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Possessives of proper names ending in "s"

If there is a rule in the Wikipedia guidelines for forming possessives of names ending in "s", I haven't been able to find it. I've been following the rule that if you would sound the extra "s" in speech, you use it, otherwise no. For example, it's Mr. Jones's wife, but Mr. Rogers' loafers. What say ye? --Milkbreath 03:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Most (singular) nouns in s form the possessive with "'s"; there is substantial, largely British, usage for omitting the possessive s after fully voiced syllables, like Jesus and Socrates. I have never seen Rogers trested like Jesus, and AmEn tends to have stricter rules than BrEn.
But the important thing is that MoS should not be attempting to manufacture a synthetic "standard English" at all. As long as each article is consistent, we should learn to leave things alone. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:02, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
The only thing MOS can do is to point out the options. Personally, I much prefer the easy-to-remember blanket rule of adding 's to any pluralised word. But others will disagree vehemently, and there seems little purpose in prescribing only one practice. Tony 08:55, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Precisely. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:55, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Just as a point of interest, the Chicago, 15th edition, permits the abovementioned sound test "to avoid an awkward appearance". --Milkbreath 21:41, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Every style guide I've ever looked at says to use "Jones's", though one (Fowler's) makes an exception for "names from antiquity" ("Moses' ", "Jesus' "), but it was written at a time when most Americans were devout Protestant Christians, reading a King James Bible that uses that convention. I would have to say that the "antiquity" exception is obsolete, religiously PoV, and confusing to boot. So: Use "'s" always, even for "Jesus's", and the MoS should certainly say so. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:46, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
PS: The problem with the "sound test" is that it introduces sometimes irresolvable ambiguity, because it is impossible in some context to determine whether the possessive referent is singular or plural. This "always use 's" point isn't "grammar fascism", but precise, encyclopedic writing that avoids confusing the readership. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:51, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
It's not about religion. No one says "I like (or dislike) Starbucks's coffee", prounounced "starbucksiz". While writing can certainly differ from speech, in this case I think even writing "Starbucks's" comes across as stilted. (Of course the company ought to call itself "Starbuck's" in the first place, since it's the coffee pertaining to Starbuck rather than more than one Starbuck, but we can't do anything about that). --Trovatore 17:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
There is also the issue of Greek names such as Euripides. Is there any style guide that actually recommends Euripdes's? — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:08, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Any authority? Don't know, but WP's could forge the way if there aren't. I'm in total agreement with SMcCandlish on this. The "always add 's" rule is just so easy. I don't see the point in distinguishing the phonological thing (a nicety Fowler thought he'd push, a long time ago), and the antiquity thing is just too silly and, I agree, is potentially POV. And some authorities worry themselves about words that end in s or ss. I'd strongly support a recommendation in MOS to apply "’s irrespective of the word. But to insist would involve onerous back-compatibility tasks. Tony 01:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't know where you get this "antiquity" thing. No one I know says "Starbucks's". (And I'm American -- someone claimed Americans are more likely to use the more regular rule, but I see no evidence for that either.) --Trovatore 01:30, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The antiquity thing comes from Fowler, which many people dispute as obsolete. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Unfortunate example: wouldn't you just say "Starbucks coffee sucks"? "Starbucks employees"? I guess it might come up with "Starbucks's service is better than that of its competitors". I have no visual or phonological problem where there's no extra syllable. But as I said, MOS might recommend without insisting. Don't you think it's the easiest way? Tony 02:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, no. I think the easiest way is for the MOS simply not to mention it at all. --Trovatore 03:31, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and in answer to your first question: I would say "Starbucks' coffee". It would just sound like "Starbucks coffee" :-) --Trovatore 03:34, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I would write and say "Starbucks employees" and "Starbucks coffee", with no apostrophe at all, because it's a perfectly valid adjectival usage, just like "Microsoft software" or "Maxwell House coffee"; on the otherhand I would write and say (yes, "ˈStar.ˌbuks.əz") "Starbucks's service is better...", because that is a genuine possessive descriptor. I do this all the time, and hear others do it, including Baptists talking about "Jesus' message" despite they way they [mis]spell it ("Jesus' " is three syllables, not two). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:23, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
Look at Socrates Euripides Aristophanes Xerxes Ramses etc. to see what I mean. Making possessives of these names is a perfectly standard part of English style. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
To make this clearer, the articles use Socrates', Euripides', and so on. We should not impose a style on this; it would be useful to include Fowler's advice on when to use terminal s and when not, for those who edit an article which does distinguish. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Would give far too much weight to a grossly outmoded style guide from about 3 generations ago, and is too subjective, because "antiquity" is not defined (not to mention it would also be a bias in favor of Protestant Christian conventions). It is far more sensible to go with along most style guides and settle on a uniform 's, though I suppose for the same reasons that I can marginally tolerate BC/AD in articles on relevantly religious topics, I suppose an exception could be made for such articles in this case as well. It should not be extended to Zeus and other "names from antiquity" that don't have anything to do with Christianity. All that said, I'd prefer to see apostrophe-s across the board, since it requires no brain effort to figure out when and when not to apply it. PS: The "sounding" argument is bunk, and has been since before Fowler; "Jesus' " is pronounced ˈdʒi.zus.əz, not ˈdʒiz.us. I.e., there are two proferred rationales for not using apostrophe-s after a word/name ending in s ("its old", and "if I read it aloud like a child it will sound funny to me"), and they not only conflict logically, to the extent that they are logical at all (which is not at all in the first case, and not compellingly in the latter), they directly contradict each other, making it impossible for the MoS to sensibly recommend anything but not doing it, and sticking with apostrophe-s consistently, instead of making weird exception that don't have terribly widespread support to begin with. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
(←) This was the recommended style of the Chicago manual last time I checked. It's hard to claim that the Chicago manual is three generations old or that it lacks widespread support. Jesus is not the only example, as I have pointed out; there are Socrates and other Greeks. This has nothing to do with Christianity, in the end. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
It's kind of quaint to make these exceptions, and we get difficulties with "Venus' mythological lover"—any kid would find it hard to pronounce. The whole thing arises from a squirmishness about es–apostrophe–es, and the same with double-es: "Joan Weiss's career". Let's get over it: SMcCandlish's logic is hard to resist. And I never quite swallowed Fowler's incantation about phonology as the determinant (if there's an extra syllable, add the es, and the converse. He did sometimes cook things up unilaterally to resolve issues. Having said this, I think MOS should be careful in prescribing and proscribing here; but we do receive a gentle flow of queries from WPians about it. Tony (talk) 03:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I haven't looked at Fowler in forever, and I'm not citing it here. I would be fine with a very descriptive statement in the MOS that allows an article to consistently use either style. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:05, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Comma in Template:Age in years and days

Is there a style argument regarding the comma separator between years and days in this context? As in "Myra Nicholson, at age 129 years, 333 days is the oldest Australian currently alive."; or as used in List of living supercentenarians (for example).

The issue is being discussed at the talk page and any help would be appreciated. —Moondyne 07:53, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

English, as opposed to headline dialect, would use "at the age of 112 years and 239 days". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 08:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
What is wrong with the comma? Tony 08:52, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Excessively colloquial. Headlines use it to save one and a half characters; we're not paper. Omitting it is worse; that's ungrammatical. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:57, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
As I stated on the Talk Page ... I say keep the comma. Or consider using the word "and" in lieu of the comma. Thus, in rank order, my preferences are:
(1) John Smith's age is 28 years, 315 days old.
(2) John Smith's age is 28 years and 315 days old.
(3) John Smith's age is 28 years 315 days old. (Joseph A. Spadaro 16:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC))
The first is the most easily recognisable. The second, in some contexts, makes the reader's task a little harder where two chronological measures may conceivably apply (28 years and 315 days). The third is jarring. Tony 03:51, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Why would we ever include the number of days in the age of anyone older than, say, eight years and seventy-two days? — The Storm Surfer 18:12, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Because the notability claim of some articles is an age record, and sometimes the oldest person in X differs from the next oldest by days. I am not sure these are particularly useful articles; but they amuse some people. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:16, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. I think that these articles are very useful, educational, and enjoyable. As much as -- or more than -- any other statistic (e.g., baseball batting averages) or record (e.g., first person to climb Mount Everest). And, to Storm Surfer, records for age (the youngest persons to do x,y,z ... or the oldest persons to do x,y,z ... usually need to be delineated by year and days, to distinguish one ranked individual from another. No different than, say, Olympic times for racing in which time is broken down by minute, second, and then even fractions of a second. (Joseph A. Spadaro 19:41, 11 August 2007 (UTC))
Then we should keep them; and if we keep them, we should specify to the day. It would be more idiomatic to use years, months, and days; but we should avoid the anomaly that 1 month and two days is less than one month and one day if the first month is February. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
What of the anomaly that seven years and two days is less than seven years and one day if the first seven years are 1897–1903 and the second are 1904–1910? Of the three choices above I prefer the one with the "and" but "John Smith is 28 years and 315 days old." not "John Smith's age is 28 years and 315 days old."—It's Smith not his age who is almost 29. Jɪmp 14:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
This could probably be moved to Template talk:Age in years and days. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Or WP:MOSNUM, since this question is likely to arise again. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I disagree that omitting the comma is ungrammatical; it's simply terse and rather scientific style, and in concert with much else that WP:MOSNUM recommends. We do not write "4 ft and 2 in", but "4 ft 2 in". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
But, how would you punctuate the following?
  • John Smith is 37 years, 4 months, and 19 days old.
  • John Smith is 37 years 4 months and 19 days old.
AND
  • The length is 7 yards, 2 feet, and 5 inches.
  • The length is 7 yards 2 feet and 5 inches.
I think that, in both circumstances, the comma is useful both grammatically and aesthetically. In the examples with no commas, the sentences are difficult to follow and aesthetically difficult to decipher readily. (Joseph A. Spadaro 02:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC))
I'd punctuate them like this.
  • John Smith is 37 years, 4 months and 19 days old.
AND
  • The length is 7 yards, 2 feet and 5 inches.
Jɪmp 16:58, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Need feedback on interpretation of MoS guidelines

This is a dispute on the History of Japan page that involves wikipedia guidelines. Specifically:

If an article has been stable in a given style, it should not be converted without a style-independent reason. Where in doubt, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

User:PHG insists that that the first "major contributor" was an anon-IP who simply listed dates with BCE/CE. I would contend that the first m.c. would be here by User:-- April. BC/AD was also used subsequently for many years, until someone inserted text that used BCE/CE. That made the article inconsistent, as BC/AD was still in use in other parts.

Thus at the end of July I made the terms consistent with BC/AD again here. However PHG does not accept this and keeps reverting back my changes.

I would appreciate the views of the MoS community as to what the guidelines say about this. John Smith's 13:17, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

  • I am reinstating BCE/CE a the prefered date format for this article, as the first significant user (who started this article with a list of Japanese history periods) clearly marked his preferences for BCE/CE (he uses it something like 30 times). It might be arguable whether his contribution was really significant or not, but I tend to think it is, as he created this article in 2002 at a time when most Wikipedia articles were still in their infancy. His very clear choice for BCE/CE was disregarded by the immediately following user, but I tend to think this is ground enough to reinstate BCE/CE for this article, especially since it is also the best, neutral format for non-Christianity-related articles. User:John Smith's has been unduly replacing BCE/CE by BC/AD as in the Template:History of Japan. Comments welcome. PHG 13:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
    As I said, MoS does not say "significant", it says "major". Also trying to argue that the list of dates was a major contribution because of when he/she wrote it is not a credible argument - we should base our opinions on the current situation, not the low standards of what used to be.
    MoS also states that BC/AD is fine to use. A previous attempt by User:Slrubenstein to get BC/AD labelled as POV and to be replaced by BCE/CE in most cases was rejected by the wikipedia community.
    As to the template, I was merely trying to make the template consistent with the vast majority of articles it is used on. That is following MoS in my opinion. John Smith's 13:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
You know very well that the MOS has not approved of your attempt to modify templates according to article content. The Template in question first used BCE/CE, and therefore, per MOS, should stay so. PHG 13:38, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I didn't ask for them to approve anything - I was asking for an interpretation, which was inconclusive given few views were expressed. John Smith's 13:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
So just respect MOS rules as they are today: BCE/CE was first introduced in this Template, and therefore per MOS should remain so. PHG 13:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
You're not respecting MOS rules - you're deliberately misinterpreting them to get your way on the main History of Japan article by trying to argue a list of dates and period is a "major" contribution. Practice what you preach, PHG. John Smith's 13:51, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
I support PHG's judgement here; it seems more appropriate for a Japanese topic (is that non-stylistic reason enough?). But does it really matter that much? Tony 14:05, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Tony, why is it more appropriate? MoS and the rejected community proposal I outlined indicates that BC/AD is not POV and/or unacceptable to use outside of a Christian context (whatever that would be).
Also, what is your view on the meaning of MoS in regards to a major contributor in this area? John Smith's 14:08, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
  • (outdent)I guess it's more appropriate because Japan is not a christian country, and BC/AD is perceived to be overtly christian. But as I intimated, I don't care much; where MOS allows options, why get upset? I'm usually more anxious about options that MOS doesn't allow that I think it should, or vice versa. As for "first major contributor" ... um ... it's hard to arrive at a universally applicable principle; perhaps it just has to be fought out case by case among the contributors. It's a yawn, isn't it? Why does it mean so much to you, this BC/BCE thing? Tony 14:18, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
    Japan isn't Christian, but as I said the community has rejected the proposal that BC/AD is POV/not suitable for use in "non-Christian" articles.
    It's not easy to get a universally applicable principle? Maybe not but surely a list of dates can't apply - otherwise why bother having the reference to major contribution in the first place?
    Why does it mean anything to me? I guess you could ask the same question of PHG. I care because I don't like his POV-pushing, and I actually made the article consistent in the first place (in recent history). He then jumped in because he doesn't like BC/AD and then did his best to misinterpret MoS guidelines to suit himself. John Smith's 14:26, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Sounds as though it has become overly personal. Who cares? Tony 14:37, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
It isn't personal, I merely don't feel that PHG has a right to push his POV against a style that was established before he came along. If you don't care then why are you a part of the MoS community? Surely you care because you comment here (and on this topic). John Smith's 14:40, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
All I care is that one of the MOS options is chosen. Tony 14:48, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll assume that the guidance listed above is quoted correctly: If an article has been stable in a given style, it should not be converted without a style-independent reason. Where in doubt, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

Assuming all parties agree to abide by the guidance, to settle the point the first questions to be answered are:

  • When was the article last stable in a given style? (let's take "stable" as being at least three months - and before anyone asks, I don't know what the answer to this is)
  • What are the arguments for changing from that style?

(Another question to answer would be, is it really worth PHG and John Smith's getting so het up about all this?) Foula 18:00, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

We should be clearer than we are that "first major contributor" is a fall-back position, used when an article has never been stable in a given style, which (as Foula observes) is the real question here. It is possible for a consensus to decide to change from one style to the other, as with more important matters. Perhaps when it has not been stable, or not clear it has been stable instead of When in doubt?Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
It was stable for a number of years, until someone threw in text that used BCE/CE, with the previously existing BC/AD. John Smith's 19:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Quotes from an article's subject that precedes the lead paragraph

Yay or nay? This might have already been discussed before. See Ulrich Mühe and Michael Haneke. I noticed it was a bit of a dispute on the Ulrich Mühe article, so I figured I'd ask here. Rockstar (T/C) 20:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

  • I don't really think it's vivid writing—I think it's gimmicky and amateurish. This sort of cutesiness is something you'd see on some ridiculous fan site. It takes one sentence of the millions that the person uttered and imbues it as the most prominent part of their biography? Plus, imagine if this spread. It'd be awful. "God Does Not Play Dice--Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist who..." I think this would be fine at WikiQuote, a site founded on the premise that quotations possess some magical significance. I think it's painfully unencyclopedic and childish, not to mention potentially distorting, here. --JayHenry 22:30, 13 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually, that "level of amateurishness" is chracteristic of many serious collections of biographies. Eric Temple Bell comes to mind. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm inclined to agree with Jay. It's a diversion from the standardised role of the lead (standardised loosely, with strong justification IMV). Perhaps on rare occasions it might work; convince me—provide an example. Tony 01:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Although I'm not familiar with the biographies in question, I ask this: what objective criteria can we -- as a collaborative project -- possibly have for which quote is most appropriate to include? Or how do we determine which articles are allowed to lead with a quote? Surely you agree it wouldn't be desirable for every biography to begin with one. Perhaps a quote works well when one expert author is trying to drive a biography with a particular theme; I really think it falls apart in a collaborative encyclopedia where our theme is Just the Facts. --JayHenry 03:43, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
In Ulrich Mühe, the quote is centrally related to his only claim to notability. If it were reedited to make another equal claim, the quote would be more doubtful; but we can cross that bridge when it is built. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:06, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a magazine. This is journalistic, not encyclopedic style. I don't like pull quotes in WP articles at all, but I tolerate them (i.e. I don't edit them out on sight), but before the lead? You must be kidding. If there is consensus on the article's talk page that it is vital, put it after the lead, but really, let's get serious. A quote like that simply belongs in the article prose at an appropriate point. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:31, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Christian associations of BC/AD

Somebody removed about ten days ago from the Date segment the mention about:"the overtly Christian associations of BC/AD" versus BCE/CE ("(Some writers use CE and BCE to avoid the overtly Christian associations of AD and BC.)" [1]) I believe it is a very commonsense statement, and that it is important to state that BC/AD is not neutral and does have a Christian association (just as the Hijra has a Muslim association). This mention should help us better qualify BC/AD versus the more neutral BCE/CE, and thus help us in the discussions of what is more appropriate and where. I hereby propose to reinstate the phrase regading "the Christian assocations" of BC/AD. PHG 18:30, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

A discussion took place at WP:MOSNUM that pertains to that edit.
As a note to all editors out there - it would be infinitely more helpful if a discussion to change central MoS actually took place at the Talk page of central MoS instead of a subset of central MoS. We don't all put every single MoS pages in our watchlists. And it looks like the concensus to make this particular edit only involved about three or four editors - a far less number than the number of editors who have voiced opinions on this date issue at various pages. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 18:46, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I oppose reinstating the phrase. It is POV and undermines the usage of BC/AD. MOS is quite clear that BC/AD can be used - bringing it is unnecessary. PHG only wants it back because in the past he has used it to challenge the use of BC/AD in any article he sees fit. John Smith's 19:05, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I would not accept restoring the phrase without the reason on the other side, such as other writers prefer to use AD/BC as more common and more widely intelligible; but it is better to omit both, and not fuel the Date Wars. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:02, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm the one who removed the passage. My reasoning was clearly explained at MOSNUM's talk page before I did it. I did it to try to make the MOS and MOSNUM as neutral as possible in respect to this issue. Leaving that statement in the MOS & MOSNUM left the reader with the impression that BC/AD should be avoided. Taking the statement out leaves the choice of what is better to use in the hands of the editors; where it should be. I also reintroduced the statement that it is inappropriate to change from one style to the other because you are trying to be as politically correct as possible or because you are on a mission from God—just kidding it didn't say exactly that, but you get my point. As for having the discussion at the MOS instead of the MOSNUM, I disagree with that. I pointed out that the change was discussed at the MOSNUM when I made the change in both places. Remember, we don't want to favor one over the other. That is all. —MJCdetroit 01:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Fine with this, but two weeks ago the MOS consensus was apparently for describing the "overtly Christian associations of BC/AD": it is strange to see such changes of stance in what is supposed to be our "Bible" for Wikipedia editing. Some users are now using the suppression of this phrase to claim that BC/AD is just as neutral as BCE/CE (obviously nonsense), to try to impose BC/AD in such places as Template:History of Japan, History of Nepal, Template:History of China etc... I think it will be necessary at one point to proactively state that BCE/CE can be preferable to BC/AD for non-Christianity-related articles (just as we wouldn't usually think of pushing BCE/CE in Christianity-related ones) through user consensus. Discussions so far on Asia-related pages especially have proved very largely in favour of BCE/CE for these topics (for example: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_China, Talk:History of Japan). PHG 02:55, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

The consensus was settled long ago, there has been no reason to change it, we do favor one over the other in some particular contexts, and the meaning of the terms does matter. The whole point of a MOS is that it is stable. DGG (talk) 03:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflicted by DGG)...just as we wouldn't usually think of pushing BCE/CE in Christianity-related ones...Have you seen the ridiculous method that is used for the article on Jesus? Shouldn't that be the one article that doesn't use BCE/CE? But I regress...
Thank you. I do agree we should probably not push BCE/CE in a Jesus article, just as we shouldn't push BC/AD in a History of the Americas, History of Nepal, Template:History of Japan articles. Could you specify in which particular contexts "we do favor one over the other"? (any link?). PHG 04:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
What about your pushing of BC/AD on History of Japan? Oh, right - you don't think it should be used outside of a "Christian context" or whatever, so that doesn't matter. That rather shows what you really want by getting this term reinserted - an excuse for a style purge wherever you want it. John Smith's 09:00, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I do believe we should make it explicit that BC/AD is Christianity-associated and that it might not be the best choice for articles that have nothing to do with Christianity. Otherwise people like you will impose forever that BC/AD should be used on History of Japan inspite of the super majority uproar of users in favor of BCE/CE (see Talk Page). By the way, the first major contributor of that article actually used BCE/CE, so technically the return to BCE/CE is also legitimate. PHG 14:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Just because the statement was there for 5 whole days, doesn't make it right. It shouldn't be there at all. Let the editors decide. —MJCdetroit 03:58, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I second what MJC says. Tony 12:17, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
How are such entries monitored on the MOS? Does it mean that the mention in question was introduced in the MOS without any consensus whatsoever? PHG 14:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
The recent overhaul of MOSNUM introduced many changes, which were by consensus. However, the sentence at issue was disputed when the new version was posted, and was subsequently withdrawn. Tony 01:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
This is more of a debate for MOSNUM, but I have always sided with the pro-BCE/CE camp. As a non-Christian, I actually find the BC/AD usage to be directly offensive (though only mildly so). I can see making exceptions for New Testament-related topics (but not New Testament-era topics that don't have anything to do with the Bible; e.g. articles on excavations at Nazareth should use BCE, because they are science, not religion articles.) Just my oft-repeated 2¢. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:25, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Alignment and display size of wide images discussed in article

In certain cases images in Wikipedia should be center aligned and displayed at maximum width. This needs to be allowed for and described somewhere in the manual of style. The examples which are pertinent for me are musical images. These cases include articles whose text discusses critically or in depth the content depicted in an image of musical notation which is wider than it is tall. Hyacinth 18:58, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you have some examples of this? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 11:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Borderline cases for UK or US English

Recently, 86.136.175.11 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) changed the spelling in Christopher Newport, John Smith of Jamestown and John Rolfe from US to UK English. These men were all English, but all are most notable for their roles in the settlement of Jamestown, Virginia; clearly arguments can be made on both sides of this case.

I've started a discussion on what national variety of English these articles should use at Talk:Christopher Newport#US or UK spelling?. Anyone who has an opinion is invited to join and help us work towards a consensus. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

No probs - I've left some comments. John Smith's 19:56, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
The rule is very simple--the predominant spelling should not be changed. If there was a consistent spelling in any of the individual articles, whoever tampered with it is wrong. DGG (talk) 03:45, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
That's not quite true. Spelling can be changed if there's good reason, even if spelling was consistent. What is a more credible argument is that because this it's not easy to decide whether US/UK English is more appropriate, the consistent spelling should stay. John Smith's 11:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with John; there was no need to change it in the
American topic, American English; the fact that they were technically British in their lifetimes seems irrelevant to me; their role in British history is totally negligible. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Y not?

Is there consensus on whether to use a historical spelling that is technically incorrect? On this page, we've got a debate (which I started...) over using "Grizzlys" (which is technically correct) over "Grizzlies" (which is historical). Comment? Trekphiler 16:08, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

How is it that "Grizzlys" is said to be technically correct? We don't write "pantys". If they "ys" (including the "s") is part of a proper name, different story (e.g. "Willys" in the military context). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

More trouble at MOSNUM about autoformatting

The folks at MOSNUM talk have uncovered yet another inadequacy in the autoformatting system—this time concerning the rendering of US-formatted dates with the final comma. The original discussion is here; I recommend that interested users go to the end of that rather long discourse to get the gist of it. Here, I've set out a list of problems with the software, which in my experience are unlikely to be fixed soon, even if another concerted push is made at Bugzilla (usually a brick wall).

Some users would be pleased to see the phrase at MOSNUM "Full dates, and days and months, are normally autoformatted, ..." softened to give people a clear option not to autoformat. This would merely put date formatting on the same footing as the way we tolerate British and American (and other) varieties of spelling in WP, as long as they're consistent within an article. Other users feel that autoformatting should be mandatory, despite the disadvantages.

I now actively discourage the use of autoformatting, for all of the reasons outlined at MOSNUM talk. Your comments and feedback there are welcome. Tony 03:14, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Will MOSNUM itself actively discourage autoformatting? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd love it to, but people seem strangely attached to this dysfunctional system, and it's hard to gain consensus for what appears to me to be a practical solution: don't make it mandatory, or don't encourage its use, until the multitude of technical issues are resolved. I see one or two FACs going through with unautoformatted dates. Well and good. Tony 02:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Quotations: Preservation of spelling

A curious issue arises when I examine the Chicago Manual of Style and the American Psychological Association's Publication Manual. These two sources disagree over the preservation of typographical errors in quotations. The Chicago manual allows for the correction of "obvious typographic errors" without informing the reader, although writers must note modernizations. The APA manual allows no typograhical corrections, but permits the presence of sic in brackets after the preserved error. Wikipedia's manual of style gets close to addressing this:

Minimal change
Wherever it is reasonable to do so, the style that was used in the original text is preserved. Where there is a good reason not to preserve the original style, the changes are supported by the insertion of an editorial explanation, usually within square brackets (e.g., [for example]).

I am thinking of including spelling alongside the style reference, so that the MOS fragment appears as this:

Minimal change
Wherever it is reasonable to do so, the style and spelling that was used in the original text is preserved. Where there is a good reason not to preserve the original style or spelling, the changes are supported by the insertion of an editorial explanation, usually within square brackets (e.g., [for example]).

Thoughts? —Kanodin 08:38, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Why on earth would we even consider allowing spelling changes? The MoS should instead clearly advise adding {{sic}} (looks like [sic]) after the typo or archaism. I'd like the MoS text in question to also recommend superscripting of the "[for example]" that it mentions now; we should really have a {{sic}}-like template for this, perhaps {{editorial|for example}}.
Allowing editors to change spellings and just append an editorial note is very, very dangerous, as it would permit US/UK spelling "warriors" to change quotations at whim, and even permit the modernization of quotations from Shakespeare, etc. Gahhh! Furthermore, we have "don't mess with quotations" advice already embedded elsewhere in the MoS, such as forbidding of wikilinking inside quotations. Allowing editors to change-but-annotate spelling in quotations will lead to a direct MoS conflict of advice and rationale.
— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 17:10, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree that spelling shouldn't be changed in quotations. Wikilinking inside quotations is only forbidden "unless there is a good reason to do so," which isn't a prohibition at all. Unless the link is done to add a particular POV to the quotation, it seems hard to argue it changes the meaning of the quote. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:18, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Carl & SMcCandlish. Quotes should be left as they are. Jɪmp 16:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Directions

The directions and regions section states that composite directions such as south-west may or may not be hyphenated. I am unsure whether an en dash could be used or not – my quandary being whether south-west may infer 'south and west' (together), hence an en dash could be used as per WP:MOSDASH "as a substitute for some uses of and, to or versus for marking a relationship involving independent elements". Could someone please clarify this? Rossenglish 16:35, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Definitely not an en dash, which stands for "to" or is used for ranges and relationships. Hyphenate, or merge into one word, whichever you like, as long as it's consistent within the article (I've heard of US/British preferences here, but I think there's considerable overlap). Tony 01:30, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! Rossenglish 11:46, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
If you are worried, consider "southwest". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
It is compounded when it refers to a region ("the American Southwest"; you will NEVER see that hyphenated, I assure you!), and hyphenated when it refers to a compass direction, as in "we are headed north-west" (this is probably because more specific directions would be near unreadable otherwise: "eastsoutheast", "northnorthwest".) It is also compounded when referring to some noun that has something to do with a direction, such as a wind or storm ("Boy, that's a really strong northwester!", though such things are often contracted, e.g. "nor'easter", "sou'wester", especially in nautical usage.) References to areas in general are compounded as well ("southeast Bhutan", though -ern is often applied: "southeastern Bhutan"). I don't have the CMoS on hand right this minute, I'm just going by the writing I've absorbed over the last 30 years. My gut feeling is that if it is used adjectivally or to refer to anything other than a compass direction as a noun, it is compounded, unless it is a more specific direction, in which case the hyphenation is necessary for readability ("east-south-east Bhutan", in which case an -ern suffix should be avoided, as it would, I think, grammatically force compounding). I honestly don't think it's a US/UK distinction. But yes, definitely not an en-dash. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:51, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Don't take me as calling you wrong, SMcCandlish, but the likes of "south-southwest" would avoid (some of) the readability problem (though might create others of its own). Of course, this is just hypothetical; I'm certainly not suggesting that such be mentioned on the page. Jɪmp 16:51, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Capitalization of seasons

I have a dissenting opinion on lowercasing the names of seasons when used to refer to time periods. We capitalize months, eras, and other proper nouns for time frames, such as "This happened in July" or "During the Renaissance"; why not season names? While months could be argued as always being capitalized, the latter are usually lowercased when used as adjectives such as "The renaissance concept". I think it would be consistent to capitalize the names of seasons when they are used by themselves to explicitly denote a time period such as "Their situation improved little in Autumn" while using it as an adjective such as in "The winter months" or to refer to the seasonal atmosphere, like "During the summer, oranges are easier to grow" should be kept lowercase. Again, it could just be an opinion, but for the sake of logic, any one want to contribute any thoughts or criticisms? If not on Wiki, it may my influence my own writing, and perhaps others'. All are appreciated, thanks. ~ Atul 20:56, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It's standard English to lowercase seasons, I believe. It is not a convention of this MOS. And by the way, would you mind adding new topics to the bottom of pages? It helps us when discussing, we know what are the newest topics. Thanks! i said 21:03, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
MOS clearly says to use lower case. Tony 01:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
He knows that; he wants other people's opinion on this convention. 01:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by I (talk • contribs).
Atul/Ephiphanic's proposal makes no sense. The only time seasons are regularly capitalized in written English is when they are personified (usually in the context of poetry or certain styles of fiction). Sounds like he may be an inexperienced or non-native writer of English. --Coolcaesar 21:58, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that his posting is very clear and uses great grammar, punctuation, and spelling. I see no reason to suppose that he is a non-native speaker.
I also think he raises a good point to compare "This happened in Autumn." to "This happened during the Renaissance". Is the latter appropriate capitalization? If so, then the rule does seem to be inconsistent.
However, if this is the prevailing custom outside of Wikipedia then it is really not a question for this Talk page, it is really a question for the Wikipedia:Reference desk. Johntex\talk 06:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm uncomfortable in using non-native speakers as a reference point in the first place. The use of lower-case initials for seasons is by convention; there's no particular logic to it, which is fine. Tony 10:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Did I miss some declaration of what this person's native language is? I don't see any reason to believe their native language is not English. Your assumption seems prejudicial to me. Johntex\talk 14:18, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Lower-casing of seasons (except as noted in certain poetic usages), so we go with that in the MoS. Sure, it's not particularly logical, but usage is usage; you'd need to change a lot of minds at the Oxford English Dictionary, Chicago Manual of Style, etc. :-) Also, "Renaissance" is not generally lower-cased when adjectivized ("The Renaissance concept of human rights"); it is lower-cased when used metaphorically ("That's a really renaissance concept, Jane", "Silcon Valley could see a new economic renaissance by 2012"). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Latin alphabets

The paragraph here on use of diacritics is being quoted as though it were a naming convention. It is not; so clarification is in order. It also seemed useful to clarify, with examples, that this is neither a prohibition of diacritics nor a mandate for them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Will you, then, propose a different wording here? Tony 02:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I find the present wording largely acceptable; although it may be stronger than consensus will bear. There is a strong movement for native spellings, and we may have to make allowance for it.
Details: The either in "For terms in common usage, use either anglicized spellings;" seems redundant; the reference to standard English usage is redundant: English has no Academy, and usage is its only standard. Formal English usage may be useful, but is off-topic here; encyclopedic formality without stuffiness needs a guideline of its own. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Numbers question

In a sports article, I wrote this sentence: "The Longhorns finished the season as the only unbeaten team in NCAA Division I-A football, with 13 wins and zero losses overall." I chose to write out the one-digit number and use numerals for the two-digit number. Was this the right decision, or should I choose one way for both numbers?

Also, if I switch them, would one style be preferred over the other? In my experience, writings about sporting events tend to use numerals more than spelled-out words. Thanks in advance for comments. Johntex\talk 03:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I recon it would be better to sidestep the issue by writing "... and no losses ..." in this case. If the single digit number was non-zero this form of numbers would be in accordance with a respected US style manual. GilesW 06:38, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Giles on avoiding the issue with that wording. 0 stuck in the middle of a clause is a problem. MOS says to spell out all or use digits for all of a group of numbers, normally (I think it's the cats and dogs example). But I have no problem personally with "11 losses and seven wins"; but for scores, both should definitely be numbers, with an en dash (7–3). Tony 11:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The numbers 10 to 20 all have one-word names in english, doesn't this make the rule ambigious for them? Roger 19:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Demurrer. General English rules notwithstanding, it is accepted practice and has been since at least the mid 19th c. to use numerals for all sports stats (probably earlier, but the earliest sports stats I've looked at were from around 1860 or 1870). So, I'd probably say "13...and 0...", though I agree that "...and no..." works just fine here. In this particular case I don't find "zero" too off-base, since it really isn't quite reportage of sports stats but more a commentary on sports stats. So, if I'd encountered the "zero" version I would not have edited it to "0". By contrast if I saw "...won 13 to zero" I would definitely correct it to "...won 13 to 0" or more likely "won 13–0". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

"Ellipses" section, "Square brackets" para

The para headed "Square brackets..." does not appear to belong in the Ellipses section. There is a previous section on brackets. Not sure what to suggest.GilesW 06:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's there because square brackets are closely related to the use of ellipses. Tony 14:31, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
How so? At least on first thought, I am agreeing with GilesW here... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:17, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Using square brackets with ellipses is advised by one of the major styles (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis). So I'd say it's important that we make it clear in the Ellipses section that people are not to do that. Tristan Schmelcher 21:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Indicate variety of English?

I know that perhaps it should be obvious to most people, but perhaps an explicit indication of the variety of English used on a page (and the reason) would help to insure that folks follow the correct rules. The guidelines make perfect sense (to me) but that doesn't necessarily mean that I would necessarily know the correct way to apply them - it may not be obvious, for example, that a given author is British and so articles about that person and their works should use British spellings. Dfmclean 20:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

One time I cobbled together a note for Talk:Fermat's last theorem. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
It's open to anyone to post an invisible editors' comment at the top, stating the variety. I've done that a few times. Tony 23:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
That's an ok solution, but if someone is editing a specific section of an article (say, "Indicate Variety of English?") then they won't see the top. It's too bad there isn't a property that could be set for each page giving the variety. The reason could be given in an editors comment if necessary. In any case, I think that the practice of somehow marking the pages should be encouraged by making it part of the guideline. Dfmclean 13:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
A talk-page template would be a good solution. If you make some, please note them at WP:TEMPLATES. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
That's not a bad idea: can I suggest that it be used only where there's a danger of unreasonable changes, or evidence of them? Some talk pages do become cluttered with templates. The JS Bach article could do with a template: phantom zedders would come along every second day. Tony 05:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
The only way I'd be in support of any notion like this is a) it goes on the talk page, and b) it is very, very tiny, like the lock icons that appear top-right on some protected templates, such as {{Resolved}}. It could have a US or UK flag (or some other, for that matter - there's nothing wrong with writing an article in .ca or .au English, after all), using {{Flagicon}}. It should emphatically not be on the article page, as it could mislead readers (not editors) into thinking it is a UK/US version of an article, or written only by or for UK/US people. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
How about ...

This article uses Commonwealth English.
According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Jɪmp 17:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

As a somewhat related question, I've seen a couple instances where a British or Commonwealth usage was decried because it's not the most common word in English. Should we add something about this to National Varieties of English? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:37, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd support such an addition. Jɪmp 17:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
What is this notion of Commonwealth English? India is in the British Commonwealth; so is New Zealand. The term should not be used. Tony 17:40, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Commonwealth English is pretty useless if you're refering to accent ... but we're not. In terms of written English you'd be hard pressed to tell a Kiwi from an Aussie (until they write something like esky or jandals) nor would either of them write all that differently to a British or Irish person ... even the writing of an Indian would be similar. Canadians tend to share more in common with Americans when it comes to vocabulary but spelling generally conforms to the standards of other Commonwealth countries.
I've just hit [Random article] (actually I hit it a few times until I came to a subject without national ties) and landed on Riverstone Pebble Tiles. The article contains the spellings coloured and aesthetically so it's not US English ... does that automatically mean that it's British English; can I go and raise the Aussie flag on the talk page (we spell like that); should I try hunting User:AndreaC73, the article's creator, down; do we hold our breath until someone gets the chance to write something like "Chuck a couple of slabs of Riverstone Pebble Tiles in your ute and she'll be right, mate." ...?
Jɪmp 00:14, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
It's still inaccurate to talk of this mythical C English, whether in written or oral mode. There are dictionaries for each variety, and even differences in grammar. At the same time, I want to strongly discourage the use of flags in any template. This concerns language, not nationality: the types of English spoken within national borders vary; and we don't want to encourage yet more tribalism by linking nationality with variety. Flags make me puke. Perhaps there's a "V" for variety icon that can be used for all. Tony 00:52, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with the flagging of the type of English, predominantly as I still believe we should be working as far as possible towards using common words (which there are for 9 out of 10 instances). This debate just keeps rolling, and i think the only way out at the end may be to adopt an official dictionary for all article (Oxford springs to mind as it uses many typically 'American' spellings, but overall strives to use the varietal which is most correct in terms of the original root). I think tagging each article is largely pointless, and most editors will not look at the talk page before editing anyway. Owain.davies 06:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I'd have to agree, it is largely inaccurate, though more accurate when talking of written rather than spoken modes. However, the problem I point out is still real: not US ≠ UK. You're right, dialect doesn't obey political borders. Perhaps something like "This article uses ~our as in colour and ae as in aesthetic" rather than "This article uses such & such a dialect".
The attempt at adoption of any official dictionary would more likely add more fuel to the fire. Tagging might not be the best solution but I don't believe that it would be pointless: you don't have to have all editors check the talk page first. All that's needed is for some editor to come along from time to time an compare the tag to the text.
Anyhow, if these tags in whatever shape or form they take were ever to become the norm, I doubt that they'd stop spelling wars. I'd only imagine their taking the wars to a new level with spelling soldiers marching around talk pages erecting their flags (or their "V" for variety icons) often without even setting foot in the article only to have insurgents tear them down followed by lengthly debate about what tag should have been put there in the first place. Jɪmp 07:06, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
That there is US and British spelling is a gross simplification. There is a spectrum. Organise is exclusively British but organize can be British. And spelling doesn't have to have any relation to language. I prefer Webster spelling but being British would always write railway not railroad. I really don't understand this need to set the differences in stone.Dejvid 11:29, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Converting metrics in scientific articles

I'm seeking consensus at MOSNUM talk for a change in the wording to allow contributors, by consensus only, to use unconverted metrics in scientific articles. Tony 02:16, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Gender usage for legislators

Is "Congresspeople" a preferred term for gender neutrality, or should Congressmen be used except when referring to all-female groups of office holders, when Congresswomen/Congresswoman would be more appropriate?Mbisanz 03:35, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

"Congresspeople" is a hedgehog word, isn't it. As a proponent of gender-neutral language, I'd go for "Congressional representative". We are referring to members of the House, not the Senate, aren't we? Tony 03:40, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
IIRC, Tony is British, so he may be unaware that it's totally standard practice in modern American journalism to use "Congresspeople" (actually it is sometimes rendered "Congresspersons", though less frequently) and "Congressperson" when speaking in the generic, "Congressman/men" when the subject is known male, and "Congresswoman/women" when known female. Oh, and "Congresspersons"/"Congresspeople" can refer to only members of the House or sometimes both House and Senate, depending upon the context. It is usually the former. But a statement like "I think all Congresspeople are corrupt jerks" would almost certainly include Senators. Anyway, I can't speak for similar usage of -people/-persons/-person elsewhere than the US, and I disagree strongly with spreading the practice randomly ("policepeople"; use "police" generically, "policeman/woman" specifically). There are other cases where the -person suffix has gained currency ("the invite-only conference was attended by dozens of Fortune 500 chairpersons" [conversely to the above, "chairpeople" is rare]), but they are rather limited in number. PS to Mbisanz: In today's world it would definitely be inappropriate to refer to all of Congress as "Congressmen". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I can see your point about the need for a gender neutral term. I think that Congressional Representatives or Congresspersons is a better usage than Congresspeople, only because people is such a general term. And of course, when the gender of the group or persons in question is known, then a gender specific title can be used.Mbisanz 17:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
It should be (and usually is) "congresspersons" (with the minuscule c, BTW). The plural of "person" is "persons". "People" is a separate word with a similar meaning but extra baggage that we don't want (it has overtones of community, even nationhood).
(But I say "should be" only in the sense that it's better than "congresspeople". Really I prefer "members of congress", which I think is the more usual usage anyway.) --Trovatore 18:25, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
The problem with 'congresspersons' is that it seems to be the least common of the three options in real life - at least from the Google Test, which gives about 110k hits for that, 140k for 'congresspeople', and 3.5m for 'congressmen'. If we wish to avoid the gender-specific terms, I agree that 'members of congress' seems best (not least because it gets 2.5m Google hits, far more than the other gender-neutral terms). Searching just within .gov, 'members of congress' wins, though 'congressmen' is an easy second, including in contexts where women are clearly included. TSP 18:49, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree with TSP. I don't recall ever having heard or read "Congresspersons", though I have definitely heard "representatives of Congress", "Congressional representatives", and "Congressmen and women". Stanselmdoc 20:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not British. Tony 01:05, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
In a bio article about an individual one, we should use whatever term that person uses as a self-referent.DGG (talk) 08:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Lawmakers, legislators, and members of congress are commonly used, as are representatives and senators if you mean one group or the other. (Congressmen generally means from the House, but it can refer to senators, as could congresspeople, by extension.) Here are results from google news archives for the past month, for a rough indication of current media preferences:
  • Lawmakers 61432 (includes foreign lawmakers, as do other terms to varying degrees)
  • Senators 23000 (includes some references to the Washington baseball team)
  • Legislators 20226
  • Representatives (many, but too hard to isolate from other meanings)
  • Reps/Reps. 8916 (boosted by space-conscious headlines)
  • Members of congress 8463
  • Congressmen 2794
  • House members 2060
  • Members of the house 864
  • Members of the senate 292
  • Congress members 192
  • Congressional representatives 153
  • Senate members 132
  • Congressional members 110
  • Congress people 101
  • Congresspersons 35
  • Congresswomen 28
  • Congresspeople 24
  • Congressmembers 17
  • Congress critters 8
  • Congresscritters 2
  • Bums in Washington 1
-Agyle 10:03, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Do note that "lawmakers", "legislators", "senators", "representatives" (sometimes; some states call them assembly members or delegates), and some others of these terms do not always refer to the US Congress; other countries may use them, and they are also frequently used for state legislators rather than national ones in the US. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:06, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Italics

When displaying the actual award citation for military awards, specifically the Medal of Honor or equivalent I believe it is appropriate to italicize the entire citation. Since this isn't specifically identified in the Manual of Style I am requesting Clarification. I have been italicizing the citatons and I was informed that this was inappropriate based on the MOS.--Kumioko 19:16, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Can you give an example? I've never that I can recall ever seen something like "Sir John Smith, recipient of the Victoria's Cross in 1987...", but maybe that isn't what you mean. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:50, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
For an example of one in italics see Jason Dunham. For an example of one not in italics see Gary Gordon. I think it looks better in italics and I think for the purpose of this the text within the citation should not be wikilinked as it is in Gary's article.--Kumioko 01:48, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Knave!

Are we really going to recommend the spelling naive? — The Storm Surfer 04:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

As opposed to what? If you mean "naïve", let's just not. We (English speakers in general I mean) drop diacritics from words that become fully absorbed into English (thus "role" not "rôle" since some time around I would guess the 1950s). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I think The Storm Surfer mistakenly thought that naive was an accepted spelling for the word "knave", per the heading on the talk page. However, if an article exists where the word "knave" is misspelled "naive", then it should be changed, because they are two different words. Stanselmdoc 20:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
The last time I saw this, it was explicitly opposed to naïf, which we certainly should not use outside a quotation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:21, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I think they were more likely implying that, without the diaeresis, the two words would be homophones. Except that, well, English spelling and pronunciation isn't exactly regular anyway (ghoti, anyone?), so I hardly think one more exception, saying that "naive" is pronounced [nah-eev] rather than [neyv] even without diacritics, will bring the whole thing crumbling down. After all, nobody writes about "coördinates" these days, do they? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 01:12, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
There probably are a few who do but for the majority of us that extra dot on the i is little more than decoration. Diacritics have no special function in English other than making the word pretty and hinting that it's foreign. Jɪmp 06:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
"Naïf" or more commonly "naif", at least as occasionally used in English (I don't speak French, so I'm not sure there) is a noun, anyway, not a synonyms of naive, and means "naive person". I think but again am not certain that someone is confusing French naïve, French naïf, the English word "naive" derived from naïve, and the increasingly rare English "naif", from French naïf. For MOS purposes, all we need is "naive" and "role" without the diaeresis and circumflex, respectively (though it might not hurt to distinguish them visusally from their French origin words, as many of our readers will have never encountered the accented versions, and thus won't understand what our point is.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:21, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Identities

Regarding this section: "Also note: The term Arab refers to people and things of ethnic Arab origin. The term Arabic refers to the Arabic language or writing system (and related concepts). For example, 'Not all Arab people write or converse in Arabic, but nearly all are familiar with Arabic numerals.'"

There is no ambiguity at all when you pluralize the word "Arab" or another such word such as "European." I think we're adding a needless level of complexity to Wikipedia style by insisting that we must specificy we're talking about people instead of, say, artwork. There is no example of a standard use of "Europeans" or "Arabs" where people are not meant. So I would greatly like to see this guideline dropped. It does make articles read in a more pompous, scholarly fashion, but it doesn't add clarity and encourages people to multiply words for the sake of mood rather than meaning. -- Preston McConkie 18:16, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:PRECON

I'm considering to compose a draft for what could become a new supplementary guideline to MOS. Initially, I thought about something like "writing as a fan", but it's probably even more interesting to have a guideline on all sorts of "writing with a preconception", be it as a fan, or as a [what's the word for "opposite of a fan"?], hence the WP:PRECON moniker. I imagine the guideline to relate to WP:COI, but with strong emphasis on stylistic aspects. But before wasting hours of my life on this, I wanted to make the round and ask for general opinions (ideally in the form of encouragement). —AldeBaer 13:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

We don't need another guideline in this area. If you find WP:COI and much more to the point WP:NPOV deficient in some way, work for consensus to improve them instead of writing a new overlapping projectpage, I would say. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
Please read my reply to a similar comment at WP:VPP. —AldeBaer 17:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, nevermind. Judging from the input I collected here, community consensus appears to be against such a guideline page. A shame, in my opinion, but so what. —AldeBaer 14:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

'Hanged' and 'hung'

Is there a consensus on the correct use of these (and if so, where?)? My mother tongue is British English, and I was taught that meat is hung and people are hanged. I learned, in recent discussion, that 'hung' for people is not wrong in American English. Fine, but if the article is not about a specifically American subject (it wasn't), and 'hung' is wrong in British English, isn't 'hanged' to be preferred? Or is the rule the default one of "don't change it without good reason"? Philip Trueman 12:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm also a British English speaker from birth, and just want to confirm that your distinction in use between "hanged" and "hung" corresponds to that which I was taught. As for the other matters you raise, I don't have anything to say at the moment.  DDStretch  (talk) 13:10, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The distinction between hanged and hung is also maintained by many American style guides and the American media. See for example [3]. I think it's more an issue that the usage is becoming uncommon enough that the grammar is regularizing itself. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The only way a person can be "hung" is as a picture. Bodies are hanged. American English user. Mahalo. --Ali'i 18:45, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I've a mix of AmEng and BrEng, but I was taught in the US the same usage that Philip Trueman (and everyone else, it seems) was. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
The OED (hang, v. 3) says that in the context you are referring to, hung is used by some speakers, esp. in the south of England. (Personally (not a native speaker), I think it should be hanged, but if the editor who wrote this originally prefers hung we should probably not change it.) Stefán 20:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Interesting. One of the unexpected things about English is how the relationship between weak and strong past tenses have been, and still is, in a state of flux. Dived --> dove is a late 20th-century innovation in North America, and there are others I can't think of at the moment, moving in either direction. Tony 22:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I remember the word used on Alex Trebek's U.S. quiz show Jeopardy many years ago. Alex said "hanged". "Hanged" is a glaring exception, and I suspect "hung" is on the rise because of the increasing scarcity of hangings and the subsequent unfamiliarity with the verb. —Kanodin 00:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I speak AmE, and I use both hanged and hung, in their respective correct positions. However, despite my vehemently correxting anyone who makes a mistake, I suspect that usage of "hanged" is declining, due probably to its seeming incorrect, as Kanodin pointed out. ¿SFGiДnts! ¿Complain! ¿Analyze! ¿Review! 23:41, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Although I'm a British English speaker, I seem to remember Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) on Murder, She Wrote correcting a child's grammar by reminding him that "drakes are hung, people are hanged". And although Lansbury is British, the show was an American production. WaltonOne 16:51, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Erm, people being killed by strangulation (or a broken neck) at the end of a rope are hanged, clothes are hung. In my experience, when someone says a person is hung, it is coarse idiom for a very specific physical adeptness. Gwen Gale 17:00, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't know which I say. Does it matter? Would it really matter if both forms appeared in the same article. Are there really people who would care if someone changed their usage on this???Dejvid 11:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
It's a simple matter of correctness. A person executed by hanging has been hanged. All other past-tense uses of "to hang" are "hung". It's pretty simple. And yes, if it's used incorrectly, people will react (to change "hung" to "hanged" where appropriate) in just the same way that "hanged" being used when "hung" is correct looked horribly wrong. "Broke" and "braked" is similar, but less well-established. Why have you revived a discussion from nearly 3 weeks ago, by the way? SamBC(talk) 11:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Correct? says who. Go back far enough and all English speakers would have used hung. Who knows what native speakers will be saying in 50 years time. Personally I suspect hanged will win out completely but snuck has shown signs of making a come back in relation to sneeked. Why do you consider it the job of Wikipedia to prejudge the outcome? Dejvid 12:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Back when the US legal system was still hanging people, it was "hanged by the neck until dead"; confusion of "hanged" and "hung" is about the same as that between "lie" and "lay"; we should use the proper terms, even if the distinction is lost on some of our less-educated or simply-don't-care readers. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Standard for the and a preceding acronyms

I don't know if there's a standard on Wiki for the pronouns "a" and "an" that precede acronyms. I've looked and haven't been able to find one. I have always been taught that when the acronym begins with a "vowel-sounded consonant" (such as n, s, r, l, f, m) that when spoken aloud creates a vowel sound first, that the pronoun before it should be "an", so it would be grammatically correct. For example, "NAACP representative" would be written as "an NAACP representative", but "NASA representative" would be written as "a NASA representative", because they are pronounced differently. One sounds like "EN" and the other like "NA".

Is there a WP standard for this? Do other countries do it differently? Like I said, all I know is what I've been taught, and I can't find anything on it on the pages I've looked. Thanks, Stanselmdoc 16:00, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

What about acronyms of inconsistent pronunciation - SQL or FAQ, for example? --Random832 01:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Interesting issue (pleased to hear what others think). NAACP is an initialism (can't be pronounced as a word), whereas NASA is a true acronym (think nym/name). The latter, AFAIK, doesn't take a preceding the; a NASA representative is different, because NASA is now an epithet, qualifying the head, representative (What kind of representative?). NAACP probably does take "the"; but organisations have their own preferences, and usually, but not always, their website shows the way. (Some deictics must even be capitalised, such as The Beatles, apparently, because that was the branding.) Tony 03:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Pronunciation should be the guide for both acronyms and initialisms, I think. A SQL server; an SEC spokesman; an FAQ; a FEMA representative. Barnabypage 09:35, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Although, as noted, several of those have multiple pronunciations. The official pronunciation of SQL is in fact 'ess queue ell', according to ANSI; whereas FAQ is frequently 'fak'. I expect you could find devotees of 'sek' and 'eff ee em a' if you looked hard enough. TSP 09:53, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Many of these can go either way, and it's an unsatisfactory little nook of the language, second-guessing whether your reader's little silent voice will spell out the letters, pronounce them as a word, or go for the whole name (something in me makes me say "frequently asked questions" when I see FAQ). Tony 10:36, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Perhaps this is a case, then, where trying to establish a standard is futile, and editors should simply go with their preference. After all, while an inappropriate indefinite article might be jarring, it doesn't impede understanding. Barnabypage 10:43, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't impede understanding, but it sure does put a crick in the neck of a grammar policeman like me hahahaha. I agree with the arguments, but I still don't see why a more common pronunciation shouldn't be given precedence (like "an L.A. Times contributor" as opposed to "a L.A. Times contributor"). I guess I'll just refrain from altering too many articles I deem incorrect. Stanselmdoc 14:03, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Not everyone agrees with this "pronunciation" distinction; I for one find "an NAACP representative" to look funny. But it's such a minor issue, I don't see that the MoS needs to actually say anything about it. As for the broader issue of whether to use "the NAACP" versus "NAACP" when referring to an organization or whatever, it is entirely whimsical and random; artices should go with whatever is most common for the entity in question. Shut-in Air Force people work at NORAD, not the NORAD (despite "the" actually being in its expanded) name, while my dad used shop at the BX. I'm a member of both the ACLU (and not-the) EFF. <shrug> PS: SQL is only pronounced "sequel" instead of "ess-kiew-ell" by Microsofty types, so if you like the pronunciation "rule", it should be "a SQL query" except when writing about the Microsoft variant.— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:32, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

contractions such as (wo)men as a substitute for "both women and men"

Should this be addressed in the style guidelines, if so where? I've always been inclined to disfavor this kind of writing, but I cannot remember seeing it addressed. Thanks in advance for any comment and feedback. dr.ef.tymac 11:42, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Um ... you mean, like this? Tony 12:11, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Not really. I mean something even more general than that. I mean the use of parenthesis to indicate a "compound word" [e.g., (foo)bar ] where the compound word is a substitute for two separate words that would otherwise be indicated using "both X and Y" [e.g., both foobar and bar]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dreftymac (talk • contribs) 16:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
That sort of creative parenthesis use falls under general poor practice. I'm not opposed to including something in the MOS about it, but I don't think it's really necessary. Strad 00:07, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
O.k., sounds reasonable -- just checking to verify whether it is generally disfavored practice. Thanks for the reply. dr.ef.tymac 03:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
That seems good for articles. On a talkpage, the usage item(s) as shorter than "one or more items" could be OK.Newbyguesses - Talk 01:11, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposal for guidelines on gender-neutral language

I seek consensus for the addition of a new subsection on "Gender-neutral language" to the "Usage" section of MOS. This has now become a typical part of in-house manuals of style, from those of newspapers to book publishers to scholarly journals. It's high time that WP had its own guidelines in this area to suit its particular circumstances.

Please peruse the draft and add your comments here. Tony 16:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry. I cannot support this draft; some of the examples are already clumsy and imprecise. I would support adding the key sentence: Consider using gender-neutral language where this can be achieved in reasonably tidy wording and without loss of precision.
But some of the language of the draft is inaccurate: The meaning of The Ascent of Man is not males, but human beings; to claim otherwise is a confusion, now all too common. There is no harm in the substitution when it can be done, as often, without harming cadence; but we should not misstate the grounds for it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:15, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
You just don't get it, do you. Tony 01:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Please reconsider that personal attack, which demonstrates suggests that the proposed page is POV and unacceptable on those grounds. For my part, I prefer to deal with issues than pretend that politically correct language will solve real problems. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Look further home PMAnderson, especially when it comes to personal attacks. You've tried pulling similar stunts at changing guidelines at WIAFA, and at GAC. Furthermore, you tried disrupting one of my FAC's because you didn't like being told the truth. In other words, shut up lecturing others on personal attacks. LuciferMorgan 19:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Excuse my intrusion, but since the proposed policy suggests that "man" meaning human beings is unacceptable usage, then it ought to be substituted except where it is in a quote or title. (probably by humanity or (marginally) mankind. So I do see a failure to comprehend on the part of Pmanderson, although Tony did state that rather crudely. And yes, I support the proposed policy provided that we can avoid constructions that are too clumsy. dramatic 23:12, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Please add; long overdue for a Project the size of Wikipedia, it's logical that we should have this, it's helpful to have tips on how to use gender-neutral language, and this is a well-written (as usual for Tony1) summary. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:52, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Support, I think the use, especially when it is excessive of catering to both genders with constructs such as -persons disrupts the natural flow of language. This practice adds unneccesary political correctness, which can be thought of as a very light form of censorship or newspeak. However I would like to see the policy consider what to do if an article contains a mixture of the two usages, or whether an article should be edited purely for gender-neutrality. User A1 23:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
The "person"-construction is often unnecessary when accurate names are used. A "mailman" is a letter carrier and a "manhole" is a street access hole (certainly not a "person hole"). "Spokesperson" seems to be in wide use, and no longer seems stilted.--Curtis Clark 23:38, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
This is up to individual editors and the generation of consensus around gender-neutral usage in each article in which it's at issue. I'm adding comments from two people below that were posted on the discussion page of the draft. Tony 01:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
"Manhole" is actually a red herring, the "man" part comes from french "main" (or possible a latin root, I forget), and it just means that the cover is hand-operated. Same root as "manual", which is, I would assume, obviously not sexist. And now I'll get back on topic, or something... SamBC(talk) 01:11, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

It looks good to me. Sexist language is a huge problem on Wikipedia, and modern English needs to rely heavily on neutral wording. The sexes are equal in the modern world, so sexist language is as archaic as "ye" and "whilst". — Deckiller 21:08, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Seems reasonably, as long as no-one starts objecting to words because of folk etymologies, like the oft-heard (off wikipedia, anyway) objection to "manhole". SamBC(talk) 22:05, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I've accepted most, but not all of Hoary's edits to the draft. In particular, I felt that the example of how cumbersome "his or her" can be was unnecessary; and I do wonder about "the impersonal you and one" as a way of avoiding gender-specific pronouns. Can we discuss examples here? Tony 10:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, instead of "The player may move his pawn one space forward, or two if it is the first move", say, "You may move your pawn one space &hellp;". First thought that came into my head. I use impersonal you, or more correctly "one", in conversation quite often. "One" is technically in the same gramatical "person" as he/she/it, although the semantic distinction means that it can't be directly substituted in phrases. SamBC(talk) 12:15, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
      • There will be a clash with this and this in the same section (Usage); what are your thoughts on that? Tony 12:40, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
        • It would seem that that puts "you" right out, which TBH I was uncomfortable about anyway, but "one" is explicitly allowed in the sense we're talking about (that is, meaning anyone, the purer grammatical meaning of the term). SamBC(talk) 13:19, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm still concerned about one. Can you give an example of how it might be used to avoid the generic male pronoun? "A computer user should consider not turning off his machine." --> "One should consider not turning off one's computer."? Hmmm. Sounds old-fashioned, and in some contexts the slight loss of meaning might be a disadvantage. Tony 13:49, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Personally, in that example, I'd tend to use the (technically incorrect) signular their, and comparing the two seems to be a case of modern-but-technically-wrong vs. "archaic"-but-technically-right. If people are going to argue about not using one thing because it's wrong, and not using another because it sounds archaic, then it just gets silly. Singular their is generally tolerated, AIUI, and I'm sure that one could be as well. As a completely off-the-top-of-my-head made-up example, consider "on entering the building, one should remove one's hat". I'll probably think of a better one later. The point is that the proposed MOS guideline isn't telling people they must (or even should) use each example, merely that they are acceptable alternatives. SamBC(talk) 14:16, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
This is why we should not mandate the stylistic choice. If we do, we will get a rash of singular theys "because MOS says so". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:34, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I support this, although I'm not keen on the singular "they" (people can always avoid this if they think about it). To User A1's question above about editing purely for gender-neutrality - including this in the MOS makes it an FA criteria. BTW - does anyone else find it amusing that the MOS doesn't comply with itself? -- Rick Block (talk) 16:24, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Perhaps we should reconsider having every sentence of MOS automatically an FA criterion. Much of it is good advice, in general, but with exceptions, sometimes recondite exceptions. (For example, there is a discussion on unit conversion in the Mos on units. We should make a recommendation in general; but the same practice is not suitable for high astrophysics and naval history.) If it weren't, this page would be far less controversial; and far more sensible. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

On the substance, I much prefer the approach at the Village Pump; editing solely to remove or insert gender-neutral language is disruptive, like other stylistic preferences. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Why is this disruptive? It seems no less disruptive to me than cleaning up punctuation, grammar, or formatting. ←BenB4 05:36, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Because, like some points of punctuation and spelling, there is no consensus on what writers should do. As this discussion should make clear, there are strong feelings on both sides; the result, as with AD/CE, will be revert wars. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I think Tony’s formulation, with the “Please consider …” approach to be essentially a fine one; however, I agree with Septentrionalis’ that such a substantive addition to MOS needs to go to the community at large for consensus. We need to keep in mind that some people consider “gender-neutral” to be “political correctness” and thus POV, regardless of what popular writing style guides propose. For instance, stilted phrases like “his or her” may have found their way into style guides, but have not widely penetrated the common vernacular. In particular, the assertion that “man” must always be deemed to refer to males and not males and females collectively is indeed POV; the context is the point (and WP:AGF guides us to assume the best). I find “one” to be preferable to the impersonal “you” has generally been deprecated in this MOS as too informal. However, a better solution to SamBC’s example would be “The player may move a pawn one space forward, ….” I find the “impersonal” their to be a better natural-language fit. Askari Mark (Talk) 17:53, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
My comment was addressed to the former phrasing: "Wikipedia recommends", which would a disaster at FAC. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Why? Tony 04:13, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I support this, but I would like to see changes regarding wording like "both sexes". How about, in the first instance, to a generic person, and otherwise use something like male and female pronouns or something along those lines? I just don't like the idea of a binary being used in gender-neutrality guidelines. Kolindigo 22:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Use "genders" not "sexes"; aside from the latter just falling into general disuse, it's not biologically accurate (there are quite a few more than two human sexes, chromosomally speaking, but they express themselves pretty much as two genders and some uncommon androgynous intergrading, like undescended testes, etc.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 18:49, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Gender-neutral language 1: Responses thus far from Tony

  • I didn't write the "Please consider ...". It was "Wikipedia recommends ...", which I've now reinstated.
  • Askari's feeling that this should be put to the whole community, I think, is redundant: that is exactly what is happening here. The recommendations fit squarely within MOS, and this is where MOS changes are discussed. It's open to anyone to post links to this discussion (as Manderson has done at the Village Pump). I encourage this.
  • The proposal is far too mild for some editors: I've purposely framed it as a set of recommendations, not as rules, partly because the methods of avoiding generic expressions all have their own disadvantages and, like many options writers are faced with in producing prose, must be weighed up against each other. Thus, I felt that the recommendation should assist in this respect, perhaps more than in most parts of MOS. The potential pitfalls of each option are explicated in the same bullet point, except for the "otherwise reword" option.
  • Accordingly, it is pointed out that the singular they has its detractors. No one is forcing it as an alternative, and Manderson, your point that MOS is endorsing its use by mentioning it as an option has a reverse side: MOS is also providing a reason to object to its use. All things in balance. While in many contexts, the singular they grates with me, and it would be the last option I'd choose; but it was good enough for Shakespeare, Austen and many other greats, and is endorsed by The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. I've seen it in government documents, where I'd have passed over it smoothly had it not become an issue here. See this and this for technical discussions: some in linguistic authority feel that it's not technically wrong.
  • Manderson's broader agenda, that MOS should be meek and let people do their own thing, doesn't ride with me. MOS, to me, must balance freedom and cohesion, and does so quite well at the moment. If he takes my comment as a personal attack, I'm sorry, it wasn't intended that way: man used to be understood as including both genders; this is largely not the case now. That's what I meant by "you don't get it": it's about our readers' perceptions, not our own ideological views. It doesn't matter whether the man in chairman has nothing to do with the word man: it is perceived as such by many readers.
  • My personal preference is not to mention one as an alternative—well, not until someone presents a good example. It does still seem to be at odds with MOS's Usage section, and my impression is that its use would change the tone of a passage significantly more than the use of the other options.
  • Overall, the edits to my proposal have improved it—thank you all. Where I've reverted these edits, I've tried to justify my actions here, and will continue to do so in cases where I don't retain changes made by others.

Tony 04:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC) I thank DGG and Radiant for their comments, but I believe that for the most part they are either unclear or not legitimate objections to the proposal. My responses are interpolated below in green:

  • objections to particular examples: man-made and artificial are not synonyms. I dont think there is an exact synonym or alternative for man-made in all contexts; smilarly 'manned' is not necessarily replaceable by 'operated' or "staffed."-- and so one for the otherssimilar uses. "Actress" can be gender neutral--it means someone who portrays female roles.
    • The text does say can sometimes be avoided; are you taking this critical wording into account? It's exactly because these substitutions do not always work that the wording is such. I agree about artificial—it's usually a problem; I'm willing to remove that example. Manned can be perfectly well replaced by operated or staffed in some contexts, so I think it's a good example; some readers object strongly to manned. Your point about actress—this is surely not intended to be a proper objection (do we really have to debate it in terms of drag?).
  • other creative alternatives "People must" or "People should" or some similar construction ; Humans or human in special contexts
    • Are you suggesting an additional point here?
  • singular they not only should this not be suggested, it should be depreciated. As for as i'm concerned, I'd go further and say its forbidden, but not all will agree.
    • I don't like the singular they, but as I've pointed out above, there are authorities who not only accept it, but argue for it. See the ABC link above (Hoary's and mine). It appears last, and those who object to particular usage on WP are armed with an explicit rider. If it's a deal-breaker, I'll remove it; but I'd like to retain it in the draft for longer to guage further opinion.
  • policy as a whole Tony, some of our readers will perceive avoiding gender specific forms as sexist--others may perceive it when it sounds artificial as deferring to the ignorant.This especially applies to compound forms. Congressperson or chairperson to me indicates PC in the worst implications of the term, just a much as herstory. I think it particular it needs to be absolutely stated that disrupting an extensive established article to change forms is wrong at least if it is objected to, and that it is wrong to use terminology not in harmony with the surrounding sections if it looks obtrusive. Further, what sounds right in news stories is not the same as in describing historical events. In writing about WW II, for example, the terminology of the era should be used. DGG (talk) 08:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
    • The policy is, frankly, the very mildest you could imagine. It explicitly says that gender-neutral alternatives should be used only "where this can be achieved in reasonably tidy wording and without loss of precision"; what stronger caveat could you want? Anyone who uses gender-neutral language can, by this policy, be asked to justify each usage on this basis. Editors can debate the evils or otherwise of congressperson et al. on talk pages, as well they might now.
    • The section brings WP finally into the 21st century on this count, behind many, many publishing houses, broadcasters and governments—in some cases, including the most rightwing/conservative. I can't determine what your attitude is to the policy as a whole: are you declaring that your attitude is neutral?
  • This is as unenforceable as the perennial proposals to "always use British (or American) English" and the AD vs CE debate. I think it's a bad idea to make a prescription for it. >Radiant< 09:31, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
    • No, it has absolutely nothing to do with "always use British or American English", wherever that bumkum has been put about. The guidelines for which variety should be used have evolved to be, as far as I can see, precise. There may occasionally be borderline cases, and they are dealt with at the talk page by consensus, like everything else. The same is true for AD/CE, which are both allowed; there may be arguments, but so what? I contend that this objection has no validity unless Radiant can provide a logical, cohesive framework for it. These supposed analogies make no sense. Tony 12:03, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
      • It makes perfect sense: this is unenforceable. Some people think we should use AD rather than CE (or the other way around) but we don't do that. Some people think we should use PC terms for gender, but we don't do that for the same reason. >Radiant< 12:22, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
        • Why are you talking in terms of forcing (unenforceable)? It is cast in terms of a recommendation. Please address the issues in those terms.Tony 12:38, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

How sad that guidelines for good writing are so easily disparaged with the "PC" label, and by the same people who wholeheartedly support correcting poor grammar. Poor grammar never discouraged a young lady or girl. This kind of nonchalant disposal of editorial standards accepted as basic the world over is shameful. Can't our standards even aspire to those of a small-town newspaper? ←BenB4 12:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

In my experience, giving something the "PC label" is done to stifle debate, often but not always with intent. It's almost the Godwin's Law of writing style. I have yet to see a clear counterexample.--Curtis Clark 13:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Whatever you want to propose, it should certainly not encourage writing "he or she", which always sounds clumsy. I would prefer an even weaker preference. Using "he" and "his" in a sex neutral way has been standard English usage for centuries. There is hardly any reasion to start replacing this throughout. −Woodstone 13:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Methinks that clumsiness is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. Think that if you want, but using he to stand for all people is now quite unacceptable in all but the fusty halls of gentlemen's clubs and the like. Look around you. The evidence in publishing is overwhelming that gender-neutral language is the norm. It's embarrassing that WP has not even a recommendation, and that a few people here are doing all they can to subvert what is a non-mandatory recommendation, not a confining rule. No one has to use he or she, certainly not where it might sound clumsy or need to be repeated. There are four or five options for avoiding sexist language, and using them skilfully is now expected of modern writers. Tony 13:54, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I did actually read something mentioning that very recently, can't recall where, but it was linked from a discussion of singular "they"... I'll find it and repost the link in a bit, if no-one else does. I've certainly seen it in guidance from my uni for academic writing. Avoiding gender-neutral "he", that is. SamBC(talk) 14:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Could it be this edit by Tony? I would like to believe it wasn't meant seriously... Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:49, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Woodstone, clumsiness issue aside, I would point out that "it's been this way for centuries" isn't a good argument for anything - for centuries it was held that dark-skinned people were obviously and inherently inferior, for centuries it was held that women couldn't be academics, and for centuries it was held as common knowledge that jews couldn't be trusted. Centuries end. That said, I'm in two minds as to whether I mind gender-neutral masculine or not — it doesn't bother me personally, but I understand why it's considered objectionable. I personally will react to it badly in some circumstances, and not others. SamBC(talk) 14:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
The issue has nothing to do with whether women are considered inferior or not. It just happens to be that the English language uses the word "he" in two different senses. It may mean "a human being" or "a male being". There are many words with several meanings. It is usually not a problem and it is up to the reader to determine which is meant in a specific case. −Woodstone 15:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm surprised to have to debate this in 2007. Not any more is he understood in the first sense, at least not by a significant proportion of English-speakers. Sorry, you'll just have to face up to that change. We're no longer living in the 1950s. That is why most style guides now recommend (some insist) on respecting modern perceptions. Your perceptions don't appear to be modern, that's all. Tony 15:26, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I see that Tony has replaced "Wikipedia recommends". I strongly oppose this; I will dispute any effort to add it to the policy. The MOS is not a means for some editors to browbeat others into their stylistic preferences. For the record, if there is indeed a modern consensus on these usages, reminding editors to consider the matter will be more effective, as well as more civil, in promoting the use of such language. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:23, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I've changed it to "Please consider ...", as Manderson requests; I've removed the point about the singular they, since I can see that it's just too contentious: some will be unhappy at this removal, but I'm keen to gain consensus. Tony 01:09, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Support Slrubenstein | Talk 13:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Gender-neutral language 2: Discussion break

The course of this discussion is actually a good example of why this issue should be placed before the community as a whole with a link from here, rather than vice versa. Those who frequent this page are a tiny and non-representative fraction of the broader Wikipedia community, and a debate on this issue deserves a greater diversity of thought. I’m surprised that some here espouse “gender-neutral” wording as broadly accepted by all but the “fusty” few. Anyone believing that needs to get out more – and travel in broader circles. As someone who is widely read and comfortable in many social circles, I can honestly say that it is the dominant mode only in a small, albeit influential, circle of society – which just happens to include those who write style guides. In actuality, most of society eschews it except in certain formal, public situations. While age-old usage of masculine forms as gender-plural may no longer be held as commendable by some, they do have the advantage of common understanding, depending on the context of their usage. Moreover, recent fashion does not necessarily confer lasting value or even long endurance. “Modern” fads come and go, and I’ve noticed in recent years that even among those I know who espouse gender-neutral formulations, it has been slipping from conversational usage, so it’s possibly a fading form.
Accordingly, I can support Tony’s proposed wording with the “Please consider …” approach, but not the one reading “Wikipedia recommends …”. We few here are not “Wikipedia”, and before we make such a statement, the more diverse population of Wikipedians should have their say. The latter formulation just begs edit wars, with the intimation that Wikipedia advocates one POV over another. We should encourage editors to be aware of how their wordings may offend a small part of the population, and encourage them to take some pains to consider alternatives that are more gender-neutral. Askari Mark (Talk) 17:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
While I don't actually agree with most of this reasoning, I'm not going to debate it, because I think your conclusion actually hits the nail on the head. SamBC(talk) 18:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
We can certainly “agree to disagree,” Sam, but you’re at risk of succumbing to the “paleoliberal” perspective that social attitudes toward gender roles haven’t changed since the 1950s. The fact is that since they have, along with racial attitudes, and in a major way. I suspect that this factor, along with the artificiality of much “gender-neutral” formulations, is a main reason that its usage has passed its peak. (In fact, it would be an interesting cultural survey that investigated just what percentage of the population actually has embraced it – as well as what percentage disparages it as “political correctness.”) Yes, it remains a staple in academia, the arts, certain political circles, and corporate HR departments that want their lawyers to sleep well at night, but it has never caught on among most segments of the native English-speaking population. Why? Perhaps because for most people it’s no longer really necessary or at least not worth the effort. I expect it will endure in job titles and legalese, but otherwise is going the way of thee and thou – quaint archaisms that 22nd-century “moderns” will shake their heads over. Askari Mark (Talk) 16:12, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that Tony's proposal is a rather shrewd one, and should meet appraisal. Personally, when I read an article which uses an assumption such as "he", then I find it rather offensive. So yeah, Tony gets my support and I think of all whom support gender equality should lend him our backing. LuciferMorgan 20:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I like this proposal. I don't particularly like the reasoning above that we should not aim for consistency in style because we won't achieve it, or because it would be inflexible. It needn't be inflexible, and whether we achieve it isn't the point; the point is that we agree, because we are reasonable people, that wordings that would seem to create an unnecessary gender discrepancy should be avoided. "Actress" is a very good example of a word that is prevalent in this encyclopedia and shouldn't be. I don't much like the singular "they" either, but I don't think that's really what we're talking about. Chick Bowen 23:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

  • As PMA said, "The MOS is not a means for some editors to browbeat others into their stylistic preferences." So far this effort is based on the wild allegation that "other" language is "wildly unacceptable", a claim which people have been unwilling to substantiate so far. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. >Radiant< 08:36, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "In the minds of students of both sexes, use of the word 'man' evoked, to a statistically significant degree, images of males only -- filtering out recognition of women's participation in ... major areas of life."[4] Is that effect acceptable in any way, shape, or form? I don't think so. I am just astonished that this is even at issue. What exactly is the benefit of sexist language? That it may be more familiar to some people? That's about it, isn't it? That there are people willing to disenfranchise an entire gender for a little familiarity is disgusting, plain and simple. Shame! ←BenB4 09:11, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Appeals to emotion really don't help. It's really a straw man - it's not that Wikipedia wants to tolerate sexism; the problem is that while this is a temper-raising issue, there is no agreed-upon solution, and this cannot be mandated for Wikipedia articles. Some people use "he or she" everywhere, other prefer "s/he", some invoke "singular they" or make up terms like "xyr", and yet others think this is not nearly as big a deal as proper grammar. If the real world had a consensual solution for this, we would use it in Wikipedia. But it does not. It is noble to want to change the world, but since an encyclopedia reflects the world, it is not the place to start>Radiant< 09:58, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
        • Peer-reviewed results showing that sexist language alters the perceptions of readers to the disadvantage of women are not an appeal to emotion. That I am appalled by your nonchalance is certainly an emotional reaction, but it's based on the scientific facts. Every single part of the Manual of Style recommends exactly this sort of choice of alternatives. Your use of the word "mandate" is fallacious given the language of the proposal. The world contains a lot of bad grammar and incomplete sentences. Do you contend that we should "reflect" those, too? ←BenB4 10:26, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
          • When you highlight the word “man” in isolation or a polemical construct (e.g., that silly “Well, duh!” study’s “Political Man”), of course it solicits an interpretation of “maleness”; if it didn’t, we wouldn’t be having this discussion in the first place. At issue is whether its use should be eschewed even when in a context that has traditionally been taken as generic. What Tony has been striving to achieve, as I understand it (or hope it to be), is to develop a formulation that encourages, but doesn’t force, the greater awareness of and use of gender-neutral language. Forcing the style upon everyone (and insulting those who disagree as neanderthals) – quite obviously – is as divisive and disruptive as banning its use at all (say, as "stilted, 'politically correct'" prose). Askari Mark (Talk) 15:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
A brief analysis of Radiant's strategies in the previous posting:
There are, at a glance, three ploys at play here.
One is to muddy the argument by introducing fanciful notions with the vague undercurrent that his opponents are responsible for them—for example, who is making up "xyr", and why is it relevant to this debate?
Another ploy is to introduce questionable concepts without clear relevance to the issue—just what is "proper grammar", and where does this novel boundary lie? The hidden text is that gender-neutral solutions are somehow not "proper grammar". If you were a politician trying to deceive an ignorant electorate, sure, you'd use these ploys; but they won't work here.
Yet a third strategy is to mix bold unsupported pronouncements with statements that people will readily accept, in the hope that folks won't question the unsupported ones ("the real world [has no] solution for [sexist language]", and "[this proposal is an attempt] to change the world") mixed up with the widely accepted "an encyclopedia reflects the world [and doesn't try to change it]"). A lot of people here have been pointing out that the issue of sexist language does have solutions out there in the world, and that they're widely accepted and implemented. Above Radiant's most recent post, Ben has provided just one weblink to supporting material, of thousands of sources that are staring us in the face. That's why this long overdue proposal has been made.
Now Radiant, I'm tempted to suggest that you work for a politician; but that would be unfair to assume such a thing without further evidence. At the very least, your postings make an interesting study in political/linguistic deception. Tony 10:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Another, rather obvious, ploy is to misquote people, for example to remove the word "consensual" from "the real world [has no] solution for [sexist language]". Talking about muddying the argument: the claim that the concept of "proper grammar" is "novel" is astounding. See for example Panini (grammarian). I am surprised that you think such ploys work here. Thehalfone 10:23, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


(outdent) ...using GNL remains controversial. Wha? At the margins perhaps, but the central principle—do not sub masculine pronouns where gender is indeterminate—is completely time of day in formal registers in 2007. The UN adopted gender neutral language 20 years ago (led by Canada and the Scandinavians, bless them).[5] News organizations began adopting the usage in the 1970s. If you can get a hold of this excellent resource you'll find stats on how rapid and complete the conversion was. I can imagine governments lagging somewhat because amending a state constitution can be a cumbersome process. And in certain quarters in the U.S. I can imagine opposition on ideological grounds. But really, all Wiki is doing here is catching up. And this guideline is incredibly mild (I'd make it stronger: 'Please use' rather than 'Please consider using'). And let's save the appeal to tradition—for younger editors I doubt it's of much relevance. Marskell 13:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

My only big worry with this is a "freeping creeperism" of sloppy or over-written rules (never helpful). By all means editors should (in my humble opinion) avoid gender specific pronouns when subjects and objects are not gender specific. Quotes should never, ever be changed, nor should the formal titles of specific organizations, or historical titles. Generic professional titles are a bit harder to cope with since some aren't yet in wide use (like actor instead of actress) and can cause distractions which affect readability. I'd say keep any new "policy" down to a couple of sentences in length and let editor consensus do the rest. I do agree with a comment above which hints that this is all rather meaningless for most editors born like, after 1970. Gwen Gale 15:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

This may be somewhat an age related bias. Those over a certain age consider use "gender neutral" language to be anything but neutral, they consider it highly driven by point of view. I am in that age group, and thus consider this proposal to be an attack on WP:NPOV. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, we should lag the general usage of language. There probably are specific examples where a gender neutral word has become the generally used term, but there are plenty more where gender specific terms are still standard. No aspect of Wikipedia's mission, nor of the Foundation's mission generally, is advanced by this proposal.

That age must be greater than 56. I find it astonishing that gender-neutral language is so controversial when there was hardly any ruckus raised over is comprised of. Tony wrote me privately for clarification of whether I support the proposal. Frankly, I don't care. I will continue to write accurate, gender-neutral prose on Wikipedia (although I do sometimes use the generic "she", which would go against the proposal), and I will continue to copyedit the most egregious examples of unsupported gender-specific language (and I will continue to replace "is comprised of" with one or another alternative) whether or not it is in MoS.--Curtis Clark 13:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The right answer is that adopted for national varieties of English on topics not tied to a specific nation - Wikipedia does not prefer any particular usage. I've seen too much time wasted on silly (or even wrong, as in "fixing" the title of a reference or a word in a quotation) MoS related AWB contributions that could far more usefully have been spent on researching references and improving article content. I would prefer that every editor spent his time on content improving edits than on this silly blather. GRBerry 17:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I would support the addition of Do not be disruptive in removing or adding such language.; this will do something to curb the self-righteous on both sides of the issue. We are likely to disagree on whether specific occasions are disruptive or not, but that's not new; surely we can agree on the principle. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Possibly, but I find it hard to conceive of a wording that will do it effectively. To Manderson and Gwen, mass changes can be done now, but I don't see them. I really think that a mere recommendation that includes caveats (thereby arming the status quo with reasons to object/revert), will not bring the GNL zealots out onto the streets. Quite likely, it will be a subtle and minor change. Tony 15:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I would agree. This is what I meant by "...can cause distractions which affect readability." Although I'd hope older editors and users could understand that gender non-neutral language is a kind of learned PoV which can and does lead to wholly unintentional fuzzy thinking and outright bias, some will nonetheless be distracted or even emotionally stirred up when they encounter language usages to which they are either not accustomed or simply cannot cope with for whatever reason, which is why I would keep any policy on this very short, much shorter than the proposed draft, caution editors to be unobtrusive about it (no sweeping campaigns to clumsily do a mass "fix" on thousands of core articles please) and let editor consensus have its sway on stuff other than the easy generic nouns and pronouns. Gwen Gale 19:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Gender-neutral language 3: More discussion

I entirely support this draft. A gender-neutral proposal is long overdue -- thanks, Tony. I made two minor changes to wording ([6].) Two further comments: first, I'm afraid I don't see the utility of the first bullet point, he, his, she and her to refer to both sexes. I would omit that entirely unless it can be clarified. Second, I support Sambc's singular they addition ([7]). Even this is a bit too anti-they for my taste, but it is at least quite fair. bikeable (talk) 04:30, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

  • I oppose this draft. It seems, to me, to be more focused on condemning the English language than proposing a reasonable change in style policy. The language may have sexist origins, but common usage is not the vehicle of sexism, and both editors and readers understand this. Wikipedia should promote a neutral point of view, but the manner of expressing that point of view (within reason) should be consistent with common and familiar usage. Thus, even though some words may be derived from sexist roots, sexually-linked, or otherwise not sex-neutral, they are the manner of expression for most English speakers and are not as such meant to be sexist, and therefore not often interpreted as such. That said, I do support some of its suggestions, such as the consistent use of plural forms instead of singular forms when meaning and clarity are not affected. We, as editors, have a responsibility to see that a topic is conveyed in the most accessible manner. The most accessible manner is that which is most familiar and most recognized. This draft as such proscribes not select portions of the language that can "easily be avoided" but rather the language itself.—Kbolino 05:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Response to Kbolino. I note your partial support, and wish to bring you around to a position of not opposing the gist. Here are my rejoinders:
      • The text proscribes nothing; it is merely a recommendation.
      • I put it to you that gender-neutral language has become "the most familiar and most recognized" manner in the real world; you appear to be saying that the opposite is true. There is ample evidence of the widespread use of gender-neutral language, all around us, as some contributors have pointed to above. But I'm unsure I agree with your thesis here: the misuse of apostrophes (both omission and commission) is now widespread and more familiar in some registers than their proper use. Do you mean that the misuse of apostrophes is OK?
      • "This draft ... proscribes ... the language itself". Can you explain?
      • As announced in the first sentence, the GNL guideline concerns readers' perceptions rather than writers' ideologies. Whether gender-specific language is "meant" to be sexist (by the writer/speaker) is not the point.
      • "Common usage is not the vehicle of sexism"—I think a lot of people will disagree with the notion that common language has no potential to shape our world view.
I invite you to respond and, if you feel you can, be more supportive in the light of my rejoinders. Tony 06:20, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
You asked if I could support as revised, and I cannot, because I think it wrong in principle to be prescriptive about this. We should use language appropriate to the subject of the article that is natural in terms of other writing on the topic. For many political or modern cultural topics I would of course say to always use gender neutral language, and even change articles accordingly. Otherwise I think it altogether wrong to go to the trouble of changing existing text. There are much more important things to work on, like accuracy. In the final sentence, you admit the political motivation of shaping a world view. Now, I agree with your world view in this. If you'll look at anything I myself write, I think I automatically and smoothly avoid sexist language in discussions on WP, or in any nontechnical context unless there's no smooth way to do so. That's my style. I don't impose it on others. But I do not think we will convince each other on this. DGG (talk) 07:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree. It is wrong, in principle, to be prescriptive on this. I can support, and have supported, a text of about three sentences: Please consider the use of gender-neutral language where this can be achieved in reasonably tidy wording and without loss of precision. Gender-neutral language is not concerned with editors’ beliefs, but with avoiding language that might be interpreted by some readers as an unnecessary reinforcement of traditional stereotypes. Do not be disruptive in removing or inserting such language.. Including examples is asking for trouble; there is a comment above that complains that the present draft assumes that gender is binary, and it has a point. The real problem with man and wife is not the absence of parallellism, but the assumption that only a man can have a wife, which is ceasing to be true. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I haven't said anything on this page for a while, and I'm supposedly "inactive", but I might briefly drop in a couple of cents here. I have read parts of the discussion (43 kb of talk is a lot to get through), so I beg your forgiveness if I've missed something somewhere.
My concern isn't about whether this is right or wrong. I just want to very, very strongly discourage the use of weak "recommendations but not binding" here. I'll explain why. Everything in this manual of style and all its subpages are "recommendations". Nothing here is compulsory for editors; no editor should be reprimanded for failing to follow it unless that are deliberately acting in contradiction to it. These guidelines, however, are compulsory for articles. Their purpose is to give clear and consistent guidelines for style of writing, to prescribe standards for articles. Therefore, to encourage but not demand defeats its purpose. If we hint at something, but aren't clear that articles are expected to do so, then we may as well not have the guideline at all.
Personally, I'm not too fussed about gender-neutral language, though I think most people would agree that it's still a developing or rapidly evolving concept, with many different ways of going about it and so on. Or perhaps it is possible for us to give a definitive set of guidelines, like an order of preference or something. Frankly, I don't know what's workable or what's right. But in any case, I would be disheartened to see this manual take the "think about it if you want" line. Neonumbers 09:18, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Um ... no. MOS is mandatory for all FAs. Thus, the recommendations in MOS are a functional distinction. Thus, for FAs, MOS is essentially divided into: (1) you must or must not do this, (2) you must do one of the following, and (3) we recommend doing this (including "this is normally done"). For all other articles, MOS "should normally be followed", and exceptions can be made, but would need to be justified on a talk page. This is not my fancy; it springs directly from the text of the style-guide template and the FA criteria.
If you look closely, MOS is full of carefully crafted gradations of must. Looking at random, my eyes fell on these points concerning the wording of article titles (I've bolded the critical bits)
  • links are never used, in favor of linking the first occurrence of the item in the section text;
  • the wording tends to be short (more than 10 words may defeat the purpose);
  • articles (a, an, the) and pronouns (you, they) are typically avoided unless part of a formal name; and
  • the wording is, where possible, not identical to that of any other heading or subheading in the article.
The first point is a must. The others allow slight latitude—the last of a different type to the middle two. My point is that it seems quite reasonable for a section of MOS to be expressed in terms of a recommendation (not a must). The Manual is riven with this already, for good purpose. Tony 11:09, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Just a note; featured articles are supposed to comply with MoS in its role as a guideline. There is no extra level of compliance required. The manual is only a guideline precisely because we expect exceptions; and these exceptions are as likely to occur in FAs as anywhere else. Christopher Parham (talk) 11:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps you're right; however, an exception needs to be justified. I'm sure that in some cases, this is successfully done. Tony 13:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
No; the present state of FAC is abusive. Reviewers should remember what some of them have not realized: MOS is a guideline, and should not be employed mechanically. Tony himself uses the regrettable phrasing of MOS breach; the MOS cannot be broken, it did not descend from Sinai. Something which deviates from the text of MOS may well be a case that MOS is not intended to cover; the burden rests on the reviewer, not the article, and simply citing MOS is insufficient. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
We should all be concerned at the now-obvious push by Manderson to reduce the status of MOS. Tony 00:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Tony, MOS is, and always has been, a guideline; please read WP:POL. No handful of editors can make it more. It may be possible for them to attempt to do too much with it, and make it into a laughingstock, generally ignored. This would be a loss; I am attempting to avoid that. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
  • If this proposal becomes a part of any guideline, I give up on Wikipedia altogether. People who take issue with whether or not language can imply one gender or the other, have WAY bigger problems than just language. It is utterly ridiculous to ask editors to avoid a properly grammatical language that some have become so accustomed to using in intellectual settings (which is what I thought an encyclopedia - even one like WP - was supposed to be). Despite what Tony asserts, the use of the third person singular pronoun "he" as a universal term is still widely used, and more importantly it is still accepted. Authors who choose to use it are not shoved back to the drawing board to remove all instances of it, and neither should the editors here on Wiki be. While it's nice to say this proposal would be only a recommendation to users, I can only view it as a way to foment edit wars and more arguments on talk pages. There are people on both sides here that find language to be offensive. One side finds anything other than GNL offensive, and another side, like me, finds GNL to be nothing but offensive. Wikipedia should NOT take, promote, or "recommend" either side. Stanselmdoc 13:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Still widely used by the odd sexist male. Sure. But if you hadn't noticed, most styleguides and institutions disapprove of sexist language, and many of our readers will naturally find it offensive: that is the point of the guideline. People can edit war about anything, but there are rules about that. An argument that a change to the MOS will cause edit wars could be used against any change, and I believe that most people here won't buy it. If you want to leave WP, your'e welcome; but I hope you don't. Tony 13:22, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Yep. It's widely described. Language shifts and blows like the snow and the etymology of words can sometimes have meaningful sway upon our thoughts, which is what writing is all about and I think most editors here know it deep down (so to speak), whatever they may say about this. My only worry is editors with too much time on their hands might tear off on a bulk "fix" of thousands of articles, clumsily chaveling the readability of helpful text and citing WP:MOS while they upset folks. As someone who wontedly tries to wear her grrlishness on her sleeve I'm all for nudging a swatch of writing into something we'd call "gender neutral" but it takes more than hitting the "replace" button in a text editor and meanwhile I'd rather read something fetchingly written with a hint of gender bias (or whatever) either way than a "politically correct" hack any day. Cheers! :) Gwen Gale 13:50, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Still widely used by the odd sexist male? You're assuming far too much, Tony. First, you believe that GNL represents "non-sexism" in language. In fact, you accuse anyone who disagrees with it of being "sexist", which is ridiculous, when 1. there are a greater number of people who take issue with it than you think (and you shouldn't call them all sexist), and 2. some of us don't believe it is an appropriate response to sexism, nor do we read so much into language that we accuse it of having sexism. Also, you act as if no woman EVER uses non-GNL. In fact, many women, including myself, happen to believe more strongly in the integrity of the English language than in the so-called "non-sexist" language. Anyone mildly intelligent with no bones to pick toward men would understand that words like "mailman" are not purposefully trying to debase women. The feminist movement isn't about language, it's about attitudes. And respect for women doesn't come about from changing language, but from changing attitudes. (In fact, I believe GNL has actually done the opposite - angering many people who previously had no problem with women.) In the meantime, the English language comes off the worse for it. And you completely disregarded my point that Wikipedia shouldn't promote or recommend a GNL when both sides of the issue can find it extremely offensive. This issue should be limited to individual talk pages. Stanselmdoc 14:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I do consider them sexist, although I willing to be persuaded that some of them support it in ignorance of real-world usage and out of some kind of blanket resistance to linguistic change, in which case they're sexist in effect, not intent. Tony 00:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
And re-reading Stanselmdoc's posting: wow, so you're saying that gender-neutral language has made some males angry with women? ("who previously had no problem with women"). Let me digest that. Tony 09:54, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
YES, believe it or not, "gender-neutral" language has made men angry with some women in the feminism movement because of they're disregard for proper English. I'M angry with the feminist movement, and men like you, who seem to think that my feelings need to be protected from the big bad "he" word, like I'm too stupid to understand grammar and how it works and what phrases actually mean as opposed to what I interpret them to mean with my angry-at-men agenda. The real anti-woman movement IS gender-neutral language, because it somehow presupposes that women's feelings will be hurt if you use correct grammar - grammar that's been correct for centuries! Like all of a sudden, because I have the "freedom" to express my feelings, I'm supposed to get angry and interpret motives of authors. Oh yes, CLEARLY everything in the world written with the universal "man" and "he" were meant only for men. Give me a break. And guess what, even if they were, the sentences shouldn't have to change, the interpretation of them does! My God, it's like all women are too unintelligent to understand the real meanings of writings, so we'll protect them by changing all of the words to "reflect" that they're included too. I'm included - I get it. And if I want to write with the universal "man" and "he", I should be allowed to, which is why this whole "recommendation" is ridiculous.
And don't call me, even indirectly, ignorant or sexist. The idea that I have to use "real-world" usage is the ignorant statement - like I'm too dumb to know how to write intelligently, versus how the "real-world" writes. Plus, I don't know where you're coming from, but in my life, I've known far more people who are concerned with writing correctly than with writing to make sure we don't offend anyone. Nor do I, or have I ever stated, that I have a "blanket resistance" to linguistic change. I have no problem with linguistic changes, when they're made for the right reasons and not for agendas. Like I said before, the real reason this suggestion shouldn't be in Wikipedia is because it can be a hot-button issue (hell I'm shaking with anger having to write this), whether you see it or not, Tony, and WP shouldn't promote or make decisions on anything. It would be like WP writing a "recommendation" to change to all instances of the words "freedom fighters" to "terrorists". It's a matter each discussion page should have, not a policy.Stanselmdoc 13:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
We're missing the point here. It doesn't concern your anger, or any other gut or idealogical reaction you may have, or your view of what "proper English" is; nor does it concern mine. It does concern our readers' reactions, no less'. Not all readers object to the generic he, but a sizeable proportion do. A GNL "Please consider using ..." is aimed only at pointing out that there are opportunities to avoid the generic male pronoun without clumsiness or a reduction in precision. It doesn't represent "Wikipedia making decisions", and it certainly doesn't mandate mass retro-conversions. No one will be forced to do anything. What are you worried about? Tony 14:31, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Stanselmdoc writes: believe it or not, "gender-neutral" language has made men angry with some women in the feminism movement because of they're disregard for proper English. I'm most willing to believe it, if I see convincing evidence for it. My own guess (and it's no more than that) is that pressure for GNL has provided a handy target for some men who are offended by feminism in general; and additionally that certain elements of GNL irritate many people of either sex for stylistic reasons (but then any change to language seems to irritate many people). If the "freedom fighter" versus "terrorist" decision is one for the talk page of every article, fair enough, and for rather obvious reasons that don't have to be belabored here. But it seems to me that the putative sexism of a sentence such as An engineer typically includes a factor of safety in his design to reduce the risk of unexpected failure (adopted but gender-loaded from the inoffensive article Engineering) is satisfactorily discussed in one place. -- Hoary 06:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm confused - it concerns the readers' reactions, but not our own? That makes no sense. First, I'm a reader of Wikipedia too, so therefore I fall into the category of it concerning me. And I'm not going to write in a language that offends me, and I shouldn't be "guided" to write in a language that offends me, regardless of whether or not my language could "offend" others. I'm not out to offend others by writing the way I do, and if readers don't see that, that is THEIR problem, not mine. I am not going to bend the way I write to what is less correct in order to walk on eggshells around others. And the "putative sexism" in the sentence, "An engineer typically includes a factor of safety in his design to reduce the risk of unexpected failure," is a matter of interpretation. Yes, some see it as sexism. Others understand the intelligence and integrity of the statement, and don't assume that the writer was trying to say that all engineers are men. Granted, the sentence could be rewritten like this: "Engineers typically include a factor of safety in their design to reduce the risk of unexpected failure," which is fine with me. But I'm not going to write: "An engineer typically includes a factor of safety in his or her design to reduce the risk...". Stanselmdoc 12:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
(1) No, it concerns the reactions of a sizeable proportion of readers, not your reactions as a reader. (2) No one is going to force you to write anything. What part of "Please consider using ..." don't you understand? (3) You provide a solution that is presumable acceptable to you (pluralised), so what on earth is eating you? Tony 13:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
The whole issue of GNL eats me. I figured you would've deduced that from my anger in my above posts. And I don't recall ever saying I would be "forced" to use it (because I wouldn't do it anyway)- for me, it's actually a matter of principle. I don't think it should be endorsed or guided to or policy or anything at all. What part of the fact that WP shouldn't take sides of this don't you understand? "Gender-neutral language is concerned not with editors’ beliefs, but with avoiding language that might be interpreted by some readers as an unnecessary reinforcement of traditional stereotypes." Okay, this first sentence of your draft already implies, in fact openly states, that non-GNL is "reinforcement of traditional stereotypes" when it's not that at all! And just because someone can interpret it to mean that doesn't give him the right to change something. Making this a WP guideline allows editors to say "I'm offended by this, and I'm going to change it to reflect GNL because this guideline allows me to." But then his edit offends other editors! Either way it's offensive! WP stating "Please consider using..." or "Please avoid these" is tantamount to WP stating it prefers GNL. Stanselmdoc 16:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
You know, just forget it. I can't sit here and argue this discussion anymore. If I'm in the minority, it's not going to do anything but piss me off even more anyway. I think I'm just ready to give up on what I thought was the integrity of Wikipedia. How naive of me. Do whatever you want. Stanselmdoc 16:50, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Gender-neutral language 4: Even more discussion

  • Oppose the draft - Contrary to assertions made here, gender neutral language is not the norm and is often more cumbersome that what it tries to replace. If gender neutral language was truly the norm, then we would be able to tell that by looking at the widespread usage of gender neutral language on Wikipedia. I do think in some cases gender neutral language can be used with no ill effects. Therefore, I would support a single sentence from the draft, "Please consider the use of gender-neutral language where this can be achieved in reasonably tidy wording and without loss of precision." - Johntex\talk 14:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Gender neutral language is controversial. Full stop. Here's the rub: most people agree that it's a noble end, but there is virtually no agreement on the means of how best to write gender-neutral language. Adding this to the Manual of Style means in practice that we are dictating (not recommending) that all featured article candidates comply. I really think that's premature. The language has not yet evolved to have an accepted standard on this issue. --JayHenry 17:02, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I do still think no more than a couple of sentences in the MOS about keeping simple nouns and pronouns neutral would be enough for now, though I do support the pith of what (I believe) Tony is getting at. Gwen Gale 22:01, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Please understand that I'm not trying to be combative. I'm sorry if my previous statement was unclear. If this is truly a recommendation, I will withhold my objection. In the past, however, I've noticed that Manual of Style recommendations quickly become dictates of the Featured Article process. I believe there is a perhaps subtle, but important, distinction here. I am fine with this as a suggestive recommendation; I am opposed to this as peremptory command. If you assure me you are talking about the former, I do support this proposal. --JayHenry 08:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Jay: Yes, I'd have it much more than a recommendation, but this is a process at arriving at a compromise. MOS is full of gradations, as I've illustrated above WRT the wording of article titles (see bullets above). A "Please consider" is rather on the weak side of MOS statements. It says what it says, and is in marked contrast to wording such as "... is never ...", "en dashes are used for ranges", and "... do not ...". The wording is followed at face value in the FAC and FAR/C rooms. Thus, you may rest easy that this will be treated as a recommendation, not an imperative.
Gwen: in view of the overwhelming majority view approving of the fuller text, this will come down to an assessment of consensus when the time is appropriate. Tony 08:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm only hopin' to throw into the backs of folks' minds a notion that short 'n sweet's more easily swallowed by stirred up volunteer editors who don't like readin' WP:ABCD policy stuff to begin with. I think JayHenry's worry it'll become "law" or whatever for FAs is spot on. Mind, I'd say the hoped-for outcome is more than helpful, it's how this public wiki gets there, how much friction and needless loops of bickering editors are sent through, that I'm thinking of. Cheers to everyone! :) Gwen Gale 14:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, perhaps what I should clarify what I meant by "guidelines are compulsory". Like all guidelines, they are treated with common sense and the occasional exception. However, it is not acceptable to deviate from the guideline because I feel like it. Wordings like, "never", "tend to be", "typically avoided" give an indication of how likely an exception is to occur. Something that "tends to be" short probably just means shorter is better, so don't get carried away with extraneous details (not "use more than 10 words if you want, but please don't want"). Links being "never" used probably means that, it's really not nice to look at and there's always a workaround, so use it. Something that "typically" happens is something that is normally best, but not always. "Nevers" and "always" typically reflect a consistency effort; "typicallys" reflect what is easier to read. Elasticity is allowed, not deviation. To reason an exception is to apply the manual too.
To link this back to the topic, the "recommendations" we talk about are ones that are desirable traits, but like all guidelines, not applied as law. The common thread amond the "recommendations" group is that you can't judge their adherence objectively, they're about how you write, not what. They are still firm recommendations that are mandatory for articles. It's "it's better, so follow it", not "follow it, but you don't have to". Neonumbers 13:34, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, Neonumbers, for this clear exegesis. There is one user here who would have the whole of MOS regarded as a flat, bland ignore-it-if-you-please document. In that case, we may as well post a speedy-delete tag right now. Exceptions there may be, although that person has failed to come up with examples when asked for them; exceptions still need to be justified if other users at a talk page request it. What is so hard about that? Tony 14:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, exceptions need to be justified if so requested. I guess I just want us to be aware that, in principle, if this proposal is successful, it will mandate gender-neutral language. There is no "maybe" about it, articles will have to follow it unless they can justify otherwise. Keen editors will make edits to fulfil the requirements, but no editor will be allowed to make an edit to the contrary. It would be there to help us write good articles, so for the purposes of its inclusion or exclusion, it is compulsory for articles. That's the approach that has to be taken for it to be successful.
Personally, I'm not a proponent of gender-neutral language, but I don't consider that to be relevant. I guess I just want to be confident that these guidelines can give firm, clear advice that I (being someone that doesn't think about gender-neutral language) can easily understand and follow. Remember it's a lot easier for someone who already has experience with its workability. I think it's fair to say it's still a reasonably controversial issue (I think some style guides do have it, and some don't). I appreciate your efforts, Tony. Neonumbers 01:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, no. There's too much loud opposition to a strong expression of the guideline, I suspect; and in any case, "Please consider" is on the very weak side of the shades of persuasive strength in MOS. No one will be forced to use it, nor to justify not using it if challenged. All they have to do is to "consider" using it. It's that or nothing, I think, but I'm willing to be corrected if my reading of the discussion is faulty. Tony 02:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Using Tony's explanation of "please consider", I think worded that way, perhaps, as "please consider in appropriate cases" such a policy might be appropriate. I think its worth including as an explanation for those cases where editors want to follow it. It would have some merit if only to say that (wo)men is never acceptable English. DGG (talk) 03:52, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
That's the point I'm trying to make. "Please consider" is in effect a "follow it, but you don't have to" approach, which doesn't help me as an editor understand the expectations of the manual, so the guideline's pretty much useless. The recommendation either has to be firm and clear, or not there at all. Let's forget about "forcing" editors for a moment. This manual does not exist to persuade editors, simply because you cannot expect any editor to be familiar with entire manual. It exists to prescribe standards for articles, and a weak "please consider" will do more harm to that purpose than good. Never mind what I am and aren't "allowed" to do, my following of this manual is because I want this to be a professional work. How would this help me understand the Wikipedian style of writing? It wouldn't. It'd just confuse me.
If this was less controversial, then I would support making the guideline firm and clear, even though my personal views don't coincide with it. Maybe a time will come where there is a strong consensus it's the right thing to do, but looking at the discussion, I don't think it's yet. Neonumbers 11:56, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
It is worth noting that the Manual of Style is treated as hard, exceptionless policy with respect to featured articles. Whether or not that is desirable is not the issue here. The point is that any "soft recommendations" in this page will be forced upon people. And per the many objections in the above sections, editors do not think that GNL is worth forcing upon Wikipedia. >Radiant< 12:34, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
This is simply incorrect; there is full understanding at WP:FAC that MOS is a guideline, I've never seen an FA-worthy article fail strictly on MOS concerns, and I've seen many article pass with exceptions to MOS. The easiest example to track down is the number of articles that exceed the 50KB readable prose guideline at WP:SIZE. We have many featured articles above 60KB, several at 70KB and even one at 80KB, all passing FAC or FAR as exceptions to the Manual of Style guidelines. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:40, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, you assert that they'll be forced on people. What part of "Please consider using ..." don't you understand? Tony 12:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Actually, you are attempting to have them forced upon people, as evidenced by your edits here, here and here. You're the one who keeps asserting the MOS may not be broken, and you are the one that tries to add your POV on this matter to the MOS here... the intended consequence is very obvious. >Radiant< 13:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Again, any revert that you do is apparently fine, but any that I do is forcing things down people's gullets. The only assertion I've made on that count is that exceptions need to be justified if queried by other editors on the talk page. Don't twist my words. Tony 13:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  • WP:KETTLE, WP:NPA. Come back once you're interested in discussing the issues at hand, rather than the people commenting on them. As I recall you were given several personal attack warnings last week by a variety of editors; perhaps it's time that you take the hint. >Radiant< 13:35, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Inappropriate; should this be reopened at AN/I for further examination and a reminder that you were also counseled to cool off and review WP:CIVIL and WP:POINT? Please try to help this discussion stay focused on GNL and not personal issues. Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:40, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
    • You mean the thread you started where you were solidly trounced by independent editors who agreed with me that your complaints, weasel wording and wikilawyering were spurious, that calling people Nazis really is a bad thing, and that reminding people of civility isn't a threat? Please don't try to spin doctor your way out of that, your modus operandi of calling for sanctions on people who disagree with you isn't helping anyone, least of all yourself. >Radiant< 15:59, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I haven't got time to waste on this type of discourse, and your kettle and npa things, whatever they are ... well .... Tony 13:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Another gender-neutral proposal

  • I agree with the concept of the draft, where in certain cases gender-neutral wording can be substituted without detriment. However, I think providing specific guidelines for employing gender-neutral language is too much, at least at this point in time. Perhaps something simpler, with specific examples of when not to employ gender-neutral wording, would suffice:

In some cases gender-neutral language can be utilized without compromising the linguistic quality of the article. Please consider applying gender-neutral wording if appropriate.
There are specific instances when gender-neutral language should not be applied:

  • The titles of works, e.g. A Man on the Moon.
  • Direct quotations, e.g. "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."
  • Where all referents are of one gender, e.g. "Apollo 11 was manned by three astronauts."
  • When translating text from a language that expresses grammatical gender, such as the French and German languages.
That last point is possibly questionable, and those who are better versed in grammar and translation could decide if that is appropriate.
--Dan East 15:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
The last point is a can of worms (for example, when translating a phrase of French referring to a bed, we should keep the literal translation using "he" to refer to the bed - and I hope I remembered the gender of "lit" correctly there...). The rest of it is okay, but leans more heavily than I believe necessary towards the "don't bother" angle. SamBC(talk) 19:57, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Regarding this can of worms, gender in many languages is a property of the word (not the object the word is used to describe) therefore, a good translation will give the translated word the appropriate English gender of the object. Examples (from German): "Das Mädchen holt seine Mutter ab" word for word translation "the girl picks its mother up", better "the girl picks her mother up". "Der Beutel. Gib mir den!" - w-f-w "The bag. Give him to me!" - better "The bag. Give it to me!" What one should do, is try to reflect the style of the original text, this would include reflecting whether the author has tried to use gender neutral language or not. Thehalfone 11:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Gender-neutral language 5: Jimbo supports

(from WT:JIMBO [8])

Gender-neutral language
User:Tony1 is a professional copy editor who does such great work on featured article candidates that his advice is essentially required reading for FAC nominators. Tony has put together a proposal for adding gender-neutral language to the Manual of Style. His proposal is very mild, it does not require anything of editors, stating only, "Please consider the use of gender-neutral language where this can be achieved in reasonably tidy wording and without loss of precision."
There are very good reasons for using gender-neutral language beyond the fact that the vast majority of newspapers, newswires, and non-fiction publishers already make it their practice. Using the word "man" to refer to a person of either gender evokes images of males only in the minds of both sexes, "filtering out recognition of women's participation in ... major areas of life." (Schneider, J.W., and Hacker, S.L. (1973) "Sex role imagery and use of the generic 'man' in introductory texts" American Sociologist 8, pp. 12-18; a study confirmed e.g. here)
This issue is being discussed at WT:MOS#Proposal for guidelines on gender-neutral language. Sadly, it looks like there will be no consensus for inclusion or excluson of Tony's recommendations. This seems to me like the kind of issue where it would be appropriate for you to step in. If you disagree, I apologize, but I hope you agree and will ask that the recommendations be included in the Manual of Style. Thank you. ←BenB4 07:59, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
I support the sentence you have outlined above. I generally keep my own writing completely gender neutral, though I fail on rare occasions. I think the best approach to gender neutrality is a mild and evolutionary approach rather than awkward new constructions, and I also think that the awkward constructions are not necessary. Of course my writing may give hives to people who can't tolerate the singular "they".  :-) --Jimbo Wales 21:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I also concur with that single sentence, and invite those who disagree with it to outline their objections here. This edit contained two other qualifications which drew some support and no oppostion; I still think they would be useful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:56, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Are you objecting to including the examples and suggestions included in Tony's proposal? ←BenB4 17:45, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I am principally observing that others do; although I think they have some good points.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
It's become clear that attempting to deal with specifics is going to go nowhere, so the short version is the best way forward; the qualifications are fine. I would like to add "In particular, avoid using masculine pronouns where gender is indeterminate" but I suspect this will be too much for people. Marskell 16:36, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Making any direct demand is going to be too much for people. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  • And a ban on indeterminate he does not appeal to me. All of the methods of supplying the lack of a truly generic third-person singular promoun have disadvantages; the choice between them should be up to editorial discretion. One of the landmarks of those broad sunlit uplands from which sexism is as perverse as anti-Semitism will be that indeterminate he and indeterminate she will have the same status; my crystal ball does not tell me whether both will be obsolete or they will both be used alternando. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:57, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I do not like the current wording, as recently added to the MOS. It is clumsy and inaccurate. For example, "The use of gender-neutral language should not assert editors’ beliefs" which literally means "if you personally believe in gender-neutral language, then you should not use gender-neutral language". Obviously an editor would believe in gender-neutral language for them to use it in the first place. I have a belief that words should be spelled correctly in articles, thus I am asserting my beliefs whenever I correct misspellings. Furthermore, I feel that the situations in which gender-neutral language is not appropriate should to be specified in the MOS. Has anyone looked at my proposal a few paragraphs above? --Dan East 19:39, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Clearly there is an ambiguity; I do not read "does not assert editors' beliefs" as equal to "asserts things editors do not believe"; but Dan East does. I deny that assert means "act in accordance with". Rewording is welcome. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I fail to see why any reference to the beliefs of the editor is necessary at all. I can see only two reasons for inclusion:
  • To discourage individuals with an agenda (feminists, etc) from wielding this guideline as a weapon in their quest to propagate their beliefs.
  • As a disclaimer, so even though an editor may be sexist, they can use neutral wording because "it is the right thing to do within WP" without asserting that as their belief.
Either way, what is the point? If this sort of silliness is to be included, then it is far more applicable to other areas of the MOS. What about capitalizing the names of deities? Why doesn't it require some sort of belief disclaimer, so I can, with a clear conscience, capitalize the name of a deity I do not believe in? I removed the belief wording completely, but Marskell reverted back to his original version (without participating in the discussion of the issues I'm raising). --Dan East 22:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
Marskell's version is my adaption of Tony's proposal. Both of Dan's reasons for inclusion seem sound to me, although the second one begs the question of whether opposition to GNL is inherently sexist. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't endorse either of the two reasons for inclusion as legitimate or necessary. In fact, I don't think either (or both together) justifies the wording. The point I'm trying to make is that these concerns are applicable to practically everything in the MOS. The first point is covered under NPOV in general. The second by the Being Bold mantra. I just don't see why gender neutrality requires the explicit, redundant inclusion of statements regarding the beliefs (or mood, or whim, or agenda) of the editor. An edit should be judged independently of the editor that made it (or at least it should be). --Dan East 22:48, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
  • It's not very good wording. It basically says "use GNL" wrapped in enough weasel clauses so as to placate the people who disagree with the concept (of which there are several, on this talk page above). It is easily read as "use GNL, since this always can be achieved in reasonably tidy wording, and if you remove it you're being disruptive". >Radiant< 08:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
  • That's a fairly creative reading, as far as I can tell. It says to add it if it's reasonable, I'm not sure how it implies that it's always reasonable, and it implies that adding or removing it can be disrupting, and if it would be, don't do it. SamBC(talk) 09:07, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The power of language

(Yes, why not name the section break something meaningful?) I support having a section on gender-neutral language, certainly, and congratulate Tony on keeping his temper so well (on the whole) through the spirals of discussion here. The argument that language is a superficial wrapping of thought, so that it doesn't matter if "he" is used for the general case (which is merely "grammatically correct" (?)) won't fly with linguists or philosophers, of course. And the power of language over thought and over social processes is illustrated on this page itself, by the emotional appeals above against gender-neutral language. Why would a proposal to even consider using gender-neutral phrasing matter so much as to have people shaking with anger and waving the "PC" banner (classic substitute for reasoning), if gender in language didn't really matter? It does. That's why we need language that doesn't favor maleness. Or the very very least, as the modest proposal of the moment puts it, we need to please consider moving slightly closer to not favouring maleness quite so much. Bishonen | talk 09:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC).

  • Wow, the section got removed all over again already. I've reinserted a version without the weaselly sentence in the middle. No "some people", please. Short is beautiful. Bishonen | talk 09:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC).
Support: both the edit and the reasoning. It is a modest proposal; incredibly modest. In three months when people realize the sky hasn't fallen, we can come back and decide whether to fill it out slightly. That the emotional reaction of opposers actually underscores the relevance of the issue is observant—I believe that's why the term "reactionary" was coined. Marskell 10:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Exactly, Bishonen, language is powerful. That's why I want to protect its integrity. Do not imply that my reactions aren't tied to reason - it's a completely different frame of thought than yours, but it's still reason. Your thought process about GNL = GNL is good because it prevents maleness from being favored. My thought process about GNL = GNL is bad because maleness isn't favored to begin with, so there is no need for an unnecessary "language correction". Tony's thought process about GNL = non-GNL is sexist. My thought process on GNL = GNL is a hypercorrection to language which should be avoided because people mistakenly read motives into writings. And I find your claim that linguists and philosophers wouldn't support the universal "he" obvious. Of course there are some that don't support it. Just like there are some who DO support it. Hence, my POINT from the beginning.
I also feel the need to defend my emotions. You chose to use my "emotional reaction" to GNL as a reason to endorse GNL. (And perhaps, juuust perhaps, I was getting mad because of comments like yours and Tony's, which ignore my point and immediately delve into me "waving the PC banner". In fact, Tony's very first reply to someone who happened to disagree with his proposal was "You just don't get it, do you." (a personal attack, if you ask me) Also, Tony's first response to me was "Still widely used by the odd sexist male" - so I'm a sexist male now? 1.a personal attack and 2.I'm not sexist NOR a male) Someone has an emotional reaction and therefore his argument has no reason and no point? Sure, someone has an emotional reaction against the War in Iraq, clearly that underscores how important it is to keep the war going. Please consider re-reading what my first response said: "Despite what Tony asserts, the use of the third person singular pronoun "he" as a universal term is still widely used, and more importantly it is still accepted. Authors who choose to use it are not shoved back to the drawing board to remove all instances of it, and neither should the editors here on Wiki be. While it's nice to say this proposal would be only a recommendation to users, I can only view it as a way to foment edit wars and more arguments on talk pages. There are people on both sides here that find language to be offensive. One side finds anything other than GNL offensive, and another side, like me, finds GNL to be nothing but offensive. Wikipedia should NOT take, promote, or "recommend" either side." My point was that WP should not encourage something that can cause problems. I have no idea why certain editors can't get my point through their heads. But like I said above, I give up on this whole issue. I keep forgetting that Wikipedia has very little integrity, hence I get into arguments like this. The only reason I'm responding here is because I felt the need to defend my point and my emotions. Stanselmdoc 12:54, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
  • First, this needs to warn people against introducting grammatical problems (as with singular they) and neologisms (as with spivaks). Second, we do need to address the issue of people using the MOS as hard exceptionless policy, otherwise this is creating needless conflict. >Radiant< 10:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Your first point is fraught with problems - a big one being there is no consensus to either encourage or forbid singular "they", and no-one has even suggested spivaks in this debate - they've been brought up by you every time I've seen them in this discussion.
      • I'm simply looking at ways the wording can be interpreted. Proponents of singular they will read this as endorsing singular they; if that isn't the purpose, it should be reworded. >Radiant< 10:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Your second point doesn't actually bind specifically to this discussion, and should be a seperate discussion - it's not as if it only affects/is affected by GNL. SamBC(talk) 10:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
      • The reason I'm bringing that up is because the main proponents of GNL are precisely the people who wish the MOS to be hard policy. It should be an unrelated matter, but unfortunately it isn't. >Radiant< 10:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
        • No, they're not necessarily the same people. Take me: yesterday I posted in support of PMAnderson about treating WP:MOS as the guideline it is, and of his edit of the FAC criteria to that effect.[9] Yet today I just reinserted the GNL recommendation here on MOS.[10]. The two aren't connected, to my mind. Bishonen | talk 12:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC).
I think, in her post here, that Radiant is referring to me. I wish that people would keep to the substance of the project rather than shifting discourse onto a political, personal level. Just what she means by "hard policy" is difficult to know. This room is full of users who probably just want a MOS that adds cohesion to the project (beyond what a google search will yield), and that users feel they should follow unless there's a good reason not to; and that where it's not followed, it's reasonable to expect a justification when it comes up on a talk page. Is that hard policy? Who knows? But I don't believe it's worth having a MOS unless it has such a role.
Bishonen, as usual, has produced an elegant version that is pared back to the essential meanings. I like it. Thank you! Tony 11:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
This is a perfect example of someone whose main contribution here is attacking the people who do not agree with him, and sucking up to those who do. I suspect that a meaningful consensus is not possible as long as this unfortunate badgering behavior from just a handful of users continues. You don't make guidelines by attacking people. >Radiant< 13:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Hi, Radiant, you've been around a long time, as have I. I think I was the first to welcome you back a year ago—digging—yep, I was.[11] I've always been impressed by your style. The wide range, the way you summarize things, the authority that comes from your smarts, that kind of thing. And you choose to appear as an ordinary fomentor of strife here? A stirrer-up, a thrower of spitballs. Just another quarrelsome motherfucker. Shit. I'm depressed. Bishonen | talk 15:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC).
Anyone's belief as to the bindingness of MoS is irrelevant in this discussion. Please discuss the contribution, not the contributor. As to attacking, Radiant, I think a lot of people have been incivil during this discussion, I expect I have, and I know that you have, so can we all just calm down? Tony, that goes for you too. SamBC(talk) 13:39, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
No, the predictable practical effects of MOS are most relevant; indeed, they are the only reason to have MOS at all. As for me, if anybody ever says "MOS breach, use gender-neutral language" at FAC, and [the objection] is not immediately smacked down, I will conclude that the wording is fatally ambiguous, and amend or dispute it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:54, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I'd like a halt to the use of violent imagery here, such as that a user should be "immediately smacked down", and accusations that some people are "beating others over the brow" with MOS, which have been levelled more than once. Tony 15:18, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, I'd like a halt to abusive edit summaries, but I'm not likely to get that either. English is a metaphorical language, and these metaphors do, or should, convey meaning (what is smacked down should be the objection, not the objector, however; I'll fix that). I do not believe in sympathetic magic, and I object to the practice of browbeating, which is all too common, not the word. Now, does Tony have anything to say on the substance? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:35, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
      • I seem to recall that, a little while ago, someone mentioned that Tony is involved in copyediting in real life. I would like to ask him if this proposal is based largely (or at least significantly) on experience with the "real world" style guides he's used. If this is a common feature of style guides for any sort of comparable work, then that's a good argument in itself for the inclusion of a mild encouragement of GNL, at least. SamBC(talk) 17:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
        • I'm closely acquainted with only the styleguides I have to use, many of which have statements of varying strength concerning the need to avoid overtly gender-specific language. My impression, more broadly, is that the generic male pronoun is assiduously avoided in text designed to sell products or services (with the possible exception of a few, highly male-oriented products—unsure), and in (both right- and left-wingish) government documents, political promotions and advertising, where it is vital to be inclusive of voters of both genders and not to irritate the sizeable proportion of readers who would be irritated—whether consciously or unconsciously—by the construction. Inviting WPs to maintain an inclusive tenor in their language is behind the move here. As someone else pointed out, it's no big deal and should have been done a long time ago. Tony 01:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
No, you completely missed the point I was making, which is that where writers are most obviously aware of the need to avoid offending a proportion of their readership by using gender-specific language, they tend to avoid it. Tony 09:02, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Aside from the blatant appeal to authority here, you have established quite well that you are entirely incapable of avoiding offending people. Making Wikipedia follow your example seems like a bad idea. >Radiant< 14:23, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Hey, I'd like to chime in with my strong support again, for any concise recommendation in the MOS that writers stay "gender neutral" wherever they can. Like it or not, language and the etymologies of words do have sway on our thoughts. My only worry is a recommendation or implementation so sweeping as to distract or disrupt helpful editors who don't agree on this topic. Gwen Gale 17:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Exceptions to GNL

Can we reach an agreement on exceptions to the application of GNL? These are objective and straightforward, and apply universally. I would think that both proponents and opponents of GNL would agree to at least the first two.

There are specific instances when gender-neutral language should not be applied:

  • The titles of works, e.g. A Man on the Moon.
  • Direct quotations, e.g. "That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind."
  • Where all referents are of one gender, e.g. "Apollo 11 was manned by three astronauts."

--Dan East 11:37, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

  • If the word "manned" can be considered contrary to GNL, what about such words as "actor"? Or even "history"? >Radiant< 13:20, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, "actor" is a point of contention, but is generally understood to apply to anyone who acts regardless of gender of the thesp or the role; actress traditionally actually refers to the gender of the role. "History" is a straw man, as the claim that it comes from "his" "story" is actually a folk etymology. It actually comes from ancient greek histor, one who knows or sees, was imported wholesale by latin, and thence to middle english to modern english.[12] SamBC(talk) 13:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
      • The claim about "actress" is a-historic, as any history of Restoration drama would tell you; I have no idea whether it has now come to be true. The line between "actor" and "actress", when it came into existence, was player, not part: Margaret Hughes was an actress; Willie Hughes (if he existed) was not.
      • Many of the objections by "some readers" are as devoid of etymological support as "history" and "manhole". If we are to avoid offending the weaker brethren, we will have to consider the argument that the present form of the word has patriarchal effect. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:25, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I would disagree with the instance 'Where all referents are of one gender, e.g. "Apollo 11 was manned by three astronauts."' as this is forcing non-gender neutrality where it does not belong - 'manned' is a gender neutral term, and using it purely and solely in instances where operators/staff/persons are male is an incorrect usage. In addition, and on a separate point, some people value gender distinctions - e.g. "I'm not a pilot, I'm an aviatrix!". Forcing so-called gender neutral language into use, however gently, is actually forcing a particular viewpoint on how language should be used onto people - a viewpoint that is commonly associated with (radical) feminism, but obviously adopted by other groups. Just as all women are not feminists, and all men are not misogynists or chauvinists, not all people agree that 'gender neutral language' is a good thing. The Manual of Style should give guidance about choosing between equally valid options and avoiding 'mechanical' language errors in areas such spelling and grammar. I do not believe the Manual of Style should be adopting political positions, no matter how worthy the cause seems to some people. WLDtalk|edits 15:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I recognize both your points. A better example for groups is required. Regarding the second portion, which is addressing GNL in the MOS in general, I have a comment. My personal interpretation as to why the MOS exists in the first place is this: WP is an inefficient consumer of volunteer resources, wasting vast amounts of time in reversion, decision making, and the overwriting or discarding of contributions. The MOS provides a centralized place where the decisions required to maintain quality (which includes many things like formatting consistency, grammar, NPOV) can be made without so much redundancy. If it weren't for the MOS then discussion, debate and voting would have to take place over and over within individual articles. The issue of GNL is being and will continue to be addressed within WP one way or the other. Personally, I want it taken care of here so the MOS can address it properly, whatever the outcome, to help make WP a slightly better steward of the massive volunteer resources it enjoys. So whether or not the issue of GNL is politicized, we need to debate and decide on it here so the MOS can address it. One further point is that your examples are of a personal nature - a female aviator may refer to herself as she chooses. However WP is not that individual's private mouthpiece. --Dan East 15:48, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Thank-you for your reply. While I appreciate the point that it is more efficient to make a decision in a single central place like the MoS, this is an instance where I think it is necessary not to do so. I think the quotation is "When is is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision". In my opinion 'Gender Neutral Language' is politicised, whether we like it or not, and taking a political stand is not a role for the MoS. I think the best we can hope for is to adopt a Neutral Point Of View and not adopt one side of the debate over the other. The MoS should resolutely not take any position at all on GNL - it should be supremely indifferent.WLDtalk|edits 16:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

What we are now discussing

Please consider the use of gender-neutral language where this can be achieved in reasonably tidy wording and without loss of precision. Gender-neutral language should not be used to assert a point of view, but to avoid language that some readers may interpret as unnecessary reinforcement of traditional stereotypes. Do not be disruptive in removing or inserting such language.

Bishonen removed the second sentence in restoring this the last time. It's Tony's, not mine; I think it usefully limits and justifies things, but I don't insist on it.

Would Radiant's objections be met by some form of "This is a suggestion, not a FAC criterion"? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:25, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that's good, for now at least (we can see if the world ends). Perhaps replacing the beginning with something like "suggests but does not require"? SamBC(talk) 17:51, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Why don't we just copy the first three paragraphs of the MOS and paste it into the GNL section? If redundancy is required then we should at least be thorough. The clauses about asserting POV, being disruptive, and FAC criteria are totally redundant. The editors that would voluntarily adhere to such guidelines would likely be aware of them already. --Dan East 18:08, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I support this, but I have a question about the examples and guidance in Tony's lengthier proposal. As far as I can tell there are only objections to two of them ("man-made" and "manned") and surely noncontroversial examples can replace those. Are there any objections in principle to provide detailed advice and examples for those who may not know how to write with GNL very well? ←BenB4 19:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Given the objections to the specifics, it might be worth starting with an essay for that, and linking it. Then it really just has to be "not too bad" for people to not object to the linkage, as the link doesn't entirely bestow authority on the essay. SamBC(talk) 20:19, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
I have moved Tony's proposal to Wikipedia:Gender-neutral language so that it can be worked on there. ←BenB4 03:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I would arguee about several of them, and you will find a comment by someone else on Tony's proposal being binary somewhere above, which would affect man and wife. In short, I think any list of specifics will make the proposal more controversial. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Why do we need to specifically reference FAC here? Marskell 10:20, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Because this started out as a way to force it upon featured articles. But of course it applies to the page as a whole. >Radiant< 14:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the history before it was proposed. But I atrongly object to any effort to make GNL a FA criterion; one reason I supported this version was that I thought the language could not be used to make one, but I see that both Marskell and Radiant disagree. Therefore, I propose the following expansion of the last sentence: Stylistic choices should be changed by consensus; we deprecate disruption in removing or inserting gender-neutral language and any effort to treat its presence or absence as a featured article criterion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Deprecate is a very poor verb for this. It conveys that the object is now outmoded or obsolete; "disruption" is not something that was ever condoned, so it is not being deprecated. I'm changing it to simply "discouraged". --Dan East 02:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I went ahead and extended the text to explicitly define GNL as "a purely stylistic preference". Perhaps that will alleviate some concerns on both sides. Since the clause was extended to require consensus, does that alleviate FAC concerns since the article's GNL (or lack of) is the result of discussion specific to that article? --Dan East 03:00, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Wait a second, are there any other stylistic criterion which are exempted for FACs? I don't think so. There is no consensus here to treat this any differently. If someone objects to a FAC because it has gender-specific language, that's the perfect opportunity to correct it. And people object to gender-specific language in FACs as it is now -- this is creating a specific exemption which did not exist before when FAC reviewers chose to raise GNL issues on their own. The insertion of this new loophole was not discussed and I am reverting it. ←BenB4 02:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
What about the following, with the addition of "automatic": Thus it should not be construed as an automatic criterion for featured article candidacy. --Dan East 03:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
No part of WP:WIAFA is automatic; promotion is all based on consensus, ad there are many examples of articles being promoted even when guidelines aren't upheld. The entire issue is a red herring. There need be no mention of FAC in GNL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Then you have no ground to object to the present purely negative text. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I would be content with "This suggestion does not authorize..." If editors oppose on this ground on their own say-so, it should be treated as their reasoning deserves. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:32, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I think it is problematic that people object to the specifics, because that implies that people disagree on the specifics. The problem with this wording is that it is vague. It does not explain what it means by GNL, and I'm not really sure what is meant by "asserting a point of view [with GNL]". The point is that every vaguely-worded guideline on Wikipedia will be interpreted differently by some people than what the author intended. >Radiant< 14:29, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It would be helpful if Radiant would propose a text, or an argument that no text is safe. It would also be helpful if Marskell would attempt to discuss this at all, and in a calm tone. I am unconvinced by the edit summary good god, there certainly IS consensus. there's one person shouting and two dozen who don't have a problem - it seems self-refuting. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:26, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

This business of excluding FA criteria is silliness; people requested gender neutral language in FACs before this proposal, and will continue to do so after this proposal. Creating an exception in MOS is awkward, and won't affect practice. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

This is not intended to prevent people from discussing it; if they can get consensus, fine. It is intended, merely and quite simply, to prevent people from citing MOS in demanding GNL; while MOS said nothing about it, that form of disruption was clearly non-actionable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:12, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm getting the impression you don't understand WP:FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk)\
Thank you for the support. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:32, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
This is not consistent. The first sentence ask people to "consider" using gender neutral terms, whilst the second implicitly states that: Gender-neutral language should be used to avoid language that some readers may interpret as unnecessary reinforcement of traditional stereotypes. Thehalfone 11:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Why is gender-neutrality not mandatory?

I'm just stumbling into this. I was going to change "Please consider using" to "Use" as a matter of helpful wikignoming, and was astonished to find here that the English Wikipedia is not officially gender-neutral, doubly so that people are actually debating the point in this day and age. We're trying to be a serious reference work here, and every other one I can think of is resolutely gender-neutral. Encountering masculine (or worse, feminine to show you're open minded) in nonfiction prose is somewhere between quaint and cringe-worthy embarrassing. Using the indefinite "they" only shows you're being informal or haven't figured out how to do it right. I don't agree that this is political, or hard to enforce, or anything else. Nearly every reputable encyclopedia, newspaper, textbook, journal, etc., has a gender-neutral policy.

We're supposed to be out in front of things here on Wikipedia, not rounding up the laggards. This is one of those places where if the press got wind we're discussing the issue we would become a laughing stock again. In practice nearly every article here is gender-neutral. One would have to hunt to find articles that are not. It is easy to be just as precise and clear in gender-neutral language, and after a little practice it becomes second nature. If an editor learned English a long while ago when this was not the norm we can be patient, but converting an article to gender-neutral form is a good thing we should encourage. There are a very few cases, well-defined and understood, where gender-specific words are better. We can deal with those. But promoting an article to FA or allowing any other article to be unnecessarily gender-specific demonstrates that we are behind the times. I think we already have policy-wide consensus on the issue and can say so in the manual of style. If not, and if this isn't something we can decide over here, we should take the gender-neutral section out, suspend the discussion pending our resolving the matter on the policy pages, and come back only when we have a mandate. Wikidemo 11:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, Wikidemo. Here's the online styleguide of the respected UK Guardian on the subject; its journalists are required to follow it, and I don't think it's out of line with most in-house styleguides:

gender issues

  • Our use of language should reflect not only changes in society but the newspaper's values. Phrases such as career girl or career woman, for example, are outdated (more women have careers than men) and patronising (there is no male equivalent): never use them
  • actor, comedian: covers men and women; not actress, comedienne (but waiter and waitress are acceptable - at least for the moment)
  • firefighter, not fireman; PC, not WPC (most police forces have abandoned the distinction)
  • businessmen, housewives, "male nurse", "woman pilot", "woman (lady!) doctor": do not use terms such as these, which reinforce outdated stereotypes. If you need to use an adjective, it is female and not "woman" in such phrases as female president, female MPs
  • Use humankind or humanity rather than mankind, a word that, as one of our readers points out, "alienates half the population from their own history"
  • Never say "his" to cover men and women: use his or her, or a different construction; in sentences such as "a teacher who beats his/her pupils is not fit to do the job", there is usually a way round the problem - in this case, "teachers who beat their pupils ..."

Tony 12:01, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Ahem. The "Grauniad" is not respected by everyone. If anything, it has a reputation of being somewhat left-wing and over serious on what can be described as 'politically correct' issues. Citing it as an example to follow would expose you to ridicule from, say Daily Telegraph readers. I wonder what the style guide for The Sun says. It certainly has a larger circulation than that of the Guardian. The Sun's circulation figures are about 3 million per day, the Guardian about 350,000. This is not to say size is everything, but if we are addressing the widest possible readership for Wikipedia, following the Guardian's lead may not be the obvious way. WLDtalk|edits 20:25, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
And those who do respect dear old Grauniad agree it has a point of view (and rather more reason than we have to appease the scruples of every fraction of its potential paying readership). Do let us know if you find a style guide for the Sun; its guides for headlines should offer a whole new light for our naming conventions. </irony> Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Summary of consensus on the gender-neutral language text

Dear fellow editors—I'm posting the summary (now updated) that I'd already prepared for your consideration last week before things became really heated. I've sincerely tried to be NPOV in categorising the participants according to their support or opposition, and in summarising their views in as few words as possible by direct quotation or paraphrase. It may be possible to pore over the list and take issue, and perhaps there are one or two borderline cases. I'm sorry in advance if I've misrepresented anyone (please edit my entry for you if that is the case, but keep as short as possible); however, I don't think the overall picture will change. Of 35 participants, 31 either support or do not express straight opposition to what the debate has come down to: the shortened version. Here are the details:

  • 23 support, of whom many support the original, full version, and quite a few would be more comfortable with stronger wording.
  • 6 are unclear, of whom 4, in my reading, might well support the current shortened version if asked now; the remaining 2 are not clearly in opposition, at least to the shortened version.
  • 4 oppose, all of them expressing extremely strong views—two of them repeatedly.

That there is overwhelming support for the shortened version is staring us in the face. Unanimity would have been preferable, but I believe that almost all Wikipedians, from Jimbo Wales down, would be comfortable in the notion that there is consensus for that version. I believe that it should be inserted, as Bishonen and PManderson have already done (albeit slightly different wordings), and that we should all move on from this debate. Tony 10:33, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Support

  • BenB4 (long overdue; cited two peer-reviewed studies suggesting that sexist language alters the perceptions of readers to the disadvantage of women)
  • SandyGeorgia (long overdue, logical; helpful tips)
  • A1 (query potential of “person” etc to disrupt the flow; query retro-editing of articles for GNL alone)
  • Jimbo Wales (supports a shortened version. “I generally keep my own writing completely gender neutral,…”; uses the singular they.)
  • dramatic (provided clumsy constructions are avoided)
  • Tony1 (long overdue, reflecting language in the real world; recommendation only, not proscriptive, but proposal too mild)
  • SamBC (but no objections to words suchs as “manhole” please)
  • Deckiller (sexist language a huge problem on WP)
  • Rick Block (but not keen on singular they)
  • Mark Askari (a “fine” proposal; proposed edits that were partly implemented)
  • Kolindigo (proposed new wording - accepted)
  • Hoary (if an editor objects to a specific GNL usage, they can bring it up on a talk page; strong support for singular they)
  • LuciferMorgan (finds generic male pronoun offensive)
  • Curtis Clark (A little hard to categorise, because says "Frankly, I don't care", possibly due to unease about the specific points in the full version. "I will continue to write accurate, gender-neutral prose on Wikipedia (although I do sometimes use the generic "she", which would go against the proposal), and I will continue to copyedit the most egregious examples of unsupported gender-specific language") Support, although it's unfortunate that it has allowed a lot of unrelated bitterness to surface.--Curtis Clark 13:45, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Chick Bowen (but doesn’t like singular they much)
  • Marskell (proposal is “incredibly” mild; strong support for singular they)
  • Gwen Gale (but would prefer just a couple of sentences of policy; concerned about readability and the use of generic professional titles; has since confirmed her support to me)
  • bikeable (strong support, long overdue; strong support for singular they)
  • PManderson (supports short version, and inserted it into MOS; opposes specific points)
  • Slrubenstein
  • Dan East (agrees with a shortened version plus list of exceptions, but not with the specification of ways of avoiding, nor reference to beliefs of the editor) Correct, although I prefer the GNL clause to match the style and tone of the rest of the MOS. --Dan East 10:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Bishonen (“we need language that doesn't favor maleness”; mentioned the power of language over thought; inserted shortened version)
  • Paul Erik (preferred full version, but also supports Bishonen’s shorter one)
  • Donald McLean (strongly support, it is a perfectly reasonable style guideline) Dfmclean 15:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Wikidemo (strong support below)

Slightly uneasy, but appear not to oppose

  • Johntex (opposes the full draft; GNL not the norm; often cumbersome; but “I would support a single sentence from the draft, "Please consider the use of gender-neutral language where this can be achieved in reasonably tidy wording and without loss of precision.")
  • JayHenry (“most people agree that it's a noble end, but there is virtually no agreement on the means of how best to write gender-neutral language”; feels that it’s premature. However, ‘If this is truly a recommendation, I will withhold my objection.”)
  • DGG (concerned about specific prescriptions and mass conversions, but “For many political or modern cultural topics I would of course say to always use gender neutral language, and even change articles accordingly.”)
  • Neonumbers (appears not to oppose; unhappy about the meekness of the “Please consider …”. Comments that “perhaps it is possible for us to give a definitive set of guidelines, like an order of preference or something”; not personally a proponent of GNL)

Unclear; may not oppose the short version, but hard to tell

  • Woodstone (not “he or she”; and no mass conversions)
  • Kbolino (opposed to what was the full draft, although “I do support some of its suggestions”, e.g., for pluralising)

Definitely oppose

  • GRBerry (this is “silly blather”; WP should “lag the general usage of language”)
  • Radiant (perceives an underhand political agenda; not WP’s role to change the world; strongly voiced objection; concerns about grammar and neologisms)
  • Stanselmdoc (extremely strong opposition, and expressed anger: damaging to the language; GNL is not “non-sexist”; WP should not prescribe such things; will be divisive)
  • West London Dweller believes the MoS should not have a policy on GNL - it should be "supremely indifferent", as GNL is politicised and the MoS should not be taking political positions.
Really, Tony is just about the last person who should be writing this. He is simply misrepresenting people's opinions to skew the debate in his favor. This is most blatant in the appeals to emotion and appeals to ridicule he uses to describe the people disagreeing with him. This is such an obvious straw man approach that it's not even funny - and aside from that, it is based upon the fallacy that policy is created through vote count. >Radiant< 14:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Can you please provide an example of an "opinion he has misrepresented to skew the debate in his favor"? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
  • My opinion was condensed quite accurately, however this process has been too convoluted and confusing. The current iteration of the clause needs to be clearly stated here so a fresh vote can commence. Then interpretation will not be required. If an initial clause is approved we can consider further refinements, such as the exclusions I've been suggesting. --Dan East 14:43, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Point about GNL in MOS, and its relationship to FAC reviews. I need to clear up a misconception that is being put about, either directly or by innuendo: that I proposed this text so that I can use it in the FAC room to somehow force nominators to change generic male pronouns and the like in their FACs. This is not the case. First, I've been objecting to the use of generic male pronouns in FACs for a long time through recourse to other parts of the criteria, although it is not precisely mentioned there. I've only once encountered resistance; nominators are usually OK about adopting GNL when asked to do so. I will continue this practice. Second, I certainly won't be using this section to support my requests; if anything, this weakens my ability to place pressure on nominators in this respect, since it frames GNL explicitly as "Please consider ...". It will not be ammunition for reviewers in the FAC room as has been asserted. Tony 16:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Clearly, Radiant! needs to provide examples in accusing Tony of summarizing in bad faith. All it confirms to me is what I felt as the discussion unfolded: at 6-to-1 or better, people support this. We need to contact them all again to confirm in a second "vote"? That doesn't seem sensible. Marskell 16:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
This now misstates my position; although that is not bad faith. More seriously, it certainly misstates Jimbo's, who supported only the key sentence; Woodstone's; and Gwen Gale's, who does not support the longer version at all. I consider using FA to impose this, or any other, stylistic choice (including suggesting it in an oppose) to be disruptive mischief. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Uhhh, Pma, the one sentence Jimbo supports is the only one that's in there, along with the 'Do not be disruptive' caveat. This is also exactly what Glen advocated. It's also exactly what you advocated. The central sentence, short and sweet. My God. Marskell 19:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
And you and Radiant have persuaded me, between you, that this text will not accomplish what I want most out of this discussion: to keep demands on GNL out of FAC, and, in general, out of editors' faces. Let us see if explicit wording to that effect will satisfy Radiant, which it may. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:32, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Do 4 opposes (out of 35 opinions) warrant a disputed tag? I'm not sure how disputed tags work, but it they aren't subject to consensus, we can probably dispute most of what's written on Wiki. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:22, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

This increasingly feels like a 19th-century discussion in the 21 century. Many people find it unbelievable that this imbroglio is occurring, and that two or three antagonists can hold us all to ransom with their loud shouting. Now I see that PMAnderson has slapped his usual dispute tag on it. I do hope that people will band together to ensure that this tactic does not remain a fixture on the policy page for long. It appears to be an unreasonable, almost petulant refusal to acknowledge the overwhelming weight of opinion for some kind of GNL. I'm also tiring of this endles bellowing about the supposed use of this very mild—optional—GNL addition as some kind of weapon by FA reviewers. I see that the debate is being pushed and pulled to encompass the whole relationship between MOS and FAC. This is a diversionary tactic, pure and simple, to muddy the waters. Perhaps the aim is that the length and complexity of this debate will bolster the claim of these few antagonists that there is no consensus. I hope we all stand fast against it. Tony 15:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Tony's count involves counting everyone who has not specifically objected to the short version as in favor of it. This is misleading; until she reverted, I expected Radiant to support it herself. That's one reason I take her dissent so seriously; I don't know who else objects, and is still being quiet. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

FA criterion?

The question now at issue is short and simple: Should the text on GNL make an FA oppose actionable if the ground for it is whether an article uses such language? Tony says above that he would not make such an oppose; I would urge that it is not actionable; and strongly oppose any effort to make it so.

Radiant is convinced that Bishonen's text does make GNL required; I thought she was overreacting (having, after all, written it) until I got this message from Marskell, which seems clearly to bear that interpretation. I observe his good faith in saying so; but I think it a drastic overreading of the criterion: "follow the style guidelines", when they say "please consider". This is overly subtle, and I cannot blame Radiant for considering it disingenuous.

Does anyone else actually support making this an FA requirement? I hope not; I think doing so is an effort to impose a policy which would never receive general consent. If we do not mean that, let us please say so; there is no harm in it - and it may produce real consensus rather than the usual bully-the-minority version. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I have objected to gender-specific language in FAC reviews, and I have seen others do so. I am steadfastly opposed to creating a new exemption which will prevent anyone from doing so in the future. I note that a special exemption for FAC criteria was not discussed in advance, and so certainly there is no consensus for this loophole. Accordingly, I have removed the exception language. ←BenB4 03:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Please supply an example. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:14, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I was asked to comment on the GNL proposal. I oppose any move to require gender neutral language either as part of the manual of style or the FA criteria. "He" is the correct English language word for the third-person gender neutral or undefined pronoun. That's what I was taught in school, and that's what they still teach in school. Until the English language gets a replacement for it, I see no reason to require people to use clumsy work-arounds. Raul654 04:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not required by the wording here, so why are you pushing the myth that it is?Sorry, I've read more closely and see that Raul was referring to the proposal to insert a GNL requirement into the FA Criteria, not the use of what is mere recommendation in MOS to oppose nominations in the FAC room. Tony 05:08, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
OMG, there are many parts of MOS that are expressed in ways that make them recommendations: these cannot be used by reviewers as a basis for opposing FAs. For example, em dashes are not "normally" spaced (not "Do not space em dashes"). It is perfectly open to a nominator to rebut a complaint by saying "well I like them, I'm used to them, they're used in other publications, so I want to keep them spaced". As a reviewer, I merely cite the phrase from MOS and encourage, but I'd never oppose because of spaces around em dashes; it wouldn't hold water. I'd be irritated if hyphens remained as range separators after a request to follow MOS on this, but I would never oppose solely on that basis (there are almost always more major issues to complain about). The GNL clause here cannot be used to insist on GNL in a candidate. All we can insist on is that the nominator consider it. That's the wording. I'll continue to object on the basis of "not our best work". It's usually no big deal. Tony 05:07, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Speaking of supplying examples, we really do need an example of an FAC oppose based only on gender neutral language. Without that, this is a diversion based on a hypothetical.
Raul's position is surprising—I was being taught GNL, in general terms, by the first year of high school. I have written to Pma that this could be a cultural artifact but I don't think so. I'd be very curious to see the syllabi still advancing "he" without qualification. Marskell 08:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Yep, I find it very odd indeed. Which school teaches the generic male pronoun as a matter of correctness? Which modern textbook? Love to know. Tony 11:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, it's not exactly fair to think that just because you haven't encountered it taught, means it's not taught. I was taught the generic male pronoun and non-GNL literally my entire educational career, from grade school through college. So technically it still is taught, if not by textbooks, certainly by teachers. And in my career now (I edit law publications), there is no standard for GNL, rather, the decision to include it or not lies in the individual law-making departments (at least for the U.S. state that I work for). Which is why I was so diametrically opposed to a statement becoming a recommendation on MoS, since I don't think it's fair to impose it on individuals who disagree with it. BUT all that aside, I have to say I agree with Tony that I don't see (at least I hope) this issue becoming a problem for FACs. GNL can not be the one sole reason an editor does not like an article - if he claims that it is, I'm guessing there is probably something else about it that is bothering him. (haha NON-GNL!) And I have solid faith in other editors that they would say, "You can't use this as the only criterion for opposing FA status. Is there something else with which you disagree about this article?" Stanselmdoc 12:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm a practicing lawyer, and I rarely encounter gender-specific language in any recently-written contract, brief, treatise, law, regulation, judicial opinion, journal, newspaper, or anywhere else I can think. Sometimes an older professor or scholar will write in gender-specific language, and we tolerate it as quirky ivory tower behavior, but that would never be appropriate in the more business-oriented side of the profession. Law firms insist their associates learn gender-neutral writing if they don't know already. It does happen on occasion and it always stands out and in many contexts it sets the writer apart as uninformed, a distinction you really do not want if you are a lawyer. I'm not much interested in FA but if I did review an otherwise perfect candidate that used some of the worse examples of gender-specific language ("comedienne", "male nurse", "his or her" everywhere, using male or female pronouns to illustrate an example, etc) I would definitely send it back for revision. Does anyone have an example? I can tell you how awkward it looks. Wikidemo 14:23, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
This does not surprise me; legal language tolerates almost indefinite prolixity in order to dispense with any conceivable ambiguity, and the indefinite he could conceivably be ambiguous, especially if a client with an audacious attorney found it profitable to argue that she was not covered by it. The net effect of this general acceptance of redundancy is to make legalese almost unreadable; it is not a good model for us. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:44, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Not to mention that I wasn't talking about "what is encountered", but about "what is endorsed and allowed" by entire departments and states. Not about what individual law firms require, but about what is allowed and tolerated by who writes the laws. But Pmanderson is correct that law isn't a good model anyway, because the language of law is often very different from an encyclopedic language. Stanselmdoc 14:55, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
No, not prolix. Good writing. And one of many models. But I was simply refuting Stanselmdoc's attempt, above, to use law as a counter-example. As with other fields gender-laden terms are neither endorsed nor encountered, in most areas of law. Wikidemo 15:48, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Good writing for its purpose, which is not ours. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:51, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Counter-example to what? I was merely giving an example of my encounter with non-GNL in law publications, in response to Tony's perhaps rhetorical question as to where it is still seen. It wasn't a "counter-example" - it was an "example". You can't counter something that wasn't there in the first place. And again, the first sentence of my response was: "Well, it's not exactly fair to think that just because you haven't encountered it taught, means it's not taught." Soooo like I've said from the start, just because someone hasn't encountered it, doesn't mean it's not there. Because all I've been saying is that I read law all day every day, and I have encountered it, and it's accepted. So maybe I shouldn't have bothered answering Tony's question in the first place, when really I only meant it as an anecdote, and had no intention of "countering" anything. Sorry if it came across that way. Stanselmdoc 17:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Former tag

I see this has lost both the FA comment and the request not to be disruptive, presumably on the grounds that they are advice to editors. So is the request to consider. Without these elements, I must dispute inclusion of the sentence at all. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Give us an example of an FAC that has been seriously disputed, let alone failed, on this basis alone. Of course it gets mentioned from time-to-time but we don't need a caveat on that basis. And let us suppose this still unproven problem actually exists: why do we need to insert a caveat into this one section? Marskell 15:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Ben suggests that he has; but his FA comments seem to be much sparser than his language would imply. Since Marskell assures me that he did not mean what I read him to say, and Tony concurs that suggestions should not used as requirements at FAC, I will stand with the non-disruption until I see an example.
It might be useful to make some general remarks, along the lines of Tony's below, to discourage reading MOS as stronger than it is; this could be either here or at WIAFA. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
No, it would not be useful at all. Don't twist my words: cannot, not should not be used. This is a spurious argument that is becoming ridiculous. How can a Please consider ..." be mandatory. I'm sick of this, and you should desist. Tony 16:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm simply agreeing, and recommending that we say, that there are such differences as For example, em dashes are not "normally" spaced (not "Do not space em dashes"). Some FAC reviewers lack all sensitivity to these distinctions. This FAC comment (made yesterday, considered today) makes that into "no spaced em-dashes on Wiki". It is this sort of exaggeration that Radiant was talking about; and it is a far wider problem than GNL. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • (outdent) No one is perfect, and reviewers sometimes get it wrong, me included. All that was required was a polite rebuttal on the "normally" issue. No need for dispute mode or throwing out the baby with the b w. Tony 01:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
PM: yes, exactly, it is a far wider problem than GNL! Therefore, it might be an idea to have a special MOS section—MOSFAC—on the infamous "MOS breach" objections on FAC. What do people think of that? With the emphasis on the fact that MOS is a guideline? But putting in those piddling subclauses about WP:FAC here and there, as here or here, in some, or all, the MOS sections is... well.. don't you really see how undesirable and messy that is, PMA? What a lot of edit-war-inviting little battlegrounds it'll be, all over MOS? Please consider my alternative suggestion. Bishonen | talk 16:58, 13 September 2007 (UTC).
Both the objections at the top of this section have been met, one of them by Tony and Marskell's comments since. I do not now dispute the present text. As for the new section, that seems reasonable; a paragraph, I think, not a page, and using emdashes (not this) as an example. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:12, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Convoluted

This is getting convoluted. I see the following issues here:

  1. Most people are agreed on not using offensive (e.g. sexist) language if it can be avoided, but people do not, at present, agree on how to accomplish this. Because this issue cannot be summarized in a sentence or two, the best place to discuss this is the proposed guideline Wikipedia:Gender-neutral language. I note this page already gives numerous helpful examples.
  2. It would seem that some people object to featured article nominations on spurious grounds, such as dashes. This issue is far broader than, and mostly unrelated to, GNL. The best place to discuss this is Wikipedia:Featured article criteria. A different approach would be to write Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in feature discussions.
  3. People who take issue with these FAC objections obviously don't want to potentially turn GNL into another FAC issue. This is convoluted by the fact that some proponents of GNL are also proponents of using the style guidelines as a strict rule against MOS. This problem is solved by addressing the previous two, preferably on their respective talk pages rather than here.
GNL has been an occasional FAC issue for a long time, on the basis of the existing FA criteria. I explained this before. The new section is a "Please consider ...", and cannot be used to insist on GNL in FACs. En dashes are important to professional standards of writing, as required by the FA Criteria. They're nothing new on WP, and hardly difficult to apply. FAs are supposed to be "our very best work" and of "professional standard"; if people can't be bothered to get small things right, they shouldn't nominate the article. Reviewers who object to specific matters of style and writing are under no obligation to comment on the content in other respects, but may well. If content is not being reviewed, WP needs to encourage more reviewers into the FAC room. Tony 14:13, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


The following discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this page.
Interesting opinion. GNL wasn't a proposed guideline until you just moved it from Essay to Proposed guideline, so that convolutes the issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:12, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
And of course issue #4 is people who refuse to discuss the issues at hand and prefer to snipe at people who disagree with them. >Radiant< 11:20, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it.
Sorry, which discussion? "The following discussion" appears to refer to the section below. If it refers to the GNL discussion above, I believe there's no justification for this ugly purple blotch. Who put it here? Tony 13:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Removing nonsensical "archive tag"; I wish people would at least use an informative edit summary when they add that, so we can tell who is telling other people it's time to stop talking. I lost patience with trying to find it in the history. Whoever wants to stop, just stop. No need to hector others with colored blobs. Bishonen | talk 14:58, 18 September 2007 (UTC).
Not sure where to add it, but after a quick review of the above, add me as an unabashed supporter of Tony's language. Excellent work! A Musing 17:43, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

This is getting out of control

This debate needs to immediately be archived, and to fork into new, fresh-start discussions here, about and only about the wording in WP:MOS, and another discussion at, and about and only about, the GNL proposal document, without mixing the two discussions to the extent that is possible. RIght now this debate serves no one at all, because it is too long for anyone to read - so long in fact that it's causing browser crashes for some - and so full of personal rancor that no good can come it.

References and notes relative to sentence punctuation

The MOS needs to specify the placement of references and notes relative to punctuation. Specifically, if a reference follows a sentence, should it be placed before or after the period? I thought I read that it should be after the period, but when checking to MOS to verify I see it is not specified. I see both forms throughout Wikipedia, and worse, both forms within the same article. The same formatting should apply to references relative to commas as well. --Dan East 23:50, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

See WP:FN. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:53, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I knew I had read that somewhere. --Dan East 23:57, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
A widely contested recommendation. Do what seems best to you. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, Manderson contests it, but that doesn't mean it's widely contested. Manderson's agenda—let's not forget—is to reduce the authority of MOS. One of his strategies is to overemphasise individual freedom against the cohesion of the project (which MOS needs to balance carefully). Tony 02:45, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't describe the guideline as widely contested given that the vast majority of editors don't care about the manual of style. But based on the talk page discussion there's certainly no consensus for it. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
So the implication is that there's a default of no consensus unless it's explicitly generated over every point of MOS, here? First I'd heard of that. If you disagree, it's up to you to generate consensus for a change. Otherwise, I don't go with your claim that there's no consensus for the status quo. Tony 03:18, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Discussion on the two relevant talk pages over the past couple months, involving a significant number of editors, is pretty much evenly split on whether to mandate after punctuation or to allow either style. One of the relevant pages is currently protected due to the dispute and the other is marked as disputed. Given this I don't think it's unreasonable to question whether consensus exists to support the guideline. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Manual of Style or Manual of style?

Shouldn't this be named Manual of style with a lowercased "s"?--Silver Edge 02:22, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, to be consistent with the "Capitalization" guidelines. Happy to see it changed. Tony 04:11, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Disagree--its a quasi-book and should be capitalized accordingly--it's meant to seem parallel to the actual published manuals of style. If we wanted to call in styyle guidelines, that would be something else--but I certainly dont want to go about changing the references throughout WP. DGG (talk) 08:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

While ironic, changing it would have all of the disadvantages of going against longstanding tradition with no real benefits. ←BenB4 08:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Excerpts

Hi. Is there anything about the use of poetry excerpts in articles not about the poet or the poem? I run into it in some articles and don't find it encyclopedic, but I'm wondering if anybody watching this page knows if and where this particular issue has been addressed before. The Behnam 04:06, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you give examples of the articles? Barnabypage 12:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd think of this as a case of using a quotation, not significantly different from quotations from other creative arts including fiction writing. Such quotations could be highly appropriate for a well written X in popular culture article (though very few of them are well written). Such quotations would probably be needed in articles on poetic form, such as Iambic pentameter, in order to get them up to featured article class. But we wouldn't use a quotation from a poem (or any other work of fiction) in a scientific article such as Halophila johnsonii. GRBerry 17:43, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I am disappointed to see that Descartes' theorem doesn't quote Soddy's poem on the subject; although it might be undue weight in the present length of the article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I can imagine the odd occasion where a brief poetic quote might be appropriate in a scientific article: Luscinia megarhynchos for example! After all, in articles such as cattle or mushroom we discuss cultural uses as well as biology, and if a scientific article's subject has very notably influenced poetry it could well be mentioned, and illustrated by a quote. As Septentrionalis says, though, we should be careful of undue weight. Barnabypage 18:25, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
While I think I've seen it in a few places, off the top of my head I can think of Iran#Poetry, Iranian Azerbaijan#Culture and Iranian women#Women in Persian culture. Even for a section about poetry, I think we should stick to RS claims about poetry's importance, and who are the important poets, rather than actually including poetry. I was wondering if the MoS had to say. I've got to go now, but more on this later. The Behnam 19:56, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Those are bad translations with originals in a non-Latin alphabet, so most of our readers will benefit from neither form. It would probably improve the encyclopedia to remove them; but that's an aesthetic judgment, not a MOS ruling. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:53, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Of course key lines should be quoted--they explain what the article is about. Much better to quote some actual text rather than to try to describe it--this is not the sort of thing to paraphrase. In general, for a long poem, even a complete stanza is acceptable with respect to copyright, though it might generally be sensible to quote less. I see we often avoid it, and I can't think why--it makes for much clearer writing. I think it should be not just permitted but very strongly encouraged. For non-English, its usually right to give the original or a transliteration to show what it sounds like, and then some sort of a translation--if its a preexisting translation it of course must be cited. It is highly encyclopedic to show what the article is about--the RS is the reliable place one copies the text from. I suppose one could go to the trouble of finding a secondary RS that includes an excerpt of the original, and cite the whole thing-- even under the most mechanical interpretations of RS and secondary sources, that's acceptable. DGG (talk) 07:07, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Dear colleagues—As a matter of courtesy and, indeed, correct procedure, I'm alerting you to moves at one of the submanuals to change our long-standing policy WRT not touching material within quotations.

On a broader level, may I state that the coordination of MOS and its submanuals is important for the overall linguistic cohesion of the project, and that the simple flagging here of important issues at submanual talk pages is essential for that coordination. Tony 02:33, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

How silly. Wikipedia cannot, and should not, be coordinated. A handful of bossy editors will not succeed in doing so, although they may succeed in disrupting the proper function of this page in trying; but if they regard my few edits as an imposition, they will have much more if the general community notices them. Tony, I urge you to consider the discussion at ANI; your position is unpopular, and your use of "submanual" is particularly reprehended. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Not Bishonen; read it carefully. And this is wasting my time and that of others here. I suppose by "cannot", you mean "do not". Tony 23:09, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
"Cannot" implies "do not", but I neither do nor see how I can; so I will stick with the idiom. Is Tony really deaf to it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:04, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
What? Tony 08:43, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Now that was funny! Bielle 18:10, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Another non-criterion

There has been some comment at WT:WIAFA that WP:MOSDASH should not be reason to object to featuring an article. If this seems a good idea, it may be best to say so here, as in a more controversial matter above. I would suggest the following, but have not spent much thought on exact wording.

While English typography has a clear position on these matters, the difference between a hyphen and an en-dash is not very important. This section should not used to oppose the promotion of a featured article, as long as the typography is clear and consistent within the article. If you think it needs to be fixed, fix it.

Regards, Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:11, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the fact that there is a distinction at all shows that the difference is important. Using a hyphen in a number range is questionable form; using it like an em-dash (where an en-dash can be used as well) is just wrong. Strad 01:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but this is the Manual of Style. If good typographic practices are not encouraged here, then where? I'll admit it's unreasonable to oppose promoting an article to FA status solely on the basis of "poor dash use", but I don't think there needs to be a warning here to this effect. I like to think most Wikipedians are well-endowed with common sense :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Starting with Raul. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Even if someone opposes for WP:DASH it takes at most a couple of minutes to fix (even on the most complex of articles) and if they opposed only for WP:DASH they'll change to support. This happened with my first FA, I read the policy, made the changes, and three minutes later it was a non-issue. I think that MOS is sometimes overly proscriptive, but this isn't really an example of that, because of how unambiguous the guideline and how easy it is to comply. --JayHenry 02:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. If there are dash problems, they should be fixed, and it's easy to do so. But the MoS is the MoS, and FAs are expected to comply with the MoS. Period. — Brian (talk) 05:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Brian, agreed, but "complying with MOS" (now "following") doesn't mean you have to follow what are mere recommendations or options; MOS is full of them. GNL is one; spaces around em dashes are "normal", but not, in the end, mandatory. "am" and "pm" can be dotted or undotted. There's flexibility strategically built into MOS, which is a good thing in the balance between cohesion and chaos. Tony 05:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Tony is perfectly right (yes, that is what I meant to say ;}) on what should be the case, but consider this deep and insightful criticism; it is this sort of thing, and the same tone on GNL, that I am trying to avoid. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:53, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Can you explain what is wrong with that "tone"? "Comment These minor stylistic fixes needed" seems fine to me, and they are minor stylistic fixes that are needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:00, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
No, they are not "needed". They are not necessary; they fall into the same category as the spaces around em-dashes, which have also been FA comments. No article is beyond improvement, but these do not make the difference between a decent article and one of our best. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Strangely and unbelievably, I am finding myself starting to agree with Pmanderson. The whole dash argument is over my head to the point that I no longer try to fix FAC articles. The gender neutral stuff I could care less about, even though I was adamantly pro gender neutral some years ago. The MoS has reached the point that I am no longer willing to consult it and have my head spin with its quibbles and parsed language. As for FA articles, they may be "correct" but they tend to be boring. Better to focus on content as Panderson suggested eons ago. Mattisse 15:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I share your concern that one person has destabilized the Manual of Style to the point that people are reluctant to consult it. Changes to MOS (like any Wiki page) should be based on consensus, and we shouldn't be left wondering from minute to minute what non-consensual change has been introduced here, confusing editors who may want to follow guidelines. To me, this is a much bigger concern than this FAC red herring. Dashes are trivial to fix, and shouldn't trouble anyone; they are the kinds of things you only need to learn once in MOS. It's the ongoing instability of one person tagging sections disputed in spite of consensus that is a bigger problem IMO. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:26, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I have tagged no section without evidence of strong disagreement from multiple editors. I untagged GNL when my objections were answered, although some editors seem in fact still to dispute the inclusion; they may want to restore it. Almost all of the recent editing has involved that one section, and it should not be cited until its wording is agreed. I'm sorry Sandy is confused; but I'm not sure that editing this text has much to do with her confusion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • You may say FAC is a red herring, but the last time I tried to fix an FAC article that was being prevented from promotion because of a hyphen issue, I read the MoS and tried to fix the article. The result was the article was called something like "endash madness" so I reverted my changes and bowed out. No one fixed the article so it was not promoted on that basis. I am an experienced editor and if I am intimidated by FAC and its relationship to MoS, then in my view it is important. --Mattisse 16:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, please provide the example. I *highly* doubt that Raul failed a nomination strictly on hyphens or dashes; I can never recall seeing that happen. If a FAC comes down to one or two minor things, Raul is likely to insert a comment saying "please fix so-and-so and I'll promote". I suspect that the failure to follow MOS guidelines may have been an indication that there were other issues of preparedness for FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

(

Pmanderson asks What is the problem with saying that this is not a FAC criterion? (wrt GNL) and also creates this talk-section "Another non-criterion" with a proposal to add yet more "this is not for FAC" commentary to the MOS. Please stop. This is the MOS for the whole of Wikipedia and I don't want it littered with "required for FA" / "ignore at FA" commentary. Editors consult this in order to improve their prose and typography whether aiming for recognition at FA/FL/GA or not. If editors and reviewers are unable to apply common sense, we can't compensate by annotating the MOS with detailed FA-specific regulations.

Secondly, I oppose littering the MOS with WP:SOFIXIT requests to reviewers. If a reviewer fixes an article, that's a bonus, not an obligation. Colin°Talk 08:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC) More generally, MOS should avoid telling editors how to behave. Colin°Talk 10:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

New proposal: policy and guideline style

I am proposing a new guideline page, WP:PGS, on how to create, update, and edit Wikipedia policy and guideline pages. The purpose is to keep these pages clear, concise, and effective. This is not meant as a radical departure from existing best practices - it is modeled on the better policy guideline pages, in hopes that the messier pages can be shaped up to their standards.

I hope we will adopt this as a guideline (after suitable improvements and agreement on what the page should say) so that we can have stylistic consistency among all the policy and guideline pages. If not, I'll keep this as an essay for now - and cite it as I go about my work cleaning up different pages, to see if it catches on.

I'm also posting a similar notice at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) and to Wikipedia talk:Policy and guideline style - probably best to discuss over there. Thanks for your consideration, Wikidemo 21:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

On the policy regarding the use of whitespace

Having searched through the Wikipedia: and Help: namespaces, I have found no references to any policy regarding the use of whitespace in articles. I did, however, find these discussions:

I would very much like it if the MoS would express some kind of policy regarding the use of whitespace. At the very least, in the case of no consensus, it would be nice to have a short paragraph mentioning that the use of whitespace in articles should be kept consistent throughout the article. Much like the policy on the use of US-english or UK-english in articles. The advantage here being that when I do a search for whitespace, at least I can find a useful source regarding policy. ʍαμ$ʏ5043 09:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I think we should decide on something nice and then have the software do it automatically as people edit, so they don't have to worry about it.
(A lot of things in the MoS should be done this way, actually...)
If I recall correctly, the only disagreement was whether headings should have a newline after them or not. I preferred the newline but I really don't care. — Omegatron 02:34, 24 September 2007 (UTC)


I have filed a feature request: Bugzilla:11498 — Omegatron 02:57, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
I have no account on Wikimedia, but I support the feature request. ʍαμ$ʏ5043 12:30, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

New "Links" section

... which I changed to appendices. I can't tell what that section wants to be; it's mixing discussion of appendices with links in a way that implied that sources were "links". I tried to fix it, but it's still an unclear mixture. Is it supposed to be a discussion of how to use links only in appendices? I can't tell what it's trying to be. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It's still a mix and match to me, because sources aren't always links—they may be hardprint sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
It's not a new section. It's a re-ordering of the old "external links" section, which had conflated external links with sources and confused which policies and guidelines were to apply. The old version had incorrectly classified sources as a sub-class of external links, went over the different ways to use sources (in-line and via "ref" tags), but completely glossed over (1) Harvard Citations, (2) templated citations, and (3) the disfavored practice of having a "References" section that is not derived from in-line footnotes. I reorganized it to give sources and external links equal but separate heading levels within a single section. Perhaps they should be split into two sections, or external links put somewhere else. If we are going to talk about sourcing we should mention how to add citations to article text, how to adapt them to footnote or Harvard Reference format, and how to format that in a References section. Or else simply say that citations should be made, but lack of proper citations a major weakness of most articles, one of the most important style issues there is. Wikidemo 15:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, it really seems like a mix and match that needs to be sorted out (links vs. sources) , but I'm not overly excited to wade into major MOS editing considering the current instability introduced by a minority. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

My Example of FAC failure because of endashes

I cannot seem to get it in with all the edit conflicts. It was in the group with Orion (mythology) and I believe it was called William Claiborne. I am leaving this discussion as it has taken me four or five edit conflicts plus getting lost on this huge page. --Mattisse 17:40, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Mattisse. That was just a neglected FAC, with apparently little feedback from the nominator, so what can Raul do? There it sits today, with External links and Sources combined into one section (how strange?) and a WP:MSH issue in that section heading to boot. If the nominators don't respond, it may appear that the article was failed because of trivial items, but it just doesn't look like anything was happening. I think Raul had no choice there. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/William Claiborne/archive1 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
The point is that I tried to fix it after reading MoS on dashes and was told I had made a endash hell so I reverted my edits. In other words, a reasonably experienced editor, and an experienced writer in the real world due to my profession, could not even put the requested dashes in correctly. And this was after I asked for an explanation of the endash problem from an FAC patroller because I did not understand the MoS. --Mattisse 17:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Do you recall where that conversation happened, so we can discover the weak link? Was it on the article talk page or your talk page, for example? One problem I often see is incorrect advice, for example, from GA reviewers. Someone may have gotten you all twisted up, and there's not much anyone can do about that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Addendum: The problems you mention now were not mentioned at all in the FAC critique. The whole issue there was the endashes. --Mattisse 18:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Right, what I said was that it was a fairly abandoned FAC. Raul can see the article for himself, and has to make his own call when there's no feedback happening on the FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC) Further clarifying: that is, in six weeks at FAC, the article garnered only one Support, so it's not accurate to say it failed because of dashes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:15, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
I am merely quoting the comments on the FAC page. I have no idea of the underground workings of FAC or why certain articles are "fashionable" and gather a huge political following and why some very good articles are totally neglected. That is why User:Zleitzen left and nothing has changed. I find it very unpleasant and will no longer be willing prepare articles for FAC which I used to spend a lot of time doing. --Mattisse 18:29, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Zleitzen's worthy article was completely overlooked by reviewers, and it was most unfortunate, but I suspect other factors in his main areas of interest influenced his decision. Sometimes there aren't enough reviewers who are familiar with a particular topic area (and Zleitzen's topics were fairly specific). My own sense is that some articles are overlooked because they're not quite there, and reviewers find it hard to pin it down. Claiborne isn't there yet; perhaps that's why people didn't weigh in, I don't know, I was busy. But I just glanced at it and saw a lot of unresolved issues. It wasn't only dashes. I'm still after an example of Raul having failed an article with minor Opposes over significant Supports. I still say this entire dash issue is a red herring; we suggest things that can be fixed during FAC, but Raul does not fail articles on minor issues, and I hope/think we all know that. If he sees a minor issue that can easily be fixed, he's more likely to ask that it be tended to so he can promote. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
My feeling is that there is an "in club" and that Wiki politics play a huge role as I have seen articles clearly POV garner a huge amount of "Support" despite glaring deficiencies. There have been many cases where the editor has responded quickly to any concerns, only to have the article languish even if the editor plaintively asks for more feedback. I think FAC is more of a popularity contest than anything else and encourages huge, bloated articles. --Mattisse 18:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Popularity has something to do with it; but the real problem is that the substance and writing of William Claiborne were hardly considered at all. Carabineri did come along at the last minute, after the nominator had abandoned Wikipedia, with three minor (and sound) comments on the prose; but before then the "strong oppose" was for linking years. I would not have linked them myself, but many editors do: for articles on the Peerage, like Earl of Devon, year-linking is quite standard, and recommended by the relevant Wikiproject. I can hardly think it the difference beteen a good and a great article; but if Lonewolf had had different tastes on the matter, William Claiborne would probably be an FA now, with no more attention given to its actual quality than it received in the actual course of events. I grow ever more grateful to Yannismarou for his lengthy and substantive criticisms of Orion (mythology). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:33, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
More and more I am agreeing with your point of view. Yes, you were very fortunate that Carabineri gave thoughtful, constructive criticism and did not harp on certain issues, even when you did not take his advice. And yes, I think it was extremely helpful to you because he was concerned with content over nit-picky form. It was helpful to me to watch the interaction and see the article progress. I used to think you were just being balky and obstructing the process. Now I see the validity of your point of view and commend you for persisting. --Mattisse 22:56, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and Yannismarou. Sorry I did not remember him. --Mattisse 23:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
They're not mutually exclusive, you know; one editor can review sources, another can review MOS, another can review prose, another can review comprehensiveness, and so on. PMA seems to think that one person has to do it all, or that one person doing X prevents another from doing Y and another from doing Z. I don't follow that logic. It's much easier for one editor to review content or prose when another has verified the sources or MOS guidelines. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:50, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
But, in this case, everybody chose to do MOS, and nobody did the others at all. This is understandable: looking for hyphens and linked years is easier than composing English, and much easier than actually evaluating content - a bot could do most of it; but it is also the least important. We have policies on accuracy, verifiability, neutrality; we depend on clear prose; this is, again, a guideline. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
And the other side is bad too, possibly as bad as losing a good editor. Suppose it had had all the MOS points right; it could have passed without any but the most cursory looks at content and clarity. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:37, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Oh heck, if I'd known it was going to cause you so much angst, I'd have spent the few minutes required to fix them myself. I don't normally do that, because it would open the floodgates. But where there's a clear need for brief, easy bouts of assistance, I'll do it. Is it still an issue in the article? Let me know and I'll act. Tony 01:43, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
FAC is over, and I doubt anyone will renominate; but presumably that will improve the article (or else why make an issue of it in the first place?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with Sandy's assessment of the William Claiborne FAC nomination - from the time it was nominated until the FAC closed 6 weeks later, there were few edits to the article and basically zero feedback to the reviewers on the FAC nomination page. It's difficult to keep a nomination open under those circumstances. Raul654 07:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I looked at the Claiborne article history, and I just read the MOS dash section. While hyphens vs. en dashes in footnoted page ranges seems trivial to me, it does seem that correcting the problem is pretty straight-forward. Hyphenated words like straight-forward should stay as hyphens (the thing you type on a keyboard), while ranges (like pages 1–3) should use an en dash. The article only had problems with page ranges in the footnotes. If the only feedback was that the change created "endash hell," rather than explaining a well-intentioned mistake, that was uncivil and unhelpful, but I don't agree that a policy change is needed. I just made the changes to the Claiborne article, incidentally. -Agyle 14:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Bat for Lashes, 10:15

I was wondering if anyone wanted to comment on the paragraph concerning Bat For Lashes's nomination for the mercury music prize - especially the inclusion of the exact time she lost. Take a look at the history and the discussion i have started . I was looking at this page for guidence around writing style (e.g. magazine, encylclopedia etc)but couldn't see anything. At present i feel the paragraph is uneccesarrily verbose and a bit ott given its significance, and slightly fan-ish 3tmx 19:08, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, its the previous history state you need to look at, i'm not sure how to link to it 3tmx 19:10, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Logical and typesetters' punctuation

NB: the proposal here is to acknowledge that Wikipedians in fact use both, as English-speakers in general do. What we recommend is secondary. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I would view it the other way around. Editors should strive to conform to policy. What is recommended here is primary. Departures from this need correcting rather than acknoledgement on this page. Jɪmp 07:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. We don't bother acknowledging that many people use "ain't", say "aks" for "ask", use apostrophes in constructions like "apple's on sale, $1/doz.", and so forth. From a purely descriptive linguistic point of view there is nothing wrong with these usages; they simply are. But it is not the purpose of the MoS to provide a linguistic description of usages that are not helpful to the encyclopedia. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:58, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
My view is that this is part of a tenacious and gradual strategy by Anderson to weaken the status of MOS. It has been going on for more than a month—first at MOSNUM, and now at MOS—and fortunately has been resisted for the most part. One of the tenets of this strategy is to assert that MOS is an unreasonable impost, an incursion on the writer's freedom. The latest flag-flying in this campaign is an image of a light-bulb, presumably to attract the troops to the front line.
I agree entirely with SMcCandlish, Jimp and others here whose expertise and linguistic authority helps to knit together what could be a chaotic project: MOS should not be reconceived as a mere description of what people do, but should remain, as it has evolved until the present, a document that encourages linguistic cohesion, unafraid to prescribe where this is seen as appropriate by speakers from the several main varieties of English who know and care about the language and the project. Otherwise, WP will lose some of the edge it has over the other yields of a Google search, which are disparate in linguistic style and formatting. Such cohesion is part of the reason that WP has gained authority on the jungle that is the Internet.
To take the bull by the horns, my experience at FAC, FAR/C and elsewhere has indicated to me that our editors, on the whole, quite like centralised guidance in matters of style, and that many are pleased to have an in-house resource on which to rely as they undertake the complex process of creating and improving articles. I myself have improved my writing through consulting MOS.
Please take this into consideration when assessing the arguments of those who would cast MOS as a tool with which zealots bludgeon others on the brow, to borrow the wording and tenor of more than a few edit summaries during this extended discourse. Tony 05:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, Tony, I have to say I can't exactly see you as a disinterested party in the question of how "strong" the MOS should be. You obviously have a lot of influence here, and it seems in fact to be your main interest. So your personal influence over WP as a whole is almost directly proportional to the authority granted to the MOS. I see the same dynamic going on in the issue of the "submanuals" and the position you have taken vis a vis those.
On the narrow punctuation issue, as I've said, I prefer "logical" punctuation. But on the broader issue I'm not happy with an intrusive MOS. Yes, I do think the MOS should be prescriptive to some extent, and I probably don't go as far as Septentrionalis in trying to keep it contained. But I think the MOS should stick to basics and not descend into minutiae. An experienced editor should pretty much be able to know the whole MOS just more or less by osmosis. --Trovatore 07:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
"your personal influence over WP as a whole is almost directly proportional to the authority granted to the MOS. I see the same dynamic going on in the issue of the "submanuals" and the position you have taken vis a vis those." I'm certainly not a disinterested party, but I'd like to know what evidence or logical consideration you have for these assertions that I somehow have a conflict of interest in taking a side here. I hate big-noting, power seeking, celebrity and display: that much should be clear from my user page; but I suspect that no one is at all interested; why should they be? As far as your feelings about "minutiae", I can't agree that MOS shouldn't deal with small yet commonly occurring details, where necessary. And what are these "basics" you talk of? Where would the boundary be drawn? Tony 08:05, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by a conflict of interest in "taking a side here". If "here" is punctuation, I don't think that. But you have a clear personal interest in making the MOS more authoritative in general, because it increases your personal influence over WP. I think this is pretty obvious.
I don't have an enumerated list of what the "basics" are (if I did, it would be my outline for the whole ideal MOS, and I don't have such an outline). I am nevertheless stating my preference that the MOS should stick to basics, and hoping some people will agree. Which items are basic is case by case. --Trovatore 17:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
If "the basics" cannot be ("case by case") or simply haven't been ("don't have") objectively defined, then logically the MoS cannot stick to them. Re: "An experienced editor should pretty much be able to know the whole MOS just more or less by osmosis", that appears to actually be the case at present, with the situation improving all the time (other than that when it changes, people have to catch up and absorb the changes); I find myself making fewer and fewer MoS corrections as time goes on, because more and more other editors make them long before I arrive on the scene of formerly-offending copy. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:31, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure that it's fair to paint Tony as a power-grabber. At least give the bloke the benifit of the doubt: might it not be that he simply cares about creating a well-written encyclopædia? Either way, though, his motives aren't really what's at issue here. "MoS should stick to 'the basics' but what these are is case-by-case." boils down to "What MoS should stick to is case-by-case." Okay, what of this case then? Seems to me that logical vs. illogical* punctuation is something that MoS should have something to say about.
(*Excuse my naming it so but calling it American punctuation is not quite right since many Americans don't use it and calling it æsthetic punctuation isn't right either since ... well, it doesn't look pretty to me.) Jɪmp 01:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
I never called Tony a power-grabber. All I'm doing is pointing out that, with respect to the question "how important should the MoS be?", he has a personal interest in the answer.
Two things are important to note here: First, I didn't say "conflict of interest", the term Tony used. You can't have a conflict of interest unless you have a fiduciary responsibility, which Tony doesn't; he's an advocate for his views, and that's fine. But others evaluating his arguments ought to consider the extent to which those views align with what's best for Tony.
Second, I'm not suggesting any hipocrisy or insincerity. He probably truly believes that an assertive and comprehensive MoS is the best thing for Wikipedia. But what we sincerely believe does often have a strong correlation with what's good for us; that's just how we're built. Others evaluating the proposition "Tony's a smart guy so what he thinks is best for WP probably really is", need to take that effect into account. --Trovatore 18:14, 30 September 2007 (UTC)


Yep. This was pointed out earlier, but its worth doing so again. I favor the term "illogical punctuation", heh, but the only accurate neutral term for it I've encountered is "typesetters' punctuation", since it is fact a typesetting convention that has held over long after the days of manually-placed little bits of metal type were in (regular, non-artisanal) use. Changed section heading to that term. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Punctuation and quotation marks

The Quotation marks section is inconsistent with the Chicago manual of style's recommendation of American English grammar. The Chicago MOS says to put all commas and periods inside the quotation marks and colons and semicolons outside (example: correct: “sentence.” incorrect: “sentence”.). While I realize British English usage requires all commas, periods, and semicolons go on the outside of quotes, this is not true for American English usage. The WP:MOS recommendation fails to mention American English grammar and recommends against proper grammar usage; this results in users changing the punctuation on American related articles to the style recommended on WP:MOS, even though it is inconsistent with proper grammar usage of American English. Does anyone object to re-wording part of this section to explain American English usage, or have any input, comments, or suggestions to how to address this. My main concern is that proper grammar is not being followed, which makes the article seem less encyclopedic. Thanks. —Christopher Mann McKaytalk 01:08, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The section seems correct to me. The way to quote described there is how I always learned it. See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive (quotes and quote marks),[13],[14], [15], and Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_archive_(quotes_and_quote_marks_2). i said 01:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
This has been a long-standing requirement. Many people think that Chicago should get real and use the so-called logical system. It's not a grammatical issue, BTW. Tony 14:30, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
But we should allow both; not to do so would be Anglo-American warring, which is contrary to policy. When we differ on something, we should say so. The alternative is to mark the entire section disputed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Total red herring. The "illogical quoting" is neither limited to Americans, nor practiced by all Americans, nor consistently practiced by the American publishing industries. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:29, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I concur with Septentrionalis.--Coolcaesar 03:23, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
As others have pointed out previously on this page (archived, too), it's not about throwing cream buns across the Atlantic; this cuts across the varieties: all English-speakers, for example, use the "non-logical" format at the end of direct quotes, particularly in works of fiction. Many North Americans retain the distinction between punctuation that logically belongs in the underlying sentence, and punctuation that is in the quoted source. It's WP's strong desire not to touch original quotes that won the day here. Tony 05:44, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Some Americans punctuate logically, but most do not, and are taught not to. To present arguments for both is reasonable; to forbid one is not. The CMS does in fact allow both, but warns against logical punctuation, on the grounds that it requires extraordinary care and some judgment on the part of the proofreader; this may be more care and judgment than Wikipedia may be exprected to supply. As Tony said, this is not a grammatical issue; and insofar as it is an accuracy issue, it is trivial. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:42, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
It is not trivial at all, or it wouldn't have come out this way and the logical style would not be being defended by a (recently growing, I note) majority here. It is not' reasonable to present both options (that just leads to inconsistency, and gives equal weight to both reason and emotion); to recommend against (guidelines can't "forbid" anything at all) illogical quotation style is emminently sensible. As others have pointed out, CMS is not the MoS, and really their argument is simply one of laziness. The CMS, BTW, is intended for mass-market writers/editors such as fiction writers and journalists, and its recommendations on this particular matter (among many others) are directly countermanded by the style guidelines of scientific and other technical fields/publications. Argument to authority is especially fallacious when the authority is not particularly authoritative, which CMS is not outside of its target market, and especially not when it comes to Wikipedia, which has its own standards, generally more stringent in many ways, though looser in others (in that it is less prescriptive grammatically, to account for various dialects of English, while CMS only addresses one. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:29, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps a recommendation to use blockquotes in those rare cases where the terminal punctuation on quoted matter could affect the meaning? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:47, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Blockquotes are for long passages, and are not a 1:1 alternative to the use of quotation marks; you are mixing apples and oranges. It's bit like responding to "using this sharp, thin knife to spread butter doesn't work very well", with "perhaps use a Ferarri instead". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:29, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I see no reason to change the current rule. Tony 16:00, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
The one on blockquotes? If so, fine - the suggestion was made to meet your objection. The insistence on logical quotation? Others do. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:56, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
And others don't, too. Tony 02:13, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
I find it not only illogical but unaesthetic e.g. to treat commas as part of book titles, thus: "The Wind in the Willows," "Alice in Wonderland," "Tarzan of the Apes," and "The Secret Garden." Lima 08:05, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Indeed; it's totally absurd. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:29, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
  • (Outdent) This has been the subject of substantial debate on a number of occasions, the last one only a month or two ago. Please research those debates and give enough time for people here to notice this section and respond before you plunge in unilaterally to change the policy text. Manderson, you never learn, do you. It's not that your expertise is not respected or that we believe you have nothing to offer: it's a matter of complying with the consensus-generating culture on WP. In many cases, you change policy unilaterally and prematurely in a controversial way; in some cases, you introduce sloppy language to the policy text. Please cooperate and collaborate, as you've been asked to do on more than one occasion. I note that this behaviour was at issue in your RfA last ... January, was it? Tony 08:12, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
And this is emphatically not a UK vs. US English issue. Interior punctuation is already on its way out in the US, and all technical publications in the US use logical quoting. It is called logical quoting for a reason: Interior punctuation adds factual errors, including misquotation, the inclusion of characters that do not belong in the literal string being quoted (very, very serious issue for things like computer code), implying that a statement may be partially quoted when it was not, etc., etc. The punctuation goes on the inside only if it was part of the original. Wikipedia is not a magazine or newspaper, it is a precise publication that cannot afford to use irrational journalistic style preferences that are based on 1700s typesetting needs, just because they happen to still be traditionally preferred by imprecise publications in one country. Undisclaimer: I am an American, so I have no UK bias in this matter whatsoever. This as a trawl through the archives shows that this issue has been hashed over more times that anyone would bother counting, I'm taking the liberty of marking this topic "Resolved". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 16:11, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
There's no need to be so emphatic. The risk of misquotation is, as far as I can tell, almost completely hypothetical, unless "misquotation" is stretched to the farthest limits of interpretation. As far as I can tell there is no strong argument either way, which is why both continue to exist. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:24, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't emphatic about that, I was emphatic about it not being a Yankeeland vs. Limeyland issue, which the proponent of the change has made it out to be. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:57, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
It's a slippery slope, misquotation. Treat a final comma as part of the quotation and it's easier to start tampering, unnoticed, with other aspects within the quote marks. Same for linking within a quote. Tony 01:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
I can't see how anyone can misquote someone because of the use of punctuation. Also, SMcCandlish states "Wikipedia is not a magazine or newspaper, it is a precise publication that cannot afford to use irrational journalistic style preferences that are based on 1700s typesetting needs"; however, popular encyclopedias such as Encarta and Britannica also use this punctuation, so it is not only "journalistic style." Why are American oriented Wikipedia articles not following the same punctuation as American encyclopedias? Wikipedia says to use American English for American oriented articles and I believe we should do that. This guideline fails to address this issue and makes articles seem less encyclopedic by using style guidelines in contrary to the Chicago MOS and other encyclopedias. Some users seem determined not to address this issue, even stating this issues has been "resolved by consensus," when not all parties agree. Just to remind editors, "consensus" is "a neutral point of view which everybody can agree upon." (WP:CON) —Christopher Mann McKaytalk 05:54, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Um, no. That's a blantant misquote. The actual passage is: "Where there are disagreements, they are resolved through polite discussion and negotiation on talk pages in an attempt to develop a neutral point of view" which everybody can agree upon." (Emphasis added.) Please read WP:CONSENSUS more deeply, as well as quote it more accurately. 100% unanimity is not required for there to be consensus, otherwise virtually every single decision every made or needing to be made on Wikipedia could be undone or fillibustered by lone trolls. Please also try to be less literal. When I referred to journalist style, I clearly did not really mean "journalists, all journalists and no one but journalists". To clarify: Britannica like the local newspaper is written for a mass-market audience, almost entirely American, and follows vernacular American mass-market style "rules". Wikipedia's aim is to greatly exceed works like Britannica in every relevant respect. While WP is intended to be useful to a mass-market audience, we collectively hold ourselves to higher standards such that WP will be of use to everyone from a head of state to a Nobel laureate as well. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
While I can't deny that the majority of American publications do use the "illogical" style (and while I think the point about "misquotation" is a bit hyperbolic), I think I'm one of quite a large fraction of Americans who prefer the "logical" style. Almost anyone who is or has been a programmer will prefer this style, I think, and that's a big chunk of American Wikipedians right there. I don't know if we need rigid prescription in the MOS, but I think the rough de facto consensus is for the "logical" style, and I hope it continues to be so. (It's a double-edged sword, though -- the rough de facto consensus also seems to be for the spelling aluminium, which makes my skin crawl.) --Trovatore 07:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
FYI, the "aluminium" spelling is preferred here because that is the spelling that has been adopted by international science journals, international standards bodies, etc. As with logical quoting, it is a consistency and standards matter, not a US vs. UK English matter. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I have a deep antipathy to "international standards bodies" in general. But it should be noted that even IUPAC (one of the ones I find most offensive -- I mean, "ethene"? Please) was forced to modify its position on "aluminum"/"aluminium", admitting they were acceptable variants. --Trovatore 17:49, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Christopher—no, WP doesn't say to use American English; it's American spelling that must be used for US-related articles, and for non-country-related articles that were started in AmEng. Other aspects of AmEng are fine, unless proscribed by MOS. In any case, internal punctuation cuts across the varieties: everyone uses it for direct quotations in fictional prose; and, as pointed out above, many Americans don't favour it elsewhere. WP's decision is largely swayed by its principle of not touching quotations, rather than internecine rivalry. Tony 10:03, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
  • This is plainly not resolved; the majority here clearly prefers to permit both, as is our general practice; the late tag, with its disruptive denial that WP:Consensus can change is mistaken. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I see absolutely no consensus to change the existing long-standing policy, which is derived from WP's overarching policy on leavning quoted material untouched. Tony 01:21, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
      • I see a consensus of everybody but Tony. A majority of this discussion disputes this; so you know what I will have to do. I also see no coherent argument against mentioning that many editors do not use logical punctuation; it is, after all, true. Since this is fundamentally all I want, I'll go as strong as normally for now, and see what happens in three months. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
        • Not even. The thing is that most of us simply don't bother to respond to this tired old topic any longer. Every 4-8 months someone who just loves the wildly irrational and dying out "American system" rekindles some variant of this thread, and it gets very eye-roll and yawn inducing. The issue was settled long, long ago, and no one objects other than 2-4 people who come and complain about it periodically at WP:MOS. I think that's quite remarkable (and quite remarkably clear that there is absolutely, positively no consensus to change something that basic or we'd be seeing dozens of complainants per week). Making a change like that would have utterly awful results, with people editwarring constantly over what is or isn't "right", more US vs. UK English fights, innumerable instances of user confusion over whether a quoted passage actually did or did not contain the punctuation we say it did, code samples wrecked by editors insisting that punctuation must go inside, etc., etc., etc. Having one rule and sticking to it avoids all of that mess, at no cost other than minor annoyance of some prescriptive grammarians who think that their archaic regional punctuation variant is "correct" despite all the problems it leads to. WP does not have to follow the CMS. While it is pretty good, it has its flaws, and it is hardly the only style guide on the planet, just probably the most long-winded one. As with any prescriptive (i.e. faith and righteous belief) work about something that can really only be understood descriptively (i.e. science), like language, following any style guide blindly will lead one off a cliff eventually. This periodic rancor over wanting "this," instead of "this", for no explicable reason other than "I like it", and in the face of actually rational reasons to absolutely not go there, really gets to be tedious. The funny thing is, the only reason (some but by no means all) Americans use "this," is because it was a typesetting convention from the 1700s, intended to protect "." and "," (the smallest and most fragile pieces of type - " is twice as thick). That's the complete and full extent of the "logic" behind inside puctuation in quotations by default. Logical quotation is called that for very good reasons. PS: The perrenial argument that this is just UK imperialism over US English is nonsense because the convention really only exists in the US in mainstream journalism (which is very traditionalist and conservative in its adoption of language change) and in school rooms run by US-centric prescriptivists. If you turn in a university term paper or thesis, in any dept. other than English or some other hidebound liberal artsy course, with interior quoting you'll get it back with red all over it. The practice has been utterly unacceptable in ever discipline that requires accuracy and precision, for many years now (i.e. all disciplines but liberal artsy stuff like Survey of Modern Irish Literature or Topics in German Philosophers). So, one and all, please stop kicking this tired old dog. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
          • My apologies for overlooking SMcCandlish's arguments; are they in this section, as well as the next [this section was moved down; the original follow-up is higher on this page]? I do not happen to use "aesthetic punctuation" myself, but I do not believe McCandlish's last claim; I was not a liberal arts major, and I did use it as an undergraduate. Nevertheless, I will have to {{dispute}} the omission of the fact of the existence of two systems; I am willing let others recommend the use of one of them fairly strongly, but suppression of fact is regrettable. (And the existence of a recurrent protest is evidence that the statement that Wikipedia only uses one method is simply false; recurrent protests ignored by regulars are one of the hallmarks of bad process.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:47, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
"The omission of the fact"? Huh? It is not the job of the MoS to act as a descriptive linguistics treatise on usage variances around the world. If we "{{dispute}}d" every such "omission" there would be thousands of dispute tags all through the MoS; more dispute tags than actual content. The MoS is here to make specific recommendations about what to do in Wikipedia for our readers' benefit, not list every known usage in the world. There is no "suppression"; please, enough with the histrionic hyperbole. Cf. Godwin's Law before tossing out "suppression" or similar terms that imply fascistic regimes, please. The recurrent "protest" about this is largely because some people don't read archives and/or are in denial that for years this has been a settled issue, and doesn't indicate anything other than that some people get bent out of shape about things that really shouldn't bother them so much. There is no "statement that Wikipedia" or Wikipedians as a group for that matter "only uses one method", so there is no falsehood. The MoS recommends, as a guideline, one method. This is a good thing. It's called consistency. That some Wikipedians will ignore this recommendation is of no concern. There is no recommendation in any guideline (or even rule in any policy) here that is not ignored by some editors. So what? Other editors won't ignore it and (like me) will bring text into conformity with MoS when encountering material that isn't. Hardly a big deal. And certainly does not militate against a strong recommendation here. The "some people will ignore it" reasoning doesn't mean anything. Lastly, as this sprawling now-merged metathread indicates, the "protests" are hardly being ignored, so your comparison to bad process if off-base. Just because you are not getting your way does not mean that something isn't working right. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:15, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
There are two rational solutions to the question of quoting computer code. One is to recommend logical punctuation for those articles, which would make sense; I would support this, as always. The other is not to use quotation marks at all, and always use blockquotes, preferably indented to format as typescript; which would avoid the possibility of quotation marks being read as code. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Have to strongly disagree on four grounds 1) This would simply lead to disputes about whether a particular article is technical/scientific/whatever "enough". 2) It will do nothing whatsoever to dissuade well-meaning (mostly-)American editors from changing it to so-called aesthetic punctuation anyway, simply because it is what they are used to. While editors more aware of the situation at that article could revert this ( if they happened to be watching, in too many cases no one aware enough of either the MoS's details, the nature of the article and its content, or both, would be watching, and the change would go in silently and just stay there, outright wrong, for an indefinite period of time. 3) Blockquoting is for large passages; it would be completely inappropriate to use it for shorter code examples (see my "rm" example from the other day). 4) This doesn't just affect computer code, but any and all use of quotation marks in which accurancy, lack of ambiguity, and precision are required.
In an era where protecting the tiny . and , metal type pieces from damage by hiding them inside the twice-as-large-and-robust " character, is no longer an issue, quotation-interior punctuation just for the heck of it is downright irrational. I can't think of anything more daft-looking than things like 'Jim Smith's third Top-40 single, "Yo Mama's Kitchen," was...' It's just ridiculous. (NB: Before this heats up again, please note that I'm not opining that defending this usage is irrational or ridiculous; I don't agree with you, but I'm not calling you names. I'm labeling the practice as illogical and farcical). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:47, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Consensus, or not, for changing the policy on "logical" punctuation in quotations

Anderson and some new ring-in with a red-linked user-page have been busy making unilateral changes to the policy without, to my eyes, a proper assessment of consensus on this page. In addition, the changes they have made were inconsistent with the point below: "Punctuation marks are placed inside the quote marks only if the sense of the punctuation is part of the quotation (this system is referred to as logical quotation)."

Unilateral is a falsehood. Tony really should have waited until #Punctuation and quotation marks was archived before so decribing it; he might even have convinced me to check my memory. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I call for a debate here on whether the policy should be changed, before jumping in and changing the text. Personally, I'm not in favour of the change, since the logical format is consistent with WP's overarching policy on leaving directly quoted material untouched. I have a number of objections to the wording, and I'm very uneasy about the citing of other style manuals in the body of the MOS. Tony 03:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

"I'm not in favour of the change" << irony intended? :) — xDanielx T/C 10:52, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I support their change. The position of the marks is not a question of leaving the original quotation untouched, but a mere typographical convention. I think either rule is acceptable, and that the rule should be not to change whatever is in WP, but perhaps to try for consistency within an article. Tony is unduly prescriptive. The Chicago manual remains the basis of our MOS, and is appropriately quoted. DGG (talk) 04:25, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes and no. It is a mere typographical convention in the case of (some but not all) Americans' preference for putting some but not all punctuation inside the quotation marks. I.e., insisting on it is making a mountain out of a molehill. The opposite, however, is not true. There are strongly defensible reasons (I've given a least 5 of them up above) to stick with logical quotation, and one of them is in fact quoting accurately. You don't seem to care about accurate quotations, but many of us do. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Then we should mention those reasons; that may actually persuade someone to try the logical method. But MOS is not the place to impose something because a handful of our editors have decided it's "better". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:25, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
That seems rather hyperbolic. The MoS is precisely the place that an overall consensus recommends particular style usages, and it is inevitable that some editors will feel some of them to be "impositions". That's just the way of the world. You can't make everyone happy all the time, and it is not MoS's job to even try. MoS's job is to recommend style limits and best practices that help make the encyclopedia useful and reliable. And that's pretty much it. "I like it" reasoning simply doesn't play any legitimate role at all, pro or con. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Where on earth did you dredge up that idea that Chicago is the basis of WP's MOS? Hello, it's not an American project, but international. Please point to some evidence. Tony 04:38, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. I'm even an American, and I find numerous things in CMS that are just plain off the wall; despite it being in the 15th ed., there are all sorts of irrational inconsistencies and just plain logicfarts in there, "conventions" that even most Americans abandoned 2 generations ago, curiously unAmerican Briticisms here and there, etc., etc. Like Wikipedia itself, the CMS is very palimpsestuous. And it's hardly the only style guide out there, much less a particularly authoritative one. It is intended for journalism and English majors, and was not written with an eye to precision, accuracy and avoiding ambiguity. And I can't think of anything more in need of those qualities than an encyclopedia, except maybe things like nuclear reactor specs or space shuttle operating manuals. PS: I haven't found it particularly fruitful quoting he CMS myself. I'd estimate that for every 10 times I do that I get what I want here maybe once if I'm lucky. Caveat prescriptor. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

There's absolutely no consensus for such a radical alteration (see long explanation in same basic topic farther up the page of just a handful of the bad things that would happen if this change were made). A tiny handful of loud but incessant complainants who cannot offer a more logical front than "I like it", "it's what I'm used to", "some prescriptive book I like better than the MoS says so" or "I haven't thought of any potential fallout, so there must be no potential fallout", do not magically make a new consensus for undoing something that has had very broad consensus for years. This is one of our most important guidelines, and making incautious changes to it (aside from being likely to get immediately reverted) stands a good chance of wreaking a lot of havoc, because every article in Wikipedia looks to this document and its subpages for guidance. I'm not on a high horse here either. There are lots of things I would change in MoS to suit my personal preferences (I've even, slowly, gotten a few minor but substantive changes), but oh well, too bad. The vast bulk of the changes I've proposed (or in my wikiyouth just gone and boldly made here) have been rejected, and rejected more than once. This guideline and its child guidelines are very, very resistant to willy-nilly changes, with good reason. If you find yourself getting frustrated that you are not getting your way, just drop it for a while and go do something else. It works (I know from exerience; after a week you'll hardly even remember why you spent so much time arguing with people in MOS instead of working on articles you care about, nuking vandals, or whatever floats your wikiboat.) PS: Some (allegedly) random anon noob joining the fray hardly lends much credence to the "new consensus" idea. When I see Centrx, SlimVirgin, Radiant, Gracenotes, and 20 other hardcore, long-term major contributors all saying "we should change this", I might believe change was in the air, but the fact of the matter is that no one wants this change but a small handful. Now. And 6 month ago. And last year. And the year before that. The numbers never increase, and curiously those who felt strongly about it 18 months ago don't rejoin the debate (which suggests to me that they realize over time the benefits of logical quoting once they get used to it and stop seeing it as "wrong"). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC) PS: And, yeah, we don't cite other style manuals in the text of the MOS. MOS is not an article. It is a slowly-built-by-consensus set of community decisions about how to best write the encyclopedia (that means for the end user's benefit, not our own personal convenience or pecadilloes. Logical quotation is a major part of that user-helpfulness, in its elimination of doubts and ambiguities as to the reliability of the quoted passage's accuracy, reliability of code or other technical data's to-the-last-character correctness, inter-article consistency, etc., etc. This is nothing at all like "colour" vs. "color", which is parseable by any English speaker in either spelling (UK vs. US spelling truly is just a harmless preference matter, unlike quotation punctuation.)— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Oy Vey! Why can't you people decide one way or or the other? Logical format makes more sense to me but I, and most editors probably, would be happy to learn and follow any punctuation convention as long as it's clearly described. It would be a big help if it's project-wide and not just article by article. Sometimes choosing the red one or the blue one doesn't need consensus, it just needs a decision. Why not flip a coin or something? Wikidemo 05:21, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Um, we already did long ago. This is all just noise. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Totally in agreement with Tony and SMcCandlish on this one (see excellent points made in sections further up too). In addition to the "keep the quote untouched" argument, I'd like to add a point that makes Wikipedia special in this regard. Not all editors have access to the source. An editor should be able to rephrase a sentence containing a quote without fear that they are changing the quote by adding or removing punctuation. The logical style is the only one that maintains that property. Going for a mixed per-article style is even worse than a wholesale change. Wikidemo—flipping a coin to radically change the quotation style of a project with 2 million articles isn't wise. Colin°Talk 08:10, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I also oppose the change. "Logical" quotations make more sense on every, well, logical basis. Assured accuracy in quotations seems vital in such a work as an encyclopedia. SamBC(talk) 10:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

For all the reasons given, I support the logical style. Although fine typography sometimes calls for deviations, neither Wikipedia nor any other HTML document can be fine typography, lacking control of typeface (it is only a suggestion), page size, physical and optical margins, hyphenation, microspacing, and all the other things that typographers do to fully optimize text on paper.--Curtis Clark 13:00, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

The denial of the fact that are in fact two accepted styles is disingenuous and dishonest; as I have said elsewhere, I use "logical punctuation" myself, but it is a relative novelty; our article suggests that Fowler invented it, and we may well be right. I have no objection to recommending it; although I think it would be one of our more pointless recommendations. Many Americans have this drilled into them, and they are unlikely to change at a paragraph here. This has all the disadvantages of the Anglo-American wars, and none of the advantages.
As for CMS, Tony should really try reading this page occasionally: it's the first and most prominent source mentioned: The Chicago Manual of Style and Fowler’s Modern English Usage are well-known style guides;... Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:16, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Huh? The MoS making a specific recommendation for specific reasons is not "denial of the fact" that there are other possible recommendations we are not making! Sheesh. That's like saying that a MoS recommendation for formal language is a "denial" that a lot of my fellow New Mexicans like to use "ain't" a lot. Please. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
And does SMcCandlish realize that he bit a newbie before he was even welcomed? ) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:19, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Honestly hadn't noticed (had too many windows open, too much forking of attention). But really, noobs do not edit policy, generally. The odds of that being a real noob are near-zero; it's just someone who's got a new/secondary account in all likelihood. All that said, I do not feel 100% obligated to leave a Welcome template before warning against disruptive behavior. I usually do, often even with IP addresses, but there is no policy that this must be done. A small "nip" that is short of a full-on "bite" is often a Good Thing in online communities, inspiring people to lurk and learn before being overly bold. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Is the MoS the place to document usage outside Wikipedia? Anyone interested in the fact that another system exists can follow the links to appropriate articles. Aren't they the place for such documentation? I thought the MoS was a place to prescribe usage here not describe usage elsewhere.
As far as I can see the use of logical quoting has a heap of advantages these have been described at length above.
CMS may be mentioned but surely we're writing our own MoS based on concensus here. Jɪmp 17:28, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, actually; it's why we begin by citing other style guides in the first place. MOS should describe English; not, as Tony repeatedly proposed, reinvent it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
That is not at all what MoS is for; it is to recommend best practices within Wikipedia for Wikipedian (i.e. encyclopedic) purposes (and while this concept relates to observed, described general usage out in the world, the two are not 1:1 identical). You appear to be confusing an internal Wikipedia document with a generally applicable style manual. Get your namespaces straight. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

We are discussing the following statement:

Most Americans and Canadians, and some Australian [16] and British publications (for example, The Guardian[17]), place periods and commas inside quotation marks; they place colons and semi-colons, question marks, and exclamation points outside, unless they are part of the material quoted. This is the system the Chicago Manual of Style recommends (§6.8f.); it is sometimes referred to as "aesthetic style." Be consistent, whichever system is used.

I do not insist on the citation of CMS, which is a relic of an old note. The CMS does in fact permit the logical style but warns against it as requiring extraordinary precision; frankly, this is a problem with it: Wikipedians are not, on average, careful. I would agree to a compromise which introduces this by sayign that Wikipedia normally uses, and recommends the logical style. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

The MOS does not "cite" CMS or Fowler as a "prominent source", as PMAnderson claims (while simultaneously attacking Tony). They are merely mentioned as "well-known style guides" and noted to be among the "reliable guides" one may wish to consult "if this page does not specify a preferred usage". As other have said, detailed commentary on external styles is a distraction to this MOS page, which should focus on WP's in-house style. There are not "two accepted styles" on Wikipedia. There has only been one style, which was established when, in August 2002, User:Ortolan88 kicked off this MOS with the edit summary, "Beginning "A Manual of Style", copy-editing, consistency and markup fiends please all jump in at once." It would be hard to find a more stable guideline on Wikipedia. Colin°Talk 18:13, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

if this page is indeed a place for reinventing English to the whims of a handful, then it is an essay. It is stable because it is guarded by revert warriors, and because most competent editors ignore it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:25, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
[citation needed]. It's my experience that the MoS is heavily relied upon by most serious editors. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "whim" as "A sudden or capricious idea; a fancy." or an "Arbitrary thought or impulse". One of these "whims", as you call them, has remained on wiki for five years. I'd say that's pretty firmly established by consensus. Colin°Talk 18:36, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
... most competent editors ignore it ... Hmmm. Raul doesn't ignore the Manual of Style; what does that make him? If the goal here is to destabilize long-standing guidelines enough that we all begin to ignore it, that's another matter. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:40, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Nice toad-eating, Sandy; but it makes Raul an exception. No, the goal is to make the MOS a practical manual, describing the actual consensus of Wikipedian practice, much broader than this talk page; to have it a less useful tool for the disruptive; and to keep it from saying anything actually silly, like the proposal to require Socrates's, further up on this talk page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Oh, so you mean all the rest of us (the majority here) who also pay attention to the Manual of Style are also incompetent exceptions, along with Raul? Cool beans. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:56, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
No, it means that this discussion has a dozen participants; Wikipedia has thousands of competent editors, Raul among them. Most of those thousands ignore this page; Raul doesn't. Do you have anything more useful to say than inventing personal attacks, again? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:03, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Again: [citation needed]. I see no evidence whatsoever that "most competent editors ignore the MOS". If this were true, none of us, on either side, would be bothering. I believe your wiggly insult is basically a handwave. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Don't wear the shoe if it doesn't fit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:06, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Altering your comments after my reply, hmmmm. Thanks for the useful link :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:15, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, I suppose making a great pother out of an edit conflict is more useful than your previous remark; but do let us know when you find something substantive to say. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:37, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
An edit conflict nine minutes later; Bishonen and I have twice been involved in edit conflicts on edits that occurred simultaneously but weren't caught by Wiki software. We must do something about Wiki's software if we're getting 9-minute lags now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:00, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
It took me some time to make the edit - I had a link to find; and more time to fix the conflict. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:04, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I accept that; but when another editor has already responded, nine minutes later, you might consider making a new post rather than altering your prior post. SandyGeorgia(Talk) 20:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
I usually do; but not after searching for the link, and fighting the ec. If I fiddled further, I would probably have gotten another ec. In any case, I didn't alter the edit you were talking about.Septentrionalis PMAnderson
Matters of style like this that are solely syntax, format, and other language mechanics do have to follow a "winner takes all" approach, and more than most other policy/guideline issues ought to be decided centrally among those who know and care about the issue rather than a mere description of current practice among editors. Leaving it up to editors to make an article-by-article choice is no good; we need to go one way or another, and it looks like the "logical" quotation style has the upper hand here. We can talk about this a while longer to see if American style gets a consensus but if not we should leave the page as-is and remove the disputed tag because a editors opposing a decision already reached is not a valid dispute.Wikidemo 19:48, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
No, several editors (see above section) agreed to change this; and several do now dispute this position. I don't see why there has to be a winner-takes-all position. Learn to leave articles alone.. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:09, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Agreed; the destabilization of this page by a minority viewpoint is achieving a self-fulfilling prophecy as far as the usefulness of this page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:00, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Bosh. These are the changes in the last month and a half; most of them are small, and none interfere with the use of the page. There are two large additions, the one with horilka and the one about citation template. Neither appears to have been discussed; and neither is mine. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
  • This is a demonstration of what I am talking about. No one has proposed mandating aesthetic punctuation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:21, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
    • What do you mean by "Learn to leave things alone."? Do you mean things like five-year-old-established-by-consensus-guidelines? Consensus can change of course, but it will take more than two or three editors to achieve that here. You have been repeatedly asked to establish consensus prior to significantly changing the guidelines. Your own admission that you don't use "aesthetic style" makes me think you are merely trying to make a POINT. Colin°Talk 21:06, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
Don't confuse avoiding US/UK conflict when there is no logical difference, and demanding that regional (and non-universal within that region!) colloquial variation be encouraged when it potentially introduces factual errors, ambiguities, uncertainty, etc. Two different monkeys. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
"Logical" punctuation has a much more serious risk of introducing false commas (if that matters); this is one reason why aesthetic punctuation has been retained, and the reason the CMS warns against logical punctuation: when a logical punctuator errs, there's no error-correction. Since the comma and quote in aesthetic punctuation are purely formal, and do not assert the condition of the original, occasional slips don't matter, and can be easily fixed. But if a logical punctatuator ever says ," when she means ", there is a positive error, and no way to catch it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
That's a very trivial "risk"! "If that matters" = false, generally, and non-problematic from a MoS/editorial perspective when rarely true. It would be perfectly appropriate to simply move or remove the comma in most cases. For example:
X said, "this is a quote, blah blah blah," and yak yak yak.
X said, "this is a quote, blah blah blah", and yak yak yak.
Let's not be silly. "No way to catch it"? Huh? Everything has to be verifiable or it is subject to deletion, remember? In cases where removal/moving would not be appropriate (e.g. "the command 'rm * .' is used to...", one would look at the cited sources to verify that the period really did belong there if uncertain. This is precisely why logical quoting needs to be advanced as the standard here instead of encouraging chaos in this matter, much less going for so-called "aesthetic" (I find it ugly as sin, myself) punctuation, which will inevitably lead many (mostly American) editors to actually change technical quotes in ways that render them FUBAR. Finally, if there were any actual "serious risk", most of the world would not be using logical quotation. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 12:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

This section of the MOS was tagged as disputed. Between then and now, this talk page has received no additional support of the "allow both styles, but be consistent within an article" guideline. The disputed tag was then cleared, along with modifications to the guideline that do not have consensus approval. It appears this MOS is only disputed while the text does not meet with PMAnderson's personal approval. I've reverted back to the consensus version. Colin°Talk 23:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Hear hear! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, hear, hear! And hear, hear this: "this guideline should be whatever will make the articles, which are what matters, work better." No, it's simply not true that "Either system works," What some are labelling aethetic punctuation (beauty is in the eye of the beholder and this looks like a misnomer to me) introduces ambiguity: it does not work. If the guideline should be whatever makes articles work better, then it should remain as it has been for the past five years. Nor is this the place to document usage outside of Wikipedia. Certianly our guidlines should be constructed with such usage in mind but they aren't simply reflexions of it. Nor is our MoS simply a regurgitation of other style guides—sure let's consider what they have to say but we're writing our MoS. There are other considerations which go into it, like consensus and this is pretty clearly against American punctuation. Jɪmp 07:01, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
And it's not American punctuation. I keep stressing this because some people would like to make this look like a US vs. UK English pissing match, which it emphatically is not. Internal punctuation is an old typesetting convention from the 1700s. It is preferred by most non-technical US and Canadian, and some British, etc., publications and styleguides; it has been rejected completely in scientific, technical and other writing in which precision, accuracy and lack of ambiguity are important (which is the case with an encyclopedia, whether Britannica editors acknowledge that or not); and it is not favored strongly even in mass-market publications much of anywhere outside of North America. The "Americanness" of it is entirely incidental, really, and a recurrent red herring here, other than inasmuch as it demonstrates that it is simply a colloquial preference that doesn't have a logic/clarity/specificity basis behind it that can compete with the basis behind logical quotation. That's pretty much the end of the matter right there. There simply isn't a defensible rationale for the proposed change. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

A salient quote from Wikipedia:Consensus:


My, doesn't that sound familiar? Everything just described is precisely what has been happening here, including the periodic "shopping" for a new more and sympathetic batch of MoS editors, and stubborn refusal to acknowledge the reasons behind the extant consensus. Concensus can change but it doesn't do so willy-nilly or because of tenanacity and argumentativeness. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 10:31, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

No, what this sounds like is one of the hallmarks of bad process:"Outsiders frequently complain of exclusionary process or ill treatment by regulars in the process; regulars are dismissive of these concerns." If this issue comes up every four months, and is routinely dismissed, it's a sign that real concerns, of many independent editors, are not being addressed. A compromise is in order; a single sentence will satisfy me, and may satisfy others. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:46, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I can't for the life of me understand what that quote has to do with an "issue comes up every four months". Complaints about "exclusionary process or ill treatment" are quite different from repeatedly raising an issue. Please keep this separate and don't muddy the waters. That this issue recurs says little about whether it is currently wrong. Most of WP's policies are frequently questioned (page protection, anonymous users) but the consensus remains against change and those pages are not permanently tagged as disputed. Colin°Talk 08:52, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Furthermore, it isn't "routinely dismissed", but debated at great length; the entire point PMAnderson/Septentrionalis is trying to make here is a form of straw man fallacy. It's really easy to bash a scarecrow that represents an imagined censorious oligarchic hegemony conspiring to keep one person out of the limelight, and quite another to actually engage in a constructive discourse with fellow editors collaborating to make and maintain a useful style guideline for Wikipedia. The latter takes some actual effort. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 12:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
PS: Having used {{Disputedtag}} myself, when left no other apparent choice, I'd be hypocritical if I got upset over PMAnderson using it. I think it is a constructive template when used properly, since it garners attention to a debate and speeds up consensus-building. Agree with Colin that it's not something that becomes a permanent fixture. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 12:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Forgive me for not wading through the entire discussion above and elsewhere, because I want to make one simple observation. I think the usefulness of logical quoting depends on the context. In cases where commas make a big difference, such as semantics or computer programming, logical quotes are a must. In other cases, such as when quoting romanized translations of Lao Tzu's Tao te Ching, logical quotes are less useful. The decision to use or not use logical quotes should rest with the editors who introduce content into articles, not with a MOS that lays down a preference for everyone. I see some cases where logical quotes would look out of place and disgusting, and I also see examples where authors sensibly use logical quotes to eliminate equivocation (Saul Kripke comes to mind). Perhaps we should simply specify the benefits and drawbacks of both the styles and say that editors will have to agree on individual cases. Besides, if editors are debating over a particular use of logical/nonlogical quotes, they are paying greater attention to detail than the majority of editors at Wikipedia! —Kanodin 17:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
One of the symptoms of not wading through this lengthy morass is that you missed this already being addressed. :-) The problem with not being prescriptively against typesetters' quotation traditions is that some editors will change logical ones to to the typesetters' "aesthetic" ones willy-nilly, even in articles where this would have a very, very deleterious effect, and not all of these instances will be caught and reverted, leaving articles indefinitely hosed. There are plenty of places where the MoS lays down a very strongly recommendation for everyone, and this is broadly tolerated, even welcomed, because it produces predictable, stable consistency where needed. There is no such problem with things like "neighbor" vs. "neighbour" and other genuinely preferential/cultural issues that don't have an effect on the accuracy or even logical parseability of the content. As said earlies, this is not a UK vs. US English fight, for something like 5 different reasons; it has just been mistaken as one by a few people. PS: Your "would look out of place and disgusting" reaction is entirely subjective and colloquial; the vast majority of English speakers (well, readers, really) in most of the English-speaking places on the planet already have this reaction with regard to illogical quotation, and many Americans do as well. "Some won't like it" isn't a very strong argument in the face of the more objective ones advanced by proponents of leaving the logical quotation prescription in place. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:58, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Kanodin writes "the usefulness of logical quoting depends on the context." Yep, that's a fair call. "The decision to use or not use logical quotes should rest with the editors who introduce content into articles," I would disagree, there's a great advantage in having consistancy rather than allowing editors to judge for themselves. "I see some cases where logical quotes would look out of place and disgusting," I don't. It's a matter of taste, to me it's illogical quotes which look out of place and disgusting. So let's "specify the benefits and drawbacks of both the styles". I can't see a single benifit of typesetter's (illogical) quotation the drawbacks have been specified at length. The usefulness of logical quotation may vary but typesetter's quotation is never more useful. JIMp 06:52, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Comment from a previously uninvolved editor: I have read through the entire discussion, as well as parts of the achived discussions about this question, and it does appear that the consensus is, and has been for a long time, for the MoS to recommend logical quotation. SMcCandlish in particular has argued convincingly why it should remain so. Speaking as someone who does much WikiGnome-like work on articles that are nowhere close to FA-class, I have come to rely on a stable, prescriptive-where-possible Manual of Style. A manual that describes multiple ways of dealing with a style question is less useful, in my opinion. --Paul Erik 19:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, you say that the vast majority of English speakers in most of the English-speaking places on the planet already have this reaction with regard to illogical quotation, and many Americans do as well. Well, according to this page, most English speakers are Americans. So why not use (or at least allow to be used) the American style if the majority are taught it?
Agreed (with the majority opinion). It's about more than quotes; Wiki is large enough to have its own style guide that should be unambiguous about our in-house preferences. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:24, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with SandyGeorgia and the many other similar comments. PMAnderson wrote that "the goal is to make the MOS a practical manual, describing the actual consensus of Wikipedian practice...." Well, that's not my goal. If you wanted to describe actual practice, you'd note that many people continue to italicize quotations, some people can't get over their (British) habit of using single quotation marks instead of doubles, etc. The MoS is prescriptive, not descriptive. It prescribes logical style for quotation marks, " instead of ', and unitalicized quotations. Those points should not be changed. JamesMLane t c 19:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Paul, for taking the time to wade through this and previous discussions. I'm glad to read some confirmation that MoS is not just important (or not) to articles at FAC. I also appreciate a stable MoS and find that conforming to a house style is no big deal. Change through building consensus is vital here. Colin°Talk 20:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Just wondering whether there's an analogous practice for parentheses to (the typesetter's punctuation.) Tony 06:05, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
I just saw this discussion for the first time tonight, after I have modified a number of pages to punctuate as advocated in Chicago Manual of Style. This is how I learned to punctuate in school, and I never even bothered to check Wikipedia for a policy. I'm sure many others were also taught this way and use "illogical style" quotation marks without realizing it is against Wikipedia style guidelines (for example, I just found this user talk page). I, for one, think that Wikipedia should allow the Chicago style. It isn't just opinion, it is an accepted way of writing. TK421 06:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
It should also be noted that over the last few months, I have edited a number of pages to make them follow CMOS. Some of these pages were even featured articles (such as Harry S. Truman). In looking over them, most of my edits still stand. Is this not a form of consensus? This suggests to me that many others find the Chicago style acceptable, and it should be incorporated as an acceptable style in Wikipedia. TK421 07:09, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
It most certainly does not represent consensus, and you should desist immediately from this practice. In fact, you should go back and revert the damage that you've done. Tony (talk) 09:33, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Relax. I didn't even know about this style guide when I made those changes, and I won't make any more unless I see a change in policy. As far as representing "a form of consensus", look at the flow chart on Wikipedia:Consensus. Make an edit - Wait - Was the article edited further? - No - New consensus. Consensus does not only arise from discussions like this, but from actual practice. My point that some were featured articles indicates that these were not obscure articles, either. I think it is a compelling argument. TK421 17:41, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Then that represents a local consensus that no-one who edits that article objects. However, editing to conform to the CMOS does not have wikipedia-wide consensus, and the fact that your edits happened to make text conform to CMOS, and had local consensus, doesn't mean that there's even local consensus to follow CMOS generally. We explicitly don't follow CMOS, and that has been established to have general consensus. That consensus can change, but there's been no demonstration of that. Limited objections don't mean that consensus is no longer valid. SamBC(talk) 20:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
I do think that MOS could/should be clearer: its examples are easily misunderstood. I see many well-informed editors believing that it's a purely mechanical function of whether quoted text ended with a [."] or not. If clearly explained, logical punctuation is easy to use and a better explanation would remove many minor arguments. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 11:47, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Transgender pronoun issue

Talk:Lynn Conway seems to be finding the MoS information on the use of transgender pronouns insufficiently detailed.

Conway lived for thirty years as a man before transitioning to living as a woman. One editor says that every moment of Conway's life should be described with a feminine pronoun. Another says that the first thirty years should be described with a masculine pronoun (to match the gender that was publicly lived at that time), and everything since the transition should use the feminine pronoun (to match the gender as it is lived at this time).

What do you think?

And would any of your admin types mind stopping by the page to explain the Three-Revert Rule so that these two would knock it off already? WhatamIdoing 04:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't take an admin to do that.
Anyway, with regards to the original question: If there is even consensus that WP should bow to politically-correct usage and honor the apparent preferences of the transgendered (I assume that there is such a consensus, but that is a baldfaced assumption), it should clearly be the latter of the two options. The first simply makes no sense at all. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:02, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there's much of a consensus anywhere in society, not even among so-called "PC" people. I would ask the question at Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies. If by "transgendered" you mean someone who has completed a sex change, it's pretty clear that if a person's entire notability and information spans a period where they are living as one gender or another you use that gender. If it's someone who is merely cross-dressing but does not identify with the opposite sex, you use their biological sex. If it's someone who lives their life as a member of the opposite sex and identifies as one, but hasn't gone through any real sex reassignment, I just don't know. Nor do I know how you handle someone who changes during the time the article covers. To make things more complicated, a very small number of people (but more than you might expect) are genuine hermaphrodites or sexless. You could try to figure out what genes they have, but that seems awfully clinical. Also, living versus dead makes a difference, as well as the standards of the times. For a dead person it doesn't matter a whole lot. A woman living as a man or a man living as a woman is usually described by their "real" (biological) sex. However, many people today wish to be addressed by their assumed gender, and in some places that is the norm. I think if their peers and community call them a "she" or a "he", who are we to impose our own standards? One thing you can do for short articles is just write them to avoid the pronouns. That can be hard if the article is long but if it's just a few paragraphs it's no sweat....and certainly a lot easier to do than figuring this out. For an example of avoiding pronouns, see Wendy Carlos's Clockwork Orange. Wikidemo 09:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Note - the Wendy Carlos article uses feminine pronouns for a musical artist who went from man to woman early in her career. That may be the standard and in a way that makes a lot more sense than worrying about it too much. If someone changed their name (as she did, from "Walter" to "Wendy") you might note discretely in a parenthetical that there was a sex change, and leave it at that. I think people can figure it out. Style is like manners, mostly about getting the job done. When in doubt turn to the question of what is most clear and consistent. Wikidemo 10:12, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Please, "apparent preferences of the transgendered," does not cover the entire gamet of issues related to transgenderism. A number of transgender individuals are intersexuals and have been channeled into one gender or the other. Apparent preferences of a trangender may be their biological identity, and unless we can confirm the clinical sexual identity of all transgenders on Wikipedia, using their adult professed gender makes sense. Psychologists and psychiatrists looking into gender identity are not nearly as certain of the underlying issues as disdaining the "apparent preferences of the trangendered" as merely PCness seems to imply--it would be original research on the part of Wikipedia to lead by dismissing as political correctness the difficult issue of gender pronouns when speaking of transgenders and intersexual people, and simply assigning them their birth gender. In particular when birth gender used to be simply assigned at birth, for reasons as random as an oops in a circumsision. This can be handled parenthetically, as Wikidemo suggest, in cases where there is an issue of relevancy under another gender, to make this clear to the reader. Cross dressing isn't necessarily related to transgenderism. A cross dresser should be simply identified by their gender. KP Botany 19:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
If I read you correctly you are saying, "It's not a p.-c. issue, but go with the known gender preference of the subject". So we appear to be in aggreement on that last point. To use "she" for the subject in question for periods before the change in gender identity would be original research. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:13, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
No. To use "he" for Conway in her youth, without knowing the details of the transgender procedure would be original research. If we use "he" but Conway was an individual whose phenotypical gender differed from her genotypical gender, for example, she may have been born male (XY) with female genetalia or been born female (XX) with male genetalia and sought the transgender procedure to bring both her phenotype and genotype into accordance with each other, we would be in the wrong relative to her biological information. She also may have been born with genetalia that didn't clearly fit either the male or female phenotype and, due to her age, was assigned a gender at birth, as was typical at the time. This assignation could have been incorrect, or not in accordance with her genotype. Original research would be to assume we know that because she was labelled "male" on her birth certificate, her phenotype and genotype were both male at birth. Do we know this? Is this reliably available information? KP Botany 21:45, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
More to the point, what do the sources use? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:59, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
The earlier sources about her accomplishments at IBM, if they are used in the article, will use "he" as the gender pronoun. But we're writing a biography today from multiple sources and changing the pronoun throughout the article to reflect a particular source and time will not make for a readable article--it will simply muddy what is being said about her, and give undue weight to her gender change (although this is what she is primarily known for outside of her field) itself, rather than the controversy surrounding it. If we're talking about what do modern sources use, I assume most use "she," unless there is controversy surrounding the gender change, in which case some sources looking at it negatively will probably use "he." As we're writing about her biographically, rather than just about her accomplishments at IBM, we get off a bit easier in being able to use "she." KP Botany 22:06, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, what do modern sources, one written since the issue has arisen, say about the subject's early years? Whatever it is, we should do the same. Please note, however, that this is a question of fact; KP Botany is plausible, but we can't know till we've checked. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:12, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, yes, now you seem like you're accusing me of seeking non-reliable information. Anyway, again, we're writing a biography of the person living today. KP Botany 22:51, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't think reliable sourcing applies to meta-issues like choosing a style or assessing an article's compliance with policy. As I mentioned a couple places already BLP applies to what we call people. At any rate, the most pertinent source would be a person's official biography, and in most that will probably choose gender pronouns for transgender people based on their most current sex assignment.Wikidemo 23:09, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

(Undent) Yes, you say it a bit better, but this is an important point, we're writing an article about the person living today, which doesn't include the luxury of changing pronouns with each change of reference time frame--it doesn't lend itself to writing. KP Botany 23:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Re:'No. To use "he" for Conway in her youth, without knowing the details of the transgender procedure would be original research. If we use "he" but Conway was an individual whose phenotypical gender differed...': I have to take a somewhat opposite position. We have no such information about the procedure or about his/her phenotype, so using "she" for Conway's entire lifespan is WP:OR. The data we do have is roughly when Conway made the switch. Other cases could be different, e.g. if we have phenotype information, or a reliable quote from the subject (or a biographer) stating that the subject had thought of themself as the opposite gender for their entire life, etc. We have no such information on Conway, and cannot simply assume, but view the matter objectively (but with sensitivity - a hard-core objective approach would be to use masculine pronouns throughout and say to hell with the other concerns. I hardly advocate that. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 12:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is a parallel, but I want to throw it out anyway. When someone is dead, we speak of that person's status in the past tense: "Elizabeth I ... was Queen of England, Queen of France (in name only), and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death." Living people are often written about in the present tense: "Elizabeth II ... is the Queen regnant of sixteen independent states and their overseas territories and dependencies." Although I'm sure it will be annoying to change the tenses on the article about the current Queen when she dies, it would seem strange to write in mixed tense, using present tense for those attributes that the person held while alive, and past tense for completed action and attributes held only after death.
I don't doubt for a moment the complexity of the transgender pronoun issue, but if we accept that an article should use the best-attested pronoun in use at the time the article is presented, we're providing a clear-cut guideline that is not much harder to implement than the expectation of talking about dead people in the past tense.--Curtis Clark 13:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
That it would be easy and simple wouldn't make it "right" (useful to the readership, logical, and many other factors). It would be just as easy and simple, for example to mandate use of neologistic gender-neutral wannabe-pronouns like "zir" and "hir". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 12:13, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
SMcCandish, your points are interesting on the broader issue but not especially relevant to the instant case. Conway lived as a male (and fathered two children) before changing genders at the age of 30. None of her extensive writings or remarks suggest an intersex condition (AFAIK), and very few people with biological intersex conditions (like androgen insensitivity) are fertile. I think we can safely conclude that Conway was born with genotypically and phenotypically unremarkable XY biology. WhatamIdoing 14:50, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I think you may've misunderstood my point (perhaps because I wasn't clear enough about it). The very facts you bring up are what I'm getting at: We do not have a reliable basis on which to decided that Conway should be referred to as "her" in every period of his/her life we are discussing in the article. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 12:13, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
We should discuss the particular issue of Ms. Conway on that article's talk page. Although the issue arose because of that article it was brought here because other articles may be impacted by decisions, so SMcCandlish is correct to discuss the broader issue on this policy page. And Curtis is correct, it presents a clear cut guideline that we can actually implement. KP Botany 15:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Have to disagree with that last; while it would be expedient, it would not be a good idea in my opinion. Simple example of why: "At 27, she fathered her second child." Again, I suggest that we have to apply the most applicable pronoun to the intra-article context (a particular section about a specific life phase, etc.), instead of bowing to (often simply assumptions about) what the article subject's personal preference might be on an article-wide basis. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 12:13, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
This hackneyed old topic again? 'Bowing to assumptions about what the article subject's personal preference might be' is certainly not a neutral way to say 'using self-identification for pronouns to describe transgendered people'. I have NO problem with the sentence 'At age 27, she fathered her second child' at all because she was male then and she's female now. Any 'cognitive dissonance' is occuring inside the head of the reader, and is not due to language imprecision - and so personally, I have no problem (and nor do I find serious fault) with the existing rule in the MoS. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 12:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
The problem with that is that you are not a representative sample. The vast majority of our readership will in fact have a problem with it, and simply labelling them dunces isn't going to solve anything. The "San Franciscan" perspective (which I share) that allows "she was male then and she's female now" to be parseable is unforunately not shared by the majority of humanity, even English-speaking humanity. PS: I'm with Radiant!, in suggesting that this topic, "hackneyed and old" as it may be, should probably move over to the WP:GNL proposal, since the odds of it actually being settled here are pretty low. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
The fact that English doesn't have a special pronoun for 'referring to a person before the time their sex subsequently changed' doesn't require WP to bend over backwards. More importantly, nor does it make my point of view 'San Franciscan' or 'non-representative'. Comments intended to minimize the arguments of other users like that are plainly rude and in my opinion claiming another's view is 'non-representative' without the merest shred of proof only serves to 'radicalize' your views as just as 'non-representative' as you might paint mine to be. Grandiose claims about what 'the majority of humanity can understand' are meaningless here, and in this case proof of both the validity of your view and the non-representativeness of my view are entirely absent, so I'd suggest you make less grandiose claims wherever you bring this silly issue next. For now, WP should keep the policy, keep it simple and use self-identification. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 16:08, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Copied from my talk page, since I already addressed this there: Sorry you felt that way about it. Wasn't the intent. You aren't a representative sample. That's simply a fact. And acceptance of gender-bending at face value is [in the mindset of the majority] a fringe and liberal coastal-city attitude, that is not shared by the majority of Wikipedia's readership. I see that you are offended by these labels, but they are honest. I think that you are missing the fact that I share those views myself; I simply recognize that people in non-urban Middle America, the Highlands of Scotland, Hong Kong, and small-town Australia, etc., etc., on average do not agree with or even understand such views (and further that most of them are only dimly aware at best that such view even exist). The upshot of which is that something like "she fathered her second child in 1978" makes absolutely no sense to people who have not be broadly exposed to TG issues and lifeways and language surrounding them. We have to write for those people too. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Ah, see - that's the disconnect. Whether you believe most people hold a positive, indifferent, ignorant or negative view regarding awareness and acceptance of 'gender-bending'/transgender issues, that's really not the basis for my argument (nor a valid basis for you to derogate it). My argument is that self-identification is the most well-founded and accurate guide to write articles for our readers, and that the MoS guideline, based on self-identification, is sufficent. Regardless of cultural views, in the context of an article about a living person (a woman, whose transsexual background is discussed aforehand in the article), the content 'When Mrs. Lynn Conway was 27, she fathered a child' is more accurate than 'When Mrs. Lynn Conway was 27, he fathered a child'. See what I mean? Moreover, these kinds of situations can usually be solved editorially, by writing article content that is clear but doesn't provide such obvious (and avoidable) foils. A change in policy isn't needed to cover such 'fringe' situations.
I'm not arguing (nor to I think it's correct to argue) that the policy necessarily has to reflect whatever views 'middle America' has ostensibly expressed regarding transgender issues. We should not be concerned with making sure the articles reflect one 'social view' or another, rural or urban, parochial or urbane. We needn't weigh the views of 'Middle America' in order to decide whether a living (or indeed, deceased) individual should be referred to as their self-identified name and gender on our articles. The current policy reflects this well. 'Acceptance' isn't what we are writing our articles to reflect - accuracy should be our focus. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 00:00, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I understand all of that, and the perspective from which it comes (which I largely share in day-to-day life, just not entirely on Wikipedia). It does not address what you call reader cognitive dissonance, which is matter of great importance here. Self-identification is perfectly fine for periods in which it can be sourcedly known that this is how that person self-identified. It's also great for the lead section and the overall nature of the article. But to apply specifically within a period outside what we know from sources is original research. I.e., it would be wrong to use female pronouns to refer to Conway in her childhood, unless we have a source that says Conway self-identified as girl at that age. I understand that you feel that saying of a M-F TG "she fathered her first child at 27" is somehow more correct, but most readers will not agree with you. The examples you've provided are too constructed to be of use here; we would not actually write "When Mrs. Lynn Conway was 27, she fathered a child". The piece would discuss the TG nature of the person, and either use the male gender for an activity that must be male, by definition, and which refers to a period in which we do not have any reliable source that Conway self-identified as female; or even more likely (as I think you are also pointing out), just be written to avoid any such construction in the first place, e.g. "Conway's first child was born in [year here]". There are more ways to skin this cat that enshrining a new rule that the transgendered always have to be referred to by their preferred pronoun regardless what segment of their life is being written about. I agree with you that the current guidelines are good enough. It is inevitable that some disputes will arise, as at the Conway article, but oh well. There is no policy or guideline on WP that does not either fail to prevent or outright directly generate such conflicts, and WP seems collectively able to handle them. <shrug> I guess my gist is that I see where you are coming from and glad that we agree that the MOS is okay on this matter, but I have issues with some of your ideas that branch out from there. PS: I was not attempting to suggest that Middle America's perceptions be enshrined in MOS, only that Castro District sensibilities not be either. If either were, we have a big WP:NPOV problem. PPS: I was not making fun of San Franciscans (being one, though I'm presently in New Mexico); SF is just emblematic of LGBT tolerance, culture, understanding and integration, by stark contrast to places like, say, rural Kansas or Wales. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:56, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
To the extent that RyanFreisling's approach might be confusing in certain circumstances, I tend to reject that proposed approach. "When she was ten, her all-boys' football team won every game" makes the subject sound like an owner or manager instead of a player. I think the first duty of an encyclopedia is to make sense to someone who doesn't know anything about the subject, since that's usually the reason a person reached for an encyclopedia.
Also, I have some concerns about how we could reliably determine individual personal preferences without doing WP:OR, especially since such preferences might change over time (even ignoring for the moment the TG people who switch gender roles several times during their lives). The solution that seems best to me is to redraft sentences to minimize the need for potentially controversial pronouns in the first place. WhatamIdoing 15:52, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, my point all along has been what you succinctly described as our first duty. RF's position seems to be that this duty is actually secondary to his particular notion of what "be accurate" means (which as I've noted conflicts with other editors' and the probable mainstream views of what "accurate" would actually mean in this context.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:08, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
My position is that there is no more accurate determiner of one's sex than oneself. The most accurate way to determine the sex of an individual is to use the sex under which they themselves identify. Everything else is second-hand and prone to those 'social views' or other cultural POV's regarding gender issues. My position is that 'self-identification' should be (and is) the guideline for gender-based pronoun usage for transgendered individuals, and not WP:OR determinations along other grounds. And of course this guideline in no way obviates the need for intelligent editing on articles like these - with topics of this kind that challenge linguistic structure, such intelligent editing is even more crucial as I stated above. Thanks. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 01:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree with both of you folks - transgender issues can indeed be confusing. And, the English language doesn't lend itself well to describing a person who has changed sex before and after the change. And so you're both right - the confusion needs to be minimized to the greatest degree possible by intelligent policy and intelligent editorial work. In this case, a person's own self-identification is the only acurate gauge of their sex - trying to base pronoun usage on conditional or arbitrary WP:OR attempts to confirm 'when' one identified as what sex, etc. would be much more confusing. Better to use a simple guideline - use the sex the individual themself has identified as - and minimize confusion with editorial skill. Anything else is a net reduction in accuracy. -- User:RyanFreisling @ 21:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Agree with everything you said there, up to and not including "In this case..." My contention is a) the extant language in the MOS is sufficient for the MOS's purposes; b) any further development belongs as the new gender neutral language page (and that it should not conflict with MOS, only clarify and illustrate it, or it will end up being {{Rejected}} in all probability; c) that 99% of any disputes over matters like this will necessarily be resolved on a case-by-case basis by active editors of the pages at which those problems arise, as per normal Wikipedian resolution of such issues; and d) that avoiding use of the problematic pronouns in the first place is simple (per your own example of the A Clockwork Orange soundtrack artist), rendering any need for a long and involved guideline on this topic rather moot. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:08, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Agree, self-identification is all the guideline we need - the rest is intelligent editing. We may disagree about whether self-identification is the most accurate way to represent an individual's sex or not, but I agree wholeheartedly that the guideline should be clear and minimal and should leave details of resolution up to content editors acting in good faith. Cheers. :) -- User:RyanFreisling @ 02:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Quotation marks around block quotes (ie: cquote template)

The section on quotations in the MoS states that "block quotes are not enclosed in quotation marks.". However, the cquote template, and its ilk, do exactly this, and are quite widely used. The template has been nominated for deletion, but the result was keep, with an overwhelming number of users stating that they liked and used it. At present the MoS contradicts this, despite the indications from the TfD that this is not in line with consenus. I propose broadening the guideline on block quotes to include allowances for (and guidelines on) using block quotes with quotation marks.

The other alternative would be to try to establish a consensus consistent with the current MoS guideline, but I think that will be very difficult, given the support for the use of cquote. -Kieran 18:45, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I think there's a difference between an attractive, graphical layout, and a simple
"This is a long paragraph in quotes. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah."
Compare
One is ugly, and displayed, at least on my computer, using unjustified quotes. The other is not. That's the spirit of the MoS prohibition, I think. Adam Cuerden talk 20:46, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Use of {{cquote}} and its ilk as substitutes for <blockquote> should be mercilessly converted to the latter in all instances. As Template:Cquote very specifically states in its documentation, it is intended for (quite rare, in WP) "pull quotes", a.k.a. "call-outs", not for blockquoting. I'm of more than half a mind to TfD all of those things, since pull-quotes are very, very rarely appropriate in an encyclopedia, as opposed to magazine, article, and the templates are being rampantly abused. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 21:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Call-outs are used in user space and in the policy space to let everyone know what Jimbo says. So deleting would eliminate some valid uses.Wikidemo 23:04, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
A) Blockquote would work just fine. B) If people really want those silly giant quotation marks, they can be put in another template for non-article use, e.g. a {{cquote-policy}} and a {{cquote-talk}} that have even clearer documentation against using them in mainspace. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Exceptions to standard capitalization of proper nouns

Should the MoS explicitly have an exception for names of musical artists who routinely, on their websites and in press releases, use non-standard capitalization conventions? For example, should Wikipedia have an article on amiina or Amiina? Deus (band) or dEUS? Similar discussions have occurred previously, but anyone interested in offering a perspective on a current discussion is welcome to drop by Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/MUSTARD#capitalisation of band names. --Paul Erik 23:28, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not just organizations. bell hooks comes to mind. —Kanodin 01:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
This really isn't all that hard:
  1. If it's a matter of something like "amiina" (correct) vs. "Amiina" (incorrect, according to the band), it's a moot point as far as the article name goes, because WP articles always begin with a capital letter; the software itself does this. The article's prose should begin something like "The band amiina..." so as not to begin a sentence with a lower-case letter, and use that spelling througout, probably making note somewhere in there that the unusual capitalization is "official".
  2. In a case like "dEUS" vs. "Deus (band)", it's again a moot point. The article should be "DEUS", as when someone inputs "dEUS" as the name, that's where they'll go. The prose should say "dEUS", with the sentence-initial care already mentioned. Nothing wrong with "Deus (band)" as a redirect.
  3. For things like "Mötley Crüe", these are standard character symbols, so go ahead and use them, with "Motley Crue" as a redir to it. Same goes for the band "H3ll B3nt", the (defunct) publication "Inter@ctive Week", etc.
  4. For more wacky instances where we don't have the needed symbols, just forget about it (e.g. the symbol that looks a bit like "Zoso" on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV that gave rise to the album's "Zoso" nickname).
  5. When an official company/organization/band name as given by the entity (e.g. on incorporation papers, policy documents on their website, etc.) does not match their graphical logo, use the official name instead of trying to approximate the logo (thus "eBay", not "ebaY".
  6. Do not attempt to approximate "cute" aspects of a graphical logo, like weird kerning, or letters or punctuation replaced with non-standard symbols, at all. I.e., definitely not "ebaY". We write "Macy's" in reference to the department store, not "Macy[superscripted five-pointed solid star symbol here]s – I don't know if Unicode even has such a symbol, but we would not bother using it. "Macy*s" would be doubly wrong, since it is neither an apostrophe, nor a five-pointed star, but an asterisk. As with "eBay" the official company name is actually "Macy's", their graphical logo notwithstanding.
That's all that comes to mind right off-hand. It's intuitive enough that we've never appeared to need anything in MoS about it; even mainstream journalism doesn't seem to find this stuff difficult either; I have never in my life seen "Macy's" written with a star symbol instead of an apostrophe, except on the Macy's buildings, their own advertising, etc. Likewise, you are never going to run into "ebaY" in the business section of the paper. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:57, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
We actually do have guidelines about band names, and they're quite different from what you outline above (as is the way newspapers handle these, as noted in the discussion). See WP:NC#Album titles and band names and WP:MUSTARD#Capitalization (which defers to WP:MOSTM). I suggest further comments on this topic be made at discussion mentioned above. --PEJL 07:18, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Can you summarize what the differences are? What I outlined seems simple and intuitive to me. And what about the music press as opposed to general-audience newspapers? Just curious. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:32, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Per the current guidelines the band names should be "Amiina" and "Deus", since we normalize the capitalization of band names, just like we normalize the capitalization of album and song names. As for how newspapers capitalize, I don't know, I'm not the one who made that claim. --PEJL 16:03, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Most general-audience newspapers and music magazines normalize capitalization in that way too. --Paul Erik 16:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Oh, okay. I have some minor concerns that this might (now or some other time) conflict with naming conventions used outside of music, but I don't really care that much. This isn't the way I would do it (obviously), but oh well. As long as its written down, is being consistently applied, isn't causing any problems, has redirects from plausible "unnormalized" search terms, and has some defensible rationale behind it, works for me. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually, it appears from what you say here that your music naming guideline conflicts with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision), though I'd have to study them both carefully to be certain. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Capitalisation of geographical features

A discussion has begun on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Waterways, relating to capitalisation of geographical features, in the case in point this is canal structures such as locks and tunnels, but the general principle extends to hills, valleys, mountain passes. To date, the majority of such features have been rendered with capitalisation as proper nouns, for example Foxton Locks, rather than Foxton locks.

Foxton Locks is a flight of canal locks close to the village of Foxton, Leicestershire (UK). The existing style has always been to regard the name Foxton Locks as being the name of the flight, and hence a proper noun.

Over the weekend, a large number of articles have been moved (and subsequently reverted by others, due to a lack of prior discussion) by an editor who appears to contend that the term is not a proper name, but simply a descriptive term for a flight of locks near Frankton.

If this is the case (and the Harvard University example of a proper name which includes a word that would not ordinarily be capitalised doesn't hold true), then surely by analogy every hill, castle etc that shares its name with a town ought to be similarly treated Mayalld 07:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

In the case of Foxton Locks, evidence was supplied to the editor making the edits and page moves under dispute which showed that various authoritative sources used the form "Foxton Locks" rather than "Foxton locks". The discussion place is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Waterways#Lock, tunnel names, etc. Here is the evidence I supplied: The official website names it "Foxton Locks" ( see here.) Additionally, the following authoritative sources use "Foxton Locks": The Foxton Inclined Plane Trust, The USA VisitBritain website (the official body concerned with tourism to the UK), A BBC website that contains information about the place, The Waterscape website. Incidentally, the second listed source gives an authoritative source for "Foxton Inclined Plane", which the editor also had changed in various articles.  DDStretch  (talk) 10:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Some of us tried to supply information from established style guides to inform the debate, as MOS here is not clear about the issue, but these were not really given any attention by the editor. The one I supplied might be usefully mentioned here as it may well inform the debate.

I had most easily to hand a copy of "The Oxford Manual of Style" (2002) ISBN 0198691750. The most relevant chapter of it is 4 (Capitalization and treatment of names), in particular pages 71 and 73 (4.1.3 Place names in particular river names). on p.71 we read the capitalization of proper nouns "has wide discrepancies in practice, and certain disciplines and contexts diverge from the standard style outlined below." On page 73, it describes the standard style for naming rivers (which is quite close to canals, and, by extension, their features, such as locks.) The most relevant extract is:

Capitalize river when it follows the name: the East River, the Hudson River. the Yellow River, the Susquehanna River. It is lower-case where (as in common British idiom) it precedes the name for purposes of description or clarification: the river Thames, [...] Well-known rivers commonly need no such clarification, as there is little risk of confusion: the Amazon, [...]A lower-case river may be added to any of these names where some clarification is required—to differentiate between the Amazon river and forest, or the Mississippi river and state. The name's context and the reader's expectation will determine whether it is appropriate to omit river from less well-known names: the Cherwell and the river Cherwell are both possible in different works; likewise the Thames and the river Thames (but the Thames River Authority, and the Thames River in Canada).

I suggested we could apply these rules by extension to the case of locks. In which case, on the grounds that the canals and places are not well-known, the standard form should be Foxton Locks, and so on. However, there could be some deviation from this (as quoted from page 71 in the book.) That is why I thought it useful to search out authoritative sources for advice (which I subsequently gave and which I give above.) Now, it may well be that wikipedia may come to a different decision on this matter, but at the time I posted the extrascts, in the absence of any clear-cut advice, the extract I gave seemed a useful pointer to have. It is in that spirit I offer it here.  DDStretch  (talk) 10:45, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds completely reasonable to me. That a geographic landmark is not of natural origin seems irrelevant; thus the Brooklyn Bridge not the Brooklyn bridge. If a bridge was given a single name, such as "Jimmy-Joe", and everyone local called it that, I'd agree with the quoted OMS that it should be called "the bridge Jimmy-Joe" in broader contexts. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:05, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to propose adding the following section, which sumarises the position to both this page, and the capital letters sub-pageMayalld 10:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Geographic features and built structures (proposed section)

Proper names of geographic features, buildings or structures, and other landmarks (the White House, Bristol Bridge, Solsbury Hill, the Indian Ocean, etc.) are proper nouns and require capitalization.

Where a label for a landmark (such as its type) is part of the proper name (the Mississippi River, the Hoover Dam, Mount Fuji, the Rio Grande), it is capitalized. When it is not part of the name, it is not capitalized (the river Thames, in England and Krakatoa island and the Krakatoa island group; contrast the Thames River in Ontario and from Pitcairn Island to the Hawaiian Islands).

Such labelling terms (house, hill, bridge, lock, building, mountain etc.) are not capitalized when used in a generic manner:

Incorrect: The Bridge crosses the River at its narrowest point on the east side of Town.
Correct: The bridge crosses the river at its narrowest point on the east side of town. (This holds even in the case of reference to a bridge, river and town which incorporate those labels into the proper names of the landmarks in question, e.g. Smith Bridge, Johnson River, and Harbor Town.)

Generic terms may, however, be a proper name in certain contexts. Where a generic term is used as a contraction of a full name, it should be capitalised, for example:

The Hill (Capitol Hill)
The Dome (Millennium Dome)

A term for a structure which is not its proper name is not capitalized, except inasmuch as it may contain another proper noun.

Incorrect: The Inland Revenue Building is on Main Street.
Correct: Taxation House, the Inland Revenue building, is on Main Street.

Where there is doubt as to whether an appellation is a proper name or merely descriptive, the assumption is that landmarks do have proper names (and may have more than one); reliable sources should be consulted as to what, if any, proper name(s) the landmark has.

Comments

[The US vs. UK spelling (-ized vs -ised, labelling vs. labeling, -ly vs. -ally, etc.) may need to be adjusted above to match the rest of the document.]

  • Neutral for now on the merits of/need for this. It shouldn't be added in the same level of detail to both the main WP:MOS and the sub-guideline in question, and should probably be merged (i.e. refactored) with the discussion of "the river Thames" vs. "the Hudson River", since they are really the same topic. I lean toward preferring this more general take, but also appreciating the river/River distinction example in particular, as a point of genuine, real-wiki-world dispute from time to time (one significant enough, evidently, to have already be discussed here). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 11:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Could you point me to this discussion? Mayalld 05:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Just search this page for "Thames"; it's the only other thread that mentions it. The rivers point raised is a good one, I mean especially about rivers in particular because that usage is a bit more confusing than "Brooklyn Bridge" vs. "Brooklyn bridge". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! Fancy missing it when it was so close. The river thing is really a bit of an oddity, but could be merged in. As to the need, up until last week I'd have agreed, but as a dispute arose based on the premise that Blanktown Lock isn't a proper name, but a descriptive label... Mayalld 15:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
This isn't a vote or suggestion, just an observation. One use of capitalized generics that I've seen is when the generic noun in a proper noun is used as a shortened nickname within a geographic region where it's the main or only example of that generic noun. For example, Chicagoans often call the Chicago Skyway simply the Skyway. While Wikipedia is worldwide, the Millennium Dome article says "...often simply referred to as The Dome...," the Chicago Skyway article says "the main feature of the Skyway...," and the Temple Mount article says "...projects on or near the Mount." Examples in other media: this Chicago Tribune reference to the Chicago Skyway says "The Skyway clearly holds the most cachet because...," this Star Trib reference to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome says "Knoblauch's first game in the Dome since he forced a trade...," or this ABC News reference to the Fordham Spire says "...Fordham Co., which is developing the Spire." Sometimes generic terms make up the entire official name, as in this article about a building simply called The Spire. -Agyle 05:41, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Another very common exception to the proposed "not capitalized when used generically" rule occurred to me: Capitol Hill being referred to as the Hill, a convention widely used in U.S. media. If I'm interpreting the proposed guideline correctly, "legislators met on the Hill" would be "legislators met on the hill." I think the proposed rule concerning when a name "is not its proper name" (suggesting among other things that there's only one proper name) would lead to many contradictions of accepted practices. As one example, Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (proper name) is more commonly called "Detroit Metropolitan Airport," "Detroit Metro Airport" or "Metro Airport" Its official website is metroairport.com, and says "Welcome to Detroit Metro Airport." The proposed rule seems to suggest "Detroit metropolitan airport," "Detroit metro airport," or "metro airport" would be correct. I think improper nicknames like the Hill or Metro Airport can still be considered proper nouns, in need of capitalization, depending on their usage. -Agyle 08:52, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
The draft language now seems to account for that, and it was a good hatch. I remain unhappy with the "built structures" wording; it's an awkward phrase, and overbroad (an anthill is a built structure, and so is a 10–cm doll chair made out of toothpicks. "Landmark" is a more useful term, as it neither implies natural nor human-made, and excludes tiny and insignificant things. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:01, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
The problem appears to be precisely how (in)significant something needs to be. In the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Waterways#Lock, tunnel names, etc that caused this proposal, I had given the sample of "Leicester Square central lamp post" and "Elm Street sewer" being compared to "Bath deep lock", rather than "Bath Deep Lock". Authoritative sources on, in this case locks, tend to capitalize the topic of their interest. In many cases, the term 'river' or 'canal' is a part of the name and the capitalization of waterways may well follow that of roads, streets, squares etc. But when I see an article titled, for instance Benham Lock, I would expect an article on a small settlement around the Benham lock, and reading as opening sentence "Benham Lock is a ..." makes me expect a word like 'place' or 'settlement' or 'village', not "Benham Lock is a lock". To me, the lock itself requires a definite article, and a Wikipedia article that handles the actual lock only, should be called Benham lock; its opening sentence could start as "The Benham lock is ...". If I would never have heard about Benham or a lock there, and someone would tell me "I'm going to Benham Lock tomorrow", I would interpret it as the name of an inhabited place or perhaps a large construction with a number of buildings filled with machinery and a control post around the actual lock itself. If I would go and look at or by boat pass through the very lock, I'd say "I'm going to (pass) the Benham lock tomorrow" and not leave the definite article out. But one might go to the Hoover Dam. A famous and large construction like the Hoover Dam appears to have 'Dam' capitalized, it surely is a fixed part of its name. That dam is perhaps as wellknown as the river on which it was built and perhaps one should not capitalize 'dam' for all dams, in particular if these are named after a location or are less notable. For one of the many small hardly notable locks on a canal, it is not evident to capitalize 'Lock'. The minor place or settlement may well have become named after the lock that itself had become named after the nearest larger village or town, and as such the location is capitalized the way one can capitalize "Bolton Field". If the latter minor place would exist, it would only be capitalized in case it had become the designation of something more than the actual field, for instance it it had been a battleground or if it had become the location of a new housing area. The argumentation "... style for naming rivers (which is quite close to canals, and, by extension, their features, such as locks.)" is far from apparent: I would certainly not expect to see "We were walking on the X Canal Left Bank" unless that would be an actual street name instead of the normal feature along the left side of the X Canal. The practical custom of the location of a lock having taken the original designation of the lock as a true name, being capitalized, out of habit of seeing that correct capitalization, might have caused the not quite logical capitalization of an actual lock's designation itself; this may well have caused a further generalization in spelling, in as much as this rather inaccurate usage may have become a fixed custom for all locks. A language is indeed not a purely logical construction and incorporates many old mistakes that have become today's correct usage. I would not however, be very confident in generalizing the 'lock' example as an element of the Wikipedia Manual of Style. This should give a large number of topics and samples and if necessary make a distinction according to the country; there might be differences between US, Canadian, English, Scottish and Australian English. To me it appears one should either make such very complex and comprehensive study, or take a generalizing approach that in case of doubt would see a such designation as descriptive and thus not capitalize the described term that is used in the normal meaning of that term. — SomeHuman 22 Sep2007 00:07 (UTC)
Whilst you may expect the presence of a definite article in front of the name of a minor structure, to do so isn't a part of English grammar (qalthough it may well be in other languages). The simple fact is that canal locks have proper names (well, they certainly do in the UK), and do not require a superfluous "the" in front of them the name. I welcome further refinement of the wording, but I would ask that we try to keep it to the way the English language is, rather than how you would wish it to be. Trying to argue that the names of some structures are not proper names isn't going to get us anywhere. Mayalld 07:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
I am amazed that it has become necessary to consider this in a Manual of Style. In English (at least in the UK) proper names are capitalised. There is no room for argument on this. Many things, such as bridges, locks, bends, hills, have acquired proper names (frequently, more than one name, as has been mentioned) through their historical use by passers-by and, later, by map makers . These proper names must be capitalised. If it is though necessary to write a MoS entry then it should at least have a overriding clause that states that local usage should supercede any logical derivation of the capitalisation. Oosoom Talk to me 11:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
I too was amazed when the issue first raised its head, as I believed the usage as estalished to be so obvious as to be beyond doubt. Unfortunately, a situation arose where a whole raft of articles was renamed to "correct" occurrences of Lock replacing them with lock. The root cause seems to be that whilst the editor has a good command of English, he is not a native speaker, and applied the French rule (where l'ecluse de... would not be capitalised). It seems that MoS must explicitly handle situations where a non-native speaker might use the capitalisation rules of his native language. Mayalld 12:20, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Mayalld, not only are you mistaken about an influencing native language having been French, the real native language cannot have had an influence because in Dutch the term 'sluis' (lock) is the ending part of the name, as in 'Zandvlietsluis', which can be described as 'de sluis bij Zandvliet' (as in English, 'the lock near Zandvliet') while in this case it can as well be correctly regarded as its proper name; at another location 'Xsluis' might be 'de sluis in X' ('the lock at X') while one might not have come to see 'Xsluis' as a name. It just happens to be unusual for the topic of locks, but similar names in Dutch can also be formed like 'Sluis Zandvliet' and is then always a proper name (but that style is less common and in southern regions perhaps even rare). In English it is not always clear either: an object at X that is described by its location is 'X object' but when it has become a true name, it is still 'X Object', only capitalized because of the spelling rules for names. Precisely the distinction between a rather common descriptive designation and a generally accepted proper name, causes problems: the general acceptance of it having become a proper name cannot occur at one short moment. For some kinds of topics, a new item will immediately be regarded as a name because all other items of that kind are considered such. For other topics it may be a different matter. The point is that local usage may not easily be determined in an objective manner, nor whether a particular item is seen to be named while other items of the same kind might rather appear to be mainly described. More often than not, a combination with 'coast' will be a name, hence 'Y Coast'. But try this for instance for combinations with 'shore'. Don't you think there could be a 'Z1 Shore' and a 'Z2 Shore', while there could be lots of places described as Z3 shore, Z4 shore, etc without these designations having become proper names? In these samples X, Y and Z are to be considered placenames. In English, one knows 'Waterloo Bridge' to be a name (not even called after its own locality) and the 'Tower Bridge' is obviously a name as well. Ballachulish Bridge might have been a bridge at North Ballachulish but I'm sure it was already the proper name while it was still a mere concept on a drawing board. For bridges we agree, for locks we may have come to agree, for shores... for ...? That's when a MoS might come in handy, even for native speakers of English, as for instance even the 'lock' instead of 'Lock' still occurs in a minority of texts. — SomeHuman 26 Sep2007 18:19 (UTC)
I make no judgement as to which language influences you. I merely used French as an example, because I believe it to be a language which follows the capitalisation rules that you espouse. My knowledge of Dutch is just about zero, so I wouldn't dream of commenting on it. I fully accept that the borderline between proper names and descriptive terms is possibly blurred. As you say, your initial opinion on naming locks has been revised following discussion. In general, in UK English, any name which attaches to a structure in more than a transient sense, and which has not been coined as a descriptive by the speaker is a proper name. UK English is generous in allocating the status of proper name, and tends to fall on the side of proper name rather easily. Mayalld 19:27, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Updated Draft

As there doesn't seem to be much more wordsmitthing going on, I propose to insert the following sections into the relevant documents on 1st October, unless anybody has any further suggestions Mayalld 14:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

  • I'm concerned about the wording of the "built structures" section as it touches closely on a brief recent overlapping discussion in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Institutions and definite articles. In essence, universities often refer to their institutions as "the University", "the Faculty", "the Library", "the Campus" etc and it was proposed that the MOS be changed to reflect that. The new proposed guideline here would permit this, via the back door. As buildings and the institutions within them often share the same name it would, for example, allow Washington High School to write "the School was" and Kendal Public Library to say "the Public Library opened" and so forth. Given the enormous number of schools (from elementary to post-graduate) and similar public institutions that this could apply to, I think the "built structures" section needs further discussion. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 00:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Accepted, the use of generic terms as proper names, ought only to cover specific cases where the generic term can be understood even if not previously named by its full name. I will amend accordingly Mayalld 19:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Perhaps the amended text could raise the bar a little more? Thus:
"In a few rare instances, the generic term for a specific location has gained national recognition in unambiguously identifying that location above all others. These should be capitalized, for example: "the Hill" (Capitol Hill) and "the City" (City of London)."
Thoughts? --ROGER DAVIES TALK 08:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Updated draft text accordingly. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 11:21, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Many thanks! Yes, I agree that this is a better text, and that it avoids creating any loopholes Mayalld 13:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)

Geographic features and built structures

Proper names of geographic features, buildings or structures, and other landmarks (the White House, Bristol Bridge, Solsbury Hill, the Indian Ocean, etc.) are proper nouns and require capitalization.

Where a label for a landmark (such as its type) is part of the proper name (the Mississippi River, the Hoover Dam, Mount Fuji, the Rio Grande), it is capitalized. When it is not part of the name, it is not capitalized (the river Thames, in England and Krakatoa island and the Krakatoa island group; contrast the Thames River in Ontario and from Pitcairn Island to the Hawaiian Islands).

Such labeling terms (house, hill, bridge, lock, building, mountain etc.) are not capitalized when used in a generic manner:

Incorrect: The Bridge crosses the River at its narrowest point on the east side of Town.
Correct: The bridge crosses the river at its narrowest point on the east side of town. (This holds even in the case of reference to a bridge, river and town which incorporate those labels into the proper names of the landmarks in question, e.g. Smith Bridge, Johnson River, and Harbor Town.)

In a few rare instances, the generic term for a specific location has gained national recognition in unambiguously identifying that location above all others. These should be capitalized, for example: "the Hill" (Capitol Hill) and "the City" (City of London).

A term for a structure which is not its proper name is not capitalized, except inasmuch as it may contain another proper noun.

Incorrect: The Inland Revenue Building is on Main Street.
Correct: Taxation House, the Inland Revenue building, is on Main Street.

Where there is doubt as to whether an appellation is a proper name or merely descriptive, the assumption is that landmarks do have proper names (and may have more than one); reliable sources should be consulted as to what, if any, proper name(s) the landmark has.

Wikipedia:Manual of Style

Geographical features and built structures

Proper names of geographic features, buildings or structures, and other landmarks (the White House, Bristol Bridge, Solsbury Hill, the Indian Ocean) are proper nouns and require capitalization.

Such items (house, hill, bridge, lock, building, mountain) are not capitalized when used generically:

Incorrect: The Bridge crosses the River at its narrowest point on the east side of Town.
Correct: The bridge crosses the river at its narrowest point on the east side of town.

Where there is doubt as to whether an item is a proper name or merely descriptive, assume that landmarks do have proper names (and may have more than one); reliable sources should be consulted as to what, if any, proper name(s) the landmark has.

This guide is a summary; full details of exceptions to and expansions on these rules are at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)

No consensus to move

Radiant! I haven't been a heavy participant in the discussions here, and when I have, I've actually mostly sided with you. But there was no consensus to move this page to Wikipedia:Style. It creates a naming mess for the subpages. And you really ought to know better than to make a controversial name move in the middle of a heated discussion. I think you're too close to this issue to make this move and have it not seem pointy. I saw your talk comments -- that someone will probably "object on bureaucratic grounds" -- that's not what I'm doing at all. As a neutral party, or someone more or less on your side, I just think this was an inappropriate and rude move. This move doesn't fix any of the problems being discussed (and again, Radiant! I agree that there are those problems) but I can see this move inflaming tensions. So it's not bureaucratic grounds on which I object, but a desire to preserve the peace. What's more, several people objected to this move at the AN thread. Anyway, you can also review the objections raised here: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive102#Bureaucracy Watch. Be Bold doesn't mean "disregard the opinions of others," certainly not when you're already in the middle of a clear dispute trying to diminish the importance of the page. --JayHenry 13:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Okay, first off, why is this controversial? Second, it has nothing at all to do with the dispute here. Third, it was discussed on the admin boards, where (a) many people said it was a good idea, and (b) other people said it would not help, but (c) nobody said there was any harm in doing it. If several people see a benefit and nobody sees a harm, it sounds like a good idea to me. >Radiant< 08:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I think one major question is, why was it discussed at the admin noticeboards and not here? Is this a matter primarily of concern to admins? Aren't moves meant to be discussed on the relevant talk pages? Wouldn't such a major page being moved have been better if it had also been brought up at, say, the village pump? SamBC(talk) 12:34, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I also object to changing the language at Template:Style-guideline‎. For now, we still have a Manual of Style and it is helpful to label the pages as such. I would like to see whether others agree before we rename. The Manual of Style is a fairly old page, and as such I think it's only fair to discuss before renaming it. --JayHenry 12:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm quite shocked, actually, that someone of Radiant's experience would (a) discuss this move (only) at the admin noticeboard (how rude) and (b) not be aware of the disruptive consequences. Colin°Talk 13:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

  • See above. Also, as I said before, I fail to see how renaming a single page can be considered disruptive by any stretch of the word. >Radiant< 13:16, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, I explained that below, but to make another point... assuming that the beauraucracy watch (or whatever it's called, I've misplaced the link) was the discussion you claim support from, that seems to be somewhere between evenly-divided-no-consensus and veering-heavily-towards-no, both of which count as "no", seeing as consensus is needed to make the move, not to oppose it. SamBC(talk) 13:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Rather, the reason why some people don't like it is that they think it will not work. Several people think it will be beneficial, several others think it will be pointless. That is a net positive, since nobody has alluded to this being harmful. >Radiant< 13:55, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm not shocked at all. It is part of a longstanding Radiant behavior pattern that seems to indicate that he thinks (perhaps subconsciously) that he knows better than everyone else individually, and better than the community collectively, what should be what, what is important and what is right, especially when it comes to policies and guidelines. Symptomatic of this apparent attitude are various instances of designating essays or proposals as guidelines, proposals as rejected, draft proposals as historical, disputed pages as undisputed, etc., etc., without consensus (even the ArbCom has criticized him for this, in the case on the weird old Wikipedia:Notability/Historical/Non-notability proposal, but that didn't seem to have any effect). I do not believe that Radiant does this out of bad faith, but simply loose-cannon chutzpah. Some people are just like that. <shrug> (and I've been accused of it myself in a few places, so I'm not riding a particularly high horse here). I appreciate Radiant in a lot of ways as an admin and editor, and frequently agree with him on editorial changes, reversions of nonsense, deletion nominations, etc., but end up disagreeing sometimes very vehemently with him on policy/guideline issues. So it goes, I guess. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Issues with/from Radiant!?

I concur that Radiant! seems personally vested in this issue and seems to be overstepping admin bounds; moving a page without even discussing it at the page is questionable, particularly for an admin involved in a dispute at the page. Several people disagreed with the move at the WP:AN discussion, there was no clear consensus, and the move should have been discussed here first. Goodness, there are several steps to be undone here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:01, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

There's another problem here; goodness, unilaterally altering so much causes additional work for lots of editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:37, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Redirects are messed up as well; WP:MOS is stalled, maybe more. What a disruption; best to take the day off of Wiki while the house gets back in order. I don't want to be the one putting any of these pieces back together when it looks like some irregular "stuff" is going on. I'm wondering why Radiant! appears to have notified other editors on their talk pages to tend to this move, while never mentioning it on this page? We also now have GNL tagged as a proposed guideline when it's not. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:55, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Since discussions relevant to discussions at this page are being posted elsewhere, and not discussed here, links to those discussions:

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:18, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that there are some concerns of Radiant!'s recent behaviour, but given the user's history and so on, I expect that this is probably due to some sort of misunderstanding, and reasonable chance should be given to peacable resolution. Radiant, your behaviour is getting to feel rather WP:POINTy, just so you know. SamBC(talk) 12:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Sam - I fail to see how renaming a single page can be considered disruptive by any stretch of the word. >Radiant< 12:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
It's a very long-standing page, much referred to (especially by shortcuts). Direct links were fine, of course, but links by shortcuts were all broken. That's the most trivially demonstrated disruption. I was also referring to other recent things, like the ongoing GNL saga, but I do honestly believe that you're trying to deal with it all in good faith. I just wanted to make sure you knew how it could look. SamBC(talk) 12:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • (for the record I fixed the shortcuts, of course). >Radiant< 13:16, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The GNL saga is a different cup of tea, wherein indeed various people including me could be viewed as disruptive, and which I hope is getting de-messified at the moment. It would seem that most people who object to the renaming issue do so merely because they disagree with me about GNL. Other than that they happen to take place on the same page, the two issues are not actually related. >Radiant< 13:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I haven't seen one half-good reason put forward to move this page, and I think the way it was done, apparently by subterfuge, was objectionable, and curious in someone who clearly has done good work on WP. I don't understand it. Tony 13:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Aside: Pointing out strange goings on with archiving of my comments and with this section heading. Although it's above my comment, it's not my section break or heading. Sambc, thanks for removing the inflammatory section heading; would you mind changing this heading to something even more neutral, like "arbitrary section break" or "other pages to be sorted out" or "other discussions elsewhere" or something that might reflect my original post? [18] [19] Radiant! why are you archiving my talk page comments with a box that says to discuss on talk pages? This is a talk page. This is where we discuss moves of this page and link to other relevant discussions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:30, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I have brought this and other issues up on AN/I. Having had the good fortune of rarely having to venture to AN/I, I don't know what usual form is: alert no one or alert everyone involved? People here might have a comment. Marskell 16:16, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Radiant, as I think you probably really do understand, it's controversial because it caused genuine problems (as documented elsewhere on this page), there isn't consensus for it, this document's name has been stable for a very long time, there is no non-trivial rationale for the move, the move was not proposed even informally on this page much less formally at WP:RM, there were detractors of the idea even at WP:AN were it was discussed (for whatever reason; that's like discussing a category rename at WP:AIV or something), people at an unrelated forum saying they can't see any harm in it but don't see any good reason for it either do not count as supporting voices, it is easy to interpret the move has having no intent but minimizing the influence of the MoS, especially since you are quite involved in disputes here the offense side of which can be summarized as "MoS is stupid and should be ignored", everyone calls it the MoS (or MOS, or Manual of Style) not WP:STYLE so it will render tens of thousands of historical and extant discussions difficult to parse for incoming new editors, etc., etc., etc. And the notion that this is just "moving a single page" comes across as disingenuous, since you know full well that all of the MOS subguidelines would need renaming too. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 02:40, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Punctuation inside or outside this quote?

This article (Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style) contains the following example in the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Quotations section:

For example, the following quotation: “She disputed his statement that ‘Voltaire never said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” ’ ”.

I realize this is trivial, but the subsequent Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Quotation_marks section states that punctuation should go inside quotes when it's part of the quotation. So it seems to me that period in the example should be moved to right after the final word, it. I'm not sure enough to make the change, so I'm asking about it here. -Agyle 17:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

This is a characteristic example of the difficulties of "logical" quotation: which of the sources involved here do we follow: His statement, her quotation and denial of it, or the original quote which attributed it to Voltaire? All three of them may punctuate differently. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:16, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Anderson, your very own Fowler says to avoid double periods, doesn't he? You have to choose, and WP has chosen the outside position. Tony 02:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
It's not a "characterisitic example" of anything other than that human beings make typographical errors (and this is clearly a typo). I fixed it in the projectpage text. Also fixed the entire passage, as it referred to being "an exception to the previous rule", but the previous rules no longer have anything to do with that segment, due (apparently) to many changes over time but no one noticing that previous material there had a later reference to it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
There are never consecutive periods (or commas) at the end, always only one, but exclamation or question marks may add up. Therefore there are one or two questions to answer: Are periods collapsed to the final or to the first one? If it is the final one, does the sentence beginning with For example end with the colon already?
it.” ’ ”
collapse to first period
it” ’.”
collapse to final period, colon ends sentence
it” ’ ”.
collapse to final period, colon does not end sentence
All choices are reasonable, I would not choose the third one. That is just how I would see it however, without rechecking any English style guides. (I also would remove the non-breaking spaces and leave this up to font hinting.) — Christoph Päper 15:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
It can't end with the colon, otherwise this would be valid English punctuation:
I like four sorts of beans: pinto, garbanzo, lima, and black
(Note no period.)
As for the larger question, I don't think it matters much between the first and third options you show (the 2nd is potentially confusing, though), when all of the nested quotations are complete sentences that ended in the original where we end them in quotation. The original (MOS) constructed example is weird, because the exterior-most quotation marks are really there just to set the material off as an example and do not provide any additional material. I might edit it to fix that problem. In real article prose, you'd have something more like Mumble mumble mumble, according to Smith, who wrote "Johnson's statement that 'yack yack yack' is blah blah blah". The period could go just inside (after last "blah"), yet would not be required to, if (and only if) Smith's statement was a complete sentence and ended with a period there in the original, and the overall passage, from "Mumble" to the end, ended after that last "blah". The period wouldn't go deep inside (after last "yack") at all, since that would leave the rest of the passage unterminated. In cases (as in the MOS example), where the quotations are ending mutually, not followed by any other material in the overall passage, there isn't any particular reason not to put it deep inside (Foo "Bar 'Baz.' "), but only if all of the relevant parts are full sentences and we know for a fact that the various quoted bits did terminate with periods in the originals where we terminate them in our quotations. But there isn't a rationale against putting it outside the quotes altogether (Foo "Bar 'Baz' ".); terminal punctuation inside when known to be part of the original is appropriate but not required in logical quotation (and would be inappropriate if we do not know that the quoted sentence originally ended where we are putting a period, so putting it outside is safest. We wouldn't use Foo "Bar 'Baz'." at all, as it does not add anything useful to do this, and is visually confusing.
It's much more difficult to talk about than it is to just do it, by the simple logic of "Did they actually say that (i.e. actually end their statement, which we are quoting, where we are ending it in our quotation)?" if you see what I mean.
I offer no opinion on the non-breaking space vs. font hinting issue. I find it much easier to read with the spacing, but the logician in me says that the spacing is an extraneous interpolation, so my left and right brain have a conflict of interest.
— SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:30, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
PS: The "unless we know for certain" stuff is more important than it may at first seem. If an editor is quoting Smith from Smith's book, Mumble mumble mumble, according to Smith, who wrote "Johnson has stated that 'yack yack yack'" (period as yet unplaced), and we are looking at Smith's book, and it says Johnson has stated that "yack yack yack." (note the period placement), quoting Johnson from Johnson's 1987 paper in Proceedings of the International Society for Nocturnal Underwater Basketweaving; then, our only way of knowing for certain whether Johnson's quote in Smith ended where Smith seems to indicate it did in Johnson's original, is by reading a copy of the Johnson PISNUB paper, because the only source we have at hand is Smith's book, and we don't necessarily know whether Smith uses logical quotation, or pays any attention to such matters. I.e., default to exterior punctuation when uncertain (in this case by doing a partial quote of Smith quoting Johnson, namely be declining to import Smith's terminal punctuation): Mumble mumble mumble, according to Smith, who wrote "Johnson has stated that 'yack yack yack'". (period outside). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

"[C]ase brackets"

Do we give any guidance for whether we should put the initial letter of a quotation in square brackets when its case is changed from the original? Like, "[t]his." "[O]r like this." They are common in American law reporting, and some humanities scholarship, but nowhere else as far as I can tell and certainly not in journalism. I think they look terrible, and serve no purpose. Does anyone think they are good? ←BenB4 06:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we do give guidance on that (namely to not do it). This isn't meant in a mean way, but please read the guideline first before asking whether the guideline says something. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
I did, and I couldn't find it. I looked again and I still can't find it. Please AGF an give a link when talking about something in a 100+ section page. ←BenB4 16:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
It takes around fifteen seconds to find it by going to WP:MOS and using ctrl-F (would be cmd-F on a Mac) to do an in-page search for "bracket", and hit ctrl-G several times (cmd-G, Mac) to jump to subsequent occurrences. That said, the material was not placed appropriately (it was under Elipses for some reason) and has been moved to the Brackets section. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, I saw your move and I still don't see anything specifically pertaining to brackets used to indicate a change of case. ←BenB4 22:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
It's under "Other matters": "The sentence-initial letter of a quote may be lower-cased if the quote starts in the middle of a sentence. Where this occurs it is unnecessary to indicate this change with square brackets." Fireplace 22:41, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Create list of suggested currency abbreviations?

Resolved
 – Wrong venue; discussion moved to WT:MOSNUM.

I was reading MOS to see how to format Canadian currency, for an article on tips. WP:$ currently has two examples of dollars, in passing; Australian as AU$1 and U.S. as US$1. If interpreted to recommend two capital letters followed by a dollar sign, then Canadian would be CA$, but the Canadian dollar article says the Canadian government and IMF favor C$, while Editing Canadian English advises $Can or $CDN, and its only mention of CA$ is in software packages. My best guess would be to use C$, but whatever is chosen, it seems that a list of recommended currency abbreviations would be helpful in the MOS. If the XX$ format is recommended for dollars, New Zealand NZ$ and Jamaican JA$ are reasonably accepted, but Bahamas or Barbados (both beginning with "ba") also use dollars. ISO's two-letter country codes (that link also includes ISO's standard three-letter currency names) suggest BS and BB as country codes, so BS$ and BB$ (even if never used before) would be a way to follow the two-letter pattern, but B$ and Bds$ are suggested in Bahamian dollar and Barbadian dollar. Three-character ISO currency codes (BSD and BBD) could somehow be used, but that's inconsistent with using US$ and AU$. MOS suggests linking the symbol to a page about an obscure currency (₮146), which helps clarify the intent in any case. Prospect News' style guide has a list of their own recommended currency abbreviations, as a point of comparison. -Agyle 20:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

So why not be bold and create the list? Then we have a place to begin discussion of specific currencies. --JodyB yak, yak, yak 11:58, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd prefer using the ISO 3 character currency code (CAD) as being the definitive unambiguous version. If use of symbols is desired, I would combine with either 2 or 3 letter country codes as $CA or $CAN. $CDN doesn't lead to any extensible scheme to name world currencies. Mayalld 13:35, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
Jody, point taken. :-) I'll try to do that. Any guidance on approach (e.g. Mayalld's opinion) would be helpful. -Agyle 17:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
I like the ISO codes too. Inasmuch as that is used by the banking community, or so says the list, it would be an appropriate guide. --JodyB yak, yak, yak 18:39, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Further followup should happen at WP:MOSNUM#Create list of suggested currency abbreviations?.

Identity entry

I propose the following text under the Identity heading:

  • Lesbian or gay male are generally preferred over homosexual (adj.), and lesbians or gay men are generally preferred over homosexual (noun). Same-sex, male-male, or female-female may also be appropriate.

This is consistent with the Associated Press style guide, the New York Times style guide, the Washington Post style guide [20], the American Psychological Association style guide [21], and many smaller style guides [22], [23], [24], [25]. Further, it is common practice on most sexuality articles on Wikipedia to use gay/lesbian over homosexual, so this addition would describe, rather than change, preexisting practice. Fireplace 13:37, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

"gay male" is redundant. You don't see them using "lesbian female". That would be redundant as well. Or "gay lesbian" since they both mean the same thing. They couldn't just leave it at "a lesbian or a gay". I've never quite understood why they use the redundant in style guides but alas, I had no say so in them. Secondly, it's odd that the American Psychological Association style guide says "homosexual" is a bad term but "heterosexual" is not. If "homosexual" should be replaced with "lesbian or gay male" why shouldn't "heterosexual" be replaced with "straight female or straight male"? "Gay" can be used for lesbians as well since the definition is same-sex attraction/sex. Blah on style guides. I don't see anything wrong with using "homosexual" and feel it's an either/or between the three of gay/lesbian/homosexual. Of course, some of us old timers still prefer "queer", as a political statement I guess, and see it as the same thing as gay/homosexual/lesbian. Only since politically correct organizations and activists has "queer" seemed to have been bannished, although it's becoming more prevalent again among younger "homosexual" crowds as a means of hardcore activism and public statement of "this is who I am!" -- ALLSTAR ECHO 04:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
The justifications for preferring gay/lesbian to homosexual are that homosexual (1) "perpetuates negative stereotypes because of its historical associations with pathology and criminal behavior"; (2)"it is ambiguous in reference because it is often assumed to refer exclusively to men and thus renders lesbians invisible" (APA); and (3) "can be seen as a slur" (Wash. Post). The justification for using "gay male" over "gay" when referring specifically to men is that "gay" is, as you noted, often used to refer to both gay men and lesbians. I'm less concerned about the gay vs. gay male point, though. Again, I see this change as merely describing existing WP practice on sexuality articles -- I don't think I'm calling for any changes. Fireplace 13:43, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm skeptical... what about outside articles on sexuality? Is it common practice there, and if not, would it be appropriate? From my personal experience, I know plenty of people who have no problem with homosexual being used, especially in formal contexts, especially when any homosexual may be the referrent - lesbian implies female, and "gay" on its own is often read as "gay male". Others I know prefer it for its symmetry with "bisexual" and "heterosexual". The major point is that "homosexual" is a technical term, "lesbian" and "gay" (and "queer" and so on) aren't. The connotation issues seem debatable. It seems rather more a complicated issue than the initial suggestion suggests. SamBC(talk) 13:50, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
I guess I'd draw an analogy to gender-neutral language. There too you'll find anecdotal evidence of people who don't feel strongly about using gender-neutral language, but most style guides recommend its usage (and we do too). Regarding homosexual as a technical term, there are probably certain clinical contexts where it remains appropriate -- that's why my suggested language qualifies the guideline with "generally". I think that WP's manual of style should reflect both modern English usage (as evidenced in the AP, NYT, WaPo, and APA style guides, see above) as well as current practice on Wikipedia, and I think this suggestion accomplishes that. Fireplace 14:55, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "Same-sex, male-male, and female-female'"—The second and third should have en dashes, I think (= male-to-male, or at least a relationship between male and male). Thus, Same-sex, male–male, and female–female. "Or" should be "and"? Tony (talk) 05:18, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Proper way to credit a section?

If one includes (with permission of course) text from another author, as a separate section, what is the proper way to give credit to the source? (Apparently this issue is complicated by the actual source being an email?)

I originally tried a note as the first line of the section saying it came from the author's email to someone else. But that was removed ("If it is true it is uncited..."), leaving it with no author attribution at all. [How should email be cited?]

I tried making a <ref> in the section title to text saying where it came from and that it was used by permission. I was informed this violates the Manual of Style, and you can't have refs in a section title and they moved it to the last sentence of the entire section. This makes it look like only the last sentence was from the source.

There must be some way to do properly, and make it clear that an entire section came from another person (and specificly to cite an email as a source). But I don't do much with Wikipedia, and I can't seem to find it. Could someone please enlighten me on the proper way to do this within the restrictions of the manual of style? Nahaj 16:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

If you mean you want to cite text from an unpublished e-mail, for example a message you received, that would not be a reliable source (see WP:RS), and shouldn't be included in a Wikipedia article at all. Learning the ropes on WP takes some time. :-) If the e-mail is published in a book or newspaper article, you'd cite the book or article as normal. If you're quoting so much from book or article that it requires permission, I'd consider other alternatives. -Agyle 00:19, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Formal descriptions in Logic are hard to get right (and sometimes even published ones are shown wrong) and are a lot of work. So when I had a correct one relevant to the topic, that I could get permission to use, I did. I didn't realize that this was inappropriate if I received it via email. I'm still learning, I'll avoid that mistake in the future. Nahaj 13:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
The main issue here isn't editorial style, it's our no original research and verifiability policies. Even if this expert had written the text into the article himself (which would resolve any issues of crediting him), we would still require citations for claims that are disputed or likely to be disputed. We don't count an email as a published source for this purpose. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Self-identification

The first bulleted point under WP:ID is as follows:

Where known, use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self-identification). This can mean using the term an individual uses for himself or herself, or using the term a group most widely uses for itself. This includes referring to transgender individuals according to the names and pronouns they use to identify themselves.

This is unencyclopedic nonsense. Right now, this has become a point of contention between myself and others on the Midge Potts (a "transgender" who has skipped the "trans" part with no sex change operation or proven hormone treatments) article and the use of pronouns. Some are arguing that since Potts "self-identifies" as a woman, then feminine pronouns should be used in the article. In my opinion, this opens up a huge can of worms that I don't think Wikipedia should open. To be logical and fair, if "self-identity" is going to be used to justify using feminine pronouns for men in dresses, then it should also be used to justify other things people "self-identify" as. My prime example is all of the people who have claimed to be (i.e. "self-identified" as) Jesus Christ:

List of people who have claimed to be Jesus Christ

According to how "self-identity" is being [mis]used, then all those people's articles (David Koresh's, too, though he's oddly not on that list) should be altered to say that they each actually are or were Jesus Christ. Not "Charles Manson claims to be Jesus Christ" or "David Koresh claimed to be Jesus Christ," but "Charles Manson is Jesus Christ" and "David Koresh was Jesus Christ." As I said, this is the only logical and fair outcome of using WP:ID as it is being used in the Potts article. Jinxmchue 02:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the comparison with people claiming to be Jesus is a bit of a straw man... claiming to be a religious figure or mythological being is very different from identifying as a different sort of normal human being to that which conventional categorisation would peg you as. If a person is "living in role" as a certain gender, then it's only polite to that person to treat them as that gender, especially where it doesn't cause anyone any conceivable harm.
I would also point out that "transgender" generally refers to someone who identifies as a different gender to the biological gender they were born as, regardless of any gender reassignment treatment or lack thereof. "Transsexual" is the usual term for those who have undertaken surgical treatment to change their anatomical sex. SamBC(talk) 03:01, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
It's not a straw man. The way the guideline is written, it does not make any distinction between someone "self-identifying" as "a religious figure or mythological being" and as "a different sort of normal human being" (how oxymoronic is that - "a different sort of normal human being?"). People like Koresh and Jim Jones believed they were "living in role" of Jesus Christ, so then shouldn't it also be polite to use the term they used for themselves? Jinxmchue 16:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
There's a distinction between applying a label to oneself (e.g., "pro-choice/life" for pro/anti-abortion rights groups, a gender label, etc.) and making a factual claim that you are a certain person. The former is loosely akin to a performative utterance -- the labeling act itself goes a long way to making it true. Claiming to be Jesus Christ doesn't have that same effect on whether you are Jesus Christ. You're right that the MoS doesn't make this explicit, but I think it's the intent behind the WP:ID language. Fireplace 17:21, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, can anyone think of a wording to clarify this within MOS, such that it applies to "labels" (not a term we should really use) but not to complete identities? Also, thanks for giving better clarity than I did, Fireplace. SamBC(talk) 17:48, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Lynn Conway is having the same issue, except that while everyone (I think) has agreed that she should be identified as a woman now, half the editors want Conway identified as a woman for her whole life, and the other half want to use masculine pronouns for the pre-transition years, when Conway was definitely living as a man. The policy statement does not say whether you should use the current self-identification or the historical self-identification when talking about events that happened several decades ago -- and it appears that a clarification of that policy is not going to be forthcoming, if the rambling soapboxes at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Transgender_pronoun_issue are any indication. WhatamIdoing 03:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It's quite simple. It's for gender only, nothing else. The Jesus Christ example is absurd. Anyone who can't figure out what gender identification is, is being willfully uncomprehending. The arguments have been made, and Wikipedia is best served by using the subject's self identification for gender, and applying those terms for the entire life of the subject. There's a small vocal minority soapboxing on this issue but their arguments are not persuasive. We can joint the rest of the world at this point.Wikidemo 01:30, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
I think WP:ID is broader than gender identification. For example, it allows us to use labels like "pro-life" without having to respond to arguments like "They aren't actually pro-life because..." (same with "pro-choice", "gay rights movement", "Native American" vs. "Indian" depending on the tribe's preference, etc.). Fireplace 01:39, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
If most editors agree with Wikidemo's remarks, then can we please update the sentence to read, "This includes referring to transgender individuals according to the names and pronouns they currently use to identify themselves"? A question on the preferred system for dealing with past gender roles seems to come up every week or two. I think a minor clarification would save us all a lot of time and hassle. WhatamIdoing 02:20, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Are there any objections to this change? This is "last call" for objections before I change this statement. WhatamIdoing 16:03, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

While I totally appreciate the effort to clarify and improve the guideline, I do object to that change. I think it shouldn't require 'current' identification (since as an example, it would be inapplicable to subjects posthumously, re-introducing a controversy upon each article subject's death). I think the guideline should simply read as is, or if a modification is really needed it should be comprehensive - with language indicating that for instances of transgendered article subjects the self-identified sex (and pronoun usage) should simply apply extemporaneously (for referring to a subject 'before' transition, childhood, etc.). -- User:RyanFreisling @ 16:44, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I share Ryan's concern with the proposed change, and am otherwise neutral. I feel that that concern could be mitegated by using "most recently", or by spelling it out in longer language - "currently use, or used immediately prior to death in the case of deceased individuals". I think that more could perhaps be done to address the concerns that started this section, however much we doubt the reasonability of the concerns. Somehow indicating that they refer to categorisation, rather than complete identities, may help avoid problems in future. SamBC(talk) 16:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Transgender identification issues are complex, and bright-line rules tend to oversimplify. I don't think that the MoS should take a position on pronouns for past gender identification points -- the facts of the individual circumstances are highly relevant, and the issue should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Fireplace 18:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Fireplace, I agree with your view that decisions made by competent editors as they apply to individual cases are ideal. However, the question of what the "normal" approach is supposed to be comes up every couple of weeks. The fact that we have repeated questions (and repeated revert wars in the articles) indicate that we need to have an explicitly stated default rule. This default rule already exists: all of these discussions end with several editors saying that a MtF transsexual should be referred to as a woman throughout the person's entire life (and usually one unconvinced editor who thinks it's stupid to talk about a woman fathering a child). My point is simply that the unwritten rule needs to become a written rule simply so that no one has to debate the simplest cases. I'm not picky about the wording. SamBC's expanded words sound fine to me. Qualifying language to attenuate the absolutist nature of the position is fine with me. I don't even care if you decide to change the unwritten rule to a different default! I just want something that indicates to the newbie editor (new to this issue, at least) that normally a single person is identified by a single gender throughout the entire article, even if it causes some historical dissonance, because that's how these endless disputes are ultimately resolved.

Will this modification work for you? "This includes generally referring to transgender individuals according to the names and pronouns they currently use to identify themselves publicly, or which they used immediately prior to death, in the case of deceased individuals."

What do you think? WhatamIdoing 20:07, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

I find your rephrased guideline unnecessarily wordy, and indeed, LESS informative. I object especially the word 'generally' - which is particularly unnecessary since the guidelines here are all meant to be general and good sense should prevail. I suggest again using as simple a guideline as possible, eg. 'this includes using the self-identified sex and pronouns for transgendered individuals', and if that isn't enough (since we apparently disagree as to the frequency and veracity of complaints made here), to add 'including when referring to that individual prior to any change in sex, and/or posthumously.' -- User:RyanFreisling @ 20:14, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I see your point, WhatamIdoing. How about adding the guideline as a second sentence (to avoid creating an overly confusing sentence, as RyanFreisling points out), and specifically mentioning that the guideline is subject to the circumstances of the person (some people, e.g., [[genderqueer]s, might self-identify as different genders at different stages, so this default rule would not apply). Suggested language: "This includes referring to transgender individuals according to the names and pronouns they use to identify themselves. (Subject to the circumstances of the individual person, the default is to refer to a person at all stages of his or her life using the gender identity currently, or most recently, adopted.)" Fireplace 20:47, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Apart from some slightly punctuation-type issues, I think that's pretty good, provided the parens aren't in the final version, as they're ugly and add no clarity. SamBC(talk) 21:06, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The proposal is now this:

This includes referring to transgender individuals according to the names and pronouns they use to identify themselves. Subject to the circumstances of the individual person, the default is to refer to a person at all stages of his or her life using the gender identity currently, or most recently, adopted.

Going once, going twice, can we sell this as a consensus? WhatamIdoing 16:13, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Go for it. Fireplace 16:19, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
It's fine by me. Small change, so lack of objection can be presumed to be consensus. That said, give people a little longer to object. However, if people do object afterwards, they can always revert (and discuss). SamBC(talk) 18:20, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I made the change. I have reverted an undiscussed change to the wording and encouraged the editor to join the discussion. WhatamIdoing 20:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

I still object strenuously to this, unless it has further clarification, and am also not happy about this dicussion taking place in three different threads (one of them huge) on this page. All three of these should be archived, and a new section set up for proposed language here, with a very clear subject title. What has happened is that the discussion has become so fragmented that various parties, who clearly from their posts elsewhere here care about this a lot, have not even noticed the abortive straw poll above. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 22:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)


Sorry if it seems like I'm being a procedural pain about this, but I've reverted your changes because you didn't choose to discuss them before pushing them out onto the entire WP community. Here's what SMcCandlish said on the MoS page:

*Use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self-identification) whenever this is possible. Use terms that a person uses for himself or herself, or terms that a group most commonly uses for itself. This includes using a name and pronouns that a transgender person individually prefers. The default is to refer to a person at all stages of his or her life using the gender identity most recently adopted,[dubious – discuss] subject to the circumstances of the individual person, and provided that confusing or logically impossible text does not result (e.g. she fathered her first child).

Here's what everyone else agreed to:

  • Use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self-identification) whenever this is possible. Use terms that a person uses for himself or herself, or terms that a group most commonly uses for itself. This includes using a name and pronouns that a transgender person individually prefers. Subject to the circumstances of the individual person, the default is to refer to a person at all stages of his or her life using the gender identity currently, or most recently, adopted.

I reiterate that I don't actually care what standard is chosen. I do care whether it's perfectly clear -- to the average, non-specialist, non-activist, non-transgendered editor -- whether the childhood of a male-to-female transsexual should defaultly be described using masculine or feminine pronouns. If everyone prefers the newly proposed wording, then that's fine with me. But let's talk about it, instead of just making unilateral changes, okay? WhatamIdoing 23:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Spelling out numbers

Re: "In the body of an article, single-digit whole numbers (from zero to nine) are spelled out; numbers of more than one digit are generally rendered as digits, but may be spelled out if they are expressed in one or two words (sixteen, eighty-four, two hundred, but 3.75, 544, 21 million).":

Someone at the Stephen Sondheim article recently cited this rule in reverting a spelling-out of the number ten, which leads me to suspect that its wording here could be improved. Here, for perspective, are some citations:

Donald Hall, Writing Well, p.299:

"Print out the figures except when they are long to the point of being ridiculous. If you can write that a town has 'one hundred and four thousand inhabitants,' write it. If necessity requires precision, '104,627' will do, and 'one hundred and four thousand, six hundred and twenty-seven' might be precious."

Margaret Shertzer, The Elements of Grammar, p. 125:

"Spell out numbers from one through ten, except in a series of related numbers. In formal writing, numbers that can be expressed in one or two words are spelled out, but figures may be used in letters or reports."

Hodges and Whitten, Harbrace College Handbook, p. 100:

"Although usage varies, writers tend to spell out numbers that can be expressed in one word or two; they regularly use figures for other numbers."

I submit that since wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, it needs to use formal prose, and thus the rule should not be worded such that it implies that spelling out one-word or two-word numbers greater than nine is an exceptional practice. TheScotch 05:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

It does say "generally", and it does say they may be spelled out if expressed in one or two words (which includes ten). The reverter was not justified in reverting and insisting on 10 in the face of objections by other contributors. Tony (talk) 12:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC) PS Might have been more appropriate to raise this at MOSNUM talk instead, in the first instance. Tony (talk) 12:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't what "MOSNUM talk" is, but I did discuss this with the editor in question at the "Stephen Sondheim" article first. She wasn't Adam Ant and backed down almost immediately; this is not an "edit war". It's my impression that she reverted me in good faith, and I think the emphasis here really is inconsistent with the emphasis in the citations I've quoted. TheScotch 19:03, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to change the wording of the "Words as words" subsection

Been meaning to get to this for months without ever quite doing it, but it is now sufficiently irritating that I have to. The current wording at that subsection, under "Italics", should be changed to: 

Quotation marks (as opposed to other forms of distinction, such as italics) are used when citing a word or letter ''(see [[Use–mention distinction]])''.
*''Correct'': The term “panning” is derived from “panorama”, a word coined in 1787.
*''Correct'': The most commonly used letter in English is “e”. 
*''Incorrect'': Avoid the use of ''irregardless''.
*''Incorrect'': The terms <u>subpoena</u>, <u>order</u> and <u>warrant</u> are frequently confused by non-lawyers.
Here, “word” includes noun phrases (“the brown dog”, “the Great Wall of China”).</code>

Rationale: For the major change it is that the use of italics for this purpose, while countenanced (yet notably not preferred) at Use-mention distinction, is dreadfully confusing due to operator overloading of italicization, especially in a page like WP:MOS itself, any article like Pleonasm in which many examples are given and foreign terms/phrases (which are italicized for another reason) are given, any article with examples that also has many titles of works in it, any article with examples that also has a number of "see also" or other cross-references, etc., etc. The irresolvable problems with this scheme are abundantly clear from this edit to WP:MOS itself (see in particular the formatting changes after mention of "Murphy's Law'"), which necessitated me re-writing various examples to prevent some of them being italicized and some of them quoted (a problem that this change proposal would do away with entirely). Even after the fixes I made in response to that edit, MoS is still very difficult to read and parse without seriously studying every line to figure out what it means, because italics are simply used for far too many things. Furthermore, this "italicization rule" is not only uncommon off of Wikipedia, in favor of quotes instead, but is widely (nearly entirely from what I can tell) ignored in Wikipedia articles where quoting for mention vs. use cases is far more common. I.e., that recommendation in the guideline does not match consensus practice, ergo it is not a guideline, and harms (even if only a little) MoS's acceptance as a whole as a guideline. Minor changes: "See also ..." and other cross-references should be given in italics <sigh> per WP conventions on that (I don't know if they are written down anywhere, but they seem to be near-universal, and all of the relevant templates, from DAB hatnotes to {{More}} and {{Main}}, use that convention. The examples will be clearer if offset into bullets as I've done here, since they won't themselves be quoted. WP articles when referred to as such have their initial letter capitalized. Illustrate at least one non-quotes, non-italic example (thus the underlined one); make the point that noun phrases modified by prepositionals are still noun phrases; rm. "e.g., " before examples, per other edits made today. Outcome: I'd be slightly happier than I am at present if we agreed on a "use quotation marks or italics" change, since it would at least recognize the far more common practice as valid, but would prefer to see italics for this purpose deprecated, due to the confusing over-use of italics for just about everything. PS: The new version would necessarily have to be moved out of the "Italics" section, and the new advice applied to extant mention cases in the document. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

  • Followup comment: It strikes me as likely that the use of italics as an alternative to quotation marks to indicate mention vs. use derives from misapprehending the difference between mentioning a term and emphasizing a concept. Compare the legal example above to 'The differences between subpoenas, orders and warrants are frequently overlooked by non-lawyers.' See the difference? This proposal would not recommend doing away with italicization in that case, because it is in fact a use case, with appropriate emphasis, not a mention case. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:57, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Try to make your proposals more succinct in the future. Quotation marks are used for "words as words" generally only when italics are not available. The practice of using italics for "words as words" is widely recommended by linguistic authorities, does not derive from confusion with "emphasis", and is in no way excessive. I think you are dead wrong on all counts and that what you are proposing represents an unconscionable degradation of the English language. TheScotch 10:39, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

The Elements of Grammar by Margaret Shertzer, p.119:

7. Use italics when a word is spoken of as a word.
The word gay now carries a different connotation from its meaning in Cornelia Otis Skinner's Our Hearts Were Young and Gay.

2) The Harbrace College Handbook, 8th edition, by John C. Hodges and Mary E. Whitten, pp. 94-95:

Words, letters, or figures spoken of as such or used as illustrations are usually underlined (italicized).
In no other language could a foreigner be tricked into pronouncing manslaughter as man's laughter. --MARIO PEI
The letters qu replaced cw in such words as queen, quoth, and quick. --CHARLES C. FRIES TheScotch 10:46, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
This is likely to come off as incivil, but it's intended otherwise and needs to be said: Please see wikt:hyperbole and wikt:hypocrisy. My proposal was very succinct, consisting of nothing but 1.5 intro sentences and replacement code. My rationale was as exploratory of the issue as I thought it warranted, and notably did not ramble on and on with accusatory, bombastic rhetoric, nor with examples are of questionable relevance here. Questionable because we are not regurgitating style guides, we are writing one, and it's perfectly okay for us to disagree with some older ones written for other media. If we are done talking breathlessly about "unconscionable degradation" (sounds like a porn movie, heh), I can spend time coughing up counter-citations (and will if this is demanded) showing that quotation marks are used for this purpose, but that's not really the point, and I think that Use-mention distinction has already documented that anyway. Prescriptive dead-trees style guides did not have to deal with problems like wiki markup and Wikipedia style guidelines that call for a number of new uses of italics that were not envisioned on paper. The purposes of the MOS is not to find a least common denominator among other style guides and run with that average; it is to decide what is most helpful for our readers. I've made a number of points with regard to that question, and they remain completely unaddressed. As a side point, citation to random literary examples demonstrates nothing at all, other than that Use-mention distinction's contention that usage of italics for this purpose is one acceptable option isn't a lie, but, um, no one here argued that it was. My argument is that of the two options, italics is the less useful to our readership. I'm not generally attacking the idea that italics could possibly be used legitimately for mention cases of words/letters; I've explicitly acknowledged that they can be, but that the usage is problematic here. PS: Ranting at me for daring to making a completely theoretical posit (e.g. as to the origin of italicization for mention cases) does not disprove the theory. Further, I'm completely surprised that anyone would bother arguing against it since it has no bearing on the proposal at all, and was only raised to make it clear that use cases that happen to look at first glance a little bit like mention cases would not be affected by the proposal; what objection could you have to that? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I did raise this issue a few months ago when it came to overhauling parts of MOS, because I was uncomfortable with the use of italics for words as words; but not a single person responded. MOS would be crowded with double quote marks rather than italics, which are not pretty en masse. And there would be a back-compatibility issue (although there's a countervailing compliance issue now). However, I don't object to SMcCandlish's proposal in principle. Tony (talk) 11:55, 23 September 2007 (UTC) (Later) But by far the strongest argument for moving to quotes for words as words is the extremely awkward distinction between nominal groups / noun phrases, and larger segments of text. Strictly speaking, it's:

  • cat,
  • the cat, and
  • the cat that sat on the mat

(all just things); yet it's:

  • "The cat sat on the mat" (a proper clause, not just a thing).

This is a particular problem on WP's policy pages, including the MOS, where examples abound; both types are evident in our recent overhaul of the religions and deties section. I support SMcCandlish's proposal. Tony (talk) 01:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay, maybe not "more succinct" but just at not such a great length--especially right off the bat.
Re: "Questionable because we are not regurgitating style guides, we are writing one, and it's perfectly okay for us to disagree with some older ones written for other media.":
I can only interpret this as a declaration of war on the English language. I will defend the English language. (To the extent the Internet uses text, it needs to conform to standard English usage. That should be self-evident.)
Good writing, but the way, uses italics for emphasis sparingly. Word your phrases such that your emphasis is clear without special punctuation. TheScotch 19:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
I hinted at this already, but will say it more blatantly since you aren't getting the point: Histrionic hyperbole like "declaration of war on the English language" is likely to get your arguments ignored by most participants here as sheer noise. As for the rest of this, I think you need to read Prescriptivism (language), as you don't seem to understand that not everyone agrees with you that there is any such thing as "standard English usage", perceiving instead that there are only describable common practices, and these shift over time – and this view now totally dominates linguistics. One of the most common practices is using quotation marks to indicate examples, a practice that is rapidly replacing italics has has been for over a decade because of its more universal applicability (the Internet had no italics until the invention of HTML remember, and it's not really practical to write (manually with pen I mean) italics), and as noted elsewhere italics are mostly perceived of as a form of emphasis (a perception that has grown dramatically in the last three generations due to our saturation by advertising, which overemphasizes constantly). You've further ignored the main point in your urge to rant at me with this "war" nonsense: Fowler and other style guides you like a lot were not written for the Internet, but for paper. Text on the 'net should conform to commonly-accepted practices (what you like to call "standard English usage", despite the fact that even style guides can't agree on its details, ergo there is no standard, by definition) unless and expect where those practices do not translate well into the new medium and cause genuine problems, as use of italics for examples often does on Wikipedia. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Compromise proposal

Compromise proposal: Allow either quotation marks or italics for examples. Demand consistency (one or the other) in individual articles. Prefer quotation marks over italics for reasons already addressed in detail. This would have the additional benefit of getting rid of the necessity for editors, not all of whom are linguistically minded, to try to have to figure out whether something is a noun phrase or not. This would also ease backward compatibility problems Tony pointed out. And it would let TheScotch write the way he wants to. And it would prevent editors who prefer italics from forcing them on others, and mostly vice versa (with the exception of italics being used in an article extensively for emphasis, publication titles, etc., in close proximity to italicized example text). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:27, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I think this compromise proposal is practical and very reasonable. I support it. Tony (talk) 06:46, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. Attempting to rewrite the English language is "original research" and contrary to the letter and spirit of wikipedia--as well as disruptive to and disrespectful of the great quantity of English prose extant. That's all you need to know. Your "compromise" is unreasonable and obviously an attempt to get what you want by degrees. Quotation marks for words as words are acceptable only where italics are not available (in certain e-mail software, for example). At wikipedia italics are very easily made. TheScotch 07:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

A lot of users have very bad English use when writing an article in relation to this historical area. It is correct to say 'Commonwealth postal orders',not 'Commonwealth of Nations postal orders'. Some users obviously need to go back to school, or they're just being plain dumb! - (Numismaticman 19:01, 23 September 2007 (UTC))

Who says? Strad 20:49, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, it's my experience that English-language uses of the term "Commonwealth" without qualification refer to that political entity. Lets try to review Numismaticman's suggestion without rising to the inflammatory way it's put. SamBC(talk) 21:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

"Commonwealth" is ambiguous, especially in encyclopediac context. Many readers of the encyclopedia do not have English as their first or primary language and they and others may not be familiar with British and other histories, which is why the come to the encyclopedia. Commonwealth may refer to the Commonwealth of England, the British Commonwealth (predecessor of the Commonwealth of Nations), the Commonwealth (United States), the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or many other usages delineated on the Commonwealth page, such as by Iceland, the Philippines, Australia, Poland-Lithuania, Bahamas, and Dominica. There was a US periodical called The Commonwealth. Note that the British Commonwealth officially ceased to exist over 50 years ago, but its shadow is exhibited in many places. Numismaticman is a sock-puppet of the banned user Aidan Work, who was banned for gross incivility among other things. One of his pet peeves is some distinction he likes to make between nations and countries and this may partly be at the root of his current complaint. In summary, using "Commonwealth of Nations" frequently and by default is the correct way, in accordance with the official wishes of that diverse multi-cultural group of nations. Hu 22:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

"Press up" and "Push up:" Are articles limited to one country's term?

In the talk page of article Press up in the section "Sub-3rr edit war" the manual of style, WP:ENGVAR, is being referred to as authority that only one term may be used in an article. The British call an exercise a "Press up" while Americans call it a "Push up." The MOS section of variant English calls for using consistent grammar and spelling in an article, to avoid bouncing between color and colour, or check and checque, which makes sense, but in the article Elevator, such devices in the London Underground are appropriately called "lifts" both in a photo caption and in sections about accidents with the devices in Britain. In the Press up article, I have called for using the "push up" term in two captions. First, the caption for a photo of a U.S. Marine, "Image:Marines do pushups.jpg" whose original caption when the image was imported said "Caption: Pfc. Boyd F. Parker, Platoon 2078, Company H, counts out push-ups before completing the strength and endurance course here May 18, 2005. Photo by: Pfc. Charlie Chavez." In addition, another editor demands that criticism of the Marine's form in doing the exercise be included in the caption, when that criticism is original research, and did not come from any independent and reliable source. The other place is an image [26] of Doug Pruden, of Canada, holding two certificates from Guiness World Records, one of which says he did "677 one-arm push ups" and the other of which says he did "the most push-ups using the back of the hands in one hour." I do not see why the MOS requires or allows these captions to be changed to assert the men were doing "press ups," a term which is virtually unknown in their countries, and whose use is as jarring as would be exclusive use of "elevator" to describe lifts in the UK. What is gained by Wikipedia pretending that a term is used for something in a country where it is unknown? How does it further the purposes of Wikipedia to allow total exclusion of the alternate term for something, after one mention at the beginning of the article that the other term is used in the other country? Please provide your thoughts here, to arrive at a consensus on usage rules and avoid a lame revert war. This is neither spelling nor grammar. If one country receives the courtesy of gaining the article name, does that allow forbidding any use of the other term when referring to instances of the subject in the other country, when there appears to be no "country-neutral" term like "fixed wing aircraft" to avoid using "airplane" or "aeroplane." Should "push up" be purged and banned from the "Press up" article, and should "lift" be purged and banned from the "Elevator" article, or should some variation be permitted? An editor was given what amounts to a block warning [27] with the claim that only one term may appear in an article.Edison 23:18, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

In cases where the terms really are completely synonymous except for their regions of use, I think it's reasonable to use only one term throughout the article, except perhaps if there's an entire section specifically about the other one's region. We in the U.S. do have press ups, apparently (I didn't know this until now), and they in the U.K. certainly do have elevators. —RuakhTALK 23:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
I would say that, in the case of the article on the subject itself, both terms will be mentioned in the lead as synonymous (or should be) and may then be used reasonably interchangable. After all, the MOS regional-variation-of-english thing is mostly aimed at spelling, not the use of synonymous terms. However, it would seem very odd for the article on elevators to not use the term "lift" at all. BTW, in the UK it's generally considered (IME) that "elevator" is the (very) technical term and "lift" is the everyday term—people using "elevator" in everyday conversation, even formal conversation, will be looked at oddly if they don't have a foreign accent. SamBC(talk) 23:52, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Isn't an elevator a rising moving footway in that variety of English? I hate the use of the term Commonwealth in this sense. Tony (talk) 00:57, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
You're right. Most people in the UK are at least partially aware of the US use of the term "elevator" but it is used for the moving footway stair thingy. violet/riga (t) 07:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Not to be confused with an escalator.  DDStretch  (talk) 10:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the moving stairway is an escalator, not an elevator. There's not generally any confusion or ambiguity over the term elevator in the UK, just people don't use it. SamBC(talk) 13:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Sorry - head still fried at the moment. violet/riga (t) 14:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Of course Edison comes here and only describes his POV rather than presenting a neutral discussion opener. Please see the discussion at Talk:Press up#Sub-3rr edit war. violet/riga (t) 07:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Please address the content rather than attacking the editor. Edison 04:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Edison is referring to me here: "An editor was given what amounts to a block warning", because it was me who he thinks issued the block warning. However, I maintain that what he says about it is a bit misleading. If one carefully reads what was written, I maintain that no block warning was issued or intended at that time, and others can verify that no block warning has been issued since. Instead, I was merely passing on a view (from violetriga on WP:AN/I) in response to an enquiry I had posted about an ongoing low-level 3RR edit war substituting "press up" with "push up and vice versa. This had started after a survey to gather opinions about a change the name of the article (to the American English term) had reached no consensus on the proposal to change the name. The advice was that the actions that were taking place contravened the 3RR rule in spirit. The advice about a possible block warning was not about the issue to do with the term that should be used. The issue of which term to use can and should be decoupled from the issue of the edit warring in this discussion.  DDStretch  (talk) 08:42, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
When User:ddstretch inserted on the talk page of User:Tyguy92[28] the quote from [[WP:AN/I] from user:Violetriga which included the words "I now gently draw your attention to the advice posted in response to my message at WP:AN/I#Press up:'Since the article remains at press up that term should be used throughout the article and changing it is inappropriate. Tyguy92 should be warned of this and reminded that he is violating the 3RR in spirit and could still be blocked for disruption, but hopefully it won't come to that.' " it did in fact sound rather like a block warning. I, too, hate to see low level revert wars like this, and that is why I seek the views of the community beyond those interested in the one article, to determine if it is a blockable offense to insert the alternative term in an article where one linguistic tradition has the title of an article, or if the purposes of Wikipedia are furthered by allowing some usage of country-specific terminology. The two photp captions I referred to above have now been reverted back to the "press up" version, in the view that only one country's term may be used at all in an article. Edison 04:14, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
A further closely-related question: if several editors at Press up outlaw the use of "push up" in that article to describe the exrecise, should the ban be extended to related articles such as Calesthenics, where the term "push up" is used exclusively for the exercise and Wikilinked, leading to the Press up article when the user clicks on it? Edison 06:07, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
That would definitely not be acceptable - standardisation on regional terms/spelling is done on a strictly per-article basis. SamBC(talk) 06:36, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Now, is there anything wrong with inserting the other term on first appearance of whichever is treated as the main term? This has gone on long enough, and I suspect that very few readers are put off by the less familiar item of this couplet, once they've got it. Part of WP's role is to educate, isn't it? Tony (talk) 11:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, I'm not sure what the question is now, but both articles mentioned (Elevator and Press up) seem to be in a perfectly reasonable state (in that regard) at the moment. SamBC(talk) 11:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Press up has done what Tony1 suggests for quite a while, and for long before this edit-warring began.  DDStretch  (talk) 11:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Please read the above. The question is clear. There has been more discussion than edit warring (at least since I found this issue at WP:AN/I and no willingness to compromise on the part of those favoring the British term. So if the British term is used in the article title, the North American term is banned, resulting in the prsent caption "US Marines count out press-ups" in the Press up article, but if the North American term Elevator is used for an article, the British term is allowed to appear, as in the caption "A set of lifts in the lower level of a London Underground station. The arrows indicate each lift's position and direction of travel. The lift on the right is preparing to ascend, and the lift on the left is descending from the top floor." Seems a bit one sided. Edison 15:58, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

In the above message, Edison wrote: "There has been ... no willingness to compromise on the part of those favoring the British term.", but this is not true. On 21 September (in between 1800 and 1900 hours) on Talk:Press up, in response to a suggestion about the mixing of terms by Edison himself, I wrote: "I would now support such a move, having heard its justification. It would be more clear and sensitive to local language use. Would any problem be likely to occur if this article were ever put up for GA or FA status by this? If so, I think the reasons you provide would probably suffice.", and Edison himself replied to this. I trust a memory problem may have brought this about. Just before those messages, a clarification of what was British English and American English had also been carried out. I don't think these represent "no willingness to compromise" on the part of those favouring the British term use, nor does it really indicate that the "North American term is banned".  DDStretch  (talk) 17:38, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

To be fair, in my (British) experience the two terms are used pretty much interchangably, so I'm not sure how brit-centric it could be. It seems to be really a case of being consistent. The issue with elevator/lift has several aspects to distinguish it from push/press up, such as the difference in length and "technical-ness" of the terms. SamBC(talk) 17:44, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I know the exercise by both terms (and I'm also British).  DDStretch  (talk) 17:47, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
At one point User:Ddstretch did seem to indicate a willingness to allow the Canadian champion and the U.S. Marine photos to use the "push up" term, but when I did the edit it was promptly reverted by User:Matt Crypto and no further support was given to mixed usage by anyone else at that page. I see this as a more general question and desire a more general consensus, and I clearly do not desire a local edit war among a small handful of editors. I seek a wider review of the correctness of the claim in the edit comments at the Press up page by User:Matt Crypto on 23 and 24 September [29] that this Manual of Style in its section WP:ENGVAR does not permit any use of the other country's term to describe the subject in the context of that other country: "As you've been told on the talk page, the MoS advises to use one term consistently within an article" and "Please stop trying to force in American-variant terms. I refer you to the established guideline: WP:ENGVAR." My interpretation of WP:ENGVAR is that what it forbids is switching the grammar and spelling back and forth, not that it forbids usage of the alternate phrase or term. Edison 17:57, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
I would agree with that basic statement (your interpretation). I make no comment as to the specific application at this point. SamBC(talk) 18:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
The claimed prohibition based on WP:ENGVAR against using the other country's term at all in the article clearly has not been practiced in other articles. Note the artifcle about the Rooster which has a photo captions "A Barred Plymouth Rock cockerel crowing" referring to a bird of U.S. origin, in a U.S. photo called "Image:Rooster.jpg" and "A cock relaxing in sunlight" applied to an image of U.S. origin titled "Image:Rooster relaxing in sunlight.jpg". The British word appears numerous times alternating with the U.S. word. In another article with the U.S. name as title, Eggplant, the British term "aubergine" appears in two photo captions and several times in the text, sometimes as "aubergine/eggplant." This exclusionary interpretation with respect to different words seems to be a new and extreme one. Edison 18:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
  • The two guiding principles for me, as a reader, are that I don't want to find the usage jarring (i.e., random) as I read through an article, and I'd like the alternative items formally equated on first appearance of either. Beyond that, I'm relaxed about it, and I think we all should be. So, consistency within an article is the overarching aim, but where there are good reasons for using terms from another variety of English, do so, given those two principles. Tony (talk) 00:48, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Last names with "de" or "del"

Are there any rules for capitalisation when using last name only? —MC 01:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

It's capitalized at the start of a sentence, or other such context, but otherwise not; see Pedro de la Rosa for an example. —RuakhTALK 02:28, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't this be written down somewhere? —MC 18:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually it is rather more complicated; for example, De Thou is capitalized wherever it appears, because Thou is one syllable. But our governing rule is simple: do what English does, which will usually, but not always, be what the original language does.
Well, yes, there are last names that start with a capitalized "De". I think we can safely assume that MC was asking about last names that start with an uncapitalized "de" when preceded by the first name. —RuakhTALK 21:30, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes I was. —MC 00:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
One needs to look at the original language, and even for the region of origin (of the surname rather than the person). In Dutch language, Dutch people (living in the Netherlands, that is ) are named like 'van [de[n|r]] Something' while their neighbours living in Belgium spell their Flemish names like 'Van [de[n|r]] Something' or 'Van [De[n|r]] Something'. And some names are spelled as 'Vande[n|r] Something' or as 'Vande[n|r]something'. An erroneous usage of capital characters looks very odd and one might take it quite badly. Though on first (and second) sight often identically formed, very few surnames exist with capital 'V' and/or 'D' as well as (even elsewhere) with a small 'v' or 'd'. The best way is to verify how a particular person's surname is (nearly) always spelled; if there is only one source or only a few sources that might be unreliable about the spelling [e.g. a Dutch source and writer mentioning a Flemish name], one might google and for most names find nearly all hits to have a same spelling. And Dutch language names like 'De Something' most often have a capital 'D', but names like 'd'Something' occur as well as "D'Something'. In French, "de" or "de l'" ("de l'Eglise" or "de l'Église") is most often not capitalized, but of course names like "Dupont" in one word, capitalize precisely and only the "D". — SomeHuman 26 Sep2007 19:34–19:47 (UTC)
That depends on the du Pont. Similarly, Martin Van Buren is correct; anything else is an idiom violation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:33, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism on a massive scale

Blanking out the whole of MOS with a seemingly sarcastic reference to one of us is worthy of instant banning, in my view. Is someone inclined? Tony (talk) 12:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

More like a long-ish block. Reported to WP:AIV? — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:01, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Proofreading/"dumbing down" by User:213.42.21.154

213.42.21.154 (talk · contribs) seems to have gone on a copyediting spree that I'm in two minds about. It largely seems to have been changing language to more "everyday" language, although I believe that several instances mean that meaning has been lost. Examples also seem to have been removed in several cases. I haven't reviewed all of the edits, as it's quite extensive. What do people think of this? SamBC(talk) 18:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Largely a bad idea; the meaning changes in particular have to go. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:02, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

<sup>&nbsp;</sup>

What do y'all think of using <sup>&nbsp;</sup> to alter the spacing between lines so things look better? An editor has done that at Kilogram, and I think it's a bad idea, but I do understand his rationale. —RuakhTALK 19:45, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

No, that isn't right. Line spacing can be controlled by CSS if the user wants it to look differently to him. We shouldn't add spurious markup like that. But I don't think the MOS needs to comment on it; there are many, many ways that users could do things like this, and we usually just undo them when we find them. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:04, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
Holy crap that was awful! I cleaned it up, but the article is near-owned by a single editor who appears to be doing all of this and lot of other nonsense (much of it invalid XHTML), so I urge other editors to watchlist this page to prevent it becoming so corrupted again. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Clarifying when to specify image size

In the images section, it suggests cases where specifying the width of an image is considered appropriate.

I would assume that, where this was to be applied to the lead image of an article, it would be because the size was to be forced larger than 300px. Otherwise, we're allowing this special case to be set smaller than what a user might choose in their preferences, thus forcing the image to be small when the intent is presumably to make it larger for emphasis.

Perhaps the wording in that section could be clarified to specifically say that the specification of a width is intended to allow the size to be forced to larger than 300 and that it should otherwise not be specified? --AliceJMarkham 11:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:59, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Quoting citations for the Medal of Honor and other awards

I think we need to come to some kind of a consensus on how to display the citations for the Medal of Honor recipients. I have seen at least 4 different variations of the way they are displayed. Some are using block quotes, some are using Cquote, some are centering it and I have been simply using : to offset it. I have even seen examples of citations being italicized after I have been told that using italics on a citation is inappropriate. I am going to post this on the talk page for the Medal of Honor also to get a wider consensus.--Kumioko 11:45, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

MOS is already clear on most of this, and the articles need to get cleaned up. Such passages are block quotations. As such they go in <blockquote>...</blockquote>. We do not italicize quotation simply because they are quotations, so don't italicize them. Use of "qutation marks" around a block quotation is redundant, so don't do that. Centering is a half-assed attempt at approximating block quotation; use blockquote instead. MediaWiki's ":" indentation is not blockquoting, but intendentation; use blockquote instead. And finally, {{Cquote}} is for pull quotes, not quotations, so don't use it for quoting medal citations (many would say never use it in an article at all, and that it should only be used on project pages.) I think the only change we need to make is to add that ":" and center are not block quotation, under the subsection about block quotations. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:48, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I agree with all points but, and this may seem like a dumb question but just for my own clarification what is the problem with using ":" rather than blockquote. It uses less characters and it displays the same on the screen (at least in internet explorer and firefox). Plus its easier for novice editors to understand : than the syntax of blockquotes.--Kumioko 03:20, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually, the result of using ":" is only a left indent, while a proper blockquote indents the text from both margins. This often isn't obvious due to the ragged left margin; if the text is justified, it becomes easier to see the difference. Kirill 03:30, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Add "omit needless words" into "Usage" section?

I'd really like to see "Omit needless words" from Strunk & White included in the WP MOS. Can we agree that this is a good principle for Usage? (Or somewhere else?) – Scartol · Talk 15:46, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

What, like "in order to", note that/remember that, "outside of", and the like? Tony (talk) 15:52, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes, exactly. – Scartol · Talk 17:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
No. —RuakhTALK 16:15, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
An explanation ≠ needless words. – Scartol · Talk 17:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I know, except that my explanation is simply that we can't agree on that, because I can't agree to that. I think it's a stupid and ridiculous rule. People like Strunk and White think that because they have good writing styles, they know what the rules of good writing styles are, and that's simply not true. I mean, in one sense it's true: they know the rules on a subconscious level. But in the relevant sense, it's not: they see and recognize bad writing, but frequently misjudge where the writer went wrong, and then they codify that into a "rule" that no good writer follows. Then they add a caveat in their introduction about how good writers don't necessarily follow these "rules". It's ridiculous and idiotic. I really hope that Charlotte's Web outlives The Elements of Style, because it will be a sad thing if White is remembered for the latter rather than the former. —RuakhTALK 18:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
You're killing me here. I think Elements of Style is perhaps the best book ever written about writing (with the possible exception of Nelson Algren's Nonconformity. Most writers I've ever read (Maya Angelou, Stephen King, Jamaica Kincaid) agree with them on this rule. But this isn't the place to debate it, so I'll just say you're wrong (that's a joke) and let it go. – Scartol · Talk 18:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
They may think they agree, but their writing shows otherwise. King, for example, is famous for gratuitously injecting brand names into otherwise acceptable sentences. —RuakhTALK 21:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Do you mean the sort of ruthless striking of needless verbiage that would change your question to: "I'd really like to see "Omit needless words" from Strunk & White included in the WP MOS. Can we agree that this is a good principle for Usage? (Or somewhere else?)" ;-) — Dave (Talk | contribs) 16:29, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I didn't think WP:MOS applied to talk pages. I could go through my phrase above and defend each word, but that would be asinine. I guess people aren't into including ONW. Alas. – Scartol · Talk 17:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Hey, I thought the fact that I struck words from my own sentence as well as from yours and that I winked at you at the end would have indicated I was funnin' ya. I guess people aren't into including humour on talk pages either. Alas. — Dave (Talk | contribs) 17:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I knew you were funning, but I was pretty serious about including it. I also have a headache today, which means I have trouble appreciating humorous responses right now. But thanks for trying. Alas. – Scartol · Talk 18:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course needless words should be omitted. That's pretty much a tautology. The trick is to determine which words are needless. Although the Strunk and White book has the word style in its title, I think it uses the term more broadly that we probably should in this particular article. Wikipedia articles should be well written, but I'm not convinced this article should try to teach editors how to write well. In other words, the "needless words" rule is a good rule, but I'm inclined to think it isn't specific enough for our purpose here. TheScotch 18:40, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, apparently not everyone agrees (see above). However, I agree with you that this may not be the best spot for such matters. Thank you for your feedback. – Scartol · Talk 18:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps a simple admonition to "Murder your darlings but do no harm" might do the trick? It has the advantage of brevity. --ROGER DAVIES TALK 19:04, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Re: "Of course needless words should be omitted. That's pretty much a tautology.": I disagree completely. Perhaps we're interpreting "needless" differently? For me, a word can be unnecessary — needless — but still serve a purpose. —RuakhTALK 21:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
I recognize that a debate over "needless" is a problem for this proposal. However, I want to bring attention to another issue: is this necessary for the MOS? I feel mission creep. I certainly see such a guide for efficient writing as useful for the project, but I also think some priority is in order. I think everything currently in the MOS should be observed before we begin asking editors to increase the word economy of articles. Consider a simple gesture: Wikipedia welcomes editors to make stylistic edits. These edits should increase the ease of reading and understanding of articles. Ease of reading and proffering a sense of understanding can often work against each other (an explanation can easily be so simplistic that the reader acquires no understanding), which would require editors to manage local consensuses. I think that rub is reason enough to leave the issue out of the MOS completely. WikiGnomes need no mention of frugal prose in order to improve articles, and it is no secret that simple (not simplistic) language is made of Win. People scrawl complex and redundant text because they either lack parsimonious writing skills or lack the time to justify every introduced word. Editors are not horrible writers because they missed the TPS Memo or failed to read the MOS--there are bigger problems that we would have to solve before such a mere mention on the MOS would fix bloated articles. —Kanodin 22:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Do writers really use words they don't think they need? Strad 22:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Yes of course they do. Our writers aren't paid by the word, so it may not be as common here as elsewhere. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:08, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Really? Editors here deliberately insert words they know aren't needed? I have a hard time believing that. Even if there are some instances of that, it doesn't happen with enough frequency to warrant inserting advice like "omit needless words", which is on the order of "spell correctly". Strad 23:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)
Redundancy is a far greater problem than faulty grammar or spelling. My experience in negotiating text with non-native speakers suggests that redundancy is a problem across all languages. It's certainly a major problem in English WP articles. I'm unsure whether mentioning the problem in MOS is going to help: the devil is in the detail, and the detail is hard to generalise and too bulky to exemplify comprehensively in a styleguide. However, I'm keen some time to propose a few items that shouldn't be used in an encyclopedic register, such as "Remember that" and "Note that"; these are, of course, problems of tone as well as of redundancy (i.e., let's not tell our readers what to do and what not to do). There are others that might be included as examples, where no one disagrees, although they should not be framed as proscriptions, I think. We already have a proscription of the "of" in "September of 1988", and for good reason. Tony (talk) 00:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I also think it is a problem, and one that I have if I am rushed. Someone wrote (Euler, Voltaire, Pascal?) "I must apologise for the length of this letter. I did not have the time to make it shorter." I think that having non-professional writers writing under their time-constraints adds to the problem, and is not easily solvable.  DDStretch  (talk) 08:19, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I like that quote. WP will always be push and pull, mediocre and good writing. All we can do is make it a little easier to write well and a little harder to write badly. TONY (talk) 10:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
(I heard the quote was from Wilde. But then almost any such quote will get assigned to him (and Bernard Shaw) at some point :)) 4u1e 10:26, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I concur that this overall idea is too much of a "how to write well" piece of advice that it is a matter of MOS's more narrow definition of "style". Do like Tony's very specific proposal a few topics below, though (at #Usage section, point #1). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Subheadings style

Greetings! I posted a question at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (headings)#Use of subheadings as first-level as a matter of style preference but it appears as if there aren't that many people watching that page to give me feedback. Could someone here offer some input? Cheers, --Rkitko (talk) 12:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Still looking for some more input on this. Any participation would be appreciated. Cheers, --Rkitko (talk) 19:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal for WP:HEAD

Hi, sorry, I don't know how to answer your question, but it's interesting that you should raise a matter from that submanual here right now. Only an hour ago I left a note there asking why on earth it's a separate page from this one, when (1) it's rather short, and (2) most of its information is duplicated here. Rationalising the small amount of info that is not here and relocating it here would, I think, be good housecleaning. Does anyone object in principle? Tony (talk) 13:11, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I saw your post and wondered that myself. Perhaps it exists only to give expanded examples? --Rkitko (talk) 13:45, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
I think it's not worth the disadvantage of having to coordinate the text with MOS (the wording is slightly different in a number of cases, I see). The talk page is moribund. It's more convenient for readers to see the extra 20% of information here, in one place. Most of the other submanuals are substantial in their own right, and could not easily be integrated here. Tony (talk) 13:57, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Punctuating names

Perhaps I missed a discussion on the topic, but shouldn't all biographical articles be reviewed to remove those incorrect commas between a name and the designation Jr. or Sr.? This would require a redirect from the incorrect version to the correct version to avoid having to fix the links within the text of hundreds of other articles, but correct style is correct style. --NameThatWorks 18:29, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

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