Hi. I've listed this at WP:RfD because I feel the prefix is inappropriate. This is not part of the WP:MOS. Jack Merridew 00:44, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
Would like someone to check me on the title of Library–State / Van Buren (CTA). I'm interested in knowing if I did the spacing correctly on this title, since it seemed a shade confusing, and so I'm looking to know if I did it right (and if I did it wrong, what would make it right). Thanks! SchuminWeb (Talk) 19:06, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
←Oknazevad: I'm not sure I agree with a race to the bottom in typography. But PL290, yes, the en dashes should be hyphens, I think. Tony (talk) 12:45, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
News from User:Noetica: finally, in the new 16th edition ("pre-publication" available via Amazon), The Chicago manual of style has changed from regarding the dots as mandatory to regarding them as evil. It's about time; now Americans don't have to put up with an u.g.l.y. country-name. Tony (talk) 10:34, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
Other editors/commentators might be interested or amused by this exchange: Wikipedia talk:Featured list criteria#Should size be a criterion?
—— Shakescene (talk) 21:40, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
What is the preferred style for table captions? I think the question boils down to "Title Case" (I learned titles were capitalized years ago), or "Sentence case" (has become popular with tweeters, bitliers, and those who like to send cell phone messages).
Jeffrey Walton Noloader (talk) 00:36, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
The manual makes it clear that one should not include quotations marks in a block quotation. MOS:QUOTE "Do not enclose block quotations in quotation marks".
I've noticed quite a number of articles not following this rule, and have made some changes. However, before doing any more, I wanted to make sure I was on solid ground. The rules seem clear enough, but I noticed the discussion of Italics has an example of a block quote with quotation marks. (See the subsection Italics within quotations) One possibility is that the example sentence should be viewed as an inline quotation, but was displayed as a block quote for visual ease. However, that construction isn't used in earlier examples, and is quite confusing. I would like to remove the quotation marks from the example (or make it an inline example), but I'd like some feedback first in case I am missing something.--SPhilbrickT 17:35, 12 August 2010 (UTC)
Where is it dicussed that 2000s, for example, is ambiguous and refers more to the 10 years years 2000 thru 2009 and not to the entire 100 years of the 21st century? I know that the disambig page on 2000s says this but nothing in MOS can I find a recommendation on how we should be writing articles to assure correct meaning. Hmains (talk) 21:55, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Why does this page have - or need - a FAQ? Our guidelines, except for this one, are FAQs - that's what they exist for. If they need explanation or justifications, it's right there on the page, not tucked away invisibly in the look-alike boxes on top of the talk page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:42, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
I oppose a merge unless a consensus can first be built to integrate the material into the main article. If a consensus can be built, I'll happily support it. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
This has been as of the MOS again. Please have a look Gnevin (talk) 11:13, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
This has been marked as of the MOS again. Please have a look
ps what ever happened to the MOS bot? Gnevin (talk) 11:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
Here's an odd one. I told another editor that the information he was trying to insert was potentially the "same as every other similar article" and it should therefore be omitted because it was boring. He seemed to agree but challenged me to "prove" where the policy/guidelines say that anything has to be "unique or interesting." I haven't been able to find any reference! Any ideas? Student7 (talk) 22:02, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
There is a discussion at User talk:Art LaPella#Your AWB edits concerning whether WP:NBSP should be applied within date parameters of a citation template as in date={{Nowrap|6 November}} 2010. It also concerns whether hyphens within titles should be changed to dashes according to the WP:DASH rules that apply elsewhere, as in this previous discussion. Art LaPella (talk) 23:09, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
Do we really need to distinguish between minus signs(−), em dashes(—), en dashes (–), and hyphens (-)?
I appreciate that we want to achieve a good standard of presentation but these distinctions seem somewhat archaic to me. What proportion of editors know how to use them correctly and how to create them? There is little chance of confusion if one character is replaced by another. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:20, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
The use of the full range of these glyphs is normal in typeset English. Also, using different glyphs for different purposes improves readability. Finally, the sole use of hyphens in articles would make certain constructions ambiguous (for example, an em dash meant to set off a short bit of text from the surrounding text could be confused with a compound adjective) or illegible (for example, a minus sign in a superscript is legible, but some fonts render hyphens so small that they become hard to read). The use of hyphens to approximate other glyphs was due to the mechanical limitations of the typewriter (en and em dashes were not present on typewriter keyboards).
So what is the reason for using these different glyphs? I really do not believe that there is any improvement in readability. Are you really telling me that −2 is easier to read than -2, or that sub–zero is easier (or harder) to read than sub-zero? Martin Hogbin (talk) 23:57, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
That is not a good analogy, we are not talking about the classification of short horizontal lines into types, which seems somewhat pointless but at least harmless, we are talking about a policy which tells all editors to use these lines in a specified way. All I am asking is why? Why should the rules exist? What purpose do they serve? Have they any value in WP? Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:08, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
Sigh. Recommend close. The purpose of this talk page is to improve the article, not discuss why the mechanics of the English language might be strange, useless, or cumbersome. I think Martin is clear that she/he can use hyphens at will without repercussion. Martin, if you're truly interested in the whys of dashes as punctuation, feel free to start a post on my talk page. I'll be happy to discuss. I'm sure there are other editors that are "experts" here that can dig further into the history and mechanics of English if you'd like. I just don't think there's much more productive to be said—in reference to making changes to or improving the Wikipedia Manual of Style (since a consensus doesn't seem to be building for any changes). --Airborne84 (talk) 00:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
We have articles on dash and hyphen that explain the typographical differences, outline the use, discuss use in various style guides and give sources. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 17:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
And here's a very important rule about dashes: never, never, never use a hyphen in place of a dash. A hyphen is not a junior dash; it has its own completely separate use.[2]
I notice that athletics articles are not always consistent in the way race distances are designated. Using 5,000 metres as an example, all of the following styles are seen:
Which one should we be using? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.174.47.204 (talk) 13:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
Many style guides recommend that commas are dispensed with when writing four digit numbers in text, but that they are retained when inlcuding them in columns of numbers were some of the numbers run to five digits. Martinvl (talk) 13:25, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
Tony suggested we update the style guidelines roughly every 4 months. Does Sept 1/Jan 1/May 1 work for everyone? If so ... who'd like to help over at WP:Update/2? I used to do 27 of them, but only about 10 of those changed frequently so it wasn't that hard ... now there are 57 style guidelines. - Dank (push to talk) 20:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
ifinditcleare
ta!-wat=rationale4preferin "19th century"[>ined2deduct1century+ad de yrs]pl?jus'custom?-----Please note, I have [[Repetitive Strain Injury]] and find typing very hard. I use a form of shorthand, which may be difficult to understand. I can be contacted through MSN (sven70) or Skype (sven0921) if my meaning is unclear. (talk) 12:47, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
How should I capitalize this song title, "Rich Off Cocaine" or "Rich off Cocaine"? Dan56 (talk) 05:22, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
It is stated that "headings should not normally contain links, especially where only part of a heading is linked". Could anyone give an example of when it would be appropriate to link a section header? If not, I propose the removal of the word "normally" as well as the second half of this statement, which gives the impression that it might be okay to link as long as the entire heading is included.--William S. Saturn (talk) 04:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)
Recently, a few questions about WP:BOLDTITLE, specifically the "Foreign language" section, have come up. It'd be nice to get some more input on this as I don't think these issues were considered when the guideline was originally added. The discussion is here. Prime Blue (talk) 22:43, 24 August 2010 (UTC)
I have added a provision into the MOS guide to writing the first sentence of an article which reads 'Tautological definitions should be avoided wherever possible. For example, avoid leading sentences like "the Oxford English Dictionary is a dictionary".'. I would like feedback on whether people agree with this, and to test the waters. If I tear through articles about diplomatic relationships, expunging such horrors as Pakistani-Iraqi relations are the relations between Pakistan and Iraq|Pakistani-Iraqi relations are the relations between Pakistan and Iraq]], am I going to run into opposition?
The issue is that it is often difficult to write a good first sentence when
This could be avoided if we don't absolutely have to define the subject in one sentence. I agree that we should try to do this in most cases, but sometimes calling something by something other than its actual name is just impossible. BillMasen (talk) 14:23, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Just wondered about the use of Ampersand in the following example. Kelly Rowland has a single coming up which is titled "Forever & A Day". Per two official sources that is how it is named. I intend to create the article once notable under the name "Forever & a Day" per capitalization rules. However another user brought up the use of ampersand being incorrect per grammar. Yet per WP:& it is corrected because "ampersand is retained in the name of works", and per my understanding songs are registered, legal bodies of work. Is the retention of the ampersand in this case correct? -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 (talk2me) 22:27, 28 August 2010 (UTC)
The section on commonality has been cited as a reason for changing one variant of spelling to another. Can we get some views here please? I personally think it's clear enough, but two editors are insisting on changing words like 'organisation' into 'organization' ostensibly because the -z- form is "more accessible" per the wording of the section. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 03:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
(after edit conflict)
OK. I see what happened with this application of the script on Sex Pistols. Radiopathy set it to "British English" function when the predominant style of the article was "Oxford English". This is not entirely his fault—some of that goes to you and some of that goes to the article's engaged editors...i.e., me.
On your side: Differentiating in the script between "Oxford English" and "British English" functions is a mistake. The names of the functions confuses the fact that Oxford English is British English. Script-runners working on many B.E.-related articles will naturally tend to choose the "British English" function for all, given those two choices. You need to come up with different function names that compel script-runners to take a closer look at the B.E.-themed articles they want to run the script on.
On my side: The article was predominantly, but not entirely in Oxford English style. Of 19 words that could go either way, 14 were in -ize style and 5 in -ise style. That's a clear predominance, but the fact is that the one word in the lead section that could go either way was in -ise style. If Radiopathy had actually eye-balled the article (given the nature of his sweep and its effect on other mature articles, I am sure he did not), it would have been reasonable for him to assume it was not in Oxford style. That's on me.
But that's just one article. Your script can affect many articles, and many British English articles are clearly and properly (though not always perfectly) in Oxford style. If it is not possible to design a script that recognizes which is the predominant style in an article, you must at least change the function names so one style does not sound "less British" than the other. DocKino (talk) 06:25, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
I was drawn there by a query, and I noticed some apparent edit-warring, and started a discussion. Then, DocKino started pushing this 'WP:COMMONALITY' argument. He could have simply dealt with the matter by pointing out to me the place where all assembled editors had agreed the articles would be in Oxford English, but did not. Instead, he started dumping on me like a ton of bricks when I brought the matter here. I did not even edit the article, except to put an {{EngvarOx}} tag on the article. It was only later that I discovered there had been some edit warring at some Beatles' pages over British English too. The personal attacks and incivilities I was subjected to were about the worst I have ever experienced, and required the intervention of Roger Davies. You say I have been guikty of mischaracterisation, for which I would apologise. Yet I still do not feel the extreme abuse was in any way justified, notwithstanding. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 10:12, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
Here's my accessibility question: what Firefox compatible spell checker will see if words comply with Oxford English? If the answer is none, then the proposal to favor the -ize variant of British English over the -ise variant is not accessible to editors. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:51, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
As a native speaker of South African English my natural tendency is to use the "ise" form when writing. SA English dictionaries use "ise" as standard and mark "ize" as a variant form. When reading, however, I hardly ever notice whether a text uses "ise" or "ize", unless I am deliberately looking for it. As I understand WP:ENGVAR we should use the "ize" form in articles written in American English (maybe Canadian too, I'm not sure). In (most) other varieties both forms are accepted but we must not mix "ise" and "ize" together within an article. Roger (talk) 15:42, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
tl;dr; but I want to point out that both -ize and -ise are used in BrE and the prevalence of -ise in BrE is much smaller than believed: for example, the British National Corpus contains 5511 occurrences of realize and inflected forms thereof, and 9451 of realise and inflected forms. The ratio is 1.71; by comparison, the ratio of the numbers of occurrences of someone to somebody is 3.94, so replacing -ize with -ise on the grounds that an article is written in BrE makes even less sense than replacing somebody with someone on the same grounds. Likewise, avoiding using both -ise and -ize in the same article (provided it's in BrE) makes no more sense than avoiding using both someone and somebody. A. di M. (formerly Army1987) (talk) 15:55, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
←Coopers Ale is one of the few good things about Australia, apart from "ise". Pity I hardly ever drink. Tony (talk) 04:41, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Soccer is also a common word and originates in Oxford, but like "ize" it is now seen in Britain by most people as an Americanism, so even if one could convince the editors here that ize is just as acceptable as ise, for most British readers would color their view of the article and would be a distraction. Using soccer instead of football is a red rag to a bull for many fans of the beautiful game in the UK (as many an edit war has shown)-- PBS (talk) 06:19, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) You have to look damn carefully to find examples of my "ethnic cleansing". Read this discussion and tell me where you see me trying to abolish -ize or favoring one nationality over another. This is about the narrow point of view of two editors, and lies and personal attacks are not going to change the majority opinion. Radiopathy •talk• 17:46, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
(edit conflict)No, the evidence says that the clear style is apparent in the 22 June 2006 version, where instances of -ise outnumber instances of -ize by two to one compared to the version of 30 August 2005 - thus, according to WP:RETAIN, it is "clear which variety it employs" and "the whole article should continue to conform to that variety".
You also continue to intentionally misrepresent the idea that I believe that ' ...-ize is not proper UK spelling'; I used the term "UK variant" in my comment above, I have never said "spelled incorrectly". You are violating the spirit of WP:RETAIN by insisting that the versions of articles since you started editing them represents the "existing variety". Further, each time you invoke WP:COMMONALITY to argue your case, you alienate more editors. Radiopathy •talk• 23:58, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) I'm glad you brought this up - "nationality test" indeed! Just like WP:COMMONALITY? Or Radiopathy is the only one on Wikipedia who can't see how right you are? -ise? Not proper UK English? Existing variety means the variety that existed after you started editing? Nationality test! Let's hear some more! Radiopathy •talk• 00:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
"Radiopathy appears to suggest that -ise is so very much favored in British English that at any time, an article where -ize prevails--now matter how well evolved it is, no matter its current state--may be summarily altered to -ise style if it can be shown that the first ever contributor to use a word that could be spelled either -ize or -ise choose the latter."
This has nothing to do with which form is favored in "British English" - stop attributing a non-existent arguement to me. Once again, WP:RETAIN is about determining and respecting the existing variety and carrying it through to subsequent revisions - it has nothing to do with the prevalence or lack thereof of the -ize suffix in the current revision. Once a clear style evolves, we don't change it. And yes, if one is going to abide by WP:RETAIN, one needs to check the article history to determine "first major contributor" as well as when the article "evolved sufficiently for it to be clear which variety it employs". Radiopathy •talk• 02:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
In fact, in examining the z-words extant as at 16 July, I have established that most were inserted between 20 March and 1 April 2009 by Doc Kino. I am not saying or implying in any way he did this to deliberately alter the ratio, but the facts are that he is a major contributor to the article who has, through his own efforts, conscious or otherwise, shifted the balance in favour of z-words. His present claim to adopt the "prevailing style" per WP:RETAIN would appear to be based purely on the current state of the article, whereas he clearly did not take into account the state of the article as he was making his additions in that period in question.
Ohconfucius and Radiopathy, it does appear that you are both misreading the guideline, which is meant to forestall contentious changes of proper style, not encourage them. It is evident from the record that by the time you, Radiopathy, first took notice of the style of Sex Pistols, the article was well-developed and stable, and the -ize style, whatever its more or less distant history, was established. You had three choices at that point, one good—do nothing; one questionable—start a discussion to argue for a change in the style (there seems no good reason to do so, as the -ize style is a proper one for a British topic); and one bad—change the style as you did.
Ohconfucius, your analysis of Dockino's contributions to the article do suggest that the balance of style shifted from -ise to -ize as a result of his extensive writing. It's not clear to me if -ise was the clear and established style of the article when Doc started contributing extensively to it or not. If it was, he should have abided by it at the time. If the article had too few words and sufficient inconsistency among them to determine a clear style, then he did not err in favoring -ize as he wrote. In either event, I see no evidence that Doc's writing with -ize was contentious in the least. (If you came across any, Ohconfucius, let us know.) Regardless, what Doc did over a year ago or what, er, Quercusrobur did in 2003 is not particularly relevant to what Radiopathy did last week. RETAIN asks us to respect an "evolved" style: perhaps Doc failed to do so a year ago, as a side effect of his writing; certainly Radiopathy failed to do so a week ago, as a direct effect of his application of your script.
ALP, my guess would be that it is not rare at all for articles to go through stylistic fluctuations over time. What RETAIN asks us to do is to leave well-developed, stable articles with clear styles alone. If you encounter such an article, there's no need to check the article history. Only for underdeveloped articles without a clear style does the history become relevant. The history was not relevant last week in this case, nor is it today, nor would it be in any similar case—and again, I think many articles that are fine today have tortuous style histories. Our guideline wisely advises us to focus not on that past, but on the "evolved" present. That's the best way to avoid this sort of unnecessary conflict.—DCGeist (talk) 06:45, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
I would just observe that American-related articles tend to be stable in spelling style, and their spellings tend to be rapidly 'corrected' into Americanizationz if a Brit has added British English spellings. Also in my experience, there are British articles with fairly strict application of British English spelling, although Americanisations occasionally creep in unnoticed; spelling in less highly-watched British subjects' articles are often laxer. Other non-Brit/non-American articles tend to be a broader mix, with few people in general caring about whether its in American or British spelling, even lesser so Oxford, and these 'evolve' as a hotch-potch until someone decides to do something about it –enter the script. All that is except for articles where one editor or a small tight group of editors has been dominant or has exercised permanent vigil over a given article, and change the spellings manually when they are spotted. Ohconfucius ¡digame! 07:33, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
It should be brought to everyone's attention that PL290 has taken it upon himself to change the wording of WP:RETAIN, without any discussion and without any agreement. Radiopathy •talk• 14:24, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
When an article has evolved sufficiently for it to be clear which variety it employs, the whole article should continue to conform to that variety, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic. When an article has not yet evolved to that point, the variety chosen by the first major contributor should be adopted. Where an article that is not a stub shows no signs of which variety it is written in, the first person to make an edit that disambiguates the variety is equivalent to the first major contributor.
Another strawman post: this discussion was started because DocKino and PL290 clearly demonstrated their intention to use WP:COMMONALITY in a manner for which it was not intended - that is the only reason this discussion was started. And the more the discussion unfolds, the more apparent it is that they are determined to bend or twist the intent of any policy or guideline that stands in the way of their getting the outcome they desire. It is clear that no amount of reasoning will get them to admit that their interpretation of both WP:RETAIN and WP:COMMONALITY is mistaken and self-serving. There is no reason to "forestall" arguements like mine and Ohconfucious's, because we're using WP:RETAIN in the way it was intended to be used. There is no reason to consider any changes to either of these guidelines, since it's not the guidelines that are flawed. Radiopathy •talk• 01:41, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
The English Wikipedia does not consider one variety of English more correct than another. The guideline WP:RETAIN provides editors with a point of reference if they cannot agree which variety an article should use: in that event, the variety used by the first major contributor may be used. Should we change articles back to that style if we later discover they have evolved to use a different style? What Wikipedia principles should guide us here? Should RETAIN be scrapped, revised or kept as is? PL290 (talk) 09:28, 6 August 2010 (UTC)
(outdent) How many more absurd scenarios do we have to endure before you admit what "first major contributor" and "the whole article should continue to conform to that variety" mean? The majority of editors posting here understand WP:RETAIN, even though they may not want to delve into the article's history. What needs to be clarified is that folks like your buddy Kal can't just come along and edit-war in favor of the variety with which they feel most comfortable. Radiopathy •talk• 01:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
Much of the (ultimately racist) reason we privilege topics related to ancestral anglophone countries is that it keeps the peace. Under the circumstances, it's hard to imagine a better system. And let's be frank about one of the key roles of the MoS: to minimise edit-warring. Engvar was the child of appalling, silly edit-warring many years ago. But above all of this, I can't work out why the existing, long-established engvar rules, combined with the "principle" of stability, are failing. Tony (talk) 10:14, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
The previous subsection shows a general desire to retain RETAIN rather than scrap it, coupled with a mounting awareness that we really ought to tighten its wording to prevent abuse. It will facilitate our further cogitations if someone will now propose the new text. Who would like to start the ball rolling? PL290 (talk) 08:47, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
The purpose of this guideline is to resolve disputes when settling on a variety, not to forbid evolution. Use common sense when applying it. For instance, if an article has predominantly exhibited one variety for 30 days with no dispute, do not seek to change it to another variety without first seeking consensus: whatever happened in the more distant past is irrelevant.
(edit conflict) We see examples all the time of people "correcting" UK spelling aside from the -ise suffix: [3], [4], [5] (I love the hidden note on that one!) and more of the same, [6]. They do not always leave edit summaries, particularly the IPs. As you can see, articles do drift from their established varieties, mostly through ignorance. WP:RETAIN specifically applies to cases like these; it's not reasonable to expect that an article with strong national ties to a subject should be forced to stay in its "evolved" state, but this is exactly what a few editors in this discussion would like to mandate. If the change has stood for four years, like JimWae suggests above, no, of course an editor would not be considered disruptive for not changing the style, but any editor who is so motivated can check the article history and revert at will without controversy or ridiculous weeks-long discussions. Radiopathy •talk• 23:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
(outdent)"Established" has one definition in this context, and the one you're applying isn't it. Radiopathy •talk• 23:44, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
We expect articles to evolve, and for subsequent arrivals to continually add content. In the absence of routine maintenance, preferably by bots because of the gargantuan task at hand, it would be incorrect and unreasonable to consider that an 'evolved' article has assumed "an established style" regardless of the duration, let alone one as short as 30 days as is proposed. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:45, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
In breaking news, Buckingham Palace has issued a diplomatic note to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House in Washington DC instructing that the American colonies, and whatever territories they have overrun, shall henceforth use only the "s" form of -ise and its variants. In Ottawa, the Canadian Governor-General has passed on a similar instruction to the Prime Minister, Mr Harper.
According to the BBC and CNN, however, the move is not entirely one-way. Apparently an olive branch has been offered to the North Americans: the UK and the rest of the Commonwealth may be forced to adopt the American single "l" in such words as traveling and modeling ("much more logical", Her Majesty was heard to utter under her breath). Tony (talk) 14:35, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
Anyone who thinks that this is an argument about which is the 'correct' version of English has completely missed the point. There is no correct version, just various national and regional styles. This has be recognised by WP long ago.
What is needed is a simple, definitive and non-partisan way of determining in which style subject-neutral articles should be written. The first contributor method does just this. Other methods, such as consensus, stability, most prolific editor, greatest contributor are all prone to endless argument. It does not really matter that much. Let us just have a simple rule and stick to it. Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:31, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
Wouldn't a potential long-term solution to regional spelling differences be to use MediaWiki to render the spelling of an article into the reader's preferred locale automatically? The locale could be set by the user in preferences, inferred from the browser or IP by default, etc. The source text could then be written in any spelling style, with the software reading from a community-editable equivalence dictionary (properly sourced). Perhaps tags would be needed to protect specific sections of text, such as quotations, or to force a specific regional usage if needed. (Special cases would likely require more thought).
While no doubt there would be some complications, investing in software features and guidlines to use them would seem to be constructive. This might eventually make obsolete some of the apparently contentious guidelines which have been discussed here. David Hollman (Talk) 07:37, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
The effort to prevent the Manual of Style from duplicating and contradicting its subpages has faded into history. So as I searched for guidelines I could automate, I listed contradictions I noticed, just in case anyone wants to make the Manual of Style relevant to the rest of Wikipedia. In some cases I can just correct them, but more often I can't guess the consensus. Here are the contradictions:
Art LaPella (talk) 03:54, 29 August 2010 (UTC)
<!-- This section is a summary of [[WP:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Titles of people]]: make sure it is faithful to the full version when editing it. If you want to modify the guideline in a way that affects its meaning, discuss that at [[WT:Manual of Style (capital letters)]]. -->
Which of these two is clearer? (both will still require the following comment, especially when assuming one has just read the sections above telling you that quotations do keep their punctuation)
(The very quote is being questioned, so the question mark belongs outside; any punctuation at the end of the original quote is omitted.)
User User:Oknazevad says:
The whole point is that the quoted material is being questioned, not a question itself. "Come with me", as a statement, makes it clearer.
This is a valid, but different opinion, so some thought has to go into this :-)
If nothing else these reflections show, that the comment is worse than either example:
(Intermediate?) conclusions:
Alas, number 3 requires more thought:
Example 2 shows that a quoted question at the end of a question loses its question mark, from which may be deduced that the same happens to commas, (semi-)colons, and full stops. One may deduce that a quoted exclamation at the end of an exclamation loses its exclamation mark; and one may even boldly assume that the same is true for a quoted exclamation at the end of a question. But what with a quoted question at the end of an exclamation?
Whatever is true or wanted should concisely be stated in the explanation. Whether or not individual examples would be bloating or clarifying I'll leave to other people to discuss. --Empro2 (talk) 15:29, 30 August 2010 (UTC)
By the way: the inline quotation template obviously uses typographical quotation marks, should it do that? --Empro2 (talk) 14:11, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
←Sorry folks, I made a comment above, and have since been in the usual weekly rush at The Signpost to get the next edition out. What I can say is that I've raised the matter of LQ with Noetica, who has promised to think it through. He says, initially, that (1) neither a purist LQ nor a purist internal-punctuation system can work logically in all situations; (2) the style guides (he owns just about every major one in English) do a bad job of it—none of them seems to have set out a robust, workable system, and the result is a mish-mash. I will send him a diff of this post to jog him. The reason I spoke with him was to ask about the ellipsis section, which has at least one mistake in it (the first bullet, I think), and IMO desperately needs examples. He has also promised to communicate WRT this part of the MoS. He is very busy in RL, and says if he makes one post here, he'll end up sinking days into it. Well ... Tony (talk) 11:48, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
To prevent any wasted efforts: my suggestion Did Martha ask, "Are you coming"? is not better, it is at least unusual and probably just wrong. The switching from a quoted question (in the preceding example) to a quoted statement and the phrasing of the note following it somehow confused me. Questions that resulted from the discussion are:
And things won't hardly ever be consistently logical as long as low dots at the end of a sentence signal the completion of a unit of thought and call for a full stop to process that thought possibly causing a brief period of silence when reading aloud :-) --Empro2 (talk) 17:06, 5 September 2010 (UTC)
Not sure what to do with this. It looks dated and not too helpful anyway. Should this page be merged into the MoS somewhere? redirected? marked historical? -- Ϫ 15:36, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Hi. Please see Talk:Pioneer_Zephyr#Engineer.2Fdriver. I think this is a WP:COMMONALITY issue since "engineer" has a different and potentially confusing meaning in BrEng. Another editor thinks it's a WP:TIES issue and has used the US word in a US topic article. I don't care either way, but would like to see the guideline upheld correctly. GDallimore (Talk) 17:31, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
Actually, Hans is exactly correct as to the origin of the usage. In the steam days, the guy who captained the train, coordinating and directing, that is to say conducting it, was the "conductor", the guy who operated and maintained the engine was the "engineer" and the guy who tended the firebox was the "fireman". It was quite analogous to steamship operation, and it's similar to the way heavy construction equipment operator are called "operating engineers". And it must be noted that calling an American railroad engineer a "driver" is considered an insult, as the term "driver" implies, to them, an unskilled position, like a cab driver. For clarity, a link on the first usage to "railroad engineer" is probably best. oknazevad (talk) 22:35, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
I made a proposal on the article talk page to simply avoid the issue by not speaking about the locomotiveer at all. It seemed to be accepted, so I implemented it. I think this matter is resolved. Hans Adler 12:57, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
Engineering is the name of the profession in all branches of English; but in American an engineer can also be the man who operates a train engine; in Kipling an engineer is normally the man who operates a steamship engine. This may have more to do with the geography of the island nation, against the continental English-speaking countries, than anything else. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:05, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
As the engine is located in a car, called pars pro toto engine, I'd suggest career for both an engine and an automobile driver ;-) But seriously I cannot see any reason why in such cases engine driver / engineer should not be an option. Perhaps train driver (engine driver / engineer) is even better, emphasising the simplest (though perhaps not most common) expression of the concept. There is often not only one "truth". --Empro2 (talk) 11:56, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
I am concerned about a vote taking place on the Wales talk page about if the Welsh name of a location should always be stated after the first English mention of it in the article. So for example at the moment in the 3rd paragraph of the introduction of Wales it states the Welsh name for Cardiff. If the proposal is agreed to on the talk page, when ever a place name is mentioned in the article for the first time it will have to be accompanied by the Welsh name like the Cardiff example. What is more troubling is this appears to be trying to set an example for other articles to follow. And it already has led to another addition today at Bristol Channel, where the Welsh name has been added for the River Severn in that introduction.
Is stating the Welsh language name for each location mentioned in an article in line with MOS? It seems to me this would clutter up many many articles if copied, the only place i thought the Welsh name on the English wikipedia would be needed is in the article on the location itself, in the infobox, first sentence of the intro and history or naming sections. I am not sure if anything like this is covered in the MOS, any feedback would be helpful thanks. BritishWatcher (talk) 19:00, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
The argument being used appears to be that, because Wales is formally bilingual, Anglophone Welsh are likely to expect Welsh-language names of places to follow English-language names. There does not appear to be any restriction on this, so it appears to me that the proposed first paragraph (shorn of references) is:
Wales (/ˈweɪlz/ⓘ Welsh: Cymru; pronounced [ˈkəmrɨ] ⓘ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom (Welsh: Y Deyrnas Unedig), bordered by England (Welsh: Lloegr) to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean (Welsh: Cefnfor yr Iwerydd) and Irish Sea (Welsh: Môr Iwerddon) to its west. Wales has a population estimated at three million and is officially bilingual; the indigenous Welsh language and English have equal status, and bilingual signs are the norm throughout the land. The once-steady decline in Welsh speaking has reversed over recent years, however, with fluent Welsh speakers currently estimated to be around 20% of the population.
To my mind, the situation is pretty clear. There may not be a cut-and-dried rule against cutting up the text with translations every few words, but we are an English-language encyclopædia. English-speaking Welsh people are, by definition, English-speakers and thus likely to understand the names in English. If using English is a problem, that's what cy.wiki is for.
This would, of course, equally apply to other countries. We wouldn't put "(German: München)" after the first mention of Munich on Germany, after all. Pfainuk talk 21:20, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
The item "two-party-preferred vote", currently the title of the WP article on this topic, has been the subject of debate about whether it should be hyphenated. I sought advice from User:Noetica on this. His response on my talk page, collapsed. I'd be pleased to receive feedback. Link Tony (talk) 06:36, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
I've raised a query. Tony (talk) 01:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
The last sentence in this source says "I made sure I had it this time," said the new Snooker Writers' Association Young Player of the Year. I want to say something like He said "I made sure I had it this time." but don't know whether the full stop should go in or outside the quotes. I've read the relevant part in the MOS but couldn't find the answer. Any help is appreciated. Christopher Connor (talk) 06:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
Shouldn't William Turner (bishop of Salford) be William Turner (Bishop of Salford), like Gerard (Archbishop of York) is so capitalized? The clergy naming guideline implies the uncapitalized form is preferred, but I would have expected the capital, and recent discussion at that guideline's talk page failed to resolve the matter.--Kotniski (talk) 13:58, 10 September 2010 (UTC)
I've made a proposal about this at the relevant guideline - please see WT:NCCL#Bishops.
A recent peer review of Women's rights in Saudi Arabia expressed some MOS concerns.
The peer review is here. Noloop (talk) 19:11, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I've opened a serious inter-guideline dispute at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (linking)#Dispute, about changes to WP:MOSLINK that conflict with WP:MOSNUM, WP:BIAS, etc., and also conflict with WP:POLICY by attempting to prescribe and proscribe user linking behavior instead of describe consensus-accepted, current, observable best practice. That guideline is not nearly closely watched enough by MOS regulars, and has been subject to an anti-linking PoV push. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 01:44, 17 September 2010 (UTC)
Please pardon me if this is addressed elsewhere and I have just not stumbled upon it yet. I searched WP:MOS and the "Village Pump," but didn't find anything. What is the convention regarding periods and references and periods and quotation marks? For example, should a reference (footnote) come before or after the period at the end of a sentence? Should a closing quotation mark come before or after the period at the end of a sentence? I've been correcting these in a few places, and thought I should check into it before I start doing it a lot. My own recommendation would be that periods belong inside closing quotation marks and references should follow the period ending a sentece. Thank you. Saebvn (talk) 16:52, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm trying to figure out the English variant used in chrome plating. This edit is the first to use a British spelling, but its for a link and not actually part of the text, while this edit is the first to use an American spelling that is actually used in the text. Which one defines the variant? Wizard191 (talk) 22:20, 16 September 2010 (UTC)
The lead/lede of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section), after a series of edits in the past few days, read:
The lead section (also known as the introduction, lead, or lede) of a Wikipedia article is the section before the table of contents and the first heading. The lead serves both as an introduction to the article and as a summary of its most important aspects.
Apparently there was a discussion in January on the guideline's talk page, when the term "lede" was deprecated by some; it was removed from the guideline's own lead at that time—and has been removed again now. Although I don't typically use that spelling myself, in my experience other editors very commonly do. There was not complete agreement in the earlier discussion, so I've raised it again.It seems to me that the guideline should mention it in its lead as above.
Please comment in the discussion. PL290 (talk) 08:25, 19 September 2010 (UTC)
The recent RFC on italicized article titles has been completed. The consensus is for italicizing article titles whenever italics would be used in running text. See the poll results at Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Closing this discussion. Ozob (talk) 11:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
In a technical article with many percent figures given, I have used the percent sign next to the numbers expressed as digits (70%), but if a number value begins a sentence, I have spelled out the number and used the full word 'percent' (Twenty-three percent....) The article has received a GA review where the reviewer insists that the article must be consistent so that it reads "Twenty-three % of fruit are apples." Which is correct? Racepacket (talk) 10:35, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Someone asked me to run a bot to replace for example "[[architect|architects]]" with "[[architect]]s". So I asked the task approval in order to add this replacement to FrescoBot collection of wikilink fixes: Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/FrescoBot 7. Comments are welcome. -- Basilicofresco (msg) 17:51, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
WP:HYPHEN, subsection 3, point 4, says "A hyphen is not used after a standard -ly adverb ... unless part of a larger compound". From the Category namespace of the Index (WP:QI), I opened every page from 1 to 9 and from A to Z and beyond, searching for the character string "ly-", and I found the following categories where the hyphen should be omitted.
The 22 categories and 41 subcategories total 63 categories. Also, I found the following category whose use of the hyphen might be correct, but I am not certain.
(Incidentally, the two-word expression clean up is a verb phrase, whereas the noun adjunct cleanup is one word.) Is there a technically efficient means by which the incorrectly placed hyphens can be removed from the category pages and from the article pages within them? —Wavelength (talk) 20:47, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I have now found Help:Category#Moving and redirecting category pages (permanent link here). —Wavelength (talk) 19:11, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
Is the use of "#" in links (e.g. Wikipedia:Accessibility#Color) fully sanctioned and agreed? To me it looks a bit ugly and non-human-friendly. Would it not be better to recommend linking as, say, Wikipedia:Accessibility – Color? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.159.78.237 (talk) 22:46, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I agree that we should avoid presenting the X#Y syntax to the reader wherever possible. It can be done quite easily with piped links; the exact method used depends on the context. For example: "...see the Color section of the Accessibility guideline."--Kotniski (talk) 09:00, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
However, I do not believe using a dash or colon will work. It might be "aesthetic" to some, but the colon could indicate a title ("Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment"), and a dash has a whole host of unrelated meanings. I believe that if we are going to move away from the number sign, it should at least be supported by some manual of style rather than something that we find pleasing that was discussed here. -- CaC 155.99.230.187 (talk) 06:26, 26 September 2010 (UTC)
{{Sectlink|Article|Section}}
{{#if: {{{article|}}}{{{1|}}} |<!-- -->{{#if: {{{section|}}}{{{2|}}} |<!-- -->[[{{{1|}}}{{{article|}}}#{{{2|}}}{{{section|}}}|{{{1|}}}{{{article|}}}§{{{2|}}}{{{section|}}}]]<!-- -->|}}<!-- -->| <span class="error">Error: Missing {{Link section|'''''article'''''|'''''section'''''}}, see [[Template:Sectlink|<span style="color:#00f">documentation</span>]] for help.</span><!-- -->}}<!-- --><noinclude> {{Documentation}} </noinclude>
Wikipedia:Content noticeboard#Is non-breaking space useful in Taxobox?. Follow the link. --Snek01 (talk) 10:26, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
I disagree with the policy of allowing the Current Era system to be used. Here's why:
As you see above, this means that a few lucky editors get to decide which is used. Given the disproportionate atheist and secularist population on the encyclopedia, this gives a statistical disadvantage to Christians, who make up the majority of the audience. I think only the traditional, established BC/AD dating system should be used.--Axiomtalk 00:19, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
or
In neither did anyone address the great randomness that characterizes the policy. Will someone please address why the person who inserts the date has more control than any subsequent editors? And nobody can conclusively explain why using a blatantly anti-Christian, politically correct system can be used without violating or twisting NPOV.Axiomtalk 01:44, 27 September 2010 (UTC)
Segan, S. (May 2006). "Uncertainties and misconcepts about calendars". Publications of the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade. 80: 233–44. Bibcode:2006POBeo..80..233S. and Blumenfeld, Warren J. (2006). "Christian Privilege and the Promotion of "Secular" and Not-So "Secular" Mainline Christianity in Public Schooling and in the Larger Society". Equity & Excellence in Education. 39 (3): 195–210. doi:10.1080/10665680600788024.
There is absolutely no reason to change the current system for one or 2 or 200,000 christian editors to feel better about the dating system. One of the 5 pillars of this project is NPOV, to decide for religious reasons to fix a specific date style system is against this qualification and violates the spirit of the project. If the user wants to edit within a conservative christian system, they should go back to Conservapedia. Heiro 18:42, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
All calendars are inherently arbitrary - get used to it. Roger (talk) 06:18, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
This page gives quotes in green as examples, leading at least one FA writer to believe quotes are supposed to be green; could the green be removed from here please? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:16, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
Should Heart-lung transplant be moved to Heart–lung transplant to comply with WP:MOS? Michael Hardy (talk) 19:42, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
What is the format supposed to be? I just came across my first Kindle-reference (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington#cite_note-25) and it is puzzling me. I can't check the reference at all, can't go to the library and check a physical bound-book since the information is presented only in the Kindle format...I don't know where the information exists in the physical edition. Is there a WP:MOS that addresses the citation form that e-books (Amazon's Kindle, Barnes & Noble's Nook, Apple's IPad) are supposed to take? And should e-book citations perhaps also contain their bound-book equivalents? Shearonink (talk) 12:20, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
The guideline for "US"/"U.S." has been changed. Although it doesn't completely rule out "U.S.", it comes close. And as usual, the subpage hasn't been changed to match: search WP:ABBR for four occurrences of "U.S.". Art LaPella (talk) 05:32, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I would like to initiate a discussion on the style of the wikicode. For example I would like to get opinions and possibly form a consensus on subjects like "Should infoboxes have one parameters per line or not?", "Should certain templates to appear with capital first letter in wikicode or not?" Is this the right place to initiate this discussion? Any better place to do that? Thanks, Magioladitis (talk) 22:27, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
There is a conversation regarding the use of accessdates in the External links section here Wikipedia talk:External links#Question about accessdates. Your comments would be greatly appreciated. --Kumioko (talk) 13:46, 7 October 2010 (UTC)
The current vagueness of the dialect statement leaves an opening for a dialect nut to jump into every new article with an "organize/organise", "honor/honour", "lift/elevator", etc. in order to jump the claim to dialect. This makes sense when the original author did not think to jump the claim first. The original authorship should count for something. "Waiting" for somebody to "jump the claim" does not make good sense or good editing IMO. And causes problems. I have been using original author for labeling for all articles when I saw a change. This has worked well until recently when someone questioned it based on the vagueness of the MOS policy statement. The policy should be clarified. An originator should not have to force "honour" into an article in order to "claim" it for his dialect. Student7 (talk) 14:03, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
The talk page of the Manual of Style is one of the busiest talk pages in Wikipedia. In an effort to reduce the amount of traffic on that page, to shorten the Manual of Style article, and to avoid duplication of material I propose replacing the section “Chronological items” with the following text:
The question of the relationship of this main MoS page with its subpages won't go away. In the abstract I favour putting all detail on subpages, but I recognize there are also other viable possibilities. I also recognize—if summary style were to be attempted—the challenge of producing a meaningful summary for this kind of document. Fundamentally, a driving principle for me is that if we could agree a structure achieving it, it would be best if any given detail was only stated in one place—either here, or on a subpage. My proposal now is that we identify "everyday" subpages (such as MOS:NUM and MOS:CAPS), and merge those into the main MoS, while retaining "less common" subpages (such as MOS:DAB) as they are. That would eliminate the duplication, and give a coherent guide in one place for everyday use, without necessitating a huge page with absolutely all the subpage content on it. PL290 (talk)
I have a question regarding what information should be included on articles, especially with city lists, mainly whether to include country subdivisions as well as city and country.
A good example of the concerns I have can be seen at List of twin towns and sister cities in Germany where US entries include state yet no other country subdivisions have been added. Does listing the subdivision depend on the country, and if so is there any policy regarding this? Surely any federal republic should have relevant subdivisions listed?
Also entries for UK/England intermittently use either as the country, is there a specific policy that states whether UK or constituent country should be used? Zarcadia (talk) 13:19, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Currently we define three different kinds of disjunctive en dash. Is the third one ("To stand for and between independent elements") actually helpful? I think a hyphen might be better for that one. (See heart-lung discussion just above.) PL290 (talk) 09:06, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
I wonder why it's not done. The manual of style recommends against using two hyphens for a dash yet I see double hyphens all around in articles and the default signature also uses them. I think it's unavoidable since the correct dash characters are not easily accessible on many keyboard layouts. Couldn't the rendering system just turn double hyphens into dashes when it formats the pages for viewing? I know many web publishing systems do this, for example using SmartyPants. --CyHawk (talk) 10:20, 6 October 2010 (UTC)
<code>
<src>
<nowiki>
br />
So it occurred to me, do we have any help pages to assist people in manually entering symbols like en and em dashes that aren't obvious keys on typical keyboards? There's Help:Special characters, but that's more about the technical backend and how it affects rendering of various character sets rather than being a practical guide for editors. Here's what I'm envisioning: a table listing on each row a typographic character, a link to the section(s) of the MoS that encourage or mandate the use of that character, and the keystrokes needed to enter it on Windows, Mac OS, and X Windows (or, at least, common Linux invocations thereof). Possibly some parenthetical or sub-page help for users of less common operating systems, like Apple's iOS (iPhone/iPod touch/iPad). Before I put work into this, is there agreement that this would be useful? If so, where should it sit, and what should we call it? // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 13:30, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
He has emailed a comment to me:
Tony (talk) 07:07, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
I thought I remember reading somewhere that headers (section titles) should not have references attached to them. For example, see this diff: [11]. Before the change, the section had a short sentence that really had no information content, but existed to provide a place to attach the reference. After the change, the editor removed the sentence and added the reference directly to the section title. Personally, I prefer the former, as references in section titles seem confusing to me, but I'm wondering if the guidelines comment either way. Thanks, Qwyrxian (talk) 01:08, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
We need to say something specific about the names of media franchises, from multi-medium properties like "Star Trek" down to simple novel trilogies like "His Dark Materials". Current practice is all over the map, with many franchises being italicized as if they were novel/movie/TV show titles, others double-quoted, some single-quoted, and many not marked up at all. I would advocate double-quotation, as used in my opening sentence. Using italics for both a franchise and works within the franchise is a recipe for ambiguity, confusion and even outright misinformation (e.g. "Yoda, the fictional Star Wars character..."). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 16:52, 10 October 2010 (UTC)
There are numerous articles for double-a side singles, but the use of spaced and unspaced slashes is entirely random, i.e. Hyper Music/Feeling Good, Faith/Pureyes, Tracing Lines / Silent Cry, Midnight / Choice (this applies not just to page titles but to article text as well). In the hope of establishing a prefered standard for these, I have already initiated discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs#Proper formatting for double A-side singles?; comments there have been limited but favour the use of spaced slashes. But before implementing any changes, I would like some input from an MoS perspective. PC78 (talk) 20:43, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
I have always used and always professionally encountered, "item A / item B". -- Lil_℧niquℇ №1 | talk2me 23:26, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
User:Noetica has emailed me a very handy compilation of the most relevant changes to the 16th edition of the CMOS. It's eight pages long, a pdf file, extracted from CMOS's online site. It's very well laid out. He's happy to have this made available to MoS editors, but I'm unsure how to do this; I can certainly email it privately to anyone who wishes to give me their address via my email facility. Tony (talk) 06:49, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
A grammar question ... I think we're all agreed that this is okay: "If Smith hadn't injured his leg, Jones wouldn't have been in the starting lineup." AP approves and calls that would have the "past conditional". I see plenty of good writers using "would" in the following sense, but never thought to look it up before. Someone just challenged me on it at our A-class review, I guess because it sounds old-fashioned to them, so I looked it up ... and I can't find a trace of this verb tense in AP or Chicago. For example: "The ship left port on 1 August. It would be 3 years before the crew would see saw home again. They arrived a month later in ..." My sense has always been that the advantage of the "would" is that it doesn't break the time sequence of the main narrative; you know that's a month after 1 August, whereas it's more likely to be three years and a month if you use the past tense: "The ship left port on 1 August. It was three years before the crew saw home again. They arrived a month later in ..." Thoughts? Is this use of "would" odd to anyone, or obsolescent? - Dank (push to talk) 23:19, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
This was brought up by Trovatore in the previous subsection. Started a new thread in order not to interrupt the flow of thought there. Have we decided on a reading level? It would be surprising if this hadn't been discussed before. Some articles, clearly can't be read by people who are not already expert: Philosophy, Physics, Mathematics, etc. But Trovatore's remarks were most likely aimed at the general readership, where links would fill in an ordinary reader's lack of knowledge. What level are we aiming at here? Anything in Wiki policy? Student7 (talk) 12:38, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree with the excision of the diode–transistor example of how the en dash is used to stand for "and".
Nor do I much like the insertion of this, without the rider that it is only an optional usage – certainly not employed by all or even many authorities:
I've never much liked the awkward en dash following by inter-item spaces; they seem to pull the reader in opposite directions. Scientific American uses this sometimes, but does not enforce it. I'd be inclined to reword to avoid triple and quadruple monsters, towards which I see a worrying trend, both on and off WP: "technologies developed before World War II". Tony (talk) 07:24, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Recently there have been several edits [12] [13] [14] encouraging the use of a hyphen to mean and between two independent nouns. I do not like this change. First, if the MoS accepts this use, then it should be documented in the hyphen section, not the en dash section. But more importantly, as our section on hyphens says, hyphens "link certain prefixes with their main word" or "link related terms in compound adjectives and adverbs". Hyphens do not link compound independent nouns. Or at least, I don't want them to. In well-typeset material, I expect to see an en dash for and, not a hyphen. Butcher agrees with me on this point; she says to use en dashes. The AMA does not, but they also tell people to use hyphens for number ranges, which is an error.
For the time being, I've removed this section yet again. But I am open to discussion. If someone insists on having this material in the MoS during the discussion, then please put it in the right place in the hyphen section. Ozob (talk) 11:28, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
What is the correct subject–verb agreement when referring to proper collective nouns that are plural such as names of musical groups or sports teams? There is disagreement over this in the article Eagles (band) but it also affects other articles such as The Beach Boys and The Doors. It is my contention that the articles should read "The Beach Boys are..." or "The Doors were..." rather than "The Beach Boys is..." or "The Doors was..." A series of discussions can be found at User_talk:Piriczki#Eagles, User_talk:Piriczki#Eagles_discography, User_talk:Piriczki#.22Is.22.2F.22Are.22 and User_talk:Piriczki#The_Eagles. I thought American and British English differences#Grammar was clear on the subject but there is still disagreement. Piriczki (talk) 21:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
Link Tony (talk) 08:02, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
FYI, see Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Propriety of links to Findagrave.com. --Kumioko (talk) 16:33, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
From: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive_115#Punctuation and inline citations
From the history:
There has never been consensus on this issue. See these sections for previous discussions on this subject in Footnotes and citation archives
The wording currently at WP:REFPUNCT is compromise wording worked out in 2007. The wording in the section "Punctuation and inline citations" of the MOS contradicts that compromise wording. What would you suggest is suitable wording as there is no agreement, nor has there ever been (see the archives), that ref tags should always go after punctuation. The compromise wording advises that after punctuation is used but does not mandate it. What do you suggest as compromise wording that everyone can live with?
I notice from the edit history that you Tony changed long standing wording with this edit on 13 February 2010. Before you made that edit the wording here was a brief summary of the compromise at WP:REFPUNCT. I am going to partially restore the wording you changed and I assume that as you say you made you last revert with the comment "Rv: no consensus here", as there was not a consensus for the change you made, you will not feel the need to revert it until after an agreement to change it is reached. -- PBS (talk) 04:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
-- PBS (talk) 21:00, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
Of course the present language is incorrect. Footnotes go after punctuation. Harvard-style references do not. Moreover, footnotes go after punctuation even if they are not inline citations (e.g. explanatory notes). — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:07, 1 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm not really seeing any argument for not recommending a standard style. It hardly depends on the needs or circumstances of any specific article (does it?), it's just a matter of personal preference, and since editors don't own the articles they write, there's no reason in any particular case to put individual preferences over the established preference of the community (which seems to be clearly for punctuation before ref, though we could have a poll about it if that claim was disputed).--Kotniski (talk) 09:23, 2 October 2010 (UTC)
As the consensus is clear in favour of ref tags after punctuation and discussion seems to have petered out, I assume no one will mind if I close the RfC myself rather than looking for an uninvolved closer. SlimVirgin talk|contribs 02:26, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
Should the Manual of Style recommend that ref tags always be placed after punctuation, except when it involves dashes? That is, should it recommend A, and disallow B?
SlimVirgin talk|contribs 10:44, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
(no threaded discussion here, please)
CREEP - Some questions to ask:
This rule will bring no benefit and will create a small amount of harm. Instruction creep is about small amounts of harm adding up.Dejvid (talk) 11:10, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
A bit of history. Previously when we had for short time one style in the guidlines, a bot was run to convert all pages to that style. This was in the early days of people using footnotes and there were at that time about 10% of the pages that used before a before punctuation style. It was of course not obvious how many of those were done for specific stylistic reasons and how many were like that for no particular reason. If we mandate a style then it will only be a matter of time before someone runs a bot over the pages converting to the mandated style. At that point there are likely to be complaints from editors unaware of this debate who deliberately use Nature style referencing. Do we really want to force the opinions of a few Wikipedia editors on all editors over an issue like this? Or is it better to keep the current wording, which recommends a style but does not mandate it? -- PBS (talk) 00:00, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
many American magazines support the Republican Party (such as National Review), while others (like The New Republic) support the Democrats or While Prof. Jones used to support the Big-Endian theory (Toward Great Ends, Oxford, 1933, page 13), his further researches led him to become a passionate Little-Endianist (The Final Collapse of the Big-Endian Bubble, Cambridge, 1957, page 273).
User:Noetica has emailed the following opinion to me. Tony (talk) 07:19, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Here is New Hart's (17.2.2) on the placement of the tag, or "cue":
Here is most of the new CMOS 16 (14.21), which differs from the citation of CMOS 14 in a note at WP:REFPUNCT:
I cannot begin to list all of the inadequacies of this CMOS 16 formulation, and the ways it differs capriciously from both the CMOS 15 (16.30) and CMOS 14 attempts. New Hart's is far more rational and decisive, allowing, with "any punctuation", for cases in which a single word or unpunctuated phrase precedes the tag. MOS would do well to follow its lead; but there will be cases that go beyond both New Hart's and CMOS, as Kotniski observes.
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Something like this would be good:
Place the ref tag immediately after the relevant text. If that text includes punctuation at its end, place the tag after that punctuation.
The relevant text is usually an entire sentence or clause that includes punctuation at its end:
But sometimes the text does not include such punctuation:
In rare instances the relevant text is a short phrase, or a even single word:
"A blank line below the heading is optional; but do include one blank line above the heading, for readability in the edit window."
MOS:HASH gives the example of Her album reached No. 1 in the UK album charts. This contradicts WP:ORDINAL, and 'No.' is not seen often in musical articles (and I certainly don't want to see it used in articles). Can we change the example to Her album reached number one in the UK album charts.? Adabow (talk · contribs) 08:46, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
Boldly changing. Adabow (talk · contribs) 20:15, 22 October 2010 (UTC)
Text has been added on restricting punctuation with these words. I would be more concerned with the words themselves. I am always on my guard when I see them. "Obama easily carried Oregon in 2008, but was nevertheless so concerned with the 2010 election that he stumped Oregon hoping to keep it Democratic." That Obama carried Oregon in 2008 is a fact. That he campaigned there in 2010 is a fact. But the connector "nevertheless" could very well be WP:OR if I furnished it and it was not furnished by the original source. I don't much care for these two words. It is not necessary for me to furnished a "connector" between the two facts mentioned above. The reader may draw her/his own conclusions about why Obama is campaigning in Oregon. (To get out of DC? Cause he has friends in Oregon?). My "spin" is unessential at best. And yes, sometimes the words are appropriate, but they should be avoided in an encyclopedia IMO. They tend to be "media" words. Student7 (talk) 20:43, 20 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure I agree with the change from "No. 1" to "number one". And will it be "number one hundred and three", too? diff. Tony (talk) 05:02, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
The following copied from my User talk:Dodger67#MOS:HASH
Per your reversion of my edit: can you please explain your point of view at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#MOS:HASH. I don't really see how my edit defeated the purpose of the example. Thanks, Adabow (talk · contribs) 07:44, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
End of copied text. Roger (talk) 09:13, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
Re Tony: no, according to WP:ORDINAL it would be number 103. Adabow (talk · contribs) 09:21, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
Can you please alter the SmackBot. It seems to be going through my articles and destroying my work. It's MMA, not Mma. Please stop your bot because I don't want to manually revert each and every one of your bots edits to MMA pages. Thank you. Paralympiakos (talk) 22:58, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Input from experts would be appreciated on the above. Rich Farmbrough, 07:35, 26 October 2010 (UTC).
Uhh ... how does the article Jew "prove" that Hebrews prefer to be called "Jewish people"? It doesn't even assert that, much less prove it.
In my experience "Jew" and "Jewish person" are interchangeable, and Jewish people use the shorter word "Jew" more frequently than non-Jews use it. Crasshopper (talk) 11:41, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Please refer to the question at Wikipedia:Ear#Numerical ranges for page numbers in citations. The question concerns which of "pp. 141–149", "pp. 141–49", "pp. 141–9" is preferred (this is not about dashes but about abbreviating a range in which the upper bound has at least some (contiguous) significant digits in common with the lower bound). All seem to be correct representations of the range, and unequivocal in meaning, but which do we prefer? Please respond there for the original poster and here for recommendations to add to the MOS. Thanks. –Paul M. Nguyen (chat|blame) 13:30, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
I see that "Uncalibrated (bce) radiocarbon dates" and all of the unrelated bullets under it have large indents. Is this a mistake?
The policy on English dialects means, in practice, that US English is utterly dominant, not because of the prevalence of USA English in the editors' idiolects but directly because of the policy itself which is designed in such a way that disadvantage for non-USA languages is guaranteed (Spanish will fall prey to this too, if it hasn't already).
The English-language Wikipedia is very much a USA encyclopaedia, not an international one. There is a case for either changing this policy, or separating the USA's Wikipedia from the rest of the world's, or for a rival encyclopaedia to be created to counter-balance the policy's effects.
Yesterday, the subtitle of the fourth Mission: Impossible film was announced, and the article was moved to Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, reflecting that title (they decided to leave off the "IV" on this one). The question I have is with the actual punctuation of the title. Discussion started here; i would appreciate some input from a more knowledgeable contributor.oknazevad (talk) 18:24, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Someone raised the matter of why a section title "General Secretaries" (in which three of them were listed) should have been changed to "General secretaries". This has been taken up at an outlying style guide. It would be better handled centrally, I think ... here. I've linked them to this thread. The MoS is quite clear about this ("the French president"). But xeno says, well, should "Prime Minister of Canada" be moved to "Prime minister of Canada"?
Your thoughts? Tony (talk) 14:47, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
Either can be correct. There is a slight difference of connotation and meaning between (to pick yet another parallel, one existing in multiple countries) the Secretaries of State and the secretaries of state. (In particular, in Great Britain, the first definitely refers to a small number of members of the Cabinet; in the United States, unless qualified, to the holders of a single Federal post; the second may or may not. In both countries, the Secretaries and the secretaries mean different things, even if the context is general: the Secretaries have, since the eighteenth century,...) This is a matter of editorial judgment for many reasons - including whether, for the particular office, the difference is worth worrying about. Also, idiom varies from office to office; is there even attestation for the secretaries general of the United Nations? If not, we should not use it; MOS is not supposed to place stumbling blocks in the reader's path.
Bots should not override editorial judgment. The proper rule is, as often: First, follow the usage of the sources; if it is divided or otherwise doubtful, use lower case. Bots are not equipped to make those decisions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
←PMA, I don't disagree with you that it requires human decision-making, not bots. "the secretary runs a word-processor, not a department of state."—I do disagree with this distinction. The clear trend worldwide in English is towards lower case for titles in the absence of the person's name. I don't think it's up to individual WPians to decide whether, at the local government authority, Garbage Collector should be capitalised, or the wordprocessing Secretary, or the Chief Rangers (who gathered at a conference). This is an unnecessary and arbitrary boundary that leads to mess, which is probably why CMOS went with the tide and said, "Enough!" Tony (talk) 03:16, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
