I'm glad that's sorted out. We agree: many recent revisions have created a mess. So have several that are not so recent, as I have shown. It's time for a collegial effort to bring about stability. Let's all work together. That's what I propose, starting from the simple shared foundation I've now put into MOS.

Best-practice Wikipedian procedure, in such a case:

We focus first on the section itself: "Retaining existing styles".
When there's been proper discussion and review of that section here, we insert the new version into MOS.
We consider just how much of its content should go into the lead. (No content belongs primarily in a lead, as WP:LEAD makes clear: "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents.")
We make sure that all internal and external links are correct, visible, up to date, and stable, and generally tidy the workshop once the job is done.
We place a note (an "advertisement") that the work is completed here on the talkpage, and appeal for any future changes to the lead, and to the crucial "Retain" section, to be discussed here first. A hidden note or two in MOS would help.

SpinningSpark, you'll understand my need to sweep things clean earlier (as I saw it). Of course your own work was well motivated. I for one think some of it should go back in. The centralised information (linked using "MOS:VAR" especially) is important. Let's work together to incorporate that element again properly. I can suggest ways of linking that don't reload the page, and others that will not load another page twice. Let's keep things navigable and readable, especially to help those unfamiliar with the sprawling suite of MOS pages (this "MOSCentral" is daunting all by itself).

Kahastok, and everyone else here who cares about MOS as a core resource for Wikipedia, let's insist to everyone that good intentions are not enough. This has been a perennially difficult area to get right. Despite claims that one or another version is time-honoured and stable, no version ever has been. Can we all move forward cautiously, with respect for views held on all sides? (Better, let there be no "sides".) If anything is inserted in the absence of well-conducted dialogue, and without good notice in edit summaries, the same old problems will return. Could be days, weeks, or years: but as we have seen, they will come back to bite us.

As I see it, keeping things short and simple is the best default strategy. What we have right now can be accepted by everyone, right? Some will think X is missing, some will clamour for Y instead. So a basic version lacking both X and Y may be best.

I suggest a completely new talkpage section below (referencing this one), for orderly discussion toward stability in "Retaining existing styles" and the all-important lead. Step by systematic step.

Tony (talk) 07:44, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the lead on this, Tony. I'll be happy to help with the calm approach you propose. Dicklyon (talk) 22:45, 26 December 2016 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me, as well. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:18, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

wp:TLDNR Though I tried. Not even certain what the issue is. Executive summary and a new section sounds good. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:09, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate this approach, as well. The most important thing, for me, is to see that some form of the above passage be reinstated. RGloucester — ☎ 16:07, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

hyphens used in the original source

I'm citing a webpage whose title is simply and exactly "2010-Present". When I cited that page using {{cite web}}, I used that just as presented. Another editor, referring to Wikipedia's standards for dashes, changed it to "2010–Present". Is there an SOP for making or not making such a change? — fourthords | =Λ= | 23:21, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

That's purely a style issue, and there is a guideline somewhere that says we should convert source's style to Wikipedia's style, or some such thing. I ran across it the other day but I doubt I could put my finger on it now. For example, we don't preserve a source's curly quotes/apostrophes but rather convert them to straight quotes/apostrophes, and we would generally convert "AN ALL CAPS NEWS ARTICLE TITLE" to "An All Caps News Article Title" or "An all caps news article title". ―Mandruss ☎ 20:43, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

You're thinking of WP:Manual_of_Style#Typographic_conformity. E Eng 20:51, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Agreed that is within the normal typographic conformity range, as it's just a style matter. Contrast this sharply with the similar question about changing "He" to "he" in direct quotations of religious scripture, which is not okay because it changes the meaning and intent of the material being quoted. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:33, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

That's exactly what I was looking for! Thanks, EEng! — fourthords | =Λ= | 22:27, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

MOS:TIES

Can Hong Kong English, Philippine English and Singaporean English be included to that list to distinguish related articles from the prevailing dialect (British English) used in articles about Southeast Asia. Irish English is obviously related to formal British English since they are next door to each other but the Philippines and the United States are halfway around the world so unless a reader is well versed in history, this is not always clear. In practical terms, it is annnoying to correct the proper date format from British to Philippine since Philippine-related articles use their own variant ~~(mmmmddyyyy)~~ (mdy). Shhhhwwww!! (talk) 04:48, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Regardless of what some list article may say, the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Dates_and_numbers#Formats doesn't provide for a MMMMDDYYYY date format to be used in articles, and I don't see it used, for example, in Philippines or History_of_the_Philippines. E Eng 06:04, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

It's Template:Use mdy dates. The long form is just the the colloquial in Philippine writing. Shhhhwwww!! (talk) 14:36, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Proposal to stop supporting pull quotes

PROPOSAL ACCEPTED

I had a read through this RfC and the previous one. I also sampled where people are using the template. The support for reducing the use of pull quotes is strong (most of the objections in the previous RfC seemed to be either procedural or wanting something stronger). In my quick survey of the quote template, pull quotes were a bit more common than I'd have expected from the discussion, but I don't think that's hugely relevant.

The only real issue IMO is one of quorum (numbers are small compared to the previous RfC). However, the primary objector to the last RfC did participate in this one and notices were placed on the relevant template talk pages (Ideally this would also have been mentioned at the TfD talk page and I personally would have preferred at the FAC page though I can see arguments against on that one). There may be some objection over this not being at TfD, but given the nature of the issue, MOS makes a lot more sense.

In any case, we seem to have a fairly clear consensus for this change and I think rejecting this proposal on the basis of no quorum would be overly bureaucratic, so the proposal is accepted. I will leave it to the relevant editors to make the proposed changes. Hobit (talk) 12:11, 25 December 2016 (UTC)

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

Moved from archive for closing

The general proposal is: Shall we stop implying support for pull quotes in our documentation, yes or no. The specific proposal doesn't include text to flat-out forbid pull quotes, they are just no longer mentioned. Herostratus (talk) 17:27, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Specifics, and examples

(A "pull quote" repeats text that is also in the main body of the article, typically in a box or highlighted in some other way, to emphasize it and/or for page layout enhancement. This RfC devolves from a long discussion, here, which indicated very little use of or support for pull quotes in the Wikipedia.)

The suggested specific edits are shown below. Deletions are showed as ~~bolded struckthrough~~ and additions or changes are shown underlined

Specific changes

1) At this WP:MOS page, change MOS:BLOCKQUOTE as shown:

Format a long quote (more than about 40 words or a few hundred characters, or consisting of more than one paragraph, regardless of length) as a block quotation, indented on both sides. Block quotations can be enclosed in the {{quote}} template, or between a pair of <blockquote>...</blockquote> HTML tags. The template also provides parameters for attribution. Do not enclose block quotations in quotation marks (and especially avoid decorative quotation marks in normal use, such as those provided by the ~~{{pull quote}} a.k.a.~~{{cquote}} template~~, which are reserved for pull quotes)~~. Block quotations using a colored background are also discouraged.

2) Move {{Pull quote}} to {{Cquote}} to and {{Reduced pull quote}} to {{Rquote}} (these already exists as redirects; this is simply to remove any reference to pull quote from the template name).

3) {{Pull quote/boilerplate}} is transcluded into the documentation for {{Quote box}}, {{Quote frame}}, {{Cquote}}, and {{Rquote}}. Rename this page and edit it as follows:

This template is meant for pull quotes, the visually distinctive repetition of text that is already present on the same page. In most cases, this is not appropriate for use in encyclopedia articles. The Manual of Style guidelines for block quotations recommend formatting block quotations using the {{Quote}} template or the HTML <blockquote> element, for which that template provides a wrapper.

~~Pull~~ Quotes work best when used with short sentences, and at the start or end of a section, as a hint of or to help emphasize the section's content.
* For typical ~~pull~~ quotes, especially those longer than the rest of the paragraph in which they are quoted, {{Cquote}} provides a borderless quote with decorative quotation marks, and {{Quote frame}} provided a bordered quote. Both span the article width.
* For very short ~~pull~~ quotes, {{Rquote}} (with decorative quotation marks) or {{Quote box}} (framed) can be used to set the quote off to either the right or left as in a magazine sidebar. This can be effective on essay pages and WikiProject homepages.

4) Edit the "Usage" sections of {{Quote box}}, {{Quote frame}}, {{Cquote}}, and {{Rquote}} (which comes just below the above text) as appropriate to remove mentions of pull quotes. For instance, the edit for {{Cquote}} would be

For actual ~~pull~~ quotes, this template provides a centered, borderless ~~pull~~ quote, with scalable decorative quotation marks...

5) If we've missed any other mentions of pull quotes in any documentation, remove those also.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This leaves the following warning at the top of {{Quote box}}, {{Quote frame}}, {{Cquote}}, and {{Rquote}}:

Which leaves these templates with little function (technically, although editors may continue to use them in defiance of the warning template). This is intentional. Removing the template, which amounts to formally permitting the templates to be used for regular quotes, is a contentious question and will be part of a separate RfC down the line. Herostratus (talk) 17:27, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Also, just FYI, here is an example of how pull quotes work and look

You don't need to read all this text. Just scan the page with the realization that all of the text in the little boxes repeats text found in the main body of the article. That is what pull quotes do.

“

Pull quotes are a technique used by magazines as a layout device.

”

Pull quotes are a technique used by magazines as a layout device. The make the page layout sportier and more inviting to the eye, or are supposed to. They also emphasize and highlight some passage. This may interest the reader (who may be just scanning through the magazine's pages) and draw her into the article.

In the opinion of most – really, virtually all – editors, this is not really an appropriate device for an encyclopedia. We are not eyeball bait. We aren't paid by how many views our articles get. We have no need to or interest in drawing the reader into the article in this way.

In fact, use of pull quotes would, in this writer's opinion, serve only to confuse the reader.

[P]ull quotes are never used here – virtually never.

This is why pull quotes are never used here – virtually never. Some editors claim they see them from time to time. I've been here eleven years and I've only seen one use of a pull quote, and that was because someone pointed one out to me in a discussion of pull quotes. So whether its "virtually never used" or "almost actually never used", they are very rare.

“

[W]e aren't a top-down hierarchy and fail if we try to be, we can crowdsource format as well as content to arrive at best solutions, and it's better for morale to give editors as much creative control as is consistent with good layout.

”

— Herostratus, This talk page

At the same time, this writer is not an advocate of straitjacketing the editors. There are good reason for this – we aren't a top-down hierarchy and fail if we try to be, we can crowdsource format as well as content to arrive at best solutions, and it's better for morale to give editors as much creative control as is consistent with good layout. As a volunteer organization, morale is very important. At the same time, we aren't an anarchy. But in my experience our current rules can be used to make a bad layout – too many images, or conversely walls of text, and so forth – and these are best handled by correcting and educating editors on an article-by-article basis.

I'm tired of talking about pull quotes.

Herostratus, This talk page

And, to be honest, I'm tired of talking about pull quotes. We don't use them, they don't help us in our mission. This really ought to be unanimously accepted RfC. We shouldn't even need an RfC, but an editor objected to the proposition, and so here we are; getting anything done here is like pulling teeth, it seems sometime. But OTOH, democracy.

As you see all of the quotes above are pull quotes. If you like what I've done here you can vote against the proposal, I guess. As to the larger question of how strict we should be about whether or not a quote can have a box around it – which is not at issue in the RfC, but indirectly affects it – for my opinion I'll drop a real (non-pull) quote:

Consistency is often overrated.
— Ralph Spoilsport, Essays About Stuff

That quote above was a real quote, not a pull, quote, just as an example of that. It's formatted with {{Quote}}, which is basically HTML <blockquote>...</blockquote>, and is the only formally permitted way to show a quote in an article, although in real life editors use the boxed and big-quote templates above (which are supposed to only be used for pull quotes) for regular quotes. Herostratus (talk) 16:09, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Survey

Support as proposer. Pull quotes are (virtually) never used in articles, and a good thing too: they are a format useful for magazine articles but no good for an encyclopedia, where they would only confuse. So this is just cleaning up artifacts; it's time and past time to stop having templates and documentation all over the place implying that pull quotes are used or useful. It's silly that RfC even has to be run on this question; this should be unanimously supported (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 184 shows zero support for pull quotes). Herostratus (talk) 18:04, 11 November 2016 (UTC)
Support Not that I follow all the technical steps above, but if the effect is to simply remove all reference to "pull quotes" (which certainly do have a place – if limited – in articles) in template names and documentation, with the understanding that the generic concept of "quote boxes" is not being affected, that's fine with me. E Eng 18:38, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

That's the intent, yes. Herostratus (talk) 16:02, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Support Are you saying that if pull quotes are not mentioned in template names and documentation, they will cease to be used? What about all the editors who already know how to format pull quotes? Some editors love to highlight a favorite quote like that, paying little attention to guidelines in the MOS. I still come across them. I suppose if they are not mentioned in template names and documentation, they will become less likely to be used. – Corinne (talk) 18:54, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

This RfC is only against formally supporting pull quotes by inference (which is the current situation). If editors want to put in pull quotes (using an existing quote template or hand-writing the format) this RfC does not forbid them. I (the RfC initiator) am personally skeptical that pull quotes are ever useful, but I don't like to straitjacket other editors with absolute provisions; a little humility and a little leeway in telling editors how to design their pages, within reasonable limits, makes for a better project IMO. Also: in my eleven years here I've only seen pull quotes used once so I don't consider it an issue, and flat-out forbidding use of pull quotes is a side issue which would make this RfC more difficult to pass, which is a second reason I didn't propose it. Herostratus (talk) 16:00, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Oppose: ″Pulling″ is content reuse, which is much more favorable than duplication at any rate. Duplication leads to avoidable errors, multiplication of maintenance efforts etc.--*thing goes (talk) 17:22, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I would support providing even better and more prominent means for excerpting and reusing parts (e.g. for "pulling").--*thing goes (talk) 17:30, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're saying. E Eng 23:54, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

I also cannot make head nor tail of this. I've asked the editor to clarify. Herostratus (talk) 02:53, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

What I am trying to express is, that

referring to existing text as kind of quote ("pull-quote") is valid, as it is readily accessible, while cross-references are not so much: Ever tried reading through your car's manual? It is filled with references to look up. This has its justification in print for reducing the amount of pages required etc., but this limitation does not exist in the digital world of Wikipedia.
(more off-topic) editors should be given better tools to reuse content in and across pages without producing a textual duplicate, which has no connection to the original text.

I hope, that this made my points a little more clear.--*thing goes (talk) 11:04, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

In all seriousness, no. I still have no idea what you're trying to say. E Eng 15:44, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Same here. I've created a whole section, "FYI" (above). Look at that section. You are saying "Yes! This is what we ought be doing more of in our articles!", is that correct? Herostratus (talk) 16:17, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Support the first part, but the third is broken. MoS has already deprecated both pull quotes and abuse of pull quote templates (to over-emphasize block quotes) for years. Pull quotes are deprecated because its not an encyclopedic style, but a reader-browbeating journalistic style. Aggrandizing block quotations is deprecated because it runs afoul of WP:UNDUE policy. As I've said dozens of times, the obvious fix for this (or one of them, anyway), is to install namespace detectors in these templates so that they output standard block quotation formatting (i.e. Template:Bq) when used in mainspace. There will be no temptation to either use a pull quote or misuse pull quote templates for block quotation "décor" if it simply doesn't work. People could continue to decorate wikiproject pages, user essays, etc, however they like. I would tweak the proposal, however, by changing the suggestion in point #2 to something like "2) Move {{Pull quote}} to {{Decorative quote}} and {{Reduced pull quote}} to {{Reduced decorative quote}}". WP:TFD has for years been moving us away from obscure template names like "rquote", this move would still remove "pull quote" from the wording, and it would also clarify what these templates are and suggest by inference why they are not used in mainspace but are kept for project and user space.
The changes in #3 are not really necessary and kind of miss the point. The note about Rquote in it would, if changed as above, just introduce a new conflict with MoS by suggesting that short quotes (which MoS says to do inline, as do all style guides except when addressing pull quotes) be put in a decorative template. We do not want people using Rquote to format short quotations. The FAC crowd raised hell about this stuff a few months ago because several of them like to include documentary excerpts in sidebars. So, we should create a template for this purpose called something like {{Document excerpt sidebar}}, and sharply limit it, both in its documentation and in MoS, to be used for nothing but excerpts from cited sources. Not for quotation emphasis, not for pull quotes, and not for anything that is a WP:UNDUE problem, like giving excessive attention to primary sources that are dubious or one-sided. That should be enough of a compromise to get past this "our faction versus your faction" stuff that mired the last version of this discussion. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:27, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
Support per EENg - as long as this doesnt affect the use of quote boxes removing the wording regarding pull quotes is fine.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 22:15, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

One question is where this will leave {{Quote box}}, {{Quote frame}}, {{Cquote}}, and {{Rquote}}. Technically they wouldn't have any function anymore. But in real life 1) nobody has been using them for pull quotes anyway (since nobody uses pull quotes) and 2) some editors use them for regular quotes (in defiance of the documentation). This is all discussed in exhaustive detail at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 184.

My expectation is that, if this proposal is adopted, nothing about actual usage will change (people will continue to not use pull quotes, and some editors will continue to use {{Quote box}}, {{Quote frame}}, {{Cquote}}, and {{Rquote}} for regular quotes). Based on the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 184, there is some support for formally permitting {{Quote box}} (but maybe not the others) for regular quotes (by changing the documentation, e. g. by removing the "{{warning|This template should {{strong|not be used}} for block quotations in article text.}}" warning etc.). But of course a separate RfC would have to be run on that question. Herostratus (talk) 17:50, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

The MOS is supposed to document actual practice. If the MOS differs from what the editors do, then the MOS is wrong and will have to be changed. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:18, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Well I agree with you; many editors do, although editors editors favor a prescriptive MOS. In point of fact {{Quote box}}, {{Quote frame}}, {{Cquote}}, and {{Rquote}} are used for regular quotes in (what strikes me as) high numbers, considering that their documentation absolutely says not to do that; and they are almost literally never used for their putative function, pull quotes.

So yes, any editor that believes that the MOS should follow practice would definitely vote for this proposal, I would think. Down the road, and based on the earlier discussion (here), there ought to be an RfC on whether or either "legalize" the use of {{Quote box}} etc. for regular quotes, or abolish {{Quote box}} etc., or leave the situation nebulous. Herostratus (talk) 04:44, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to notify editors who frequent WT:FAC about this discussion, since I think it's a good idea to let editors who focus on content know about suggestions that can change the format of articles, but the last time I posted a note there at least one editor here considered it to be canvassing. Before I post a note there, can I get input on how to make sure those editors are aware of this discussion? SMcCandlish, you felt it was canvassing; what should I do? I'm happy to post to multiple areas to ensure a neutral notification if that's the best approach. I'd like opinions from others too; Herostratus, anyone else?

Also, I'd like to make sure I understand the intent of this suggestion, as I'm not really a MoS aficionado. Pull quotes are quotes that are both in the article text and in a separate highlit quote box of some kind, and regular quotes are quotes that are not in the article text, and only appear in a separate box. What this proposes is to remove mention of pull quotes without changing what MoS says is permitted. Is that all correct? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:53, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

That is correct. Your description of the difference between pull quotes and regular quotes is correct.

The intent here is simply to clear away an old cobweb, the support of (and therefore implicit suggestion for) pull quotes.

However, editors should be aware of this fact: in about 27,000 articles {{Quote box}}, {{Quote frame}}, {{Cquote}}, and {{Rquote}} are in use for regular quotes, despite the fact that the documentation specifically and strongly forbids this in several places. (About 120,000 use the officially prescribed method for regular quotes), which is either {{quote}} or just raw <blockquote>...</blockquote>; thus about 18% of our quotes are formatted "illegally", which IMO is testimony to the high value that editors place on {{Quote box}} etc.)

So while the intent here is just to clear away a cobweb, an effect will probably be to create a climate a little bit more favorable to more use of {{Quote box}}, {{Quote frame}}, {{Cquote}}, and {{Rquote}} for regular quotes -- in that the prescription "Use these only for pull quotes!" is removed. (Nowhere are they recommended for regular quotes (they are not mentioned here in the MOS at all), and the banner saying "This template should not be used for block quotations in article text" remains in the templates, for now, so the barrier to formally allowing these for regular quotes remains; a separate RfC will be required to discuss whether we want to remove that barrier.)

For this reason User:SMcCandlish will certainly oppose this proposal. He greatly loathes the idea of anyone ever putting a box around a quote, and will fight like the devil on all fronts and in all ways to for anything that makes that less likely. IMO you can't worry about that too much; he holds his beliefs very strongly, and it's just politics. One has to carry on and do what seems best despite politics. Herostratus (talk) 15:19, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Thank you; that's clear, and I'll wait for SMcCandlish to comment. Do you have any advice on my first question above? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:24, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Well if I understand your question: I'm OK with this RfC being advertised as widely as possible in a neutral manner. Why not? I can't imagine any objection to that, save for political reasons as I mentioned.

But Featured Article solons might have little interest in the proposition, as the number of Featured Article candidate that have ever included a pull quote is certainly at or very near zero, so there's little practical effect on FA. On the other hand, since the effect is to indirectly somewhat lighten the proscription against using boxes (or big quote marks) around regular quotes, if a FA solon was of the mind that such an article could never pass FA, a word to that effect might be called for. Herostratus (talk) 17:45, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

I think "solon" is a little grand a title for FA writers! More to the point, there might be more pull quotes around than you realize. Take a look at Courtney Love, which I've just supported at FAC; the third quote box is a pull quote. I don't dislike pull quotes. I think they should be up to editor discretion; I've seen the arguments against them and there's some risk of inappropriate emphasis, but editorial discussion seems the right way to handle that, not a MoS prescription. I'll have to think about this RfC; my preference would be to move the MoS in the direction of less instruction in this case, so I'll probably end up supporting.

Do I also understand that there was never a close of the discussion under the heading "Permit Template:Quote box for regular quotes" that SMcCandlish and a couple of others objected to as being a hijacking of the RfC? I don't see any sign of a close in archive 184; what happened? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

I do dislike pull quotes, but I'm with you: I think they should be up to editor discretion (and discussion). Note that this proposal, while it (purposely) doesn't ban pull quotes, does end all documentation support for them. This I think will have the net effect of "burying them deeper in the toolbox" -- editors will have to extrapolate from examples, or just use their own judgement, in figuring out whether and how to use pull quotes. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as you say, but it might be.

The Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 184 discussion, that was intended to be a true "discussion" with no close, just a chance to talk about various issues and maybe come up with some action items for future RfC; this RfC is the first fruit of that.

Within that RfC an editor created a vote-yes-or-no subsection on a sub-issue (it is "Permit Template:Quote box for regular quotes", here. This is pretty unusual for an RfC, and maybe for that reason it was never closed (despite a request at WP:AN) and just disappeared into the archive. But that question was specifically about changing the documentation to specifically say "Hey, in addition to {{quote}} you can put a line around the quote with {{quote box}}". That's a contentious separate question from this RfC, and is another action item to come out of the Archive 184 discussion, and I intend to run a separate RfC on that question presently. Herostratus (talk) 22:09, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

The politicized canvassing was probably why it was archived without closure. No sane admin would have touched that, since any result other maybe "no consensus" would have produced another wave of side-taking and accusations. It's best to just leave it for a considerable time until tempers cool. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:05, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

@Herostratus: stop putting words in my mouth and casting aspersions about my mental processes, which you clearly do not understand and badly mischaracterize. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:07, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Well, this RfC is still active, and though I can see why you suggest the issue be left to cool for a while, we have to deal with the RfC in front of us. Are you saying we should agree to stop the RfC without prejudice to restarting it or something similar later? I don't think that's likely. And though I didn't feel there was politicized canvassing last time, I understand that you did think that, and I want to avoid that this time -- so what is an appropriate method to notify others of this RfC? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:15, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Just let it run. People who care about this will already notify their "camps" one way or another, and far more importantly WP:FRS exists for a reason: it will bring in fresh eyes and minds that are not already dug into trenches. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 20:29, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

So in your eyes there is simply no way to evenhandedly notify any other groups of the existence of this RfC? I understand the concern about canvassing, but I would like to post a neutrally worded note to a group I think may be interested. (And in this case, unlike the previous one, I hope you find it easier to believe that I'm really not canvassing for or expecting a particular position; I haven't even made my own mind up as to which way I want to !vote.) The strictures against canvassing are against soliciting !votes for one side or another; surely there's an acceptable way to neutrally notify others who might be interested? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:47, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I took this to your talk page, but the short version is there is no reason to do this (people who care will show up anyway), and it is only likely to have a polarizing and factionalizing effect again, exactly as it did last time. "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." <;-) (Variously attributed to Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and Fred Zamberletti, among others.) Quotation formatting is not an intrinsically FA-related subject, so it would be taken as canvassing of a special interest group regardless, by various participants. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 21:16, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to post a query at WP:VPM since I think your preference for not posting notices is not the same as the requirement not to canvas, and I'd like to get other opinions. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:12, 19 November 2016 (UTC)