Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ticker symbols in article leads

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Per a request at WP:RFC, this discussion is closed with the consensus being that ticker symbols are not necessary in the article lead. The view receiving the most support was that by MZMcBride (with 48) and the second most support was that by Dicklyon (with 26). No other view received over 10 !votes of support. The main difference between the two views is that MZMcBride advocated the removal of the ticker symbol from the lead prose if it was mentioned in either the external links section or the infobox while Dicklyon opined that the external links section was not prominent enough and that the link should be in the infobox or other prominent location. The consensus view that the article lead should not contain a link to ticker symbols if it is linked in the infobox is clearly established. What should happen if an article does not have an infobox is less clear. However, given the propensity for Wikipedia articles to seemingly magically sprout infoboxes, I do not foresee this being a large problem. The obvious solution would be to add an infobox. There was also concern, raised here and elsewhere, that this RfC was improperly formatted and thus invalid. It was correctly rebutted that this format has been widely used and is the standard on RFC/Us, and thus the concern was rejected. -Nathan Johnson (talk) 19:42, 18 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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

This is a request for comments related to ticker symbols in article leads. MZMcBride (talk) 15:10, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Background[edit]

Articles about public companies frequently include ticker symbols in the article lead. For example (from the Microsoft article):

Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington that develops, manufactures, licenses and supports a wide range of products and services related to computing.

and (from the 7 Days Inn article):

7 Days Group Holdings Limited (S: 7天连锁酒店集团, T: 7天連鎖酒店集團, P: 7tiān Liánsuǒ Jiǔdiàn Jítuán), NYSE: SVN), operating as 7 Days Inn (Chinese: 7天酒店) 7tiān Jiǔdiàn, is a Chinese budget hotel chain.

Note the first example contains an external link, and the second does not. There is strong disagreement about whether to continue or to deprecate the practice of including ticker symbols in the article lead. The goal of this RFC is to reach consensus on the use of ticker symbols in article leads.

The standard procedure for an RFC is to leave the discussion open for thirty days (so until December 9) and then an uninvolved administrator (or user) can close the discussion based on the comments on this page.

There have been previous discussions at:

There is a related discussion taking place at:

View by MZMcBride[edit]

The ticker symbol can safely be removed from article leads when it is already present in the external links section or in the infobox of the page for the following reasons:

  1. Ticker symbols in article leads are historical artifacts.
    These ticker symbols date from an era when articles about companies did not have infoboxes. Nowadays, these ticker symbols are historical artifacts (relics, perhaps) that can safely be removed from article leads in most cases. Examples: Ericsson, Apple Inc., Adobe Systems, Research In Motion, Hasbro.
  2. The practice is unencyclopedic.
    For a news site, and in particular a financial news site, it makes sense to include the ticker symbol along with the first mention of the company in an article. The Wall Street Journal and other publications do this. For an encyclopedia, the practice is uncommon and strange.
  3. It feels strange to include an external link in the article lead.
    Templates such as {{NASDAQ}} include a link to nasdaq.com in the article lead, which feels very strange. We do not even include a link to the company's own site in the article lead. There isn't a reason to include a link to a stock exchange's Web site.
  4. This is not a new recommendation.
    As far back as May 2009, it has been recommended to remove ticker symbols from article leads when an infobox parameter (such as traded_as) is available.
  5. It gives undue weight to the ticker symbol.
    When included in article leads, these ticker symbols are often the second or third word in the article, giving a relatively unimportant piece of information undue weight.
  6. They clutter the lead sentence.
    Large companies, particular multinational or international companies, are often listed on multiple stock exchanges. The infobox is a convenient and clean place to put these ticker symbols. The article's lead sentence often looks cluttered and silly when it includes three or four ticker symbols.
  7. The Wikipedia Manual of Style does not support it.
    According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, the lead should summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight and unless the ticker symbol itself plays a sufficient role in the body of the article, the ticker symbol can safely be removed from article leads in most cases.
Users who endorse this view
  1. MZMcBride (talk) 15:10, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. MASEM (t) 15:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC) Particularly on point 6 - to a reader who has no idea about stock markets or the like, the market and ticker symbol right there is gobblity gook and unhelpful, while a reader actually looking for this can easily location the details in the infobox. --MASEM (t) 15:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Atlasowa (talk) 15:36, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Op47 (talk) 15:46, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  5. As long as it's in the infobox. Gigs (talk) 16:17, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Seems to match what's already implied by the MOS. PaleAqua (talk) 16:28, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Mainly due to #2 and #3. Legoktm (talk) 16:30, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  8. The material is appropriate for inclusion in the article (ideally, in an infobox or a section on finance), but that doesn't mean it gets to live in the lead. Arguments 2 3 and 6 are compelling. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Mainly due to #1 and #6. #6 is actually all that I think is necessary for removal anyways, doubled with the fact that there are infoboxes for this purpose there's no need to clutter the rest of the prose. The rest of the rationales I actually would disagree with if it weren't for 1 and 6. --Jayron32 17:36, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    You know, for me, it was actually point three (an external link in the lead sentence feeling very strange) that first stuck out at me and caused me to raise this issue. I'm surprised that the inclusion of a link to nasdaq.com in such a prominent place has lasted so long here, honestly. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  10. I find 3, 5 and 6 more convincing than the others but this is still close to my own view on the matter. I would add that while NASDAQ is a fairly well-known acronym, most of these ticker acronyms are quite obscure. I really don't like the idea of readers having to start guessing the meaning of the article in the first half of the first sentence. At least the infobox provides the "traded as" context. Pichpich (talk) 18:35, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  11. I add that it's commonly a ticker external link, not just the letters of the symbol, in which case WP:External links applies, and external links should never be in a WP:NAVBOX and only rarely in the article text. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  12. Even {{official}} links don't get embedded in the first sentence of the lede (thank goodness). —Quiddity (talk) 03:37, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  13. I've always thought it was a strange thing to see, but never questioned it. I think the second and sixth arguments are the strongest, but however you cut it I think there are very few positives for keeping it and several cogent ones for removing the redundancy. Matt Deres (talk) 04:08, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Yes. This practice doesn't fit with an encyclopedic tone. —chaos5023 (talk) 04:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  15. I agree. I think having the external link so close to the start of the article is very unusual. I also don't really think that the ticker symbol is really the #1 most important thing about every company, which is kind of what we imply if we always have it as the start of every article about companies. AgnosticAphid talk 07:40, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  16. I agree. The infobox is the place for stuff like this that otherwise breaks the flow of the text in the first sentence of the article. --Biker Biker (talk) 08:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  17. I initially was uncomfortable with the removals, but on reflection I find myself supporting this approach. This is the sort of material that is eminently suitable for an infobox, and allows for much less clutter and more nuance in cases of multiply-traded companies. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  18. mabdul 20:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Mainly agree with 1 and 6, the infobox is the best place for this sort of information. Sarahj2107 (talk) 14:31, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Especially per #1, #3, and #5. I also agree with Masem's comment below that the case citations for legal decisions could probably be moved out of the lead. Sounds like another RfC waiting to happen! —Emufarmers(T/C) 07:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh, don't go straight to an RfC: too messy. Do what was done here:
    First, start removing the citations without any discussion. Hopefully, no one will notice.
    Create a page in the Wikipedia namespace, again without discussion, calling the citations a "historical artifact." Don't label it an essay, so people are more likely to make the mistake of thinking it is policy or guideline. Create shortcuts to that new page, and use those shortcuts in each edit summary that removes a citation.
    If someone does notice and complains, call their complaining idiotic.
    If discussion ensues, point to the pages that have already had their citations removed (see step 1) as evidence that the citation practice is "far from universal". UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    You missed step 1. Ask at the help desk where they should go. Ignore the clear answer from an admin that the template says they should be in the lead sentence,[1] make up your own answer and pretend it is a guideline. Go to the articles that are used as examples of using the ticker symbol in the lead sentence (Google and Apple), and delete them, using the newly created essay with the edit summary "per" implying policy or guideline. Ignore the edit war this creates and state that they can safely be removed, in the RfC, which was created after getting no replies to "what next", when the obvious answer to "what next" is to "drop it". Apteva (talk) 22:12, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I was going to say this to UnitedStatesian, but then it seemed unhelpful so I didn't. But I guess it could have been useful to avoid further sarcastic-ness. So I'd just like to say that I honestly don't think the extreme snark is at all helpful. It's not an effective way of communicating your objections and it's likely to put off other users.
    I don't think it's fair to characterize the link you posted as an admin saying this information "should" be in the lead sentence. He (she?) said it wasn't clear and noted that the template documentation suggested an answer. But the template documentation doesn't really resolve the underlying issue. I also don't think it's fair to assume that MZMcBride was acting in bad faith. It seems like he genuinely if mistakenly thought his revisions were minor and afterward attempted to reach a consensus on the underlying issue. AgnosticAphid talk 22:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Normally the second step if the answer at the help desk is inadequate is to ask again, not assume an answer. I do not see that the editor in question has any interest in company articles, and has no reason to edit them. Apteva (talk) 00:08, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Likely to put off other users! That's a funny one. I can't believe that any editor would think removing the same information from over 100 articles, and only getting up the letter "C" in a single exchange, would qualify, in any universe, as a minor change, but I can't see MZMcBride's face to see if he is making that claim with a straight one. UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:35, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict from post-hoc comment change) Per WP:AGF we all must assume good faith absent "obvious evidence" of vandalism. You may think that MZMcBride's edits are a lot of things, but surely you can recognize they aren't "obvious evidence" of vandalism. So perhaps we could harmoniously work toward a consensus resolution rather than taking snarky pot-shots at each other. AgnosticAphid talk 22:49, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Sadly, I am afraid the time to harmoniously work toward a consensus resolution is past. UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:55, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    And I think you misread WP:AGF. In my read, it extends only to assuming the editor thinks he or she is improving the encyclopedia. I have no doubt that MZMcBride thinks this proposal will lead to a better encyclopedia. I just feel that he is wrong in thinking that, in this case. UnitedStatesian (talk) 23:41, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    It's totally legitimate to be frustrated that an editor made a number of revisions on the basis that they were minor when you clearly have strong feelings on this issue and think that the revisions are anything but minor. It's just that for me the implication of your and Apteva's comments and their tone was that MZMcBride's RfC was made in bad faith rather than an attempt to reach consensus and that MZMcBride was engaging in a deliberately disruptive campaign, rather than making an inadvertent mistake in an unclear situation, which I don't think is fair. YMMV. Perhaps I violated WP:AGF myself by referencing it. AgnosticAphid talk 23:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Good point. But I do not think it was done in bad faith, I think it was done more out of a question of judgement. I would have tried the change in a few articles and come back in six months, or even a year, to see if the change had stuck, and not run off making a hundred other changes in only a week or so. I also would have asked the question at the project talk pages first. I see that now this editor has gone off and started harassing editors about supreme court cases.[2] Apteva (talk) 00:50, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, that escalated quickly. Anyway, there's a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases#Including case citations in the article lead for those who are interested. —Emufarmers(T/C) 02:18, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  21. For me, it's mostly #3, #5, and #7. CtP (t • c) 15:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Per reasons 2, 5 and 6. DrKiernan (talk) 18:16, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  23. The ticker symbol is important but not important enough for the lead. I don't see any better place for it than the infobox. Toohool (talk) 08:16, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  24. For all reasons mentioned. --Hmich176 (talk) 10:51, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  25. Support the views above although #3 can be mentioned as being an annoying feature. MilborneOne (talk) 14:00, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Per #2, 3, 5, 6. –sumone10154(talk) 22:59, 17 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Toss em. This isnt the Wall Street Journal. oknazevad (talk) 20:48, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  28. Ticker symbol are fine for info boxes, not for the lede. Wasell(T) 20:02, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  29. Yes, yes, and yes. Good arguments. Lord Roem (talk) 20:41, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  30. Let's get rid of some of this lead cruft. Kaldari (talk) 04:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  31. This is an issue only because some editors put a special interest ahead of a general interest in writing articles that are a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. External links in the lead where the ticker symbol does not define the article main topic and is not part of summarizing the body of the article with appropriate weight? Come on people. Think! Every stock exchange around the world is going to want to publicize their products in the lead of a Wikipedia article despite WP:NOTADVERTISING. MZMcBride, thanks for championing this issue. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 09:45, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  32. Support per MZMcBride's rationale. I do not find the counter arguments compelling. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:47, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  33. Support the ticker symbol is not analogous to a "scientific name" assigned to a species, because public corporations tend to have an actual, real name they are incorporated under. Those are their official names - the ones which are stable and not going to change until the corporation dissolves, merges, etc. More and more corporations these days are being traded in multiple exchanges (or are, in fact, constituted of multiple components for legal reasons, each with its own symbol), and many are moving into private exchanges as well. Ticker symbols belong in an article, but to be honest: having some experience in the financial world, there's as much attention paid to private companies (and how they operate and where they offer valuable information, their market impact) as to public companies and so venues for conveying company information almost universally are searchable/indexable by company's actual names as much as their ticker information. So to say that ticker information is just how research is done strikes me as a little ignorant. It's a tool in research, but its an unmanagable and largely irrelevant figure to have right up in the lead. --Monk of the highest order(t) 08:02, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  34. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The infobox (and the External links section) is a lot more natural place to put utilities. The current practice also gives NASDAQ itself undue weight, which is not neutral. Enoirdi • talk 20:01, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  35. I endorse this view. Indiscriminate masses of disconnected data do not belong in the lede. A pronunciation key is about the only one I'd agree with, but miscellaneous information like a ticker symbol are not as important as some arguments have made out, and belong in the infobox or running prose in the body of the article. Companies are conceptually broad entities with products, services, ethical standards, employees, facility locations, consumer perceptions and countless other facets - financial information is just one, and from an encyclopaedic perspective is no more important than the name of its CEO, its number of employees or its total revenue, none of which are given special notation at the beginning of the lede of any of the 20 multinational company articles I surveyed, nor any I can recall. – NULL ‹talk›
    ‹edits›     01:35, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  36. Ticker wha? Never saw much use for these, especially not in the lead sentence. This isn't a financial news website. To be treated like other external links.  Sandstein  18:00, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  37. I likewise endorse this view, as a reader, I've many times used Wikipedia to quickly find a ticker, but always went straight for the infobox, there's no point in duplication. Regardless of that tho, most people reading an article do so to find more information about the company discussed, not to find the ticker symbol, and as such it seems silly to give it such prominence. Snowolf How can I help? 18:21, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  38. Redundancy in the opening sentence and the top of the infobox are not necessary. If they are both linked this is a burden on the system.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 08:47, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    While I support the removal from the lead, if you by "burden on the system" you mean the load and storage on the servers, I can't imagine that the addition of one or two links has much of an impact there. Especially not enough that that should be reason for or against something. PaleAqua (talk) 15:31, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  39. Completely agree with the above. SmartSE (talk) 12:19, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  40. Support. The presence of a ticker is no more relevant than the official web site of the company, or any other external source. They clutter the lead and I would suggest (with no evidence) are never clicked on anyway QuiteUnusual TalkQu 18:09, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  41. Support. Many companies are listed on more then one stockmarket. To keep an article neutral, all stockmarkets should be dealt with the same way, meaning in this case, adding ALL ticker symbols in the lead. That leads to serious clutter. Like the example Microsoft, it will be enough to list them in the infox, as most common place to look for it. The Banner talk 17:54, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  42. Support. Ticker symbols were useful when stock prices were crammed into huge columns of newsprint and space was precious... anyone who wants to know Microsoft's stock price doesn't need to know Microsoft = MSFT, all listings are on computers now and any finance site worth its salt will let you search by full name as well. SnowFire (talk) 22:29, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Huh. Interesting insight.
    I'd been talking about ticker symbols being historical artifacts in article leads (pre-dating the existence or widespread usage of infoboxes here), but I hadn't considered that ticker symbols themselves are mostly historical artifacts these days.
    So I guess there's a question as to the value or utility of what has become seemingly trivial information (outside of the financial world). --MZMcBride (talk) 18:10, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  43. I don't support an outright ban of ticker symbols, but agree that the lead is not the place for them. Infoboxes or external links should be preferred. —WFC— FL wishlist 05:47, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  44. Support and pleased to discover this RfC. I don't often edit company articles but when I see the ticker symbols I always find them intrusive and unnecessary and have wondered about the rationale. I agree with MZMcBride's reasons. Dougweller (talk) 14:37, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  45. Isn't putting these at the start of the lead, before any mention of an industry or even that they are a company, pretty much the definition of undue weight? That alone would be enough for me, but the other 6 reasons given here are pretty good to. To me, ticker symbols are much the same as company logos - they are unencyclopedic and essentially advertising, but we ignore this and include them because the article benefits from their presence. Infobox is the right place. --Qetuth (talk) 23:09, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  46. Support, per #2 and #6 of MZMcBride's reasoning. Swordman97 (talk)
  47. Support. The integrity of the first sentence is extremely important to comprehension and readability. In general, it should consist entirely of simple-to-grasp prose, without symbols. This would mean putting not only ticker symbols, but also pronunciation symbols elsewhere. The main options are the infobox or footnotes. Look at the way good quality newspapers and magazines handle first paragraphs, and ask yourself whether we do as well. Even science journals Nature and Science have readable leads in their news and overview articles. In general, many users will only read the introduction, which is therefore critical to the article's accessibility. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:45, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  48. Support. I've read all of the points of view, and find MZMcBride's to be the most persuasive. I like a clean opening to each article. HuskyHuskie (talk) 01:00, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • Your first point misconstrues the nature of infoboxes. They are neither independent mini-articles nor always-attached sections of articles. They are summary templates (that re-users of WP content often remove). As summaries they by definition only include information that is already present in the article prose otherwise (or they're being misused and articles written incorrectly). While the lead section is not necessarily the best place for a ticker symbol "only ever in the infobox" is not, either. Your second point is just a random "I don't like it" opinion, not backed by a rational argument, and so cannot be objectively weighed (same goes for the counter-response to it, below). Your third point, about the external link to the commercial website of the stock exchange, is the real crux of the issue, and your proposal should probably have focused on that instead of on spinning out misc. subjective preference opinions about placement, mired in policy misinterpretations. Point #4 (the idea that avoiding ticker symbols has "been recommended" since 2009) has been disputed, below. I don't think anyone buys #5, the undue weight argument; I think you are badly misconstruing the meaning of WP:UNDUE. Point 6, on clutter, is only a case-by-case argument for improving the lead of specific, cluttered articles, not for banning tickers in leads. Your final point is a solid one, but conflicts with your misunderstanding of infoboxes; the ticker probably does not need to be in the lead, but it does need to be in the real, non-infobox prose of the article somewhere. All that said, UnitedStatesian's counter-position isn't any better, and I'm thus siding with Dicklyon's more moderate view. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:24, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You don't think infoboxes are mini-articles? They're usually a mini summary of the topic (which is how I'd define a mini-article...). And given the general encyclopedia nature of Wikipedia, the article prose is often also a summary of the topic (cf. "the sum of all human knowledge" ;-)
I didn't mean to suggest that WP:UNDUE was in play (and I consequently didn't link to it). "Undue weight" has a generic meaning outside of Wikipedia. These ticker symbols often come as the second or third word in the article. I think this is undue weight (lowercase U, lowercase W). Articles are hierarchical, after all.
If you're going to put quotes around "only ever in the infobox", it should be an actual quote from somewhere. I didn't mean to suggest that these ticker symbols be only in the infobox or external links section. I have no issue with mentioning them in article prose. I take issue with them appearing as the second or third word of the article as an external link. And all that said, I don't really think jamming a sentence into an article just so that the ticker symbol can be included in article prose (when it's already in the infobox) is a good idea either.
I'm glad you were able to agree with Dicklyon's view. It seems like a good path forward. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:22, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by UnitedStatesian contra MZMcBride[edit]

A single ticker symbol should be kept in the article lead in the thousands and thousands of articles on public companies where one is in the article lead (and have been for many years, and including multiple featured articles). A single ticker symbol should be added to the article lead in the articles on public companies where they have not yet been added, and re-added to the lead in the hundreds of articles where they were removed, whether or not that removal was part of a mass removal performed by one of the above editors prior to any proximal discussion of the issue. The reasons are as follows:

  1. The "historical artifact" argument for exclusion from the lead is invalid.
    Of course infoboxes came later, but infoboxes summarize and augment, and do not replace, content in the article. There is no other example of content that is removed from the main body of an article once it was added to an infobox.
  2. The "feels strange" argument for exclusion from the lead is invalid.
    That an individual common style "feels strange" to a small subset of Wikipedia users is no reason to reduce the usability of the encyclopedia to other users who have accepted the practice for a long time over many thousands of articles. And removal throws the baby out with the bathwater: if the problem is only the external link, why not use templates that have no external links, rather than removing the ticker from the lead entirely?
  3. The "unencyclopedic" argument for exclusion from the lead is invalid.
    Wikipedia is like no other encyclopedia, so it will have features that are not like any other encyclopedia; the ticker symbol in the lead sentence of public company articles is simply one of these features. That the paper version of the Encyclopedia Britannica does not have clickable external links is no reason to exclude them from Wikipedia.
  4. The "undue weight" argument for exclusion from the lead is invalid.
    Because it is so widely used, inside and outside Wikipedia, the ticker symbol is one of the most important pieces of information about a public company, in part because it is a verifiable unique identifier of every public company on Earth, and so including it in the lead does not give it undue weight. For public companies it plays the same role as the Latin name does for species of living things, and the inclusion of this Latin name in the article lead is similarly standard in Wikipedia articles about living things. Does including a person's birthdate in the lead give undue weight to the day they were born?
  5. The "clutter the lead sentence" argument for exclusion from the lead is valid . . .
    . . .but only when multiple tickers are listed, which is why the most common practice is to include only the ticker symbol from the primary, home trading exchange of the company. Some articles have yet to be cleaned up, but the standard practice is for a single, and thus uncluttered symbol link. Just as we include birthdates and deathdates in the lead for articles on people, but not marriage dates, college graduation dates, etc.: we live with some "clutter" in the lead for articles on people.
  6. The "exclude, but only if there is an infobox" argument is logically inconsistent.
    If ticker symbols in the lead sentence are unencyclopedic, give undue weight, and clutter, then they should not be in the lead sentence of ANY public company article. Allowing them in the lead when there is no infobox exposes the fallicy of arguments against including them in the lead.
Users who endorse this view
  1. UnitedStatesian (talk) I have never felt more strongly about an issue on Wikipedia, and I am not a newbie. Would (VERY reluctantly) be willing to go along with other editors in a compromise if someone were to propose keeping the ticker symbol in the lead, but without the external link to the exchange's website (which seems to be the main issue identified by a significant number of the folks currently on the other side of this RfC). UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:49, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    But why is it you feel so strongly about the tickers being in the lead rather than the infobox? Your only stated justification is that ticker symbols have been used in leads for a long time and are in lots of articles. I don't think that in and of themselves either of those is really a reason to include tickers in leads. AgnosticAphid talk 07:27, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you missed my reason number 4 above: their presence in the lead makes Wikipedia a much, much better encyclopedia. And see the examples below. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:59, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think it's super helpful to edit your comments later without indicating it. But anyway, I still don't understand why it is that you think having it in the lead is so much more awesomely helpful than having it in the infobox or later in the text. Some of the non-US exchanges have abbreviations that are very unlikely to be familiar to readers. But limiting the tickers to US-listed companies would be unfair and parochial. AgnosticAphid talk 18:17, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Apologies, I did not see the rule where opinions had to come perfectly stated from brain to prose the first try in an RfC, and I don't know how to indicate it. Thank you very little for your unconstructive criticism. I don't think most of the Latin names for species are familiar to readers, but we have them in the lead. And the definition of the supposedly "alien" exchanges are a click away (via a Wikilink, NOT an External link). UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:00, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    And can you point me to the policy or guideline that says Wikipedia should only contain information that is familiar to readers? I didn't think so. UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:59, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Why does it need to be 'rather'? Though I have to emphatically agree there shouldn't be an EL in the lead to it, I disagree that it should ONLY be in the infobox and don't even necessarily be in the lead, just somewhere in the article (a middle position perhaps?). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    The issue is not use elsewhere in the article, but specifically the use immediately after the company name in the article lead. Infobox and prose-body use isn't a question (however, some aspects of the discussion may suggest further limitations, such as if should be used in navbox templates related to the company). --MASEM (t) 15:10, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Well then you have agreed with the wrong view, since MZMcBride says nothing about moving the ticker in the prose body, only deleting it. Lets look at some actual lead sentences of actual articles:
    Sympson the Joiner: "Sympson the Joiner (fl. 1660s) was a . . ." What the hell does "fl." mean, Florida?
    Brown v. Board of Education: "Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a . . ." What are those numbers? and U.S.? That's in the infobox too, It Must Be Purged!
    Microsoft: "Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) is an . . . "
    Great white shark: "The great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, also known as . . ." I don't think those italic words are even English, and italicizing of course gives them UNDUE WEIGHT. Remove!
    Condoleezza Rice: "Condoleezza Rice (/ˌkɒndəˈliːzə/; . . ." OK, there is this speaker thingy, and then a bunch of upside down and backwards letters. Huh?
    The Microsoft lead sentence does not look so bad after all, does it. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:59, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    No, I didn't. He said about deleting it out of leads, and mentions whether its appropriate or not anywhere else in the article. As for the other examples, none of theme necessitate an external link outside of WP. --MASEM (t) 16:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Neither does the public company example: we could keep the ticker, and remove the EL. But for some reason that is not the proposal. Baby, bathwater, all that. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:26, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    If you think that we should have ticker symbols without the EL, propose that as well. RfC's can have as many options as they want. Legoktm (talk) 16:33, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think that, so I won't propose it. I am just wondering why the people who DO seem to think the EL is the only problem are proposing the complete removal. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:46, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Going back, except for the law case and the ticker symbols, the others are in standard use in academic articles about these subjects; latin names for animals are universally given after the common name; phonetic guides are given for non-standard works, and abbreviations like f. or c./circa are common for dates. In the case of the law case, I would agree that those should be moved to the infobox, particularly if the link is an internal one to point to a WP page that may lead to the actual decision. In that specific case, when such cases are written about in legal documents/reports, the case number is always repeated after the case name, but that's not a style used outside that field; in the same manner that ticker symbols aren't used like that outside financial articles. I do agree both belong in the infobox and, if necessary, mentioned later in prose, but not needed that far upfront. --MASEM (t) 18:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. bobrayner (talk) 12:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  3. I would amend it to say ticker symbols are expected for all publicly traded companies, in the lead sentence, immediately after the company name or pronunciation, if given. Where stocks are traded on multiple exchanges, the ISIN, may be given, along with only a small number of exchanges (one or two, for example). See SAP AG, for example. A longer list of exchanges can be placed in the company infobox, in addition, and not as a replacement. The main point is to not go around and edit every company article to take out multiple exchanges, but definitely to go around and edit every company article that has had the ticker symbols removed from the lead sentence. Honestly, editors can be expected to use their best judgement as to how many exchanges to list in the lead sentence, and I would not want to see anyone enforcing any sort of standard limit. Apteva (talk) 06:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  4. I find the practice no less distracting than dates of birth, pronunciations, or other things that find their way into the lead. Infoboxes are not required, and the convention in the business press I read is to include ticker symbols with the first mention of a corporation. I have no strong feeling about whether the stock ticker mention should be linked or not. Jclemens (talk) 05:56, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that it's common in business press. I'm just not sure how that's relevant here (on Wikipedia). For Wikinews, I'd take a different view. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:39, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Ticker symbols are one of the main identifying aspects of any publicly traded company and they are very frequently used in the financial world or in any business context to identify a company promptly and uniquely. Share price is one of the most significant pieces of data for such companies and it makes sense to link an updated value in the lead. After all, when compared to other encyclopedias Wikipedia has the advantage of being able to link to external websites and have the most up-to-date information so why not exploit this? --Mark91it's my world 23:52, 18 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  6. I don't have such a big problem with the ticker symbols. They are commonly used in the world, are not distracting at all, and are definitely encyclopedic. Bzweebl (talk • contribs) 17:22, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  7. It's basic identifying information, and belongs up front. The second example cited in the initial presentation of the question here is so long as to be visually confusing, and in such cases some other technique can be used, but it's a matter of judgment. At present, the infobox is supposed to duplicate the material in the article, and for it to contain material not in the article is a poor idea--almost nobody copying a Wikipedia article for some other purpose would copy it unless intending to make an actual mirror, and we should be writing our article to facilitate reuse. DGG ( talk ) 21:28, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment: You don't address whether you think the external links belong in the lead. I'm unsure whether your statement that in the second example "some other technique can be used" due to length or visuals, is consistent with UnitedStatesian's view, which is that "A single ticker symbol should be kept in the article lead in the thousands and thousands of articles on public companies where one is in the article lead." And as SMcCandlish said above, "Your point #1 is correct, but the proposal as it has been evolving is not to never, ever mention the ticker symbol except in the infobox, it is to remove it from the lead section. This does not preclude mentioning it in the prose elsewhere, which should actually be done, because re-use of WP articles by other sites and other media often entails stripping out infoboxes and other non-prose clutter."--AgnosticAphid talk 23:45, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Have to agree here; it's slightly a departure from our normal practices to include tickers in article leads, but their presence is helpful to the point that we should ignore the normal practices here. DGG is absolutely right in saying that it's basic identifying information — it can be used as a textual equivalent of a logo. Images, such as logos, go in infoboxes, and highly relevant textual data, such as ticker symbols, go in introductions. Nyttend (talk) 14:45, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    We wouldn't put the logo in the lead sentence of the article. We use the infobox. This is where you lose me, I think. Why wouldn't we also put the ticker symbols in the infobox (and exclude them from the lead)? They can be discussed later in a "Corporate information" section if necessary and they'll be available in the infobox (and maybe the "External links" section as well). What's wrong with removing them as the second or third word in the article? It's cluttery and against our usual practices. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 18:05, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, for one the issue of media — putting an image in the middle of text is necessarily confusing, while putting other text there isn't. As well, since the point of these templates appears to be to enable a set of basic relevant external data to be presented to the reader immediately, it works well at the start of the article, while putting it in the ELs section risks getting it lost, and the same would happen if you buried it in an infobox. Nyttend (talk) 19:50, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  9. I don't see any difference between ticker symbols or case citations and airport codes, common abbreviations or shorthand terms for the subject or even, for that matter, birth and death dates. We wouldn't think of taken any of the latter out of lede; they do not clutter the sentence for lay readers and readers familiar with the subject would expect to see them (Years ago, I agree, ticker symbols would not be included in the lede of an encyclopedia article about the company, but a decade or so in which online business-news coverage proliferated have conditioned even those readers with minimal familiarity with the stock market to expect ticker symbols to immediately follow the first mention of a company in any online text). Daniel Case (talk) 03:51, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
  • Your point #1 is correct, but the proposal as it has been evolving is not to never, ever mention the ticker symbol except in the infobox, it is to remove it from the lead section. This does not preclude mentioning it in the prose elsewhere, which should actually be done, because re-use of WP articles by other sites and other media often entails stripping out infoboxes and other non-prose clutter. Your second point is unclear; to the extent you recognize that people are objecting to the ext. link to to a commercial entity as inappropriate, fine, but it's not an "invalid" point to raise; if you think a link-free ticker template is the answer, then provide one. (Also attacking the "it feels strange" language is a straw man that misconstrues the actual original argument). Your third point, on "unencyclopedic" is no more or less subjectively and personally opinional than what you're responding to, and neither can be objectively weighed (honestly, you seem here to be arguing simply for the thrill of debate). Your fourth point, on undue weight, strikes me as a good one. In #6, about clutter, you completely missed the point (it wasn't about the clutter of lots of ticker symbols from different exchanges, a point that no one has raised that I recall, but rather about poorly constructed lead paragraphs full of finance-geek details that are better in the infobox and in later prose where their context is clearer). Your final point also misses the boat, and conflicts directly with your first point. All that said, MZMcBride's original position isn't much better, and I'm thus siding with Dicklyon's more moderate view.— SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:12, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    This is the most eloquent advocacy I can imagine for WP:Ticker symbols. It is pointed out, that often infoboxes are stripped out in re-using sites. While it is perfectly natural to open an article with the relatively geeky looking

    Linux (/ˈlɪnəks/ ⓘ LIN-əks or /ˈlɪnʊks/ LIN-uuks) (NYSE: LNX) is...

    There is not any context that I can think of that it is "natural" to randomly throw in the pronunciation of a company or the ticker symbol in the 7th paragraph of text, when it properly belongs right next to the company name. Note: The example above is not a real company. Apteva (talk) 06:19, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Various epitomes or printed versions of Wikipedia articles use only extracts, normally just the lede section. Removed it from them removes the most useful identifying information for the readers who use these. The world is not made up of structured data; text is valuable just as much. Even were we do do what I hope we could do, automatically interconvert the infobox and the first part of the lede, it would remain necessary to have both. Those wanting to find quick facts use the infobox; those wanting to read use the text. Only if we were would I be concerned about saving this space. the proposition. If there is a question of readability it could go in parentheses as a separate sentence in the lede, but the principles for lede paragraphs it that they summarize the most essential parts of the articles. DGG ( talk ) 23:30, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Dicklyon[edit]

Lead sentences in many kinds of articles are cluttered with data and asides, making them unattractive and ineffective to the casual reader; this is worth working on. When there are accepted infoboxes to hold such data, that's usually more effective than putting it parenthetically in the prose. In the case of ticker symbols, moving them from lead prose to infobox will certainly be an improvement. However, to say that "ticker symbol can safely be removed from article leads when it is already present in the external links section..." is likely to cause a general loss of information and utility. If we're going to be removing useful info from the lead, we should be doing so only when we find a suitalbe alternative place for it: in an infobox, not in the highly volatile, noisy, and usually ignored external links section. So, while agreeing with many of the points of both of the views above, especially the first, I'd say the best practices to recommend are:

  1. Encourage moving ticker symbols from lead prose to infobox.
  2. Remove ticker symbols from lead prose when present in infobox.
  3. Do not remove ticker symbols from lead prose until it is present in a prominent alternative location; a link in external link section is not a great alternative.
Users who endorse this view
  1. User:Dicklyon – since I wrote it. Ticker symbols are but one type of distracting data that we tend to pack into lead sentences; e.g. consider airports as in "San Francisco International Airport (IATA: SFO, ICAO: KSFO, FAA LID: SFO) is a major international airport located 13 miles (21 km)...blah blah blah" where's the useful content? Isn't this the problem that infoboxes are the solution to? Dicklyon (talk) 17:02, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I think this is a reasonable path forward. I personally only targeted ticker symbols in article leads where the exact same ticker symbol was available in the infobox (usually as part of the traded_as parameter of {{Infobox company}}). My goal is not to reduce the utility of our articles or remove any information from them. My goal is simply to fix what I view as a currently anachronistic practice. I'm agnostic toward including the ticker symbols in the "External links" section of the article. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:06, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Reasonable path to assure that the ticker symbol isn't completely stripped from articles, just the lead. --MASEM (t) 17:08, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Upon further review, I 👍 Like this proposal and think it makes more sense than putting the ticker in the external links section only (if there's no infobox). I missed that part of the other view. AgnosticAphid talk 17:13, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  5. PaleAqua: Seems like a reasonable approach to handle the transition and avoid losing data. PaleAqua (talk) 20:16, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  6. Oh yes. mabdul 20:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Absolutely. The ticker name and link would be useful and appropriate in a subsection of most articles, such as Sony#Corporate information, as well as in infoboxes. —Quiddity (talk) 20:29, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  8. Alongside the first view presented. This provides a reasonable framework for removing the ticker symbols, which should be done, and works well with the MZMcBride view above. --Jayron32 22:11, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  9. This makes sense, as long as we remember that infoboxes are often removed by re-users of WP content, and that anything in the infobox also needs to be in the main prose. It just doesn't need to all be in the lead section. And, yes, moving this to the extlinks section just ensures it will be ignored, meanwhile several have already suggested that ext. linking to the stock exchange is a bad idea under WP:EL to begin with. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:01, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  10. As above; this looks like a good structured approach using the broad principles of the first version. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  11. If we decide to remove ticker symbols from the first sentence, it certainly makes sense to phase this in gradually and on some form of common sense case by case manner. I think the criteria proposed by Dicklyon achieve that. Pichpich (talk) 15:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  12. I agree. No worse than airport codes. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:09, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  13. Common sense approach. --Biker Biker (talk) 07:50, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  14. Endorse. SYSS Mouse (talk) 21:09, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  15. I think this comes nearest to my own views. --Pine✉ 03:40, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  16. Endorse. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:58, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  17. Endorse. Infobox is a good place for the ticker symbol; sticking it in External links is much less so. I have some reservations about undertaking any project that involves rewriting many ledes just to deal with ticker symbols, but since the debate seems to be unavoidable, this approach seems the most reasonable.--Arxiloxos (talk) 07:58, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  18. Support I can't see any good reason to include it in the lede, but it's the sort of thing that belongs in an infobox, rather than down at the bottom with the external links. Anaxial (talk) 18:11, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  19. Endorse. Ticker symbols are encyclopedic information, the issue is where best to locate them in relation to all the other information we ideally will include in an article about a publicly-traded company. Putting them in the infobox seems to me to strike the best balance. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 15:34, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  20. Endorse. After reading all suggestions, this one makes most sense to me in terms of readability and completeness. --Jesus Presley (talk) 03:14, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  21. Seems like a reasonable approach, per Jayron32. Skalman (talk) 08:21, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  22. Ticker symbols are still relevant today, but clutter prose. - Presidentman talk · contribs Random Picture of the Day (Talkback) 13:41, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Endorse. Kansan (talk) 01:49, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  24. This is more or less consistent with my comments above, although I personally don't see a problem with tickers being located in external links if there is no infobox – in short stubs, external links is just as prominent a location as anywhere else. —WFC— FL wishlist 05:51, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  25. This is best overall opinion. Ticker symbols are important information for modern companies, but they don't need to be mentioned in the lead if they are prominently featured elsewhere. Eluchil404 (talk) 04:08, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Endorse. I generally agree with de-cluttering the lede, but the External links section is not prominent enough. Nor do I think it's the correct place - many people may be looking for the symbol itself as a piece of data, for example to search for it in their choice of stock tracker, rather than as a direct link. the wub "?!" 13:26, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Philosopher[edit]

Ticker symbols are appropriate for the lead, but some current usages are problematic.

  1. Ticker symbols are a contemporary cultural artifact, and are appropriate for Wikipedia as their familiarity provides a common point of reference. As MZMcBride noted, they are often used in financial and news publications. Additionally, this makes their presence in Wikipedia an expected behavior.
  2. Ticker symbols should not include an external link. There's no purpose for it.
  3. Where cluttered, unclutter. This can be done on a case-by-case basis at the talk pages of articles where it is an issue: only the most relevant symbol(s) should be on an article.
Users who endorse this view
  1. Philosopher Let us reason together. 17:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a serious question. Would you feel the same way about, for example, the Nintendo article having "(TYO:7974)" after the name? I'm sure there are more obscure examples but this is all I could come up with. AgnosticAphid talk 18:04, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Like is currently done in Sony, Toho, JVC, many others. UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:36, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict) Ah, foreign (from my American POV) companies with a wide exposure in the States. I can see some potential for confusion there, sure, but the point still stands: We are used to seeing ticker symbols immediately following company names. Provided the "TYO" was appropriately wikilinked, yes, I think it would be appropriate. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 18:39, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    The wikilink of TYO is a function of the template. Not having the external link as well, to the stock, is useless. Apteva (talk) 06:47, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Why should ticker symbols be the exception of the general rule of having no ELs in the articles themselves? What purpose does it serve to put them there instead of an EL section where they'd be perfectly appropriate? How are they useless without it? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:32, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    If you compare (TYO:7974) with (TYO: 7974) you have a wikilink to what on earth tyo is, and a link to what 7974 is. Wikilinking from 7974 to the article that appears in would be useless, and the number 7974 without the context obtained by the link is not very helpful. WP:EL does not say no external links, it says some of the places they are appropriate and some of the ways they are not appropriate. It is not a complete list and says nothing about some of the common ways that EL's are used, such as stock symbols, although "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks), or other reasons" clearly applies (the other reason being, for one, that the information is constantly changing). Apteva (talk) 00:12, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    But we don't allow ELs in running prose, period, unless its part of a citation. The EL as an infobox link, under "External Links", or as a navbox link is fine but simply not within prose. --MASEM (t) 02:47, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    What we do not use is links like this one to Wikipedia, if I am understanding ELs in running prose. What we do with those is convert them to references. What we do with stock symbols is put them right after the company name, and they do include an external link. Nothing wrong with that. It is not technically in "running prose" because the only place it exists is right after the company name. Call it what you will, this and half a dozen examples are commonly used examples of EL's that fit into the allowable usage paragraph. Apteva (talk) 06:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    And that's putting an EL in running prose which is not allowed. --MASEM (t) 08:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Rather than say that it is not allowed, because there is no software barrior to putting this is Wikipedia in running prose, I would say that it is not best practice to do that, and when seen it is converted to a reference. There is nothing "wrong" with someone adding a paragraph like this that does that, but when someone says this or that it is not clear what this or that refers to. I would much rather have someone add a poorly written paragraph that included useful information than not add it. And at some point they will learn how to format it better. In the case of stock symbols, the best way to format them is with a stock template, right after the company name, or pronunciation, if given, in the lead sentence. Apteva (talk) 17:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I appreciate that the ticker symbols have been around for a long period of time. I'm not sure why inertia must hold us back, however. You seem to suggest that simply because they have become common/expected, they must remain where they are. In the days before infoboxes (2004, 2005), I think it made sense to include the {{NASDAQ}} template inline, as there was no other good and/or consistent place to put it. It's now 2012. Given that there is such a convenient and consistent place to stick the information and given that it comes with the added bonus of reducing article lead clutter, I'm not sure why you object to moving the information out of the article lead and into the infobox.
    I also kind of take issue with the suggestion that the practice of putting ticker symbols in article leads is common. It's perhaps more common among tech companies, but there are dozens (probably hundreds or thousands) of articles about publicly traded companies that do not include ticker symbols in the article lead. Examples: InsWeb, Integral Systems, Interline Brands, Intuit, IONA Technologies, Iridium Communications, et al. A quick browse through Category:Companies listed on NASDAQ shows that this practice isn't as common as one might expect. In fact, it's possible that the infobox more commonly contains the ticker symbol than the article lead. Someone would have to do a larger study to know this for sure, though. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:53, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    I think you are misunderstanding. My "expected" isn't in reference to Wikipedia it's in reference to company references in general. --Philosopher Let us reason together. 20:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    My experience is that there are very few editors who are interested in working on company articles. But I would be happy to add a few of the missing ones, such as those mentioned. My personal preference, though, is to let whoever is working on the articles to put in the ticker symbol. Apteva (talk) 06:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Two of those companies are no longer publicly traded, so the former ticker symbol appears only in the infobox, and is not a link, using the {{NASDAQ was|SYMBOL}} template. Apteva (talk) 08:01, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Agreed, modulo Dicklyon's version. Ticker symbols are useful to have in the article, but there's no particular reason to have them in the lead section if they can be in the prose elsewhere in a less cluttering way as well as in the infobox. The idea expressed above that including them at all is "undue weight" is silly. Agreed that an extlink to a stock exchange has to go (per WP:SPAM, WP:EL, WP:NOT#DIRECTORY). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 23:30, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Joe Decker[edit]

Similarly to Philosopher, Ticker symbols are appropriate for the lead, but some current usages are problematic. However, my view on why this is varies.

  1. The question of whether or not ticker symbols are a cultural artifact is moot. They are an alternate way of naming the article subject, that is, an alternate title. Much as is the case with alternate spellings or names of titles, case citations, and so forth, putting these names near the top, in the lead, serves a critical encyclopedic function in disambiguation and in providing the reader assurance that they're reading about the topic they've searched for.
  2. Ticker symbols should not include an external link in the lead, not of any sort. It's ugly, and is in contradiction to our usual practice for external links, WP:EL, etc. --j⚛e deckertalk 19:35, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    Question. Which current usages are "problematic"? Apteva (talk) 04:01, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Views[edit]

This is the wrong format for an RfC. It is way too early to set out a bold statement and ask for a survey.

First off "The ticker symbol can safely be removed from article leads when it is already present in the external links section or in the infobox of the page" is blatantly false, and doing so in Apple simply triggered an edit war, with it being removed, replaced, removed, and replaced again. Should it be removed again I can guarantee that someone is going to replace it again. In all of the articles mentioned above it was replaced.

Second most of the "reasons" are also false. That it has been brought up in 2009 is irrelevant. It was rejected then, and should be rejected now.

  • What I would propose is limiting the number of stock listings in the lead sentence to two if they also prominently appear in the infobox. For example, RIMM is a Canadian company, so listing the Toronto stock exchange first makes sense. Or RIM, if you are a Canadian.

Basically I object to trying to tell other editors how to edit articles. They know best what to put in them and what weight to give, not someone who knows nothing of the subject. The stock symbol is simply the equivalent of the scientific name of a species, and obviously belongs in the lead sentence, right after the company name, or pronunciation, if given. Apteva (talk) 17:11, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No one will stop you from presenting an alternate view in this RFC. Create a new header and provide your own view. --Jayron32 17:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Not needed. This whole idea is rubbish, and is being promoted by someone who clearly knows next to nothing about stocks and publicly traded companies. Apteva (talk) 19:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, more views would be welcome, and I'm holding off commenting until I can hear more than one side of what so far looks like a one-sided issue. Dicklyon (talk) 17:47, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
We tell each other how to do things all the times, and in different strengths, be they policies, guidelines, or essays. If consensus is achieved here, I'm assuming it will be coming a guideline, and we will be as free to follow and ignore it as any other guideline.--Tznkai (talk) 18:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Just to be clear, you're not "free to...ignore" something without reason. WP:IAR makes it clear that ignoring rules (whatever name you give them) shouldn't be done capriciously. Guidelines should be followed always unless there exists a specific reason, which you can defend, for doing so. "I disagree with the guideline" is not one of those. --Jayron32 20:15, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, the proponents here of the "clean up the lead sentence garbage" proposals, are somewhat like WP MOS police who like to make outlandish proposals, put them into guidelines, and then run around enforcing them. The current MOS is close to what I can only call rubbish because of this attitude. Everyone who lives in a police state learns to disrespect both the law and the police. It is very sad to see WP becoming a police state. Apteva (talk) 07:02, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
"In all of the articles mentioned above it was replaced." ← You failed to mention that in two of those cases (Research In Motion and Hasbro), you (and UnitedStatesian) were the ones to re-add the ticker symbols. I'm also not sure what you mean by "rejected then" regarding the 2009 advice on ticker symbols. Again, you (and UnitedStatesian) were the ones to edit Template:NASDAQ/doc and Template:New York Stock Exchange/doc to remove the advice you two happened to disagree with.
So we could possibly say that it's not that the format of this RFC, but your behavior, that is wrong. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And someone else failed to mention that in a majority of the five cases we were not the ones who replaced the ticker symbols, so in this small sample, there are five times as many editors who want the symbol as do not want them. Apteva (talk) 19:27, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Replaced the ticker symbols? No idea what you're talking about. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:32, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The past is past. We are here and now discussing a new consensus. As suggested, present your arguments for why ticker symbols should be used in the lead to get input on it. --MASEM (t) 19:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I know quite a bit about stocks and publicly traded companies, and I support removing redundant tickers in the lede. What is good for financial news sites is not necessarily good for an encyclopedia. Gigs (talk) 20:16, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Since no one is actually doing it, I have added a second viewpoint. People who wish to keep ticker symbols in the lead section are free to endorse that one. I do not endorse it, but I have added it to give people complaining in this section a place to have their voice mean something. People are within their rights to hold differing opinions, but if they wish their opinions to have an affect on Wikipedia policy, they need to take the right action. The right action which will actually count for something is to add your name to the "users who endorse this view" section, next to the little "#" sign. --Jayron32 20:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An entirely different approach[edit]

At the moment, User:VIAFbot is churning away a few tens of thousands of links to authority control records in Wikipedia biographies - standardised codes, embedded in a footer template, that identify an individual and link out to external resources. I wonder if it would be worth considering this as a way of handling things like stock codes, but also links to OpenCorporates or to company registries, etc. Any thoughts? Andrew Gray (talk) 17:50, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What it is doing, as far as I can tell, is changing uses of the moved template Normdaten to Authority control. This is an extremely obscure way of identifying people, with a number or several numbers. This is orders of magnitude more obscure than a stock ticker symbol, or any of the other examples given (birth date, scientific name, etc.). Apteva (talk) 23:39, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure you fully understand what VIAFbot is doing. Wikipedia:Authority control integration proposal is a good place to start. As I understand it, VIAFbot is converting dewiki data for enwiki use, as well as other data that has been collected. Legoktm (talk) 11:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the normdaten switch was a side-effect of the process - it should hopefully restart on new additions this week. Stock ticker codes are indeed human-readable (mostly) but my thought was that in future we may want to include other, less easily interpretable, identifying codes - no-one can easily parse company registry numbers, for example. This discussion may be a good moment to consider future approaches. Andrew Gray (talk) 13:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand. I tried to figure out what the bot was doing exactly and what that would mean here but I really couldn't. I doubt I'm the only one. Anyone care to explain? AgnosticAphid talk 00:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
VIAFbot is adding ID numbers to articles about persons. If you want to look for books by John Smith, there are a lot of different authors with this name (or think about arabic/chinese names and their transcriptions). So libraries like the Library of Congress or the German National Library assign an ID number to each person, and with that ID number you can find books by this specific author (and sometimes even about this specific author). The new international VIAF number is linking the German National Library ID number with the LoC ID number and those of several other libraries. By including the VIAF/LoC/... numbers in the WP article about the person, we can 1) identify the person (and their arabic/chinese name transcriptions), 2) the libraries and others can reliably link to the correct WP article, 3) you can find publications/books by/about the person (even new books). Since german WP has already included VIAF in many articles (manually and reliably), the bot uses interwikilinks to find and add VIAF ID to the corresponding english WP articles.
What has this to do with ticker symbols? Look at the bigger picture: Some companies do have ticker symbols, most companies don't. They have a registration number in their country/state. Or a tax ID (see VAT identification number). Just like with the VIAF ID, it would be useful to add these IDs systematically to articles about companies. In the future ;-) Have a look at OpenCorporates for instance. --Atlasowa (talk) 18:43, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I see. That makes sense. I found Stuart Dempster as an example. I'm still a bit unclear on whether it's being suggested to have the ticker appear in an authority control box for (public) companies or whether these comments are just about adding unique identifiers that could be used for every company, even private ones. If we are talking about tickers, I think that it would be a good way of adding an external ticker link in a consistent manner to company articles, but I'm unsure whether having this ticker only in the infobox and the authority control box is advisable. If we mention the ticker in the body, be it in the lead or otherwise, I think this would be great (even if that doesn't really solve this RfC)! AgnosticAphid talk 19:21, 14 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just because I want to read about a company, doesn't mean I want to invest in it. To assume that that is the main purpose of the article, and provide a link right in the lead, is rather strange, IMO. Kaldari (talk) 04:06, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course not, but it is a fundamentally important piece of information about a publicly traded company - just as important as the scientific name of a species. Everyone reads Wikipedia and everyone has different information they want. Some want the ticker symbol. This simply provides a uniform place for that symbol. Apteva (talk) 02:37, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

History[edit]

In this diff in 2009, the template NASDAQ usage recommendation for putting the symbols in article leads was removed from the article talk page (and taken to a new /doc page, unfortunately), even while the talk page had a 2008 plea to "Stop inserting in the beginning of articles" and use an infobox instead. It's high time we get around to this, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 00:24, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is one-sided history: so a single editor makes a request on a talk page, nothing is done about it for four years, and that is an argument for changing thousands of articles now? Seems like the opposite to me. UnitedStatesian (talk) 01:43, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It's not so much an argument for changing; just makes the point that the idea was out there and never pushed back upon, so an editor might have taken it up in good faith, unlike the theory that Apteva is pushing above. Dicklyon (talk) 02:23, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
First off, this is hardly what could be called a neutral section header.[3] Clearly that command was rejected, by the simple fact that it was not acted upon. Now if I can read "unlike the theory that Apteva is pushing", and have no idea what theory that is, how is anyone else supposed to know what it is? The point though is to discuss the issue, not the person who is promoting an issue. So assuming that I had thought that x->y, instead of saying the theory that Apteva is promoting, it is more helpful to say, the theory that x->y. This is just consensus building 101. Apteva (talk) 02:55, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring to the bad-faith theory expounded here. Dicklyon (talk) 03:09, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No bad faith there. Just an enumeration of the actions taken. Apteva (talk) 04:05, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Links[edit]

Why should Nasdaq, Eurostox or whatever get links in the lead of every article on a company? That's irrelevant and non-neutral. --NaBUru38 (talk) 19:56, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's one of MZMcBride's points. See #3. Legoktm (talk) 19:59, 15 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Because it provides useful information - this is after all an encyclopedia. It is a link to both neutral and relevant information. Apteva (talk) 02:30, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The NASDAQ OMX Group has an annual revenue of US$ 3.6 billion. That's not neutral. --NaBUru38 (talk) 17:38, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
How is it not neutral? That to me is a simple factual statement. It is a bit out of date, though, as it was last updated to give 2008. Fortunately the ticker symbol is linked, and it only takes two mouse clicks to find out that in 2011 it has dropped to $3,319,000 - if you a) care, and b) know where to click. I would say this is an excellent argument for keeping the ticker symbols where they are and with the links. Apteva (talk) 08:11, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Presidentman pro-Dicklyon, contra MZMcBride[edit]

While I support Dicklyon's view, I would also like to add my additional thoughts on this matter, specifically pro-Dicklyon's argument #3 and contra MZMcBride's argument numbers 1, 2, & 5.

  1. Ticker symbols should not be removed where there is no infobox.
    A blatant, across-the-board removal or ban of all ticker symbols from all leads would severely hurt the informative value of Wikipedia. No public company article is complete without it. This information is essential for any person interested in that company's stock, and if it cannot be found, the result is an unhappy reader.
  2. Infoboxes are useless in some articles.
    Not everything needs an infobox. In fact, not all articles have enough information to support an infobox. Thus, we cannot expect every single corporate article to have one. - Presidentman talk · contribs Random Picture of the Day (Talkback) 21:56, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments

Hi. Thanks for posting. Regarding your second point, do you have an example of a company article in which it would be inappropriate to include an infobox? --MZMcBride (talk) 00:02, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, just about any stub. - Presidentman talk · contribs Random Picture of the Day (Talkback) 11:50, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Stubs can, and often will have, infoboxes. --MASEM (t) 15:05, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
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