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RfC: Substantiating the choices of examples (MOS:EXAMPLES)

Older version

Topics are limited to a certain level of detail, factoring in encyclopedic and topical relevance, not just verifiable existence. If an article gives examples, the choice must be substantiated. That someone simply listed them does not automatically mean that we must copy them in the style of "X is an example of Y". Examples must be the most prominent cases, of unique character, of defining contribution, or otherwise encyclopedically relevant. The remaining ones must be referred to in a "List of ..." article, providing that they meet the article's inclusion criteria. Reasonable exceptions may be found in many topics outside the realms of culture, aesthetics, or the humanities, which often depend on arbitrary examples to effectively illustrate their subject (i.e. Equation, Algorithm, Cryosphere, Mammal).

Topics are limited to a certain level of detail, factoring in encyclopedic and topical relevance, not just verifiable existence. If an article gives examples, the choice must be substantiated. That someone simply listed them does not automatically mean that we must copy them in the style of "X is an example of Y". Examples should be the most prominent cases, of unique character, of defining contribution, or otherwise encyclopedically relevant. The remaining ones may be referred to in a "List of ..." article, providing that they meet the article's inclusion criteria. Reasonable exceptions may be found in many topics outside the realms of culture, aesthetics, or the humanities, which often depend on arbitrary examples to effectively illustrate their subject (i.e. Equation, Algorithm, Cryosphere, Mammal).

Option B, proposed on 23 March

Topics are limited to a certain level of detail, factoring in encyclopedic and topical relevance, not just verifiable existence. If an article gives examples, the choice must be substantiated. That someone simply listed them does not automatically mean that we must copy them in the style of "X is an example of Y". Examples should be the most prominent cases, of unique character, of defining contribution, or otherwise encyclopedically relevant. For example:

The remaining ones may be referred to in a "List of ..." article, providing that they meet the article's inclusion criteria. Reasonable exceptions may be found in many topics outside the realms of culture, aesthetics, or the humanities, which often depend on arbitrary examples to effectively illustrate their subject (i.e. Equation, Algorithm, Cryosphere, Mammal).

Should the quoted text be added under a section titled "Examples"?--Ilovetopaint (talk) 16:36, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

I moderated "must" language, per the feedback below.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:40, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Background

The proposed addition was worked out by myself, @Staszek Lem:, and @SMcCandlish:. It is an attempt to tie together the following:

  • WP:BALASPS (An article should not give undue weight to minor aspects of its subject)
  • WP:ONUS (While information must be verifiable in order to be included in an article, this does not mean that all verifiable information must be included in an article.)
  • WP:DETAIL (Many readers need just a quick summary of the topic's most important points. Others need a moderate amount of information on the topic's more important points)
  • WP:LISTCRITERIA (Criteria for inclusion should factor in encyclopedic and topical relevance, not just verifiable existence.)

We have several related cleanup templates for this issue, none of which can be linked to any one of the above. They are: {{Refexample}}, {{Specific-section}}, {{Example farm}}, {{Importance example}}. I've written more at WP:NAMEDROP. There was also a similar proposal which could not find consensus due to its ambiguous wording.--Ilovetopaint (talk) 16:36, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Survey

  • Support As nom, I believe we already have this guideline in place. However, this particular elaboration helps give something specific to point to when addressing issues in articles like Concept album (see this revision)--Ilovetopaint (talk) 16:44, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
    • Well, the whole point is that we have a section about examples, and it doesn't presently make these points clear. The only way right now to get all of them is to trawl through a tremendous amount of WP policy and guideline verbiage and internalize all of it and how it inter-relates, something the average editor will never do, and something the non-average editor who is really, really into WP policy will take years to do.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:01, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Support. One of the principal purposes of WP having style (including layout, presentation, and relevance) guidelines is providing best practices that explain to new (and longer-term but not policy-focused) editors how to apply WP's general policies and content guidelines to various style matters in the broad sense, without making them guess or do "what does WP want?" research – editorial time better spent on content sourcing. I think this material should also be linked to from the section on embedded lists, since any given excessive pile of examples is very likely to be appear in the form of a list, or even be reformatted into one by later editors uncertain whether to prune the excess but certain that it is a list.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:01, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose Do we really need this defined anywhere? It's down to common sense, and there are far too many guidelines already for anyone to keep up with. If there are minor examples given, or too many, just trim the list and have done with it. If any item is unsupported by a cite, take it out. Simon Burchell (talk) 12:03, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose (for now). I don't see what the heck this is trying to say, quite honestly. Are we saying that we should only use examples that are used together in one source (i.e. don't combine different examples from different sources)? Or is it saying that we should only use examples used in many sources (i.e. only use the most prominent ones mentioned in lots of sources)? Or are we trying to solve the perennial problem of trivia mentions of every time a historical person appears in some movie, comic, or TV show? Ealdgyth - Talk 12:54, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I also don't know what it's trying to say. If it's about content, this isn't the place to hold it anyway. SarahSV (talk) 02:55, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong Oppose What is one supposed to do inside "the realms of culture, aesthetics, or the humanities"? Never give any examples? Ridiculous. Even if each example is referenced, it would not seem to meet the criteria here. The last sentence is ambiguous. This would just be used to remove all examples of anything, anywhere. Johnbod (talk) 04:31, 14 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. Articles in the realms of culture, aesthetics, or the humanities often need examples to explain to the reader what's being described (anyone fancy trying to describe Picaresque novel, Romanticism or Hudson River School without giving representative examples?). This would give the MOS hardliners carte blanche to gut Wikipedia's arts and humanities coverage. ‑ Iridescent 18:03, 15 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose. This seems like scope creep to me, but in any case the situation with examples is too complicated for a single piece of the MOS to describe. The complexity of deciding which examples should be included in each article requires detailed discussions at each article, which should not be short-circuited by the MOS. As with many aspects of writing, it is better here to allow the editors to do their work in peace, rather than trying to micromanage their decisions centrally. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:16, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
    Also, new "options" should not be added so long after the discussion begins, so that editors can comment on the RFC and move on. But my argument applies equally to "Option B". — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:19, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

  • I am somewhat supportive of this (I certainly agree that we need something to limit the phenomenon of "example bloat" in articles)... but I am not sure that the MOS is the right venue for it (then again, I am not sure which policy or guideline page would be the right venue... perhaps WP:UNDUE?). I am also concerned by the word "must" in the sentence: "The remaining ones must be referred to in a "List of ..." article, providing that they meet the article's inclusion criteria." That could be construed as saying that MOS requires our editors to create a new "list of" article, any time they give a few examples of something in an article. Perhaps the sentence should say "may" or "can" instead? Blueboar (talk) 17:34, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm struggling to grasp/visualise what exact issue this is attempting to deal with, or what exactly it is suggesting should happen instead. Plus it seems only to be a matter of "style" in the broadest and more thematic and abstract sense. The MOS is big and sprawling enough as it is, and is probably better limited to concise and clear instructions or guidance on more micro-level issues of typographical/grammatical etc consistency (or otherwise). N-HH talk/edits 17:45, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
  • Can those who worked on this comment on why the MoS is the right venue for this? Generally I think what's being said is sensible, though I'm not yet convinced we need it codified, but it doesn't seem to me to be a style issue. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:58, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
  • @Blueboar, N-HH, Mike Christie, and Ilovetopaint: To respond to all three of the above in one go: My comment in the section above addresses much of this in short for. A more detailed answer:
    • MoS has never been limited to minutiae, and the principal criticism ever levelled at it is that it has too much minutiae and should be more general. So this is a step in the right direction. MoS has also never been limited to only the narrowest sense of style, like grammar and spelling; our guidelines on accessibility, article structure, and many other matters are also part of MoS, so style in the broad sense is already MoS's scope. WP:UNDUE is a policy, but this sort of thing is clearly a guideline matter, a best-practices suggestion, not a core requirement for how WP has to operate. (Note that, similarly, there are MOS:DAB and WP:DAB for guideline material that does not rise to the level of WP:ATDAB policy.)
    • No other venue is needed, we don't have one, and creating one would be a WP:CREEP, WP:BUREAUCRACY, and WP:LAWYER problem. We've already been through this at WP:SAL and at many topic-specific MoS pages; while some individuals seemed to have trouble accepting that style, content, and sometimes naming guideline material could possibly all be at the same page, in actual practice it of course works just fine. The purpose of WP:P&G pages is to get helpful/guiding points across to editors, not to provide a Platonically ideal "rule categorization" system as some end in itself; the P&G serve us, not the other way around. See again above point about DAB guidance.

      Also, every previous attempt to establish a policy or guideline on content relevance, scope, trivia, and related concepts, as a new "venue" in itself, has failed to gain consensus, so pursuing that again is likely to be seen as WP:PERENNIAL, and a rehash of "fame and importance" debates from WP's early days. The resolution of that was the creation of WP:Notability for articles, and WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE for content in them, yet we still have continual problems with "example-itis" and obsessive attempts at "completion" of incompletable lists by the addition of cruft. So, just having our already-broad style and presentation guideline tie together all the P&G rationales for avoiding endless lists of examples is the obvious choice. It's a main-MoS thing because overuse of examples is not particular to any type or format of article.

    • Finally, please don't get hung up on one-word concerns. I, too, would change that "must" to a "may" or "can" (for the same reason), and change another "must" to "should" to match MoS's usual wording since it's a guideline not a policy. This can be done either in the course of this discussion or after the fact. I'll make the change now, and see if anyone objects.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:12, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
OK, but I'm still really not clear what this is all about. Is this simply saying "don't include lists of examples to explain what something is or to illustrate a point, or even cite excessive numbers of them in prose"? Then why not just say that? Or leave it unsaid as coming under decent writing practice? The point about provisions on "micro" issues – eg "use double quotation marks", or even "don't use instructional language, eg by saying, 'It is worth nothing that ..'" – is that they are clear and easy to explain and understand, and it's easy for anyone to assess objectively whether content meets the standard. Here, I can't see that either is the case. N-HH talk/edits 10:40, 13 March 2017 (UTC)
  • "What issue is this trying to solve?" / "Why do we need this?"'
    I linked several cleanup templates, referenced several already-existing policies, and even linked my own essay that specifies what exactly this guideline is supposed to address. If you can imagine a better phrasing or a point that should be clarified, that is appreciated, but commenting "I don't know what issue we're solving" shows you've completely missed the #Background section I provided. --Ilovetopaint (talk) 16:27, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
None of that clarified either the specific nature of the problem or what you are trying to do or say here. Indeed, the previous proposal you linked to was closed with the observation that it was unclear. If several people aren't getting it, it's worth realising that you haven't been clear and making an effort to explain rather than just telling them they don't get it and should read it all again. And if they can't even work out what problem you are identifying, they can hardly propose better wording. Nor should they have to – even though I, for one, did as it happens. Just as I asked specific questions for clarification which, it seems, you couldn't be bothered to answer, instead telling everyone else how lazy they were being for failing to understand you. N-HH talk/edits 18:43, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Option B
... or otherwise encyclopedically relevant. For example:

The remaining ones may be referred to in a "List of ..." article, providing that they meet the article's inclusion criteria. ...

--Ilovetopaint (talk) 16:50, 23 March 2017 (UTC)
Not much. The puzzling last sentence remains. I think this proposal is buried under snow anyway. Johnbod (talk) 18:16, 23 March 2017 (UTC)

Block quotes in mobile

Does it bother anyone else that the mobile app ignores the WP:BQ parts of our manual of style on block quotes? Our MOS says "avoid decorative quotation marks", and to use the more plainly-formatted {{quote}} instead of fancy-decorative-quote-mark methods like {{cquote}}, but on the mobile app, quotes formatted with {{quote}} get fancy decorative quotation marks anyway. (I kind of like the fancy quote marks, myself, but I don't think mobile should be changing things up in this way.) —David Eppstein (talk) 17:08, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure a normal indent makes sense given the lack of space on mobile. I don't know that loud quote marks are either, but the indent our MOS calls for just isn't good-enough. --Izno (talk) 20:38, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Telephone number format?

Should MOS say something about standardized telephone number format?

I've searched the archives for previous discussions, with no success.

We have this article in mainspace. It can be summarized as "it depends".

There is also this as a handy summary to what US-centric style guides say about it. Jeh (talk) 19:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

As we should never include phone numbers unless they are a subject of discussion (and even then, usually only as examples of a format), I don't think we should have MOS guidance on this. --MASEM (t) 20:13, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, we do include, for example, the phone numbers WWV and WWVH. We also include the web site addresses of just about every commercial firm we mention. How are published phone numbers different? Jeh (talk) 20:24, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Web sites are a bit difference since we are a web site too, these usually provide direct, freely available information for the reader. Phone numbers are far different entities, and not as "free" as webspace. Further, I'd argue the numbers in WWV/WWVH seem inappropriate to me (or at least stand out as "wrong"). Hence, we we should not try to encourage their inclusion by providing MOS info. --MASEM (t) 20:42, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
Is there P or G somewhere about already-public phone numbers? Jeh (talk) 20:46, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
It would also be completely unworkable, since not only do formats vary by country, but in some countries formats vary within countries. (Start by trying to summarise Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom as succinctly as possible; then multiply the time it took you and the size of the end product by around 200 to get an idea of the scale of what you're proposing.) ‑ Iridescent 20:21, 1 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree that it's a large problem. But I wasn't "proposing" anything. I was asking. Jeh (talk) 20:24, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Capitalization for names of butterflies and birds

It appears that major authorities capitalize all the words for the names of butterflies and birds: Canadian Biodiversity Information Facility[1], UK Butterflies [2], Butterflies of North America [3] and (Audabon Magazine [4]). Shouldn't Wikipedia follow such authorities, at least with regard to butterflies and birds?

I gather that there has been a vigorous debate around this topic and the Audabon organization and magazine web pages are a useful source. Rwood128 (talk) 15:36, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

@Rwood128: Review WP:BIRDCON. Short answer is "no", we don't. --Izno (talk) 15:44, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
Izno, I can well understand you not wanting to re-start a debate, but isn't the current usage, at least for birds and butterflies, inconsistent with the idea of using reliable sources? Rwood128 (talk) 16:01, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
@Rwood128: I actually don't want to re-start the debate. Did you read the RFC? If you didn't, that's a good place to start to understand where we are and how we got there. --Izno (talk) 16:27, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
@Rwood128: the short answer to your last question is "yes, as it is for other groups of organisms" if you believe that style choices in such sources should be followed here. But the consensus is that Wikipedia determines its own styles, using reliable sources only for content. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:34, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
Specialist publications might capitalize these names, but general sources tend not to. See, for example, this recent article in The New York Times. Pburka (talk) 22:15, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Izno Thanks, I don't have the time to delve any further, and, furthermore, I don't expect to be again editing articles on butterflies or bird. Peter coxhead, also thanks, Rwood128 (talk) 16:43, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

I read Audobon occasionally and they capitalize bird species, but not other species, so they will have a sentence like The Yellow Warbler was near the white-tailed deer. I was reading a butterfly field guide recently that capitalized butterfly names, but used lower case for plants and other animals. People who specialize in an area like birds or butterflies are used to seeing them capitalized in their sources and it looks wrong to them to have them lower case. Generally, encyclopedias and journalism use lower case and that is the style we have adopted for Wikipedia. It's a complex question, that has been debated, but as far as Wikipedia goes, it has been answered decisively – lower case except for proper nouns.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  20:41, 30 March 2017 (UTC)
It's understandable that you don't have time to go through all of the BIRDCON debate, but I strongly suggest you read the closer's statement. As protracted as the debate was, the closer's statement is equal to the task in its thoughtful and thorough conclusions and considerations. Primergrey (talk) 02:53, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
Also, taxonomic names at the genus level and above (per MOS:LIFE) – Reidgreg (talk) 21:00, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

CMOS 17

CMOS Shop Talk Tony (talk) 03:07, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Looks like some radical changes on the way next fall! But here at WP we can't even agree on simple things like avoiding unnecessary capitalization, so I don't expect we'll pay it much heed. Dicklyon (talk) 04:28, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
And here I was thinking CMOS stood for "complementary metal oxide semiconductor"... —David Eppstein (talk) 05:00, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
That was my second thought. --Izno (talk) 11:52, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
What I find most interesting about CMOS from a Wikipedia perspective is it's the only general purpose style manual I know of that uses note numbers that lead to footnotes or endnotes (as one of two options). All the rest use parenthetical referencing. (I'm sure there are some manuals specific to certain disciplines or publications that still use footnotes/endnotes.) Jc3s5h (talk) 12:37, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
Hmm, I prefer TTL (Thoroughly Tested Language) to all this new-fangled CMOS stuff! :-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:50, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

MOS:TENSE and sports seasons

Is there an exception for this sort editing. A sports season has ended so is it acceptable to say that the "season was", or keep it in the present tense: the "season is"? Similarly, wan a musical group disbands, do we keep present tense or not? Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:02, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

We've thousands of sports team season articles using "was" for past seasons. Been doing this for years, just to let yas know. GoodDay (talk) 17:08, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
And we have a few bots that can address it in less than a day, but the question for me is not how many articles there are that have it, it's whether it's correct or not. Walter Görlitz (talk) 17:16, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Would appreciate it if you'd stop reverting at 2016-17 Vancouver Canucks season article, until issue is settled. Having one article different from the 13 other non-playoff bound 2016-17 NHL team season articles is annoying. As for bots? Don't change anything until the issue here is settled. BTW: I've contacted WP:HOCKEY, WP:BASEBALL & WP:BASKETBALL about this discussion. GoodDay (talk) 17:25, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I reach WP:3RR just after you so I won't be changing. Walter Görlitz (talk) 18:04, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

We also use "will be" for team 'future' season articles, during off-seasons. GoodDay (talk) 18:21, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

BTW: We also have been using "was" for past league season articles & "will be" for future league season articles. Examples: 2012-13 NBA season & 2017-18 NHL season etc. GoodDay (talk) 18:29, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I would consider a concluded sports season to be a past event, and appropriately referred to in the past tense. It's not like a work of art that continues to exist indefinitely.--Trystan (talk) 18:38, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Keeping articles in the present tense seems to be inconsistently applied. I easily found Juan Carlos I of Spain (who is still alive) and Netherlands Antilles (which many people might be surprised to find no longer exists) both opening with sentences in the past tense. I have a feeling that if I were to change either of those sentences, I'd find myself immediately reverted. --Acjelen (talk) 22:19, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
While it is grammatically correct to say that "Juan Carlos was King of Spain until his abdication"... using the past tense could make the reader think he is dead. So, I would agree that it is poor wording for an opening sentence. Suggest that something like "Juan Carlos is the former King of Spain, having abdicated in..." would be both grammatical and prevent that potential confusion. The Netherlands Antilles article is fine in past tense, since it no longer exists as a political entity. As for sports seasons, once the season is over they are indeed historical events... and so should be discussed in past tense. Blueboar (talk) 22:41, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Actually "reigned as King of Spain" is best. PS - Let's get back to the topic though - Sports team season articles. GoodDay (talk) 23:04, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I would consider a sporting event that is finished to be a "past event" which the MOS says to use the past tense for. Additionally, the question was asked about a musical band that disbands. The example of the beatles from the MOS seems to answer exactly this point:"The Beatles were an English rock band that formed in Liverpool in 1960."18abruce (talk) 23:07, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Since the issue is the recent nature of the team's season being over, a better musical group example would be Black Sabbath, which disbanded last month. If you look at the revert exchange in the article's history and the archived talk section, the issue seems to be the veracity of the disbanding and reliability of sources rather than MOS issues or whether Black Sabbath still 'exists' since you can still listen to their music. --Acjelen (talk) 23:40, 10 April 2017 (UTC) Sorry, buried the lede. Article is currently "Black Sabbath were", beautifully combining both past tense and plural agreement. --Acjelen (talk) 23:50, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
the issue seems to be the veracity of the disbanding and reliability of sources rather than MOS issues or whether Black Sabbath still 'exists' since you can still listen to their music – this was not the issue. The issue with Black Sabbath was that nobody really knew if they actually disbanded or not after their last concert. As for sports articles – if the season is over then it is a past event and MoS clearly says that past tense should be used for historical events. – Sabbatino (talk) 04:36, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
So a sports season is a collection of events. Understood.
And "Black Sabbath were an English rock band" while "Black Sabbath is the eponymous debut studio album". Got it. Simple enough. Thanks. Walter Görlitz (talk) 04:54, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
A concluded sports season is definitely a past event and should use past tense. Kaldari (talk) 17:56, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
  • There's no reason to do anything weird or different. If the season is over, use past tense. If it's ongoing, use present. If it's forthcoming, use future. Just like with everything else. The only place WP does anything some people think is unusual (but which nonetheless makes perfect sense) is using present tense for creative works ("Starsky and Hutch is an American television series"), except in the rare case that the work has been totally lost, as is the case with various ancient manuscripts and many early Hollywood films. This is because, aside from lost exceptions, the work has not ceased to exist, so it still is, in the present. It is usually still publicly available in some form (reprints, DVDs, etc.) or by some manner, even if just by going to the institution housing it, when it comes to obscure manuscript materials. Publishing companies/operations that have ceased are given in past tense, like sports teams/squads that have disbanded and players who have died. Pretty simple stuff.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:08, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

'Saint', 'St.' or 'St' in article text

(moved from talk 'Naming conventions clergy') I've recently been extending 'St.' to 'Saint' in the text in several long editing runs. The guideline (EDIT: at the above, now removed) stated in its lead that this application would apply not only to titles but "on how to refer to them in the article body". Although I've made a few mistakes in titles and in text, it seemed pretty clear that in the text, when 'St.' refers to the individual (and not, of course, to a church, artwork, or other proper name) that it should be extended to 'Saint'. The abbreviation 'St.' doesn't even appear on the Saint page itself except for one proper name. Most pages that I've edited per this guideline are inconsistent, and include both 'Saint' and 'St.' when referring to individuals (often in the same sentence), and I've been editing out those inconsistencies by using 'Saint' (have stopped for the time being after an objection on my talk page). Consistency and the title guideline seems to suggest that 'Saint' is preferable in text to 'St.' when referring to a person, especially when Wikipedia usage is now so mixed that both forms are not only used on the same page but in paragraphs and even in the same sentences. A clarity discussion seems the next step. Randy Kryn 13:52, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

  • example of a messy state of affairs: the first one-and-a-half paragraph of Augustinians has (in this order): "... Augustine of Hippo ... St Augustine ... St. Augustine ... Saint Augustine ..." – some guidance would be welcome, but disagree that expanding it all to "Saint" would be anything near to a solution. Also the naming conventions guideline should emphatically *not* be interpreted as applying here, that would only further muddy the water. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:18, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose this change, and interpreting the existing naming conventions text to cover article text too. Over-prescriptive. Appart from consistency within body text, I see no big issue here, and we should avoid instruction creep. I can see people (in general, & in future) itching to break WP:COMMONNAME here, & we shouldn't encourage it. I think even inconsistency within the text can be ok, for example when different people are referred to, or with "Saint" only at a first mention. The difference between "St." (American) and "St" (British) is often a matter for ENGVAR also, which might be noted somewhere. I don't think we need to change policy to allow harmonization within articles like Augustinians. Johnbod (talk) 12:22, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Personally, I don't like "St." (with full stop), because (in British English, at least) full stops are used to indicate abbreviations (letters dropped from the end of the word, possibly also within) but not contractions (letters dropped only from within the word). If we are to use a shortened form, it ought to be "St", without full stop, because with "Saint" → "St", the dropped letters "ain" are all within the word. But I have no opinion on whether we should write "St" or "Saint", except where there might be confusion, as with St John St, etc. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:35, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Even within BrEng full stops are a changing fashion. For instance do you write "Mr. Jones" or "Mr Jones" on an envelope? The former is how I was taught at school, but the latter seems more common recently. Within text it would be better to use "Saint" to avoid US/UK and traditional/modern arguments, plus (as you show) Saint John Street. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:49, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Oops, just harmonized Augustinians, per Johnbod's suggestion above,... to "St." ([5]). I chose "St." because the first link with a "Saint", "St." or "St" in the article ticle, Rule of St. Augustine, uses that abbreviation in the current article title... Well, obviously, harmonization without additional guidance (as Johnbod suggests) would be tricky business. I remember Jr./Jr discussions not so long ago: for that reason, under current guidance, it seems best to leave this untouched if one doesn't want to be accused of tendentious style editing... --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:09, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
I'll agree there should be a general preference for "Saint" in text, but it partly depends on how thick the mentions of saints are. If there are just a few in an article, say on the early history of a place, then fine, but in dense articles on Catholic or Orthodox topics, with various saints cropping up a lot, I think most sources go to contractions, & I think our editors should be able to do the same. In any case, implementing any change properly would be a colossal task, involving editor time that could be better spent - I dread to think what a bot would do. Johnbod (talk) 15:50, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
? Nobody suggested you do this, and even less that this would be left to a bot. From where I stand Randy volunteered their time: don't see why we can't help them with a few good rules supported by consensus. Whatever your priorities, Randy is allowed to have theirs (this is a volunteer project). --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:26, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Opposed - Instruction Creep. I would support something that aimed at consistency within any given article... but there is no need for project wide consistency. If there is a dispute, it can be settled by local consensus. Blueboar (talk) 16:47, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Support using "Saint", except in a specific proper name (usually of a place or institution named after a saint) for which the majority of reliable sources use "St.", "St", "Ste.", "Sta.", etc., as applicable. Agree that whether to include the "." in such names is a WP:ENGVAR matter, but it is is one that need never arise except for that narrow class of "named after saints and always abbreviated" things. Rule #1 of MoS (in its lead) is to rewrite to avoid dispute, and using "Saint", instead of a "St." versus "St" disputed abbreviation when possible, complies with that instruction. It also complies with the separate MOS:ABBR guideline, which has us avoid unnecessary abbreviation.

    Also, the entire point of a manual of style on any site like this is site-wide consistency, and virtually every line-item in our Manual of Style is intended that way; the few exceptions are explicitly worded to defer to per-article local consensus. It's time to put this silly "MoS is only for in-one-article consistency" myth to bed, since it's self-evidently false. If it were true, we would have no MoS, MoS could never be cited at RM or any other discussion about site-wide consistency practices, and what we would have instead would be innumerable topic-specific competing style guides all in conflict with each other, plus a great deal of reader and editor confusion. The fact that things were heading in that direction already in WP's early days is the reason that a centralized, site-wide MoS was instituted at all. So, let's just drop the pretense.
     — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:28, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

  • Generally I would write 'Saint' for a name of a person (eg 'Saint Paul') but 'St' for the name of a place (eg 'St Paul's Cathedral'). --Sb2001 (talk) 20:09, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

MOS:GENDERID for genderqueer people

Users who watch this page may be interested in this RFC: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/MOS:GENDERID for genderqueer people. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:48, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

RfC discussion at WT:WikiProject Songs

The merger proposal on {{infobox song}} and {{infobox single}} is discussed at WT:WikiProject Songs. I invite you to comment there. --George Ho (talk) 10:05, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Question about hyphens and dashes

In grammar, is the use of hyphens and dashes a matter of punctuation, spelling, or something else? If something else, what? Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 11:01, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Few people will disagree with you if you say that "mis-spell" is misspelled. OTOH, if you ask someone to list possible misspellings, few of them will list "mis-spell" as one of the options ... it's not the first thing that leaps to mind. You can also say that the hyphenation or punctuation is wrong, or more broadly, that it's an orthography violation. - Dank (push to talk) 20:22, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Hyphens are used in spelling (eg the noun 'check-in'), whilst dashes are used in punctuation - like this - or to separate a subordinate clause (as demonstrated). --Sb2001 (talk) 20:37, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Two shortcuts

Please see this edit and WP:2SHORTCUTS.—Wavelength (talk) 02:24, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

I reverted it - before I saw your note here. I also removed MOS:\ since I believe it is the least-likely to be used of the three that remained. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:46, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Typos in ref titles

This relates specifically to MOS:QUOTE. Should the published title of a ref be reproduced verbatim (i.e., typos and hyphens left untouched) or corrected accordingly? Example here, used in this article. Is it up to us to fix the "decison" typo? MOS:QUOTE says to do so for quotes in prose, but nothing is mentioned of ref titles, unless they are assumed to form part of quoted material. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 18:00, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

If it is clearly just a typo, as in this case, I think it can be fixed. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:19, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
Disagree, suggest quote exactly + [sic]. Reader will need exact spelling if e.g. searching for article in a darabase. That may not apply here (where there's a link) but I think that principle of passing on bibliographic info exactly as seen in the wild should be adhered to consistently. EEng 21:49, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
This is the main reason I highly oppose correcting typos in ref titles. When doing a Google search to retrieve a new URL for a dead link, an artificially corrected typo may make it trickier or more time-consuming to find. No problem with fixing straight/curly quotes and those double-arrow thingies, but fixing word-based typos I absolutely would not like to see mandated as a WP rule. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 01:04, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
What about capitalization? While some newspapers and web sites use all-caps titles, it's been my habit to change these to title case, as it takes less space and looks more consistent. Is this also frowned upon? Pburka (talk) 22:00, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
See MOS:ALLCAPS. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:23, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

I believe this is the wrong talk page to discuss references; they should be discussed at WP:Citing sources. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:25, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Ahh, that's where I'd previously asked this question before. I knew I had, somewhere, but couldn't for the life of me remember where. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 22:28, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
This is only partially a WP:CITE matter. We generally don't change title case to sentence case or vice versa, but use the title as-given. Few people will revert you if you force them all one direction or the other, but it's a waste of editorial time (I stopped doing it years ago, and readers just DGaF about such nit-picks). We do, however, fix obnoxious ALL-CAPS titles, normalize curly quotes to straight, normalize varying emphasis styles, etc., per MoS. The original question: I agree with EEng that using [sic] is useful in running prose to identify a typo-bearing title as such, but this can't be done in citation templates (unless a parameter has been added for that). Using a template or other markup in the title parameter will break the COinS metadata output. It's permissible per MoS to just fix it if it's obviously a typo. There are cases where we don't want to do this, e.g. because it's not really a typo, as in Charles Cotton's The Compleat Gamester (an Early Modern English work, from when some spellings were different), or perhaps because the version with the typo has become well known, or because the typo is intentional on the part of the creator. The solution then is to add a note, after the {{cite ...}} but before the ending </ref>, if it seems important to say something about it. If no note is desired, the entire cite can be wrapped in a hidden sic template to prevent bots or gnomes from messing with the spelling:
{{sic |hide=y |reason=Apparent typo in the title is intentional and should not be "fixed". |1=<ref>{{Cite book |title=I Cant Spel |...}}</ref>}}
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:42, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
"Title as given" by whom? E.g. when I am citing a mathematics book, do I use the capitalization given by the publisher (often title case) or the capitalization given by the MathSciNet database I got the citation from (always sentence case)? And what capitalization do I use when the printed version in the book itself is all-caps? My own preference is to choose a consistent capitalization convention (I like title case for books and journals, and sentence case for journal articles) and stick to it. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:13, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
Wow, I'm mildly appalled! Where known, you should always use the capitalization given by the publisher, not some dodgy database that consistently gives titles incorrectly (you say). Actual printed matter usually has a non all-caps version somewhere, eg in the copyright notice; of course, all-caps should not be used. Since (I know Planet Maths has its own rules) the vast majority of academic books and most articles in most subjects use title case, that is the safest default. You shouldn't go just making them up. Johnbod (talk) 02:28, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
I'm on the Wikipedia typo team – which doesn't address typos in source titles. I was also the one who originally made the correction to a typo in a title that prompted Mac Dreamstate's question and this discussion. After reading the discussion so far, I still feel that something should be done so that it doesn't seem that these spelling errors start with Wikipedia. Most casual users and people without accounts who are just using Wikipedia to look up something, which is the vast majority of users, will not look at the source. I believe that in general, misspellings cast doubt on credibility, so that's why it's important to look good and not just leave an error alone. However, I also must admit that because of the future problem of finding a source by searching, especially if a url changes, using the sic template – but the hidden sic template above, which will avoid bots, not just [sic] – is better than correcting. This applies just to titles; obvious but minor misspellings in quotations should still be corrected as per WP:MOS, unless they were intentional.
I also feel that ALLCAPS and other styling are different matters, and should simply be changed to sentence case without any notation. ALLCAPS might be fine for newspapers headlines or book chapter titles, but not for an encyclopedia. There are some exceptions, like acronyms, but the vast majority of ALLCAPS is just yelling, and it's also harder to read.
Ira
Ira Leviton (talk) 21:28, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Can images be in sub-sections?

According to § Images, bullet-point 3:

  • Each image should be inside the major section to which it relates (within the section defined by the most recent level 2 heading or at the top of the lead section), not immediately above the section heading.

(emphasis mine) but if there are subsections (level 3 or deeper) and we have more specifically relevant images for them, shouldn't each image go in its specific subsection rather than stacking them all in the level-2 intro? I think the goal is to avoid dangling images down from an earlier section when we want them to appear at the beginning of any section, not to hoist images to a higher-level section than appropriate for content reasons. I propose changing "major" to "specific" and removing "level 2" in this guideline. DMacks (talk) 14:15, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I would agree with DMacks. I'm wondering when that "major" wording was added and whether there had been discussion about it. --Tenebrae (talk) 14:24, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
Looks like it dates back to March 2010‎, mainly this change based on this discussion. I don't had time to read it now, will follow up later... DMacks (talk) 16:46, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
The points made in that 2010 discussion about edit links becoming separated from their headings no longer apply. The problem (part of which is covered at WP:BUNCH) was fixed a few years ago, circa 2011 IIRC. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:04, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I prefer what it says at MOS:IMGLOC (which I think I might have written, actually): An image should generally be placed in the most relevant article section; if this is not possible, try not to place an image "too early" i.e. far ahead of the point in the text discussing what the image illustrates, if this will puzzle the reader. People know without being told, from seeing in existing articles if no other way, that heads of sections are the default placement., EEng 22:47, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
We should still say something about putting images after rather than before the section heading, so they go inside the section. Some editors (me before I knew better) may have an aesthetic preference for an image that starts at the same line as the section title, but accomplishing that involves putting the image into the wrong section in the logical structure of the document, and that will likely mess up other formatters (such as the one for the mobile app) that use that logical structure to produce a different placement for images. But I agree, there is no reason to avoid putting images into sub-sections. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:27, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
Apart from aesthetics, the main reason for not putting images at the bottom of the preceding section/subsection is accessibility. If a user of screen-reader software navigates the article using the table of contents, they are taken directly to headings, and not to a prior point. The heading is read out to them, and then any content that follows the heading - that content might be images, text or both. Although they might not be able to "see" the image in a visual sense, they are still made aware of its presence, and the caption (if present) plus any alt text are read out. They miss all this if the image is before the heading that they had jumped to. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:19, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Yes, but the same is true if the image is anywhere else in the article. Images aren't always in the pertinent section, because there are other considerations for image placement. EEng 08:27, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
So we can drop a couple of words and a figure to give
  • Each image should be inside the section to which it relates (within the section defined by the most recent heading or at the top of the lead section), not immediately above the section heading.
We can mention accessibility here too. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:56, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
Can we please say, "Ideally, an image should be ...", so it sounds less rigid? EEng 09:30, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
That seems like a reasonable clarification, since it is technically not feasible to do so in many articles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:19, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
So Ideally, an image should be inside the section to which it relates (within the section defined by the most recent heading or at the top of the lead section), not immediately above the section heading.? That resolves my concern. I like the idea of rationalizing it for accessibility. Maybe add Having an image be before the section on its specific topic can be confusing to readers who only see one section at a time in on their display (the preceding section would have an image that is possibly off-topic for its content and the intended section of content would not have the image).?
I also like User:EEng's try not to place an image "too early" i.e. far ahead of the point in the text discussing what the image illustrates, if this will puzzle the reader, but I would consider broadening it further (or making it a separate bullet-point rather than only as an "if this is not possible..." detail of the section choice. We don't want to suggest that images even need to go at the start of a section. I know we don't say to do it, but it seems to be a common pattern especially given how short some sections are, or that a chosen image usually relates to a section as a whole. Consider an image that only relates to a relatively late paragraph of a section (but one whose subtopic is not substantial enough to merit a subsection) and having no other image that is more general for the section as a whole. I often place such an image adjacent to that late paragraph. DMacks (talk) 07:06, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Self-referencing hatnotes

Some feedback on a a self-reference issue would be welcome. Please see WT:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid#Is "not a policy" useful?. Johnuniq (talk) 05:18, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Discussion regarding date linking on portal date-specific pages

Please come participate in the discussion at WP:VPP#Date links on portal date-specific pages. Thank you. ···日本穣 · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 17:48, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

A guideline should give guidance

I see that a number of details have recently been removed. As a MOS user I would like to complain about how frustrating it is when I encounter text that could be expressed a couple of different ways and come here for advice. I don't want to consult external style guides, and my brain has been addled by seeing many variations at Wikipedia so I am rarely confident about what "should" be done. A couple of hours ago I tried to search for advice so I could link to it. I believe the advice was once here, but I cannot see it now (see "force-length units would be torque and length-force units would be energy" here and the "discussion here" that it links to).

Another issue that arises in connection with {{convert}} concerns other advice that has just been excised:

When dimensions are given, each number should be followed by a unit name or symbol (e.g., write 1 m × 3 m × 6 m, not 1 × 3 × 6 m).

It hasn't arisen for a while, but in the past people have complained either that converts repeats the symbols in a range, or that (with some options) it does not repeat them. It is really handy to be able to defer to MOS. We know that, with reason, a guideline can be ignored blah blah but people come here for advice and removing it leaves a riddle that results in unnecessary arguments at other pages. It is very useful, for example, to search MOS for "range" and find advice. Johnuniq (talk) 05:44, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

The other point of view is that often there really are several equally acceptable ways to express something, and the MOS shouldn't constrain editor's writing style more than necessary. Of course, the {{convert}} template tends to restrain editor's stye choice, because it is usually best to be consistent within an article, so if {{convert}} is used, other quantities with units in the same article, that don't use convert, should be consistent with convert. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:28, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
That would be fine if the removals were a change to MOS procedures. Has consensus changed, or are the removals merely trimming to clean up the page? I'm not complaining if consensus has changed and MOS now has no opinion on which of 1 m × 3 m × 6 m and 1 × 3 × 6 m) is preferable. My point is that if there is a preference, it should be spelled out so people can search MOS and find it.
Another issue is that while bold editing is fine, my humble opinion is that any substantive changes hidden in a blizzard of edits should be listed on the talk page so others can see what has happened without trying to interpret the complex diff resulting from so many tweaks. Johnuniq (talk) 02:28, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Johnuniq: I assume I may be the culprit, or a culprit, in creating an alleged blizzard of edits. Among my changes, there was one that was just plain wrong, which was helpfully fixed by DrKay after it was reverted and I made it a second time. My other changes were just clarifications of existing text and should not have been controversial.

Detailed recapitulation of edits

My first edit, of 21:18, 7 May 2017‎, had edit summary

comma before nonrestrictive clause; -which+that; -it's+its (per this manual); -presently+currently [presently=soon]; bullets in parallel structure ending with/out period; -like+such as; use examples actually found at target MOS; balance cols; nbsp aft °

This is literally what's in the edit, as long as you read the hyphen as a minus sign; -a+b means "minus a plus b" or "I changed a to b". In the following text, regular bullets are portions of my edit summary and nested bullets are the corresponding edits.

  • comma before nonrestrictive clause
    • [inside an HTML comment] not Wikipedia:Weasel_words which only applies to actual content → not Wikipedia:Weasel_words, which only applies to actual content
  • -which+that — Reason: "which" is not wrong, but many style guides recommend "that" before nonrestrictive clauses
    • an initialism which is pronounced as a word → an initialism that is pronounced as a word
    • These are alterations which make no difference → These are alterations that make no difference
    • speech or text which is reported verbatim → speech or text that is reported verbatim
    • introduces something which demonstrates → introduces something that demonstrates
  • -it's+its (per this manual) [description error; I meant -it's+ it is]
    • it's → it is [3 times]
  • -presently+currently [presently=soon] — Reason: "presently" means "now" and "soon"; "currently" means "now" only, so it's a better choice
    • shows the article as it presently exists → shows the article as it currently exists
    • topic guideline in which it's presently located → topic guideline in which it is currently located
  • bullets in parallel structure ending with/out period
    • Styling of apostrophes and quotation marks → Styling of apostrophes and quotation marks.
    • [similarly, other bullet points have periods added at the end so that groups of bullet points consistently end with a period]
  • -like+such as — Reason: "such as" implies full universe includes the listed examples; "like" implies the full universe does not include the listed examples]
  • use examples actually found at target MOS — Reason: the words "presently" and "current" aren't found in the target manual, but my example words are
    • guideline on wording like "presently" and "current", see → guideline on wording such as "currently", "soon", and "recently", see
  • balance cols
    • [column break moved from before to after "Great Fire of London (British English)" so that the right column won't be longer than the left column]
  • nbsp aft °
    • [insert a nonbreaking space after the degree symbol, an error, because the nonbreaking space belongs before the temperature degree symbol]

A further clarification of "like → such as": A classic use of "like" is "This program is made possible with the support of viewers like you." That means, "We don't know if you are a supporter, but other viewers like you are supporters." But "wording like 'presently' and 'current'" leaves the user confused as to whether "presently" and "current" are included or if we mean, "not these two, but other words like these two".

My subsequent edits were similarly un-substantive clarifications.

So, you see, my description was reasonably explanatory; there were no substantive change but just some clarifications. I am sorry this method caused you or anyone else any difficulty. If I edit any of the MOS pages again, controversial changes will be only after talk page consensus (as I have always done), and minor clarifications like these will be in smaller groups to make it easy to see that the changes are benign.—Anomalocaris (talk) 05:29, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the full disclosure, but I had no intention that each text tweak should be listed for discussion. I was referring to substantive changes such as removing the advice about 1 m × 3 m × 6 m—before that change, MOS recommended a style and the change removed that recommendation. I understand that tweaking words can have subtle implications, but it is only obvious and intended changes to meaning that I think should be listed. Johnuniq (talk) 05:39, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
The things you're mentioning are still recommended by MOS, over at WP:UNITS (part of what's usually called MOSDATES) where they're always been, just no longer here on the big main MOS page. In the following edits I cut some of the units-related points because I think their value here (where we're trying to give editors -- especially new editors -- the highlights) doesn't justify the bulk they add. Feel free to add anything back you think is really important, but please, ask yourself whether it's something typical new editors really need to know at they get their sea legs; you, as an experienced editor, should have no problem remembering that whatever's not here is over at MOS:UNITS:
EEng 06:01, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Damn, I have no idea how I got so confused. I had several multi-tabbed windows open so I might have been comparing what is at WP:UNIT with what I saw at Units of measurement. Sorry for the noise, carry on! It would have helped if the edit summaries to remove points had focused more on the fact that the text was duplicated. Johnuniq (talk) 09:31, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Well, that was easy! I took it as a given that everyone following edits to this page knows that it's a summary of stuff which is (in principle, at least) on the satellite detail pages, but you have a good point that I should try to of remind people of that in edit summaries. Beyond that, I do try to make my edits in such a way that if you step through them one at a time, it's apparent at each step that I'm only reexpressing the same advice – I'm not interested in changing the guidelines, just making them easier to comprehend and consult. EEng 13:03, 8 May 2017 (UTC) P.S. Could you comment on the next thread so this silly protection can be removed?

Citation overkill proposal at WP:Citation overkill talk page

Opinions are needed on the following: Wikipedia talk:Citation overkill#Citations. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:17, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

eV

This concerns advice at MOS:UNITNAMES
It seems that megaelectronvolt is mentioned on both pages. Gah4 (talk) 14:56, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

I just noticed the suggestion to spell out electronvolt, along with any prefix. As far as I know, physicists would pretty much never do that. I believe also, that if one did, it would be two words. As I don't have an account, I can't check OED to see if it is considered a word yet. It is a little unusual, as electron by itself is not normally a unit, other than counting of the particle with that name. Gah4 (talk) 00:05, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

If the question you are asking is 'is "electronvolt" a word?', the answer - as far as I can tell - is yes. It does seem to be a matter of taste whether you spell it as one word or two. --Sb2001 (talk) 00:14, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

It's either one word or a hyphenated compound. Two words are incorrect. The hyphen is needed to indicate that it's a joint unit produced by multiplying one unit ("electron", meaning the quantity of charge of one electron) with another (volt, the difference in electrical potential energy between two points in space per unit change). The eV is a unit of energy. One word is also acceptable, and increasingly preferred. But I agree with Gah4. No one spells it out in practice. As a general interest encyclopedia, and considering that this is a specialists' unit, I can agree with spelling it out in first use for clarity, but we don't need to spell it out every time. oknazevad (talk) 02:27, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, two questions. One is spell it out or not, and the other one word or two. As far as I know, the OED is the official standard for words. If it is there, one word is fine, if it isn't, then not (yet). Spell it out the first time, and not after that, seems reasonable to me. Gah4 (talk) 02:39, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
These are words with different meanings: electron is an object (a fundamental particle of matter) and volt is a measure (a unit of electric potential, etc.) and when written as two words, we have a largely meaningless concept, rather like "paper watt" is meaningless. But when written as one word, electronvolt has a distinct meaning - it is the amount of energy gained (or lost) by the charge of a single electron moving across an electric potential difference of one volt (or if you like, it is a unit of mass-energy mainly used in nuclear physics). So when written out, the space should not be included. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:12, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
I think I've always seen it as "electron volt", two words. I don't see the problem that you're finding here. The conjunction of the two words means multiplication, with "electron" as shorthand for "the charge of an electron". It's like a "foot pound", which is neither a foot nor a pound. Discuss amongst yourselves. I'm so verklempt. --Trovatore (talk) 23:54, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
Yes, but that is only true if electronvolt, and even more, megaelectronvolt, are actually words. (I wonder, in the latter case, can you put an ISO prefix on any word and declare it a word?) If someone finds that electronvolt is in the OED, then I won't say anything more about that. But I suspect that it isn't. You can't just take any two english words and put them together, even though alot of people do that. I suspect that you might sometimes find electron-volt used in physics literature, but pretty much never mega-electron-volt, and never megaelectronvolt. (If I type electronvolt my browser spell checker corrects it to electron volt.) Gah4 (talk) 14:56, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Firstly, the OED is not the sole arbiter of whether or not something is a word. In fact, they'd laugh at such a prescriptivist role. They do try to document every usage, but they are doing just that, documenting existing use. It's descriptive, not perscriotive.
Secondly, yes you most certainly can just take two words and put them together to coin a new term. More prescriptive silliness.
Thirdly, electronvolt is hardly new. The hyphenated version dates to at over a century ago, and dropping the hyphen from compounds is standard English evolution. oknazevad (talk) 17:02, 6 May 2017 (UTC)
Fear not, citizens! I have a Compact OED here in my saddlebag!
  • The OED gives electronvolt and megaelectronvolt, but not electron volt or megaelectron volt (as entries, though it does give two old quotations with electron volt). EEng 16:51, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks all, NIST is good enough for me. Note that there is MOS:JARGON, for example, and also do not invent abbreviations or acronyms (yes I know that this isn't either). It is just spelled out so rarely that it looks strange to see it. Gah4 (talk) 20:00, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

For the record, here is how {{convert}} does it (discussion here):
  • {{convert|1|J|eV|abbr=off}} → 1 joule (6.2×1018 electronvolts)
  • {{convert|1|J|MeV|abbr=off}} → 1 joule (6.2×1012 megaelectronvolts)
Johnuniq (talk) 12:15, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Capitals for emphasis

I think this is what the header should be. After really looking at it, it seems jarring to have an imperative header, as it creates a situation where any text following it reads in a much "quieter"(?) tone, or possibly as unnecessary (as has been noted by User:EEng). With a "Capitals for emphasis" header, the section itself could advise against this practice while also providing the preferred alternative. Thoughts? Primergrey (talk) 02:02, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

I think the idea is that people don't want the heading to be Capitals for emphasis when we're trying to tell people to do the opposite. I think I overtrimmed, and someone was right to revert me on that. As far as I'm concerned we can just leave it the way it is (i.e. the way it was). EEng 02:13, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
That's fine with me, too. Primergrey (talk) 02:27, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
  • I got a brainstorm [10]. I have some other mods I'd like to make to the Italics section, but I'll hold off a day so anyone can revert that last change if they don't like it. EEng 02:35, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
I think it's not a bad idea. One section on what to do for emphasis makes sense, and putting it under italics gives a strong indication without even reading it that italics are used for emphasis. I can see maybe leaving a passing mention in the capitals section that capitals are not used for emphasis, but it doesn't need a separate header. oknazevad (talk) 02:42, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Page protected

This is devolving at this point and seems to be less about the MoS and more about Being Right. Get back to editing. *whipcrack* --Izno (talk) 11:42, 10 May 2017 (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.

I have imposed a one-week full protection on this page (and yes, it was almost certainly the wrong version), because in the space of less than three hours, three people (Anomalocaris, DrKay and EEng)) have made thirteen edits, several of which negated the effects of previous edits. I am sure that you are all aware of WP:BRD and WP:EW - please respect those guidelines. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:39, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Redrose64: I am sorry. In the sentence that now reads (without the bracketed words)
"MOS:PRESENT" redirects here. [For] the guideline on [wording] such as "currently", "soon", and "recently", see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Statements likely to become outdated.
I accidentally removed the word "wording"; DrKay replaced it with the word "words" (which also works); EEng removed the word "words". Both the word "For" and the word "wording" are required in order for this to make sense. Can we please have consensus for this change, even before expiration of the page protection? Respectfully submitted, Anomalocaris (talk) 00:16, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Honestly, I've just about had my fill of shoot-from-the-hip highhanded admins today, so I'm a bit pissy. This is ridiculous.

  • Anomalocaris, in good faith but unfamiliar with the special nature of a page like this, made some large edits with diffs so big they were impossible to review carefully, as is absolutely necessary here because of the page's complexity. I asked him three times to make smaller changes, and after the third request he complied by making several smaller, more targeted changes.
  • Since then DrKay and I have made some small adjustments, nothing controversial. It seems that somewhere in there there were some edit conflicts (or software failures -- it happens, you know, in merging changes) that caused this weirdness about words and wording coming in and out.

In other words, after an initial misunderstanding there's no problem now, and no need for protection. I believe both Anomalocaris and DrKay will endorse this summary. So can we please unprotect so everyone can get back to work? Ping Redrose64. EEng 00:51, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Please consider my humble plea just above to list on talk any substantive MOS changes that would otherwise be hidden in a blizzard of edits. Johnuniq (talk) 02:32, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Johnuniq: See my comment in the section above. —Anomalocaris (talk) 05:44, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
Redrose64: I don't dispute EEng's comment and I encourage that either the project page be unprotected or the change requested above (inserting "For" and "wording") be made promptly. As a good-faith offering, if you unprotect, I pledge not to edit the project page for a full seven days. —Anomalocaris (talk) 05:44, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
There's no need for such a pledge. Just please continue to keep each edit relatively focused, as you've been doing in your recent edits, so that individual diffs can be discussed if the need comes up. EEng 05:47, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Personally, I can't see a pressing need for page protection at the current time. I realise that, to someone not paying attention to the actual edits involved (but rather to the edit comments), it may seem like there was edit warring but the three very experienced editors named by the protecting admin would likely have sorted things out between themselves and, more importantly, the changes were not hugely substantive. BushelCandle (talk) 07:21, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

This does actually present the issue that it is not that clear on the MoS page that changes should not be made unless they have come here first. Maybe it is appropriate for us to be working on a more long-term solution. Protection is maybe not quite the right approach, although I do understand the reasoning. --Sb2001 (talk) 17:31, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

To mention BRD in the rationale for page protection (a last-resort action that seems to have been an overreaction) is wholly improper. Linking an essay to justify, in part, an heavy admin action (at a major guideline page, no less) seems entirely rogue-ish behaviour. Knowingly protecting the "wrong" version of a heavily trafficked guideline page for a week seems to show a lack of respect for the guideline and/or those wanting to refer to it. (Not mention that B and R, two-thirds of the advice, cannot be done on a protected page.) Primergrey (talk) 07:50, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

@Primergrey: What makes you think that I knowingly protected the "wrong" version? I protected the version that was current at the time, or in other words, I performed no edits to change the text in any way, since that would have been positively taking one side in preference to the other. If you read m:The Wrong Version, what it basically says is that the wrong version is any version that you did not write yourself.
The page shouldn't be heavily-trafficked (but its talk page, i.e. right here, could be), because it is the main Manual of Style page, the place where people go to read about best practice. They shouldn't be in the situation where they read one thing in MoS, act upon it in their article, and half an hour later get reverted because they are editing against MoS - because in the meantime, three people have been changing the MoS without discussion.
As for your remark that B and R cannot be done - they already had been done (here is B; here is R); four hours and thirteen edits later we were well past that point with no D at all.
What I am trying to get across here is that stability is preferable to frequent change. I'm not saying that stability should mean constancy - rather, it should mean that any changes that are introduced are agreed in advance and are beneficial, so are not likely to be reverted in the immediate future. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:02, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
And now it's even more obvious than before that you haven't looked at the actual edits and edit summaries to understand what was going on. Even over on your own talk page you're arguing with another admin who's asked you to please just remove the protection. That's OK, we'll just wait until the protection has expired (five days from now) and then get back to improving it. By then, hopefully, you'll have moved on to be Mr. Big-Man-Or-Woman-In-Charge somewhere else.
As to your statement that any changes that are introduced [should be] agreed in advance – that's nuts. Like it says at the top of the page itself, Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus. I put the key word in bold to help you understand. By your logic, the page would be under indefinite protection.
Except in the very unlikely case that you now grasp what's going on please don't respond, because that will just further waste everyone's time. EEng 20:56, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
Someone with common sense has unprotected now, but before this thread wraps up I'll note one more thing: When Primergrey called this a "heavily trafficked" page, he's saying (as everyone but you seems to know) that it's a page that's visited often. That you think "heavily trafficked" means a page that's edited often is... unbelievable. EEng 00:16, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
User:Redrose64, I wasn't going to bother saying this but then saw on your TP that you've characterized me as not understanding some thing or another. In the first sentence of your first post you state that you "know you are protecting the wrong version". That's a clear statement and yet I seemed to have baffled you by bringing it up. Then I thought, "maybe wrong version is a Wiki term of art that I haven't ever encountered in the five or so years I've been here." Nope. That link took me to a page which is less than useless, in no way humourous ((despite its confident claim to the contrary), and attempts to mock anyone actually trying to AGF in their affairs here. A page, apparently, written by some jaded ass-hat that should do us all a favour and become a neo-luddite immediately. That's an awful way to begin a discussion with people in general, and with adults in particular. Primergrey (talk) 06:13, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
It's even worse then you think, Primergrey. Actually, The Wrong Version™ really is a Wikipedia term of art: it's shorthand for, "When an admin steps in to stop an edit war by imposing protection, no matter which version gets protected there will always be someone who claims that's 'the wrong version'". In fact, generally speaking admins aren't supposed to even try to determine which is the "right" version to protect, because...
When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators normally protect the current version, except where the current version contains content that clearly violates content policies, such as vandalism, copyright violations, or defamation of living persons. Since protecting the most current version sometimes rewards edit warring by establishing a contentious revision, administrators may also revert to an old version of the page predating the edit war if such a clear point exists... Administrators should not protect or unprotect a page to further their own positions in content disputes.
However, all those provisos make sense only if there was a dispute at the time the protection was imposed. In this case there wasn't, as an examination of the last few edits and edit summaries easily shows; it was just normal editing at that point. The whole exercise was pointless, and the imperious refusal to see reason just compounded it. EEng 08:46, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) What I wrote was "(and yes, it was almost certainly the wrong version)", in parenthesis, with a link. It is sarcasm, and in no way states that I knew that I was protecting the wrong version - the word "know" (or related) simply does not occur. It was intended to be read as "I have probably protected a version that you don't agree with". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 08:47, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
The problem, as you're still not getting apparently, is that you protected a version everyone disagreed with (it had a clear typo, as someone pointed out in a post you simply ignored [11]). EEng 08:52, 10 May 2017 (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.

infoboxes in the very beginning

I have noticed a change that appears to have happened the last week. Infoboxes started appearing to me, an android app user, in the very beginning of every article instead after a lead paragraph, which renders the article preview that appears when I press hyperlinks empty and useless. would anyone tell me what happened? • Sammy Majed  • Talk  • Creations • Wikipedia Arabic  • 11:38, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Better ask at WP:Village pump (technical). EEng 11:42, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
@EEng: Thanks.  • Sammy Majed  • Talk  • Creations • Wikipedia Arabic  • 15:52, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Sandwiching text

It's clear what MOS:SANDWICH is trying to say: avoid sandwiching text horizontally between an image or infobox or similar, one being on the left and the other on the right of the page. We're not, of course, bothered about sandwiching text vertically. This has been expressed for some time using the wording "facing", but this can be mis-interpreted to refer to the direction in which images of people look. I wrongly reverted a reversion, but have now tried different wording. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:08, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I've reverted to the text that has had consensus for more than 2 years but inserted "horizontal" to avoid this possible conclusion.
I don't think that this page should give too much detail about image placement - save that for Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images, eh? BushelCandle (talk) 09:21, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm happy with this change which meets my main point. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:35, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

This is fine, but there should also be a line which says not to sandwich text vertically, unless it is a substantial block of text between (say five lines). Otherwise there can be confusion, and people can miss parts of the text (it could easily look like (part of) a caption). --Sb2001 (talk) 18:37, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

That's not something that can be controlled, given the variety of window sizes etc. EEng 20:20, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
Good point, User:EEng. I hadn't thought of that. -Sb2001 (talk) 22:37, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Perhaps not the time or place to say it, but MOS:SANDWICH needs some rewriting to cope with the much wider screens most desktop users now have. What used not to be a sandwich often becomes a part-sandwich on a wider screen, but with plenty of width that's far less of a problem. On a less wide screen, where it would be an issue, the part-sandwich disappears. So rigorously avoiding all sandwich overlap when editing on a wide screen may not give the best results. Johnbod (talk) 16:53, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
I've never interpreted the guideline as forbidding any instance of text between two images, but rather text squeezed between two images i.e. where there's "too little" space. Since elsewhere the guideline recommends limiting individual images to upright=1.8 at most, I've always figured that if images A and B, horizontally opposed, have (uprightA + uprightB) <= 1.8, that should be OK. EEng 17:01, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Keep markup simple

The first bullet at WP:MOS#Keep markup simple reads: The simplest markup is often the easiest to edit, the most comprehensible, and the most predictable. Markup may appear differently in different browsers. Use HTML and CSS markup sparingly; in particular, do not use the CSS float or line-height properties because they break rendering on some browsers when large fonts are used.

I agree broadly with the sentiment of keeping markup simple, not least because it makes editing faster (editors would rather not process lots of CSS). My concern comes with the "in particular" and following: Do we know which browsers exhibit these problems? I did a quick Google check and didn't see anything. Float is regularly used on-wiki (tables floated one side or the other, most often), and while I've never seen line-height in-use, I don't think it needs to be called out specifically with the "use markup sparingly" statement.

Would anyone have any heartburn with removing in particular, do not use the CSS float or line-height properties because they break rendering on some browsers when large fonts are used? --Izno (talk) 16:25, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Honestly that whole paragraph is so vague as to be useless. If a few actual examples could be supplied... Notice that the second paragraph is a good example of simpler not being better. EEng 17:01, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
line-height is often used to reduce the internal spacing of cladograms produced with {{Clade}} or {{Cladex}}. As just one very small example, see Synspermiata#Phylogeny. I think the advice re float and line-height is out of date now, and I agree the reference to them should be removed. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:18, 15 May 2017 (UTC)
Just for reference, the line height prohibition was added in July 2005 and the prohibition against float added two weeks earlier in June 2005. Guidance against HTML was added in January 2003. So, I would indeed guess that the guidance against float and line-height is for now-obsolete browsers, given the massive increase in conformant functionality for all browsers in the past decade. --Izno (talk) 19:30, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

'e.g.', 'i.e.' and 'etc.' vs 'eg', 'ie' and 'etc'

Following a discussion at the Language helpdesk, I propose 'eg', 'ie' and 'etc' should be written for British English articles, whilst 'e.g.', 'i.e.' and 'etc.' are used for US English articles. This means US articles can follow the guidance of US style guides and UK articles can follow the guidance of UK style guides.

See the following; Guardian style guide - 'eg no full points' UK government style guide - 'eg, etc and ie' Economist style guide - 'ie and eg' University of Oxford style guide - 'etc', 'eg' and 'ie'

Also (as contributed by Alansplodge) University of Cambridge educational style guide: "Do not use full stops in these common abbreviations: eg, am, pm, op, no, cf, ie, ed, etc or after Mr, Mrs, Prof or Dr".
And again, BBC NEWS STYLE GUIDE: "Eg ie no full stop".
And finally Editorial Style and Writing Guidelines - NHS Connecting for Health: "Common abbreviations such as, ie, eg and etc should be written without full stops".

As 'The Rambling Man' comments, 'there seems to be good evidence to support an ENGVAR split in punctuation'.

'Jnestorius' summarised that 'style guides for web publications are more likely than those for hardcopy printing to favour eg over e.g'. Since Wikipedia is a website, it would make sense to apply this split here. I would - however - note that the Guardian and the Economist are printed publications. --Sb2001 (talk) 15:15, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Interesting that HMG warns that screen readers get confused (e.g. -> egg) and that Oxford justifies the change on the basis of saving ink! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:48, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I don't know about whether to support an ENGVAR split on this, but I just have to say that to my American eyes, all these abbreviations without periods (full stops) look amazingly odd. I can understand, perhaps, leaving out the periods after "Mr", "Dr", etc., but with eg, am, pm, op, no, cf, ie, ed, and etc, some of them look like words, which can cause some confusion to a native speaker of English but even more to a non-native speaker of English. The abbreviations without periods/full stops provide fewer clues that the letters represent separate words and assumes that the reader knows the Latin words of which they are abbreviations. I wonder whether the practice of leaving out the periods/full stops on titles and abbreviations arose when people were using manual typewriters to type, and it meant one less key to punch on the typewriter, saving not only time but actual physical effort. Now that we have ergonomic computer keyboards that only require a light touch on the keys, perhaps we have no excuse to leave the periods/full stops out. I know that it all comes down to what you're used to, but also, I know that Wikipedia has developed its own style in some things, including punctuation. We are not necessarily bound to follow prevailing style guides.  – Corinne (talk) 16:16, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
@Corinne: well, to my aging British eyes, many of these also look very odd without stops. There is a well established and principled British style that only uses a stop at the end if that's where letters are omitted. So "Mr", "Mrs", "Dr" because the omitted letters are internal, but "Prof.", "e.g.", "ed.", etc. because the omission is at the end. There's a case for "am" and "pm" in forms like "2 am" by analogy with "2 cm". Personally I wouldn't go beyond these in British English articles. There's no good reason to decrease consistency. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:35, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
This British English editor makes a point of including those dots in her own writing. Of the sources that give a MoS, it should be noted that saving ink is irrelevant to wikipedia (Oxford), and gov.uk has a policy of writing to the lowest education level practical in order to avoid being accused of making essential government reports and services inaccessible. The NHS MoS would simply repeat the gov.uk MoS, as it is still (for the time being at least) a government-controlled body. Listing their MoS separately is just padding the claim. It seems reasonable to assume that wikipedia isn't writing to the lowest education level that doesn't fit the legal definition of mentally disabled. The simple fact is, there is not actually a consensus regarding dots in these abbreviations. Rhialto (talk) 16:48, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
I agree with Peter, excpet for the fact that I still tend to use the older style of full stops after Mr., Mrs. or Dr. It's the way I was taught way back in the year England won the World Cup (which is a bit of a hint which side of the Atlantic I come from). Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:50, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

The assumption this is about saving ink is just wrong. It is also wrong that it is about typewriters. As someone in education rather more recently than the rest of you seem to have been, I can tell you that in the UK it is no longer recommended to abbreviate with full stops. Part of the educational process involves referring to style guides, grammar books, etc and I can tell you everything I have read which has been recently published says not to include full stops. The point of this discussion is to come to a conclusion as to whether Wikipedia should follow the more up-to-date way of writing these common abbreviations in British English. In response to @Rhialto 's claim that 'eg', etc is about making things accessible to all, for one - why should Wikipedia not be accessible to all, and my education certainly was not of poor quality - I was told to write with no full stops. These rules have only been adopted recently, so may seem unfamiliar to some. I can say that examination boards in the UK all (or at least that I have come across) include examples using 'eg' for their associated paperwork. Part of the reason I started this discussion is as some instances of 'eg', etc in UK articles were removed in favour of 'e.g.'. A potential solution to this could be to allow both, maybe with the aim of moving towards the new standards. --Sb2001 (talk) 18:12, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

User:Rhialto: The inclusion of the NHS' style guide was to demonstrate support from other users, not to pad the claim. I was not aware the NHS had a style guide until this discussion. It is actually quite different to that of the government, including what it says about 'eg', etc. --Sb2001 (talk) 20:05, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't attempting to make any comment on the education levels of other editors here - simply on the official intent of the gov.uk manual of style. As a former government employee, I had access to the documents that explained the official reasoning behind their MoS decision-making process. I'd love to point you to them, but those documents were on an intranet and not to my knowledge public. Rhialto (talk) 21:02, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
The comment about saving ink is from Oxford: "If there are multiple (correct) ways of doing something, choose the one which uses the least space and the least ink" (page 1), so if you are quoting them as an authority you shouldn't dismiss it as "just wrong". I think you have also misunderstood the HMG advice: "eg can sometimes be read aloud as ‘egg’ by screen reading software. Instead use ‘for example’ or ‘such as’ or ‘like’ or ‘including’ - whichever works best in the specific context." To make it plain, they are saying that not using punctuation renders the text so unclear that it is best avoided. If you look at the "E" page the title "eg, etc and ie" is about as unclear as it can get, it reads as "eg, etcandie". I wonder if a screen reader would say "egg ate candy"? I discussed this with an secondary school English teacher and although she wouldn't employ full stops after "Mr" would certainly use them in "i.e." or "e.g.".
Your assumption that a modern trend is necessarily either permanent or better than the traditional way is a common fallacy of journalism and other ephemera. Interestingly at a concert at the weekend the lyrics of 60s and 70s pop sounded far more dated that that of Thomas Weelkes (1576 – 1623), and personally I always find the KJV sounds less stilted than horrors like the NEB. Since the Americans seem to have retained a form which you understand, yet your form looks jarring and ill educated to older British readers perhaps we should employ a style which is accessible (vide HMG), easy on the eye (also HMG) and common to the greatest number of readers. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
  • I'm amazed no one here seems to realize that "saving ink" here is figurative. "Ink" is just the opposite of "whitespace". No one's actually talking about saving actual, literal, physical ink. While I'm here, I completely agree with Martin -- dropping the dots/periods/stops may be hip, but to a lot of readers it looks completely daft. EEng 22:43, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
  • I also agree with Martin's well-expressed opinion.  – Corinne (talk) 02:54, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Regarding the "whitespace" point, I suspect that's a red herring. The nature of wikipedia is that the text flows to fill the available space. Making the overall text shorter (by removing the dots) won't increase the total amount of whitespace; it merely makes the overall article length shorter. In fact, contrary to expectations, including the dots, by spreading out the spacing of those letters, would actually increase the total amount of whitespace (since a dot will force in a bit of whitespace around itself in the middle of the paragraph). Rhialto (talk) 05:14, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
As an aside, current gov.uk MoS for eg/e.g., ie/i.e., and etc/etc. is "do not use". See here: https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2016/07/20/changes-to-the-style-guide-no-more-eg-and-ie-etc/ Rhialto (talk) 05:19, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
I think that should be more than an aside. HMG point out that there's an accessibility issue with these aperiodic abbreviations: software for the blind reads them wrong. This should also be a concern for us. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:58, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
In any case, as the author of that blog notes in the comments section of the blog, "It's a government website. Users shouldn't need to use a dictionary to understand it." This is an example of what I mean when I say there is a conscious decision to write to the lowest education level practical on government websites. As an encyclopaedia, this site does not have the same mission briefing. Rhialto (talk) 08:50, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
General comment: (I'm British, though I have not lived in the UK for 25+ years, and sometimes have difficulty reading what is supposed to be "English"). Many abbreviations in UK style use fewer dots than American ones (Mr Smith, am/pm (though isn't US generally small caps?), etc). But "ie" to mean "i.e." is just a (confusing) error. Citing millions of government documents is of no relevance: they cannot spell, they cannot punctuate, they cannot (actually) think; I know, because I have been struggling with incoherent questions from the DWP amongst others. WP uses "formal writing", which should mean no unecessary showoff jargon etc, but "written English", so "I am", not "I'm". Written English has completely disappeared from the language of government and commerce, but that doesn't (me, ok) mean we shouldn't use it. I just looked at the "Style guide" above, and it finally dawned on me that the people writing the style guide think that "eg" is an abbreviation (even while they recomment not using it). Grrrrmph. Imaginatorium (talk) 09:11, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the current official policy is on such abbreviations, but the past general Wikipedia tendency has been to allow national variants in spelling, but not usually in punctuation. So Wikipedia follows British practice in that commas etc. are not automatically reordered before quote marks, but follows American practice in that outer quote marks should be double (not single) -- and so on. We probably shouldn't change this without a good reason... AnonMoos (talk) 09:35, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Maybe it is a good idea to stop people writing these abbreviations, and instead write 'for example', etc as everyone can understand them. I have become used to seeing 'e.g.', but was very confused at first as it is not what I saw first. Some people are taught the other way around. A simple solution would be to not use them at all.--Sb2001 (talk) 13:07, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree that it is a good idea to use the full words such as "for example" when possible, but I don't think it's necessary to write out "that is" instead of "i.e." or "post meridiem" for "p.m." (and no, I don't see small caps used for that in the U.S.). I'm just curious: what do British academic journals and university presses use? Regarding the changing usage in journalism, I am increasingly seeing contractions in newspaper articles. I agree with Imaginatorium that government documents and any government style guides are not the best guides to good writing, and that in Wikipedia we should be using formal written English, but not so overly academic or obscure that articles will be incomprehensible to the average reader. Regarding the use of periods/full stops in abbreviations, does it make sense to make a distinction between the need for periods/full stops in titles (Mr, Mrs, Dr, etc.) in articles using British English and the need or periods/full stops in the other abbreviations? Can we say that, if the article is written in British English, it's all right for no period/full stop to be used in titles (with the understanding that periods/full stops will be used in articles written in American English) but that there will be a general policy of requiring/recommending periods/full stops for all the other abbreviations such as e.g. and i.e.? (I've kind of gotten used to seeing, and using, no periods/full stops for "am" and "pm", but wouldn't be opposed to requiring/recommending them for consistency.)  – Corinne (talk) 14:26, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Unspaced text messing up mobile browsers

perhapswikipediashouldlookaheadandtrytosetatrendforachangeforhundredsofyearswevebeentyrannisedbypeopleinsistingonallsortsofridiculousextraneousstuffwhenallweneedis26lettersoopsand10numeralsisupposedidyouknowthataboutthetimeoftherussianrevolutiontheydecidednottobotherwiththeletterъwhichappearedattheendoflotsandlotsofwordsrepresentingasortofnullvowelwhichwasntpronouncedanymoreasaresultrussiannewspapersshrankby7%orsomethinglikethatwellthisisourbigopportunityareductioninpaperelectronskeypressesandeductinalstandardswillriseovernightImaginatoriumtalk201704111520utc

The MoS used to explicitly discourage use of i.e., e.g., and other Latin abbreviations per WP:NOTPAPER. I'm not sure why that was removed as it seems like good advice. Kaldari (talk) 18:04, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
Looks like it was removed in 2005. Guess I'm getting old. Kaldari (talk) 18:10, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
FWIW I would support a suggestion to avoid "i.e." and "e.g." (and their less-punctuated versions) where possible. --JBL (talk) 22:57, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Me too. I like that it was in there for over a year, and came in with edit summary prevent measles (in reference to the dots). Dicklyon (talk) 23:50, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I would oppose any change. This is not universal. As an English person who always writes most abbreviations without full stops, I wouldn't dream of writing eg or ie! It looks very weird to me. Claiming this is standard British usage is just not true. This is not an ENGVAR issue. It's a personal style issue only. I also agree, though, that generally these abbreviations shouldn't be used on Wikipedia at all. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:51, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Would I be right in saying that people here do not - generally - oppose 'etc' being used as a BE equivalent to 'etc.'? This could be advised for UK articles, and then people can be asked to avoid using 'eg' or 'e.g.' and 'ie' or 'i.e.'. Many people seem to support this. Can I assume that this change is to go ahead unless there are a significant number of objections by, say, Sunday at 1.00pm UK time? --Sb2001 (talk) 20:44, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Oppose not universal in BE and increasing ENGVAR differences is undesirable. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:54, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
What is 'etc'? I write '&c'....RGloucester — ☎ 21:10, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: I do disagree that 'etc' is not universal as I see it far more frequently than 'etc.' (which I actually only see on Wikipedia) and it is what is taught in educational establishments. Yes, you are right in saying regional splits in language are to be avoided, but surely UK articles should be written in a style which most people in the UK would understand, and apply themselves. I am willing to accept 'eg' and 'ie' are possibly as common as 'i.e.' in certain places, but do not accept the argument that 'etc' is not the generally accepted way of writing this abbreviation. I would just like to clarify the change I proposed at 9.44pm (UK) doesn't ask people to write 'eg' and 'ie', only 'etc'.--Sb2001 (talk) 21:11, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

It's demonstrably not universal. See here and here, as just two examples. It's clear that there's a strong trend in British English is to reduce or remove the use of stops with abbreviations and contractions, but it's far from universal. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:16, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

It's certainly not sloppiness, @Redrose64: most British style guides recommend it, and it is what you are taught to write currently in English. Would you and other editors be happy with both 'etc' and 'etc.' being options? --Sb2001 (talk) 13:17, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

  • Oppose: I think this discussion has made it clear that there is currently no strong consensus. Both dotted and non-dotted versions appear to be standards in use, and if there is a pattern at all, I suspect it is a generational issue. I certainly recall that it used to be taught that the dotted version was the correct one. For now, as long as every article is internally consistent on which is used, we should allow either version to remain in an article. Rhialto (talk) 18:25, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Updated change: 'etc' and 'etc.' are acceptable in UK articles. 'eg' or 'e.g.' and 'ie' or 'i.e.' should not be used in any articles. This means existing instances of this can be gradually removed from Wikipedia. People should avoid changing 'etc' to 'etc.' and vice versa in UK articles. --Sb2001 (talk) 00:08, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

  • Oppose. Definitely keep the periods/dots/stops, whatever you like to call them. Even British/Commonwealth usage is not consistent in dropping them, and these constructions are difficult to interpret as abbreviations rather than words, unit symbols, and other stuff, especially by non-native English speakers. Many British/Commonwealth publishers that drop them are violating their own style guides by doing so, since Fowler's, New Hart's Rules, etc., typically advise dropping them only for abbreviations than start and end with the original letters of the full word ("Dr" from "Doctor"), and retaining them for truncations ("etc." from et cetera, which obviously does not end in "c"). The habitual dropping of all of them is a British/Commonwealth journalism practice, adopted for expediency (like dropping of capitalization in acronyms after the first letter, as in "Aids" for AIDS, an even more confusing and awful practice). Dot-dropping has been spreading, somewhat and inconsistently, to other forms of publishing in many non-North American parts of the "Anglosphere". But it's lazy and sloppy, and WP is not written in news style as a matter of policy, anyway.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:16, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
    It is most certainly not restricted to journalism. This view completely ignores what the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge require. People who wish to write 'etc.' in UK articles will still be able to, however they may also write 'etc'. I do not understand why editors have an objection to this. There is some evidence to support both inclusion and omission of full stops. I will note that I have never commented on how US English teaching is wrong, and have never said spelling 'colour' as 'color' is 'lazy and sloppy'... --Sb2001 (talk) 02:09, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
    Didn't say it was "restricted" to journalism, I said it originated there and has since spread inconsistently, which is correct. See comments in series by Peter coxhead, Rhialto, and Martin of Sheffield, above; even some British readers/writers (apparently the majority of them participating in this discussion) prefer the stops (including for constructions like "Dr.", the only type for which the main British style guides actually advocate dropping the dots in the first place). Colour versus colour is completely unrelated, being a nationalistic spelling divergence introduced by Daniel Webster's dictionary and enthusiastically adopted in the early United States for anti-British political reasons, along with "theater" and other alterations. That has nothing to do with whether punctuation – a matter of sentence structure and parseability – is being dropped for reasons of expediency at the cost of the material's intelligibility to a broad audience.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:28, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Dropping the dots was advice I first noticed in a book by the (British) author who first developed "plain English", in the 70s. I do not think there's a neat trans-Atlantic divide, just like internal/external quote-final punctuation. If copy-editing a WP I'd probably correct to "i.e." and "e.g." simply because they're more easily recognisable; but I'd not object if editors wanted to keep their dotless variety consistently throughout an article. I don't like the dot after "etc" because it's more easily recognisable than "ie" and "eg". But I don't think MOS should be insisting on anything but within-article consistency in these matters. Tony (talk) 04:31, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
  • I second User:Tony1's opinion of consistency within an article, but not across articles. One thing that will quickly annoy some editors is if a rule on this is put into the MOS that is then adopted by AWB and bots causing semi-automated/automated change to many articles. -- PBS (talk) 05:14, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose the proposal as stated. As SMcCandlish notes, even in BrE this dot dropping is not so prevalent or consistent. If there are articles that do this, with some consistency, I would not object, but I would not say push in that direction. So that's more like Tony1's position. Either way, I don't see a need for the MOS to take a position. I'd rather see us work together on what we've already got in the MOS than to add more stuff that's less likely to be respected. Dicklyon (talk) 05:55, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

I do sometimes wonder if all the time and effort spent trying to make MOS agreeable to every editor ought to be spent in article creation. In general readers (and remember WP:RF) want information, not rigorously standards-conforming typographical masterpieces. We should primarily be generating the world's best encyclopaedia, not an international style guide. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:53, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

It appears some users have not noticed the most recent motion I presented: 'Updated change: 'etc' and 'etc.' are acceptable in UK articles. 'eg' or 'e.g.' and 'ie' or 'i.e.' should not be used in any articles. This means existing instances of this can be gradually removed from Wikipedia. People should avoid changing 'etc' to 'etc.' and vice versa in UK articles. --Sb2001 (talk) 00:08, 15 April 2017 (UTC)'. A consensus seems to have been reached that the MoS should be changed to something like this. --Sb2001 (talk) 18:39, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Who says there's a consensus for this? I don't see it. When similar issues have been raised before, e.g allowing different quotation styles in articles using different ENGVARs, the consensus has always been not to vary punctuation by ENGVAR. What makes this different? Or shall we start discussing punctuation in quotations yet again? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:31, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
User:Peter coxhead: If you read the thread you will see people agree it is reasonable for both 'etc.' and 'etc' to be options for UK articles. This involves compromises from both sides of the argument. And I do think Wikipedia should allow different quotation punctuation. I am not raising it, however. I do not appreciate being told my points are not relevant/inappropriate for a discussion if other editors are going to raise issues such as quotation punctuation. We are discussing abbreviations. The last several comments support the idea of both versions of 'et cetera' being options. --Sb2001 (talk) 20:39, 16 April 2017 (UTC)
@Sb2001: I have read the thread. The point of the reference to quotation styles, if you read what I wrote, is that this offers a key test of attitudes to allowing punctuation to vary by ENGVAR, and the consensus was firmly that we don't, as Justlettersandnumbers says below. It's not a "compromise" to allow some variation by ENGVAR; it's a concession on a key principle. If accepted it would certainly be reasonable for American editors to say that always placing periods before quotation marks regardless of logical quotation should be allowed in articles written in American English. Why would one be allowed and not the other? Peter coxhead (talk) 17:21, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose per MHRA Style Guide, third edition; London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2013, page 43. Also because we don't need any more rules, and we don't make punctuation rules based on ENGVAR. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 21:59, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

User:Justlettersandnumbers: There are plenty of style guides which advise otherwise (the Guardian, the Economist, the NHS, the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge are just some examples). I think it is wise to allow people to write both in order to avoid this sort of 'my style guide is better than yours' debate this seems to be turning into. --Sb2001 (talk) 22:04, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Sb2001 Do I understand you correctly? It sounds like you want explicit permission to use "etc" (without the period/full stop) in articles written in British English. I think you realize by now that you haven't persuaded others to institute a new rule requiring no period/full stop in these abbreviations. I think the general feeling here is that consistency within an article is very much desirable, but there is a reluctance to put into place a new set of rules. I'm not sure whether other editors here would prefer to see these abbreviations written with periods/full stops, or whether (at least in British English articles) they would find either style (with or without periods/full stops) acceptable. Regarding your other proposal, to establish a rule or guideline saying that "i.e.", or "ie", and "e.g.", or "eg", cannot be used in Wikipedia articles, I don't think that's a good idea. I think articles that substitute "that is" every time "i.e." might be used would make for some wordy articles. For "e.g.", I think that in many cases another phrase can be used ("for example", "such as", "including"), but that an occasional "e.g." ought to be allowed.  – Corinne (talk) 03:16, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
Rewording to avoid Latin abbreviations is always my preference; but I don't think we need new guidelines at this time. Dicklyon (talk) 03:59, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Comment: I found out about this discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility#Abbreviations for exempli gratia, id est, etcetera, where the screen reader angle was mentioned. As discussed above, English speech synthesisers (which speak the text sent to them by screen readers) do indeed read "eg" and "ie" as "egg" and "e", with some variations; notably the British version of eSpeakNG reads "eg" as "for example" while reading "e.g." as "e dot g". However screen reader users will just get used to whatever's thrown at them, and I don't think the use of "eg"/"ie" versus "e.g."/"i.e." is a big deal for us in the grand scheme of things. Graham87 16:44, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Oppose - the fact that it's not universal among British English and that there are plausible accessibility concerns. The possible benefits of the proposal (reader comfortability) do not outweigh the possible-to-likely drawbacks. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:47, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

User:EvergreenFir: I am interested to know why you think a less common way of writing 'et cetera' ('etc.') should be adopted over the widely used 'etc'. I would like to again point out that we would - under this change - be making Wikipedia more accessible by advising people to write 'for example' and 'that is' (or words to that effect) instead of 'eg' or 'e.g.' and 'ie' or 'i.e.'. As User:Graham87 seems to be saying, screen readers have trouble with 'eg' and 'e.g.', so it would make sense to avoid using them in my opinion. I think we should allow both 'etc' and 'etc.' to end this dispute, which seems to be going round in circles. Do any editors have a reasonable objection to the barring of 'eg' or 'e.g.' and 'ie' or 'i.e.' and permission to use 'etc' and 'etc.'? --Sb2001 (talk) 19:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, they do; see above. You are trying to be both the proposer and the closer. This is not acceptable. A change of this kind needs to be treated as a proper RfC and closed by a non-involved person. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:48, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

User:Peter coxhead: You are effectively dismissing this side of the argument. The number of editors in favour of both being allowed seems about equal to those against. If both are recommended, why disallow one? Please, also, speak to me as an equal: your tone (and use of bold text) comes across as somewhat rude. I did not bring this to the talk page to cause an argument. Other editors and I find the MoS restrictive in the way it demands 'etc.' rather than 'etc'. You may not have this issue. As someone who was taught to write 'etc', I find it quite strange to have to write something I was taught is no longer common in UK English. I have backed down, and been persuaded by some editors to not use 'eg'/'e.g.' and 'ie'/'i.e.', so is it really that unreasonable for you to accept the opinions of some? I am not asking you to write 'etc' with no full stop. I am just asking for those who prefer this style to be give the option of doing so. In regards to the proposer/closer point, if this is a rule, I was not aware of this. I have never used this talk page before. I would appreciate it if you could show some understanding of this. I do think we have had an array of comments from people of many opinions (including one who writes '&c'), so am not quite sure what you mean when you ask for a 'proper RfC' - can you please explain? --Sb2001 (talk) 20:34, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

@Sb2001:Your assertion that "something ... is no longer common in UK English" is only correct if you assume that all UK English is reflected by journalistic style guides. Style guides may be prescriptive for their particular publications, just as MOS is prescriptive for our publication. To extrapolate from this limited base to all UK English is unsupportable and contradicted by many UK editors here. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:35, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

User:Martin of Sheffield: Sorry if what I meant was unclear - I was saying that I was taught it is no longer common. I was not trying to say I was right. I understand it is used, but I was taught (and I imagine this is fairly standard in schools, etc today) not to write it due to its dwindling frequency of use. --Sb2001 (talk) 22:58, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

  • It's just the Oxford staff style guide that recommends leaving them out. That's for staff communication, so they've opted for the easy option. They say: "Although this style guide is freely available online it has not been written with public or external use in mind. The University of Oxford Style Guide does not purport to compete with OUP’s professional writing guides and dictionaries." SarahSV (talk) 19:35, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Changed to support, but not as an ENGVAR difference. Editors should be able to choose which to use so long as they're consistent. Having said that, I think a lot of people will instinctively add points while copy-editing, so you'll be constantly having to argue your case. SarahSV (talk) 19:42, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Preferentially avoid altogether. Et cetera may be occasionally useful but should be written out and italicized; i(.)e(.) and e(.)g(.) should be replaced by "that is" and "for example", respectively (no one is going to use id est or exemplia gratis, I hope). That said, I'm not proposing this as a hard rule; if local editorial judgment is to use the abbreviations for some good reason, that's fine. But the guideline should discourage their general use. --Trovatore (talk) 19:59, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
    One practical consideration here: Not everyone who uses i.e. actually knows what it means. A lot of people use it when e.g. would be more appropriate. I don't actually recall specifically seeing this in Wikipedia, but then I don't see i.e. much in Wikipedia so the sample size is small. If people are encouraged to write it out in English, they'll be less likely to make this mistake. --Trovatore (talk) 20:10, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
User:Trovatore: This is a good point. It seems to me like enough of a reason to stop people writing e.g. and eg, end i.e. and ie. It can be rather confusing if you see 'ie' instead of 'eg' as it can lead you to question whether the list given is exhaustive. I have seen it on Wikipedia a number of times, actually.--Sb2001 (talk) 17:20, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
By this reasoning we should tell people to avoid comprise and compose, infer and imply, and so on. EEng 17:42, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
Well, it's just a little side benefit. In my judgment we should preferentially avoid Latin abbreviations, and for that matter all sorts of abbreviations, almost everywhere in Wikipedia. As I say, if local editorial judgment is different on a particular article, I think that's fine; I'm not going to go hunting for them. But if the MoS is going to make a recommendation, I think it should be "avoid them altogether". --Trovatore (talk) 19:30, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Does there seem to be a consensus here? I think people don't seem to have a preference (or if they do, are open-minded to the alternative) for 'etc' and 'etc.'. There also seems to be general opposition against e.g. or eg and i.e. and ie being used at all. Should we therefore avoid them (unless is absolutely necessary, in which case full stops are optional)? --Sb2001 (talk) 23:11, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Are you kidding? EEng 02:04, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
With respect to periods, it seems anyone in the world will understand abbreviations when written with or without dots. But I think there is a national preference for periods in the US as opposed to the UK--I know I always pause a little when seeing an abbreviation without them, but it's not impt. enough to make a ENGVAR issue of it. The easiest rule to handle this is just consistency within an article. That does matter, in terms of presenting a unified piece of writing, but I cannot see why consistency between articles is at all important; our articles are so diverse in much more important matters that we do need to deal with, such as extent of referencing. Similarly, etc and etc are both universally understood. They are not good style in formal writing, and perhaps we should advise against them , except in tables and the like. I'd advise against automatically converting them to words--at the end of a series they are usually best omitted, especially if the sentence begins with for example or among other. But as for ie and eg, it seems that it is a barrier to those from other language areas to use them at all, and they should be gradually depreciated, and perhaps we should include a statement to that effect in the MOS, but not make a special effort to remove them. I suggest there is at least consensus for that part. DGG ( talk ) 00:51, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
There certainly is a preference to avoid periods in British English. We call them "full stops" here, or sometimes just "dots" when we are referring to their use outside of the context of ending a sentence. Absolutely never a "period". Rhialto (talk) 04:49, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
Even Leviticus recommends avoiding periods. EEng 05:55, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
User:DGG: this seems perfectly reasonable. Reading my last comment, it seems I didn't make clear that I wanted consistency within articles. Certainly avoiding eg/e.g. and ie/i.e. seems like a good idea. --Sb2001 (talk) 15:57, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
  • In my eyes (yes, maybe somewhat biased) it seems people want to see an end to eg/e.g. and ie/i.e. unless absolutely necessary (tables, etc), and don't mind whether etc or etc. is used, as long as there is consistency within the article. Another user suggested a consensus here. Is anyone going to object to this, or can we just make the change? It can always be reviewed at a later date. --Sb2001 (talk) 18:32, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I see not a consensus, but some people suggesting this in passing while discussing something else (i.e. the dots question). I certainly oppose any such suggestion. These are a normal part of good writing. EEng 18:46, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
They are a normal part of some sorts of good writing. In an encyclopedia they seem just slightly lecture-y or textbook-y. I can't think of a case (maybe outside infoboxes and other specialized uses) where a usage in Wikipedia couldn't be improved by replacing them by "that is" or "for example", respectively. If that starts to get repetitive, then maybe that's a good indication that the text is too discursive to start with. --Trovatore (talk) 19:49, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
As an aside, in the example you used above("i.e. the dots question"), instead of replacing by "that is", I would leave it out altogether; it's already clear what you mean from the parentheses. Alternatively, you could replace it by "namely" followed by a comma. --Trovatore (talk) 20:00, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
That might even all be so. It's still not something MOS should be trying to legislate, because (as I like to say) unless MOS needs to have a rule, it needs not to have that rule. EEng 23:21, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
There is currently a rule stating full stops are to be used. Surely this is not necessary, given there is seemingly no 'correct' way of writing abbreviations which can be agreed. --Sb2001 (talk) 23:34, 4 May 2017 (UTC)
Always the clever one. Lack of stops/points/periods looks nuts to a substantial proportion of readers, therefore a rule specifying including them is appropriate. EEng 03:08, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
I agree with you in general that the MoS should avoid having rules on things it doesn't need to have rules on. I'm afraid that giving instructions on how to use these abbreviations risks suggesting that it's a good idea to use them, which I think it rarely is.
I wish it were possible to express the view in the MoS that it's rarely a good idea to use them, without it becoming a "rule". Something like "we can't predict all the cases in advance and it's OK if local editorial judgment is that they're the right thing in this instance, but as a general rule, they're not preferred Wikipedia style". Of course, that's the way the MoS as a whole is supposed to be, but isn't. --Trovatore (talk) 03:42, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
  • This long, long thread began, "Following a discussion at the Language helpdesk..." i.e. where's the evidence that this is an actual problem in article editing e.g. have editors been arguing about this? If not, I propose this thread come to an end. EEng 03:52, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
This was only brought to the MoS talk page after editors had changed 'eg' and 'ie' to 'e.g.' and 'i.e.'. It does cause problems for those who write according to the guidance of style guides such as the Guardian and Oxford and Cambridge universities. Just because you don't agree with it does not mean it is a non-issue. Dismissing it by suggesting it is not an 'actual problem' is inappropriate. You can see people have varying opinions on the matter. Why not allow everyone to enforce their own rather than forcing the use of full stops and seemingly actively encouraging the use of 'e.g.' and 'i.e.'? --Sb2001 (talk) 16:22, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
In general, and all other things being equal, I support letting editors work out arbitrary choices like this on individual articles. But all things aren't equal here. Though there seem to be some sources (and high-quality ones at that) who have adopted the no-dot style, the fact remains it looks absolutely daft to a large proportion of readers and editors -- perhaps even the majority of them. (I am -- ahem -- very well educated and very well read, and travel to Britain for research frequently, and it still has not penetrated my aging brain that ie and eg are intentionally used in any reputable sources. I'm not saying it isn't true, but it's not enough true that I've realized it, for whatever that's worth -- but the comments above suggest I'm not alone.)
The guideline has been this way for a long time. It's on you to explain why it should be removed, and "varying opinions" isn't enough for that. Everything in a manual of style is subject to varying opinions – otherwise there'd be no need for there to be a guideline about it. EEng 18:32, 5 May 2017 (UTC)
It just seems as if there is no benefit to specifying whether to use full stops. I will accept e.g. is what some people want to write, even if I choose not to myself. I asked a variety of people whether they include full stops, recently. Those who write in 'International English' (what the EU like to adopt) tend to include full stops, whilst it is completely random otherwise. There seemed to be a slight preference to the version without full stops, but nothing too overshadowing. What did seem a recurring theme is people only like using them in bulleted lists and tables, due to the fact these should be as concise as possible. I must say, I use them in formal prose all the time, although I have been asked by several people I have been writing for to 'use the words'. I seem to remember making the point earlier in the discussion (I'm not reading it all to check, though) that examination boards use 'eg' all the time in paperwork associated with coursework and exams. I would hope they know what they are talking about. Anyway, the majority of people I know understand both dotted and un-dotted versions of ie and eg. Rather than the MoS effectively instructing editors to change eg to e.g., it should place focus on actual issues for which there is an undisputed 'right' option. Do you think it's worth starting an RfC again? It only needs to be for a short period, but could provide a conclusion to this. --Sb2001 (talk) 00:33, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Changing course

I've just read back a bit in the thread. One editor's comments prompted me to research how screen readers deal with this. It seems 'eg' if often read as 'for example' and others as 'egg'. However, 'e.g.' is generally read as 'e dot g dot' with the odd exception where 'for example' is said. Writing the extended version would remove this as an issue. I think this deserves more consideration. We didn't seem to comment on it very much at the time. Besides, some people don't understand 'e(.)g(.)' and 'i(.)e(.)'. The actual English words remove this as an issue completely. I am now completely in favour of discouraging their words unless it is necessary to save space. 'etc(.)' is fine. Everyone seems to understand it, and screen readers have no issues interpreting it. Forget my original proposal. I think this is far more important. --Sb2001 (talk) 18:27, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

I'd completely agree, if this were the Simple English Wikipedia. EEng 18:40, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
Understandable or not, they're just the wrong tone for an encyclopedia. In my opinion anyway. I don't like etc(.) either, though I could live with et cetera, italicized. --Trovatore (talk) 20:06, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

It would be very useful for editors to comment their opinions on this new proposal which;

  • allows both etc. and etc
  • discourages the use of e.g./eg and i.e./ie unless in tight areas, such as tables.

It doesn't matter what you think, we currently do not have a clear consensus either way. -Sb2001 (talk) 17:17, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

RfC: remove 'eg' or 'e.g.' and 'ie' or 'i.e.', and allow both 'etc.' and 'etc'

Boldly closing this as "out of order". Having two ongoing RfCs regarding the same topic, started by the same user, is chaotic and counterproductive at best. Wait until the first RfC is closed to see what, if any, consensus there is. If, and only if, this question posed here arises, then consider another RfC (preferably after discussion about it) EvergreenFir (talk) 06:23, 18 April 2017 (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.

A discussion has been taking place, and a consensus cannot be reached on whether the MoS should advise against using 'eg' or 'e.g.' and 'ie' or 'i.e.' (and instead to write such things as 'for example' and 'that is'), and allow editors to write both 'etc' and 'etc.' in UK articles, as long as only one is used in an article. Different style guides advise different things, and both are common in UK English. Editors have suggested it is possibly a generational issue, with 'etc' being preferred by younger people. People may find it useful to read the thread on the MoS talk page, as links to some style guides are given, and advantages and disadvantages of applying this change are discussed. --Sb2001 (talk) 00:31, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Survey

  • The dots stay. Despite some once-respectable sources (e.g. the BBC) apparently having gone berserk, omitting the points/dots/stops/periods looks absolutely illiterate. EEng 00:35, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Don't use latin abbreviations, but if you absolutely must, include the dots so that it's less confusing. Kaldari (talk) 06:15, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

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.

Does WP prefer to hyphenate "anti-Semitism", prefer not to hyphenate it, or not have have a preference?

I know both are theoretically acceptable, and external reliable sources are split. A lot of prominent ones (like the ADL) appear to actively prefer "anti-Semitism", but sources could easily be located that say there is no "Semitism" to be "anti-", and so the proper spelling should be "antisemitism". (I've definitely seen something on Henry Abramson's YouTube channel, and it was expressed as his opinion so he's probably said it in a bunch of places.)

So yeah, I guess both are fine, but is changing from one to another a violation like changing one ENGVAR to another without a valid reason? (I'm assuming Antisemitism#Usage is meant to be descriptive of the real world rather than normative for Wikipedians.)

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:50, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I would definitely write 'antisemitism'. I've noticed the BBC write 'anti-Semitism' and always think it looks remarkably odd. The fact there is no 'Semitism' means antisemitism is the same as racism and sexism. --Sb2001 (talk) 16:33, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I've just checked the Guardian style guide. It says to write 'antisemitism' and 'antisemitic' (p32). --Sb2001 (talk) 16:34, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I think the MOS per se doesn't have much to say about this other than that we should be consistent within each article. But WP:COMMONNAME (and common sense) says to use the most common spelling. Google ngrams appears to show that they were both fairly equivalent until around 1980 (except for a big spike in popularity for the unhyphenated version around 1945-1950) but that, since 1980, "antisemitism" has become much more frequently used than "anti-semitism". So that's the one I would go with. If there's a UK-vs-US component to this, I don't know about it and can't guess which side would be which. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:33, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
Hijiri 88: At least in terms of article titles, Wikipedia has considered this issue. The consensus is in support of antisemitism. On 27 August 2014‎, the article Antisemitism was moved to Anti-Semitism. On 16 September 2014‎, it was moved back to Antisemitism. Arguments in favor of "Anti-Semitism" included that other Wikipedia Anti-...ism articles are hyphenated, that more dictionaries use "Anti-Semitism", and that various Internet searches show hyphenated use more common than unhyphenated use. Arguments in favor of "Antisemitism" included that some Wikipedia Anti...ism articles are not hyphenated, that Internet majority use is not the deciding factor for Wikipedia article naming, that academic journals are showing an increasing preference for the unhyphenated word, that the word is the translation of a German word and cannot be parsed as "anti-" + "Semitism". If the number of arguments I am listing on each side leads you to suspect I took sides, you would be right; I favored the unhyphenated word. The discussion preceding the move to hyphenation is at Talk:Antisemitism/Archive 33#Requested move. The protest of this move appears just below at Talk:Antisemitism/Archive 33#Requested move mishandled, a discussion I started, which resulted in overturning the move to hyphenation. At the same time, there was a discussion at Talk:3D Test of Antisemitism#Requested moves, a request to move about 40 articles with forms of the word "Antisemitism" to use "Anti-semitism", which resulted in those articles not being moved. As can be seen at Category:Antisemitism and its subcategories, all such articles use the unhyphenated word. —Anomalocaris (talk) 03:02, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
I have to say that to me "antisemitism" looks very odd. The Guardian notwithstanding, I think British English usually prefers the hyphen. So per ENGVAR I think we should maintain the status quo and retain whatever the particular article uses already. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:32, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
I find it harder to parse when sludged together. What is wrong with the hyphen? Tony (talk) 12:53, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Hello. I'm a relative newbie editing biology articles. I'm confused and/or unsure about the use of external links and further reading. If I want to give readers the option to read the text of a complete, open, published research paper that I have not cited in the article, I think I should put that link in the "Further reading" section. Is that correct?

If I want to give readers a "head's up" about a relevant video, I believe that link should go in an "External links" section. Is that correct? IF that is correct, shouldn't the section be titled "External videos" or "Further viewing"?

If I want to give readers the option to view a single, open, image licensed by cc4.0, I put it on the commons and insert it into the article as a thumb on the right side of the page, as I did extensively in Vesicular transport adaptor protein, because my experience in the classroom has taught me that images are crucial for understanding. If there is an open, but copyrighted image that cannot be put on the commons, I make an external link to the image at the appropriate place in the body of the article, which can be seen at this archived version of the article. Those external links passed review by many, perhaps dozens, of editors that I invited to look at the article, including Boghog initially. More recently, Boghog has removed them, which is why you need to look at the archived version. Those removals, in this newbie's opinion, are absolutely contrary to the educational mission of wikipedia and to the consensus of all of the other editors who let them stay in the article. So, what is to be done about this conflict? Thank you. JeanOhm (talk) 03:44, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

The guideline of interest is WP:ELCITE for external links and possibly WP:ELNEVER (since I have not reviewed the links in question). Regardless of ELNEVER, Boghog is correct to remove the external links from the body of the article per ELCITE. (I have no opinion on the value of the links themselves.) --Izno (talk) 04:24, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
You might consider the {{external media}} template, which allows you to put a link to the external video (or whathaveyou) in a box floated near the article text to which it's relevant. EEng 05:16, 14 May 2017 (UTC)
@Boghog, Izno, and EEng:Thank you for your replies. I have an idea. Suppose I wrote a hypothetical statement "X-ray crystalography has shown that protein Q interacts with protein Y."1a
"1" would be the citation to the research publication.
"a" would be an efn that states "the crystal structure can be seen in the External link entitled 'crystal structure of QY'"
Would that construction be OK?
It would be even better, IMHO, if the efn "a" could include the EL, but I can't get that to work at all.
Also, nobody has replied about the difference between "Further reading" and "External links". Can there be a section entitled "External videos" or "Further viewing" or maybe "External media" rather than "External links" to differentiate primarily external text (in Further reading) from primarily external visuals? Thank you, JeanOhm (talk) 01:44, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
@Boghog, Izno, and EEng: I realize that I'm beating a dead horse, but.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links#Restrictions_on_linking states "While it may seem counter-intuitive, please note: These external-link guidelines do not apply to citations to reliable sources within the body of the article." and the bold emphasis is not my own. So, why don't my EL links to published sources in reliable journals fall under that "counter-intuitive" guideline? Thanks, JeanOhm (talk) 02:00, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
I think you're trying too hard to make complete sense of the interaction between ELs and Further reading. Myself, if I think it's something the reader would benefit from reading/viewing (and no, it's not a good idea to use text vs. images as the criterion for where something goes), and it's anything that's pretty much unchanging and can be reasonably absorbed linearly -- a video, essay, or webpage with a finite number of pages organized around a table of contents -- then it's Further Reading. If it's a blog or official site, where I don't really know what the reader will get if he visits, then it's External Links.
You don't seem to have picked up on the External media template. I really think that may be part of your solution. For example, see the boxes on the right at Phineas_Gage#Accident and US_Airways_Flight_1549#Incident, and on the left at Sacred_Cod#Harvard_Lampoon. EEng 02:17, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
A couple of comments. First, silence does not necessarily mean agreement. Second, at least one other editor, Doc James, by changing an external link to a internal link and deleting another (see this discussion), was pretty clear that he did not think external links in the prose was a good idea. Third, it is very clear that the Wikipedia manual of style advises against external link in prose. Finally, if you want to refer to a graphic of a crystal structure, I will create one for you that you can include directly in the Wikipedia article. Boghog (talk) 16:15, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
Well, now I'm beating a dead horse, but why is everyone ignoring the External media template, instances of which I linked above? Ping JeanOhm. EEng 23:25, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
That could work for a limited number of external links, but the article in question had by my count, 9 external links (and counting) in the prose. Boghog (talk) 07:42, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

@Boghog, Izno, and EEng:Thanks to all for the comments. The external media template may come in handy sometime, but, as i wrote above "my experience in the classroom has taught me that images are crucial for understanding" and I am fortunate in the field of cell biology to have lots of open images that are available through NC licenses. Having lots of the EM template boxes distributed around the article is inferior to having the link right at the appropriate place. This is very frustrating to me (almost to the point of being worse than my IBS-d). The EM template puts a box in the article with an external link. If I were to put the same link in the text, it would be viewed by some but not all editors as unacceptable, even though what I wrote above indicated that the English Wikipedia content guideline (in the fourth paragraph, not buried deep in the article, and in bold) states "These external-link guidelines do not apply to citations to reliable sources within the body of the article." WTF am I missing??? Multiple editors let my ELs in the body stand. The guideline indicates in bold that they are OK. 2 editors objected. Boghog removed them all. Why am I not to think that Boghog is wrong in this case? Just because (s)he has more experience than me? I read guidelines. I read that what I'm doing is OK. I read that there are no rules on wikipedia. What a damn joke that is. Boghog, thanks for the offer to make images, but I'm not going to take up anybody's time making images that are available for linking.

Regarding Boghog's comment "Third, it is very clear that the Wikipedia manual of style advises against external link in prose." The MOS has a very brief discussion of El"s, then links to the guideline that states near the top, above the contents box, in bold that "These external-link guidelines do not apply to citations to reliable sources within the body of the article."

I wonder if this is a discussion more or less unique to cell biology fostered by modern microscopy and the trend toward open publishing, developed more since the MOS and guidelines were agreed upon, and if I should look for a consensus at the molecular cell biology project talk page? I'm thinking that since most editors let me EL's in the body stand, that there would be a consensus in favor of inclusion.

Also, nobody replied to my suggestion of a superscripted link to an EL. Between trips to the procelian throne, I am going to make one and ping you all to judge it. Thanks, JeanOhm (talk) 23:57, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

WP:EL which states These external-link guidelines do not apply to citations to reliable sources within the body of the article in turn refers to WP:CITE which states that inline citations should appear as footnotes using <ref>...</ref> markup so that the citations appear in a "References" section at the end of the article. As a consequence, any external link contained in a citation is displayed in the "References" section and not in the prose of the article. WP:CITE further states Embedded links should never be used to place external links in the content of an article. Also per WP:LINKDD: Don't put external links in article prose. If a graphic is critical to understanding a subject, then a graphic with a compatible license should be displayed directly in the article. Forcing the reader to switch back and forth between a Wikipedia article and external sources is not good style. Boghog (talk) 04:51, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Using "[sic]" to misattribute an error to someone inline?

See Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2#Sequel, which includes the text Gunn stated [...] ["]But we know unless something goes horribly—which is always possibly [sic], you never know["], but if one looks at the cited source, which is an article/video, part of the former transcribing part of the latter, it is clear that Gunn actually said "possible", and the transcription included a misprint.

In cases like this, where we can clearly hear the spoken dialogue, should we (a) just spell the word the word the way he actually said it and "correct" that portion of the published transcription, (b) give the misspelling with "[sic]" and attribute the quotation to the publisher of the transcription rather than just Gunn himself, (c) do what the article currently does and imply that Gunn slurred his words, or (d) some other option?

I am of course assuming that we are allowed include our own original transcriptions when quoting spoken sources, even "correcting" published but misprinted transcriptions by third parties. This is something I've never done in an article myself, but if Wikipedian-original translations of foreign-language texts are acceptable then it seems like a safe assumption that simple transcriptions are as well.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:26, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Obvious typos and transcription errors should be silently corrected, unless they're somehow significant in themselves. See MOS:PMC. (You might leave a <! -- Hidden comment --> for the benefit of your fellow editors.) Good to see you somewhere other than ANI. EEng 03:33, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
To be fair, I never stopped editing in areas other than ANI. There was only one calendar date (May 18) when my edits were concentrated entirely on ANI, discussions spinning out of ANI, and talk pages that I came across as a result of ANI. I am still busy enough in real life that the kind of research necessary to finish the Li He article and others like it is ... difficult, in the Japanese sense. Which is why contributing to ANI discussions (where, again, most people not afraid to log in seemed to appreciate my contributions) was working. But yeah, I don't need the grief caused by random IP trolls and editors who want to game the system at ANI in order to win content disputes (and don't like it when I point out that that is what they are doing), so I'm done with that for the next month or so. And working on "good-looking-but-actually-kinda-messy-when-one-examines-closer" articles on recent films that because of Japanese release dates and a messy social life I didn't get to see until yesterday is not much harder than contributing to ANI discussions anyway. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:10, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
Not everything needs a essay response -- which, while you were indeed getting some trolling, is what well-intentioned people have been trying to tell you about ANI. I hope my advice about the typo is helpful. EEng 09:28, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Naming transgender people in other articles than their main biographical article

Hi, I see incoherence in some areas when naming transgender people in other articles than their main biographical article. My understanding is that a transgender person is changing his/her name and this name is then also his/her name starting from birth (certificate). Many on/offline sources used for article often have the old wrong names or can't chenge that because they are printed etc. - So I understand that in references the old names should be kept. But in the rest of the articles I think that it is appropiate to use the name chosen by the transgender person.

In the Wikipedia:Manual of Style it says in the section "gender identity" when "referring to the person in other articles" […] "use context to determine which name or names to provide on a case-by-case basis." To which 'context' should I refer? In the context that the person change hers/his name even back to birh (certificate) I should use the right name, right? Example: Lilly Wachowski. Her former name "Andy Wachowski" is used 49 times in enWP. Most of that uses aren't in the main biographical article or in refernces. Shouldn't they be change into "Lilly Wachowski"? --Jensbest (talk) 13:32, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

This is primarily discussing historical context. For example, we refer to Caitlin Jenner as "Bruce" when discussing her performance in the Olympics... because "Bruce" was her name at that time - the name under which she competed and won gold medals. We don't retroactively go back and change the historic record just because her name subsequently changed. I don't know if this applies in the Wachowski case or not... I am merely explaining the policy. Blueboar (talk) 14:20, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
Per Blueboar, the context is usually "the name they were known by when the events occurred." But there will be exceptions; and we really should defer to styles and names used in other reliable sources. --Jayron32 14:51, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

MOS:NOTUSA

I will need some information in order to understand this policy.LakeKayak (talk) 16:44, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Yeah... it is confusing. My suggestion ... don't worry about it... someone else (someone who does understand it) will follow along and conform anything you write to the MOS. Blueboar (talk) 18:21, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
That's not what this is about, unfortunatedly. At Template:English -or- table, LakeKayak put "USA". This was changed to "US" by Rich Farmbrough as per the MOS. LakeKayak reverted. So I restored Rich's edits, and tried to explain to LakeKayak, who then opened a dispute at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Template:English -or- table. LakeKayak's argument seems to be that the MOS doesn't need to be followed as anyone can edit it. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:54, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
@Peter coxhead:Yes and no. I actually posted the comment in attempt to understand the policy.LakeKayak (talk) 21:59, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
The subtleties of the policy might be confusing, but this part of it is not subtle: don't use "USA" or "U.S.A." (except as part of an official name of an organization). —David Eppstein (talk) 22:09, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I still made a mistake, I meant to say "I created the section to understand why the policy was in effect".LakeKayak (talk) 22:21, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Titles of "Future" sections of articles on pop culture topics

Does the section title of Austin Powers (film series)#Future look a bit goofy/out-of-place to anyone else? The first paragraph in particular, but in a fashion almost the entire section, deals exclusively with past events, and the only way this could change would be if As of 2017, Austin Powers 4 has yet to be produced. wound up being literally true. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:39, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

RFC on formatting change

There is a formatting change being proposed to {{link language}} which could impact the visual style of a page. Your input is requested here. Thank you. Primefac (talk) 22:42, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

MOS:US

In my experience, the standard usage is to use United States exclusively as a (singular) noun, U.S. (with periods) exclusively as an adjective. Thus, one might write "The United States has done X" or "the U.S. President has done X," but not vice versa. The Manual of Style does not seem to make this distinction, and usage in articles is all over the map. I'm not familiar with the history, so I ask three questions:

  • Has this been discussed?
  • If so, what was the outcome?
  • If not, should this be considered as a style rule?

Welcome information and comments. NPguy (talk) 17:19, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

  • I don't know if any of these questions have been discussed before, but I am not familiar with the distinction you made. For American English speakers, both "the United States" and "the U.S." are singular when used as a noun. I'm not sure about British English speakers, who might use the plural verb. However, to me, "U.S." is merely a convenient abbreviation for "United States" and can be used as a noun or an adjective. Citizens/residents of the United States, and many others, would probably be more likely to use "American" as the adjective – American cars instead of U.S. cars – but we might hear both American history and United States history. Also, Wikipedia style recommends the abbreviation "US" instead of "U.S."  – Corinne (talk) 17:39, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
Agreed. No idea where one would get the idea that "U.S." can't be a noun (someone should tell the U.S.-Japan Council that their name should be "U.S.-Japanese Council").
"United States" as an adjective is a little iffier, no doubt because "of the United States" exists, but a quick Google News search reveals that "United States president" is far from unattested.[12]
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:48, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
  • U.S. is always a noun; U.S. president is a compound in which U.S. is a noun adjunct. U.S. would be an adjective if you could say *The president is U.S. or *I'm U.S.-er than you, but those are ungrammatical. — Eru·tuon 05:40, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
    @Erutuon: Wait, are you sure? Is the ability to form comparatives and superlatives a defining characteristic of adjectives? I'm not doubting you -- it's been long enough since I've studied English grammar in any formal capacity that I really don't know, and wouldn't presume to second-guess someone who can throw out the phrase "noun adjunct" at will -- but I'm curious.
    <joking>If you are right, then your definition falls short, since the same could said of the simple adjectives "fun" and "expensive", which can't form comparatives with "-er" anyway. I believe the correct comparative would be "more U.S." (superlative "most U.S.").</joking>
    Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:11, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
    I'm sure that U.S. president is a compound, but I was half-joking with the U.S.-er than you part, because U.S.-er sounds absurd. (Unless it means "American", with the same suffix as New Englander.) But I stand behind the argument. Not all adjectives are comparable (able to form comparatives and superlatives), but I think nationality adjectives are: I could imagine someone discussing degrees of Americanness and whether this person is more American than someone else. So, if U.S. were synonymous with American, it should be able to have comparative forms: probably more U.S., most U.S. (not the absurd *U.S.-er, *U.S.-est). But those are also ungrammatical (sound like bad English) if you try to make them mean more American. Since the supposed adjective, U.S., should be comparable based on its meaning but isn't, it can't be an adjective. — Eru·tuon 06:50, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
I dunno. I can definitely see a humorist making fun of the common Republican claim to being "more American" than progressives by formalizing "American" to "U.S." "More U.S." may be ungrammatical, but it's still totally awesome. :P Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:34, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Shit. I just realized something horrible. more American and most American are correct while *Americaner and *Americanest are wrong because, even though it is an adjective that can be comparativized and superlativized, it is more than three syllables. I had thought that fun was an exception just because, but then found out today that it had originated as a mass noun that became an adjective relatively recently, which provides a specific reason why it might be an exception (and the OED passage I quote below explicitly states this reason). But then why *Irisher and *Irishest sound right to me? I think this discussion should probably be closed before either my head or the head of someone else explodes. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:51, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Hijiri 88: Hate to make you cringe, but in NAmEng it's totally unremarkable to say "funner" and "funnest"—"fun" has been used as a full-on adjective in the colonies since at least the 18th century. Those who decry its use there are the same who shit themselves when they hear an infinitive being split. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:10, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Meh. I always just thought it was an adjective with an unusual rule for the comparative and superlative (as in, it works similar to adjectives with more than three syllables); it never occurred to me until I checked Wiktionary while writing the above that it might have been a mass noun that only recently attained adjectival usage. I could have sworn that I've heard "more fun" used in The Simpsons or Friends somewhere (where "more easy" or "more cheap" would have been unnatural), though... Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:34, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Hijiri 88: In NAmeEng, it's used as both a noun ("have a lot of fun") and an adjective ("the funnest time"). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:00, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
@Curly Turkey: Well, I wouldn't call the "fun" in Looks like a fun gang.[13] a noun adjunct anyway. I always assumed it was to be used as an adjective as well as a noun, even if I would never write "funner" or "funnest" (I could have guessed that these are used, but I've rarely seen or heard them). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:14, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Then you happily haven't had your mind poisoned in school; google around and you'll see that a lot of Commonwealth prescriptionists have sticks up their recta over fun's use as an adjective, and thus get their boxers in a bunch over "very fun", "so fun", "have a fun time", and "that was a fun party" (and don't get them started extension funner and funnest).
Of course, "more fun" is unexception in NAmEng, as it's also always been a noun "We had more fun today than we had yesterday."—but that doesn't preclude the adjective funner: "Today was funner than yesterday." Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:46, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Meh. OED gives it as a noun first, then an adjective with the "《informal》" tag, then a verb with "《N. Amer.》《informal》". This last one is the only one I haven't seen/heard before, and I believe them when they say "N. Amer."; it also seems interesting that they don't tag the adjectival use as an Americanism in the same manner. I've instinctively never used the adjective "fun" in formal writing, but I always thought that that was because it's a kind of subjective description, nothing to do with linguistic register. Wiktionary doesn't mention any regional differences in acceptability of "fun" as an adjective, although I can totally see people who don't know any better blaming "the Americans" for everything they don't like about contemporary English regardless of whether regional variation has anything to do with it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:38, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
I scrolled down (bloody 電子辞書...) and noticed that OED does mention regional differences in a usage note. It says the recent appearance in US English of comparative and superlative forms funner and funnest. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:51, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Google NGram shows instances going back at least as far as 1701. Makes me think of those who claim singular they is "recent"—despite the fact that it's been virtually universal for nearly seven centuries. People who use it daily claim they would never dream of using it ... Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:54, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
@Curly Turkey: Oxford's not some prescriptivist rag, though -- the above quotation was taken out of context; it actually said that the language appears to be shifting toward full acceptance of "fun" as a simple adjective, and that the recent usage of "fuller" and "fullest" are evidence of that. I'd be far more reluctant to trust NGrams, honestly; I'm pretty sure I've seen Google parse older printed works in some pretty bizarre ways when it comes to orthography. The fact that I personally have rarely if ever come across "funner" further inclines me to agree with Oxford that it is a recentism (it's possible that I saw it used unironically but thought it was meant to be deliberately humorous, mind you). And remember, prescriptive grammar can have its uses: there are lots of situations (including Wikipedia itself) where we need to stick to formal, controlled English writing style, regardless of how the language actually works. I'm reminded of your friend and mine, who notoriously kept using "based off" and "based off of" to mean "based on" in the article space despite pleas from Nishidani and myself to stop. The fact that a lot of prescriptive grammarians don't have a clue what they're talking about and eithermake it up as they go along or go with what someone else told them regardless of whether it's accurate or not (like the Japanese McDonald's staff who tell their kouhais how to use omeshiagari desu ka?) doesn't mean that sometimes a word marked as "informal" in dictionaries shouldn't be avoided. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:41, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
OED may carry weight in Commonwealth English, but if NAmEng dictionaries don't mark it as "informal" (and Merriam-Webster's, for example, doesn't), then there's no reason to avoid it in formal North American English. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:17, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
Well, that doesn't really matter because it's still too subjective a description to use in Wikipedia's voice in 99 cases out of 100, NAmE or no. :P Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:31, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
I'm surprised they can shit so easily. Primergrey (talk) 07:19, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:22, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Or every adjective a noun. EEng 07:03, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Meh. I grew up in Ireland, and I learned the words "subject" and "object" because I happened to take a linguistics course in CTYI. I don't think I would have known even what little I do of grammar if I wasn't interested. I think the majority of people with similar background and opportunities to me just ... lucked in (? what's the opposite of "luck out") by never learning anything about grammar beyond what "nouns", "verbs", "adjectives" and "adverbs" are in the most general sense (read: they learned all the grammar they need to know to pass Leaving Certificate Irish and French exams, but they're even less capable than I am of parsing "U.S. president" as not being a simple "adjective+noun" compound). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:34, 30 May 2017 (UTC)
Meh. We could be doing a lot worse than having civil conversations about English writing style and whether "funner" is a recentism and/or an Americanism. The only "particular purpose" this thread was ever going to have was a non-starter to begin with, as you pointed out before the rest of us even got here. And I learned what a keiyōshi-teki meishi is, which is good -- I don't know about you, but I'm always happy to learn new things, especially if they'll help me write better articles. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:45, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
I'm enjoying seeing the discussion dribble off into the sunset, but I just have to add that I'm astonished that anyone could suggest "fun" cannot be an adjective. Basketball is more fun than ice hockey. or Playing basketball is more fun than doing homework. Basketball is the most fun of the three sports. There are several short adjectives that do not form the comparative and superlative with -er and -est, including fun and modern. While Erutuon may be technically correct in saying that "U.S." is a noun adjunct, we can also say that it is a noun functioning as an adjective, and English is full of words that can function as more than one type of word (a noun functioning as a verb, a verb functioning as a noun, a noun functioning as an adjective, etc.).  – Corinne (talk) 01:35, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
@Corinne: I was as surprised as you, but it's true: "fun" was originally a mass noun, that has developed a secondary function as an adjective, but in some contexts its adjectival sense is apparently considered inappropriately casual. It's actually not hard to figure out how this could have happened though, since all three of the examples you give would make sense with "fun" as a mass noun.
Think about it like this: "trouble" is definitely not an adjective (according to OED, MW, and Wiktionary), but "Playing basketball is more trouble than doing homework [because you can do the former by yourself with no preparation, but you need several people who all want to play basketball and a net to do the latter]." is perfectly grammatical. Ditto "Basketball is the most trouble of the three sports."
Now, for me, "Basketball is the funnest of the three sports." sounds very unnatural, because the unique comparative and superlative forms are apparently relatively recent NAmE coinages. ("Basketball is the troublest of the three sports." is gibberish and I think almost all native English speakers regardless of region would agree. "Basketball is the troubler of the two sports." makes syntactic sense in a Chomskyan sense, but only because "trouble" is also a verb and a troubler is a doer of that verb.) Where I grew up we treated "fun" as an adjective that happened to have no distinct comparative/superlative forms and so needed to take "more"/"most", similar to "international" and "Swedish". But (and OED agrees here) the language is gradually changing and "funner" and "funnest" will eventually probably become standard.
Basically, it's easy to imagine how weird grammatical quirks of English could have transformed "fun" (and maybe even at some point "trouble") from a mass noun into an adjective. (See also: The amazing story of how the nauger last its n.[14])
Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:08, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
The "more" in "more trouble" doesn't make it adjectival. In "This conversation causes more anguish than it should. Continuing it is nothing but more anguish.", you wouldn't parse "anguish" as an adjective. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:30, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
I know it doesn't make "trouble" adjectival. My point is that at some point in the past one could have said the same thing about the "more" in "more fun". The examples User:Corinne gave would all make perfect sense if one read "fun" as a mass noun similar to "trouble" or "anguish". It seems pretty obvious that the reason I don't think "funner" and "funnest" sound natural is that they developed recently, in certain territories other than my native Ireland, after the development of the adjectival sense of "fun". The fact that Corinne gave only examples that use "more" and "most" rather than "-er" and "-est" implies she also does not think of "funner" and "funnest" as everyday words, although her userpage makes no apparent clear statement of her homeland (the closest I could find was "English breakfast, Earl Grey"). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:21, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
I only just noticed "While Erutuon may be technically correct in saying that "U.S." is a noun adjunct, we can also say that it is a noun functioning as an adjective" ... that's actually the definition of a "noun adjunct". A noun adjunct is not a category of word; no word is inherently a noun adjunct the way that "emphasize" is inherently a verb or "indubitably" is inherently an adverb. A noun becomes an adjunct only when placed as one. In English, any noun can be used as an adjunct. Regardless, my opinion takes precedence over anyone else's here. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:05, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
  • Should not be a rule. Other style guides are inconsistent on this, and real-world usage certainly draws no such distinction. People who believe there really is a "rule" that one of these must always be a noun or adjective or whatever are simply fans of one particular style guide that says something like this, and have not looked beyond it. The general rule at MOS:ABBR – to give the full version of something on first occurrence, and abbreviations optionally and later – is suitable and sufficient here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  03:27, 2 June 2017 (UTC)
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