Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations/Archive 4

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

Corrections/Additions

I've made the following changes to the list (feel free to return any of them to their previous form if I've erred)

Added new OR parallel entry:
Bachelor of Arts (Artium Baccalaureus) --> B.A. or A.B.
Before the Common Era --> BCE
Common Era --> CE
post meridiem --> p.m.
Changed case (for parallelism w/case of abbr.):
Abbreviation --> abbreviation
Ante meridiem --> ante meridiem
Born --> born
Died --> died
Flipped Abbr. order to reflect WP:MOSDATE omission of "." (so, not sure about the or option now)
A.D. or AD --> AD or A.D.
B.C. or BC --> BC or B.C.

A question:

Shouldn't it be RN (and also MP for Member of Parliament, which I was not bold enough to add)? They are certifications/titles which Chicago-MoS says to use w/o "." but then this page mentions that these are supposed to reflect Wikipedia usage... -- RCEberwein | Talk 23:30, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Sounds plausible to me. This really tells me that we need to remove things like "Ph.D." and so on from the list; just because they are sourceable as occuring "in the wild" offline does not mean that a WP guideline on acronyms should recommend them for us here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Mount / Mountain / Mt. / Mt

Thanks to someone "being bold," and undertaking changing all instances of "Mt." to "Mt" in Oregon-related links, specifically with reference to the various things named after Mount Hood, I have noted that there is substantial inconsistency of usage. Neither Mt. nor Mt are on the abbreviation list (nor do I personally think they should be). My inclination is that the naming convention applied to the article on the mountain itself should be applied to all related articles, Mount Hood spelled out in full, especially since the abbreviation Mt can be interpreted as either Mount or Mountain. Spelling out the word "Mount" is consistent with articles on other mountains in the Cascade range, and throughout the country. Specific examples of variations include:

Before I undertake "fixing" this, I thought I should check to make sure there is consensus that it is broken. (If this is the wrong venue for this discussion, please forgive me, and point me in the right direction.) -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 20:15, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I just noticed this at Timberline Lodge, which refers to both "Mount Hood National Forest" and "Mt Hood Scenic Byway" in the intro. "Mount" should always be spelled out, in my opinion. It's a short word anyway. If others agree, we could request that a bot or a user with AWB make the changes. -Big Smooth 23:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. At worst, Mt. might be mistaken for several unintended things: Montana, Mountain, the chemical element Meitnerium. At best, not fully specifying the meaning is sloppy editing and not worthy of an encyclopedia which presumably exists to elucidate, not obfuscate. —EncMstr 23:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
I strongly agree that "Mount" should be spelled out everywhere. It only saves 3 letters to abbreviate it. -- Spireguy 03:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
(It saves only 2 characters.  :-) —EncMstr 20:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
In the interest of due process with respect to honoring consensus, I'll wait a few days for objections to be raised. Absent any, I will conform any instances I can find to the prevailing usage. (I have posted notices of this discussion on the Mountain and Oregon Wikigroup talk pages to avoid appearing to have conducted it "behind closed doors.") -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 03:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
The original bold person concurs. I don't think waiting much longer is needed: tomorrow is probably good enough. —EncMstr 03:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, having raised objections to unilateral actions being taken while discussions were still ongoing, and still being a relative newcomer (having some difficulty deciding where lines should be drawn), I didn't want to appear to be disrespectful of consensus process. I have AWB, so it will take me longer to locate the offending instances than fix them. I'll borrow a little of your boldness, and give it a shot tomorrow evening. -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 07:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
The consensus was already in place. No opposing views had emerged. The fact that no additional comments appeared means either that the subject got little notice, or that no new arguments had been thought of—readers agreed with what was already written. —EncMstr 20:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm strongly in favor of the "Mount" and "Mountain" usage, against the "Mt" and "Mt." usage, for reasons given above. That is how we do it in WikiProject Mountains (see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Mountains#Naming_conventions). This naming convention is incorporated into Wikipedia:Naming conventions (landforms) by wikilink. hike395 02:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree about using "Mount" when referring to landforms however in the case of companies or organizations such as Mt. Hood Meadows I don't think the case is as clear. For example Mt. Hood Meadows ski resort refers to itself on its web page using the abbreviation. --Droll 09:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The issue is consistency of style, not self-description, per MoS(Wikipedia:Naming conventions). Variations, even when used by companies in their advertising, not only appear sloppy, but make it impossible for readers to anticipate what they need to type in to navigate to similarly named articles. There seems to be consensus that "Mount" makes more sense in this regard than "Mt.," so I am going to proceed with implementing it. If there are individual exceptions that should be made, I think they should be dealt with on their respective talk pages. -- "J-M" (Jgilhousen) 19:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
While Mt. Hood Meadows does a fairly good job of consistency, the same website has a major exception: The online store. I suspect the use of Mt. is marketing- and branding-driven rather than anything grammatical. —EncMstr 20:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
For what it is worth, the United States Board on Geographic Names "discourages" the use of periods in place names (as well as apostrophes); see #18 at http://geonames.usgs.gov/domestic/faqs.htm -- they also list "Mount Hood" as "Mount" without even a "variant name" of "Mt Hood", and definitely not "Mt. Hood". While there is no ultimate authority on placenames in the US, the BGN is as close as we get. Pfly 03:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
You do need to be careful in your move that you are not moving articles that are properly located at Mt. to Mount. As an example Mt. Spokane High School's official name is Mt. Spokane, not Mount.;) --Bobblehead 05:30, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
We do have precedence for official names with abbreviations not being spelled out. The highest visibility example is Mount St. Helens, which in fact is not Mount Saint Helens, because 1) the BGN says so, and 2) it was named after Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St Helens.
However, for non-landform articles, it may be very difficult to determine the source of the official name: how would we do that without original research? hike395 12:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

It looks like broad consensus exists, with a few specific exceptions. I'll add that to the policy page. —EncMstr 06:44, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Abbreviated terms which fail to appear un-abbreviated

Resolved
 – Issue is covered in MOS

I was taught that in its first appearance, an abbreviated term should appear un-abbreviated, with its abbreviated usage following soon afterwards. Abbreviations tend to be obvious to article creators and frequently non-obvious to casual readers, and so if there is no immediate explication it can be off-putting, especially for more technical areas. Is there a Wikipedia style policy which more or less states this? I don't want to "correct" anyone on this unless it goes against WP standards. Noahjz 22:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this what you're looking for? Thunderbird2 (talk) 19:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
It should be mentioned here too, when this document is expanded as described at #Lead rewrite; focus/scope — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:04, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

AM / PM

I think the current a.m. / p.m. abbreviation standard should instead be AM and PM, in accordance with AD, BC, CE, BCE, and many many other abbreviations. How can this get changed? John Stattic 20:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

But why should a.m. / p.m. be in accordance with AD, BC, CE, BCE, etc.? -- JHunterJ 21:18, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Well, because full stops are becoming somewhat of an archaic usage. On the project page we see "BC" and "AD" for those terms, but the alternative uses full stops, i.e. "B.C." and "A.D.". For CE and BCE, however, there is no full stop alternative listed, which seems to suggest that the newer alternatives are discarding archaic full stop usage. I will at least suggest that we remove the full stops from "a.m." and "p.m.", leaving "am" and "pm", if capitalization is not going to be implemented. Full stops are too archaic and out out place, IMO —John Stattic 07:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
There are other full stops in the list (including the ever-popular U.S.). Are you in favor of doing away with all of them? -- JHunterJ 11:22, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
This is something I would like to see sourced-for-analysis. What do, say, 15 other style guides have to say on the matter? I think the adherence to "a.m." is a "traditionalist" kind of thing, but by now may well be deprecated by some style guides in favor of "AM". But I won't stake my rep on it. I am not saying we should simply do what the CMoS does or whatever, but rather look at what if any offline consensus is forming over time, as a point to consider here. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 15:02, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Born and died

Can the abbreviations for "born" and "died" be removed from this list? Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates of birth and death specify the spelled-out versions, and at least one editor is using the list here as reason to change existing entries from (born 1948) to (b. 1948), for example. I can't think of any other place that "born" and "died" would need to be abbreviated in Wikipedia, other than when giving dates of birth and death. Thanks. -- JHunterJ 04:54, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

this is far too an established method, adopted and utilised globally in all manner of print, literature, and reference to not be used in wp. --emerson7 23:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I do not see any reason for us to use it. Do you have a specific example? We are rarely cramped for space, and we should not do pure genealogies. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:47, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree; there is not a compelling need for us to use these abbreviations ( Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia); furthermore, in the MoS we try to encourage consistency where possible. In my view, this is a good example of a time when we can prescribe consistent use—born and died rather than b. and d. Also, I think that writing out born and died is helpful in the aims of Wikipedia:Accessibility. --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 03:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
And the original point still holds, I think: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Dates of birth and death says to spell them out, and that seems to cover all of the times that b. and d. have been used in WP. If there is consensus to change that, then that should be changed, not simply made inconsistent here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:35, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I think the abbreviations should still be an option. It's not a matter of being "cramped for space"; it's a matter of easy reading, of a standard and much-used format. Tony (talk) 12:40, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
And I think that would be a reasonable discussion for WT:MOSDATE. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Huh? "Born" and "died" have always been easier to read than the abbreviations, although the difference is small. There may be special cases where b. and d. fit better; but they're allowed for as the list stands now: this list does not claim to be exhaustive. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:08, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Is there any objection to John Doe (February 291900 – December 181999)? No born nor b. No d nor died. No ambiguity. —EncMstr 17:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Typically that is the standard format -- born/died or b./d. should only be used when only one date is known. older ≠ wiser 17:50, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
When one isn't known—or hasn't occurred, I've seen these:
John Doe (February 291900 – )
John Doe (? – December 181999)
Is that not preferred? —EncMstr 18:20, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Not by me, in any case. The first case looks as though a vandal has simply removed the date of death. The latter should be more clearly spelled out as in either "date of birth unknown" or "c. 1900". The usage of "b." or "born", as far as I'm aware, is typically used with living persons, where there is only one date. For persons known to have died (or at least can safely be assumed to be dead), there should always be some sort of explicit indication).
Only incidentally by way of reply to EncMstr, but meant for anyone, I just noticed this -- why is is acceptable (according to MOS:DATE) to use "c." but not "b." or "d."? If we the latter, shouldn't we also deprecate the former? Or do Latin abbreviations have a special status? older ≠ wiser 18:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
The first case is occasionally seen for biographies of living persons. The second seems to be normal with persons for which no definitive birth date is established by a source. For example, Mary Ramsey Wood, though there is now something more concrete there. —EncMstr 18:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
i frankly don't get the "wikipaedia is not a paper encyclopedia" argument. were that the case, the use of all abbreviations should be deprecated. i don't think anyone is arguing 'space' is the issue. it's one thing to have a policy on restricting the use of abbreviations in opening headers and such....thats fine. but to apply that restriction to all text, tables, charts, et cetera, just doesn't make practical or realistic sense. --emerson7 19:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Has someone claimed that b. and d. are forbidden? They're not reading clearly; this is not a list of what we permit, but of what we endorse. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:16, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Uh, if someone says, you can't use b. because it's not in the MOS, what is a sensible argument? The MOS doesn't apply, perhaps? —EncMstr 21:36, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
There is the usual point that MOS is a guideline. Despite the opinions of some editors, it did not descend from the heavens, and it is not legislation. It may be more telling to quote it: "That's not what MOS says: In Wikipedia, abbreviations for common terms are often in parentheses within the head paragraph. Wikipedia has found it both practical and efficient to use the following abbreviations." Italicise as necessary, especially if you're not discussing a lead paragraph. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:09, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Input requested on requested move

At Talk:Ftr#Requested move, there is a proposal to move ftr to FTR (bus), claiming that the lower-case trademark "ftr" should be presented in standard English as all capitals. I don't see that the guideline explicitly addresses this situation, in that "ftr" is not really an acronym and perhaps not even strictly speaking an abbreviation. WP:MOSTM recommends that lower case trademarks like adidas should be presented as proper nouns and capitalized accordingly as "Addidas". Input on this question is welcome at Talk:Ftr#Requested move. older ≠ wiser 17:19, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Full stops in abreviations considered harmful

Stuck
 – Wrong forum; this is a matter for WT:MOS.

My point of view is that full stops in abreviations (eg 'et al.') make the text difficult to read. If I were to write the style manual, I would recommend to drop full stops (eg write 'et al'). Has this issue been discussed? Note that Guardian Style Guide recommends not to put full stops in abbreviations[1]. NerdyNSK 19:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Note that WP's manual of style here says that 'Many periods and spaces that were traditionally required have now dropped out of usage. For example, PhD is preferred to Ph.D. and Ph. D.. Periods are retained in abbreviations that cannot otherwise be clearly identified' but here it seems to suggest the use of full stops. Sounds like a mild inconsistency to me. NerdyNSK 19:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
The Guardian style guide says nothing about et al. The following use et al. and nothing else (i.e. they do not offer et al as an alternative):
Need I go on?--Damac 20:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Guardian says: 'Do not use full points in abbreviations, or spaces between initials: BBC, US, mph, eg, 4am, lbw, No 10, PJ O'Rourke, WH Smith, etc' - you notice that they do not put a . in etc (which is an abbreviation). They do not say anything about el al but I assume that since et al is also an abbreviation then they write it without full stops as well. Furthermore, this discussion is not only about et al. NerdyNSK 21:22, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Of all the style guides we could possibly refer to, those produced by newspapers (regardless where) are the least useful. News style is radically different in many ways from formal writing. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Note that PCMag says 'et al' without the full stop: [7]. NerdyNSK 21:43, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Although I'm a Guardian reader, it's not an academic publication. I like some of the issues in its style guide, but dislike others. We are under no obligation to follow it here. I would like to think that Wikipedia should follow standard academic conventions in the use of et al. I don't use fullstops in all the examples you raised, but do use some. The English language, unlike others (French, German, Greek) is regulated by no one authority, nor does it have a definitive set of rules on punctuation. I can rely on a host of publications that justify the use of the full stop in et al., etc.--Damac 07:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
That's correct, English is regulated by no one. So, we should base our decision on what looks best and what is likely to be understood better by our readers. As I said, use of full stops in acronyms and abbreviations looks confusing to me, but I assume not to you. Perhaps we should refactor the MoS to allow or equally recommend both usages (as a matter of fact, the most modern usage is without the full stops, so it looks like this usage is increasing). It would be nice if we could count how many find full stops confusing and how many are okay with them. NerdyNSK 15:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Pronounceable all-capital acronyms considered harmful

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Acronyms_and_abbreviations says 'In British usage, acronyms (abbreviations pronounced as words) that are in common usage are sometimes not capitalized in their entirety (Aids rather then AIDS)' but Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) appears to suggest all-capital acronyms even for the ones that can be pronounced as words (Nasa vs NASA). Looks like a small inconsistency between the two pages. I suggest changing it to prefer Nasa over NASA or at least consider both forms equally correct. See also Economist style guide. NerdyNSK 19:42, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I would argue that Wikipedia is not in a position to treat both forms as equally correct except in the rare cases where the acroyms have become words in everyday usage, and I can only think of four of them right off hand, all with the features that a) no one would recognize them as spelled out acronyms in spoken usage ("el-ay-ess-ee-arr"), b) few would recognize them as all-caps acronyms in writing, and c) the are utterly unambiguous: scuba, radar, laser/maser, snafu. Aids is totally out of the question, since that is ambiguous with a much longer-standing English word. Nasa is out of the question, as that is simply not the officially recognized acronym of the organization (i.e. it would be WP:OR to use it in a Wikipedia context), and it also fails the second of these tests. Many others present similar problems. If MoS proper still says what is quoted above, it needs to be deleted or at least radically changed to address this issue. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:52, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Too many dots

Resolved
 – Proposal updated to reflect all of this.

In view of the controversy evident on this talk page about the large number of dots in the abbreviations overleaf, and MOS's explicit attitude towards dots (see the quote above), I propose that in most or all cases, the undotted version be given in the table as well. Does anyone object? Tony (talk) 11:05, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes absolutely. Much wiki-blood has been spilt on these issues, and while I have no significant preference on US vs U.S. or p.m. vs pm (or even vs vs vs.) one of the purposes of the MoS is to make it possible to present a uniform appearance, where a reasonable consensus can be found. Clearly on the issues of international spelling and BC/BCE the disruption to the project was seen to outweigh the benefits of standardizing. However on all these more minor points, we should stick to one specific way of doing things if possible. Bearing in mind, always that we are not using the MoS as a stick to beat users, just to bring style into line across articles. Rich Farmbrough, 08:44 5 October 2007 (GMT).
Just wanted to summarize what was changed on Sept 27. This Sept 27 edit, with an associated comment of "rearranged," rearranged the list from alphabetical to categorized by type of abbreviation, but also made the following changes:
This September 27 edit, which had no associated comment, changed the order of synonymous abbreviations to list those without periods first (e.g. changed "Capt. or Capt" to "Capt or Capt."), and made the following functional changes:
  • department was changed from "dept." to "dept. or dept"
  • Avenue was changed from "Ave. " to "Ave. or Ave"
  • Boulevard was changed from "Blvd." to "Blvd or Blvd."
  • Highway was changed from "Hwy." to "Hwy or Hwy."
  • Road was changed from "Rd." to "Rd or Rd."
  • Street was changed from "St." to "St or St."
  • Association was changed from "Assn." to "Assn or Assn."
  • Limited was changed from "Ltd." to "Ltd or Ltd."
  • Bachelor of Science was changed from "B.S. or B.Sc. or BSc" to "BS, B.S., BSc or B.Sc."
  • registered nurse was changed from "R.N." to "RN or R.N."
-Agyle 18:51, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
Response: Adding "US", which is now necessary as part of the compromise wording that has been introduced into MOS), but I agree with it. I did wrongly goof by changing the original dotted versions '"a.m." and "p.m." to "am" and "pm" (rather than adding the undotted options that MOS and MOSNUM now explicitly allow (it's widespread in some varieties of English, and who will confuse "12:45 pm" with picometres, as the inline comment said?). I've now fixed this goof to include both. Sorry.
Those two changes are explicitly mandated by MOS. I made a few other changes (frankly, insisting on dots in "B.Sc." is unrealistic nowadays). I must say that "Nato" etc. look unfamiliar, although I think BrEng might be keen on this (they certainly use "Aids" rather than "AIDS"); I didn't add the lower-case options in those cases. But when it comes to practices by whole varieties of English, I do not think that inserting the option to do it their way should be reverted. This is as true for the "US" versus "U.S." issue as it is for some of the other items.
As far as the other introductions of undotted abbreviations, again, MOS says:
Periods and spaces
Many periods and spaces that were traditionally required have now dropped out of usage. For example, PhD is preferred to Ph.D. and Ph. D. Periods are retained in abbreviations that cannot otherwise be clearly identified.
While I might have copy-edited the wording a few months ago (I honestly can't remember), I certainly didn't introduce this point into MOS. And I have to say that it's a clear recognition of the realities of dotting practice in all varieties of English. This is recognised in the original and now modified point about the formatting of "US": "when referring to the country in a longer abbreviation (USA, USN, USAF), periods are not used." I put it to you that (1) 20 years ago, these items were customarily dotted, and (2) most Americans, and certainly almost all other English-speakers, do not nowadays dot items such as "PhD", and many abbreviations that include the final character of the full word, and that increasingly, abbreviations that do not include the final letter of the full word are undotted.
Providing a mere option not to dot recognises that this practice is widespread on and off WP. Trying to enforce dots at this stage in the history of the language is old-fashioned at best, and inexplicable at worst. It may be the case that this submanual has been, in good faith, subject to influence by those who are used to maximum dotting. I think that this was overly proscriptive before the recent edits by me, on a minor scale, and someone else on a greater scale. Tony (talk) 02:47, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Can we fix up the opening?

Stale
 – Topic re-opened at #Lead rewrite; focus/scope below

Here it is:

In Wikipedia, abbreviations for common terms are often in parenthetical notes within the head paragraph, as well as in other tangential notes (though these may violate MoS —see Wikipedia:No self-refs). While the Manual of Style may defer to other sources (Chicago MoS, etc.), in practice Wikipedia has found it both practical and efficient to use a slightly altered and simplified set of abbreviations.

Manual of Style (MoS)
Content
Formatting
Images
Layout
Lists
By topic area
Legal
Arts
Music
History
Regional
Religion
Science
Sports
Related guidelines

Such include:

  • I don't understand what it means by "parenthetical notes within the head paragraph". What are "tangential notes", and why might these violate MOS? It's all very confusing.
  • The big about deferring, IMO, has to go. Is there anything in the second sentence that is worth retaining? Tony (talk) 13:31, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Don't know, they may mean "Hat notes" - those bits that say "This article is about XXX for YYY see ZZZ" - these have no reason to be exempted from MoS. Rich Farmbrough, 10:56 5 October 2007 (GMT).

Missus

My Encarta dictionary says that this is "informal or humorous". Is there a formal spelling? Tony (talk) 03:08, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

It was previously listed as an abbreviation for Mistress (form of address), which seems factually correct, but perhaps it was changed to missus is for clarity or something. At least in the U.S., "Mrs." is pronounced something along the lines of missus, and "mistress" would be generally understood to mean a woman who is having an affair with a married man. I don't think there's any currently used unabbreviated form of Ms. or Mrs., the way Mister is an unabbreviated form of Mr. -Agyle 04:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
The dictionary is wrong; it was probably right at some point, but is obsolete on this particular matter. The "Missus" spelling is quite common when this is spelled out at all (which isn't common). I.e. of the .0001% of the time that it happens, 99% of those will be "Missus" not "Mistress". :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Military ranks

The U.S. Army abbreviations SGT and SSG were just removed as alternatives for Sergeant and Staff Sergeant. Presumably for consistency, since captain, corporal, and general don't include U.S. Army abbreviations. I think "Staff Sgt.", though not recommended on Wikipedia, has always been the most common abbreviation for "Staff Sergeant," but SSG, SSGT, SSGT., SSgt, and SSgt. are all in some use. This article's SSgt. recommendation is the official abbreviation used by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marines, and British Army, while the U.S. Army uses two- or three-letter all-capital abbreviations (e.g. SSG) for all their ranks. Each branch of the U.S. military has its own abbreviation system, so captain might be abbreviated as CPT, CAPT, or Capt. (Here's a list.) Many reputable U.S. publications stick with traditional abbreviations, like Staff Sgt. or Capt., regardless of official abbreviations. -Agyle 00:27, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, that was me, and I was following an invisible editors' comment on the first one I saw, that seemed to indicate it was not legitimate. Just being bold. Please re-insert, or I will (but you might do a better job, knowing that system. Tony (talk) 01:01, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
We need not concern ourselves at all with how the British Navy does it versus the US Coast Guard; simply isn't germane. To the extent that they are abbreviated on WP at all they should be done so consistently (with allowance for no dots in Commonwealth usage, per MoS compromise on that issue). On the "Staff Sgt." issue, I tend to agree, but have not done anything about it yet. Probably worth a longer discussion. To start it off, I propose that after first occurrence, it be written out in full ("General", etc.), and only abbreviated later, and abbreviated the way it would be done by mainstream publication ("Gen." "Staff Sgt", not "GEN" or "SSgt"). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

U.S. vs US

Unresolved
 – WP:NCA may still be in conflict with WP:MOS.

Please see WT:MOS#U.S. vs US. for a discussion on what we should say on this weighty subject. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:04, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Which has come down to allowing either; BTW, the single dot after US, as rendered above, is not an option. Tony (talk) 00:41, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Moved discussion back to Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (abbreviations)
That isn't the proper forum for the discussion. This page or WT:MOS is. WP:NCA needs to follow WP:MOS's lead here as it does with everything else, not the other way around. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 14:52, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Do you have a basis for this claim? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, the overriding need for harmony and coordination among MOS and its sub-pages, as much as you seem to want to promote chaos and disorder. Tony (talk) 02:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
As often, the New MOS Order seems to be spreading confusion as it goes. The claim here is not the project, a few sections below, to have WP:MOS domineer over all its affiliated pages; we have discussed that elsewhere. It is a claim that this page dominates a completely non-MOS page, for which there appears to be no foundation in policy or discussion whatever. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Esquire

Why not add the abbreviation for Esquire = Esq. Despite the article's dubious claim that the term has become meaningless, it is still in fairly common use among US lawyers, among others. Kel - Ex-web.god 22:52, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

This isn't a list of acronyms, but a list of acronyms to use in Wikipedia articles. A WP article should not include "Esq." after anyone's name just because they like the look of it on their business card. It doesn't really mean anything. In a context where if did have a defined meaning, if there is such a context any longer (I don't know, but suspect that their might be), there isn't any compelling reason not to use the full word. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Cf.

Stuck
 – Needs further discussion at WT:MOS

I object to "cf" being a standard abbreviation. It is a bit obscure, and is more likely to confuse or mystify, than simply not using it. For example, look it up on Merriam-Webster online: without knowing what it means, what are the odds of choosing the correct definition from the entry displayed? —EncMstr 18:01, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Talking of obscure definitions, what is a GOP? Thunderbird2 (talk) 18:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
GOP is quite well known in the U.S., but probably isn't well known outside. It stands for Grand Old Party and is easily found in dictionaries. There's some basis to omit it from standard abbreviations, but it is unlikely to appear in a non-U.S.-centric context, so perhaps it's okay to allow it. —EncMstr 18:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
The same reasoning could be used to introduce all manner of nation-specific abbreviations that are only understood by that nationality (Canadian, British, Australian etc) but that doesn't seem consistent with the spirit of this article
  • I think GOP should be removed
  • Regarding cf. I am happy with it going and happy with it staying
Any other opinions? Thunderbird2 (talk) 19:42, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Cf. should stay; it is a standard abbreviation in formal/academic writing, along with i.e., e.g., q.v., ibid., viz., etc., etc., etc. GOP should go for the reasons given here; it is an abbreviation for an informal nickname mostly only known to Americans (and even then only to politically-aware Americans; ask the average US high school student what "GOP" means and they'll probably come up with some text messaging/IM jargon answer! — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't have chapter and verse, but aren't e.g. and i.e. on the list of things to avoid on Wikipedia? I've noticed several editors replace them. —EncMstr 00:59, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure I see what you are getting at, since we're talking about "cf." The MoS suggests that using plain, longwinded English may be more helpful to readers than "e.g." and "i.e.", but does not require this (or didn't last time I looked, which I think was yesterday; MoS is always a moving target, a bit too much so due to some activist editors who do not understand WP:CONSENSUS and WP:CCC). Personally I disagree with MOS on this point, and I see "e.g." and "i.e." all the time, but I do not care if someone dumbs them down after the fact, and I do not change "for example" or "in other words" to the abbreviations when I encounter them. Basically, the MoS is almost neutral on the matter and slightly prefers simple English. One thing that hasn't really been raised in that little debate, as much as it has even been debated, is that context is probably important. "I.e." is more likely to be understood by the average reader of an article on genetic disorders than the average reader of an article on Britney Spears. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
See my thread below about rewriting the lead and refocusing this nascent guideline. What is missing most is advice on particular abbreviations and what contexts they should be used in. A colspan=3 table cell under entries requiring such commentary will do the trick. For cf., qv., qqv., ibid., and id. among maybe a few others, we should note that these should only be used in reference citations, not in general article prose. In other cases (Corp., Inc., Ltd., and so forth) it should be noted that these should be used only with organization names and only a) if the abbreviated form is official part of the entity's name, which in fact is often the case, or b) on subsequent occurrences. And so on. I.e. we do not need to take a "if it isn't something we would use in the lead of an article it should not be on this list", binary-thinking approach. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:30, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I, too, have wondered about that bit in MOS about preferring the spelling out of e.g. and i.e.. They are SO common that hardly an English-speaker is not familiar with them. I'd not prefer either way in MOS. Tony (talk) 05:34, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like this should be revisited over at WT:MOS then. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I would read the present text as recommending that writers consider "that is" instead of i.e.. I find this useful, and usually comply in text (notes are a different matter). That's a very weak tilt, considering that there is a proposal at WT:MOS to disallow such forms altogether. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:37, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Lead rewrite; focus/scope

Something is just all wrong here. The rationale for this document says "...are often in parentheses within the head paragraph." But probablly more than half of the entries here are unlikely to ever show up in this context. However, before we just purge them all, clearly many of them are important, and are used in other contexts (especially source citations when it comes to things like ed., pub., etc.) It seems to me that the lead has to be rewritten. We should also take the opportunity to make it more explanatory, advising, cross-referencing to the MOS, etc. My take would be:

In Wikipedia, abbreviations and acronyms for common terms are often used in articles. Within the lead paragraph, in reference citations, in infoboxes, and in general article prose where their context makes them clear.
Some abbreviations are so common (Mr., etc.) that their expanded forms are rarely used. In other cases, editors should use the full word on first occurrence, and only abbreviate later instances where repeating the full word would be tedious for the reader (e.g. "approximately" and "approx.") See Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Abbreviations and acronyms for further guidance
Wikipedia has found it both practical and efficient to appropriately use the following abbreviations:

After that, I think we should look at porting over the entire section at MOS and expanding upon it, perhaps reducing the length of it in MOS itself, and moving the list of abbreviations down. Right now this "guideline" is nothing but a list, and it should actually be a guideline. I think redoing the lead will be a good first step to getting there. However there have also been moves to merge more subguidelines back into the MOS proper, so the quasi-split I'm proposing might be controversial. If so, that should not prevent the rewrite of the lead. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like a very good idea. Having a disparate set of guidelines that have grown topsy-turvy like old hospital architecture is not a good prescription for a cohesive project, and makes learning the system a huge task for newbies. I'm all in favour of SMcCandlish's proposal to trim, rationalise and integrate. Tony (talk) 01:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Without trawling history, I think the original purpose of this page was to standardise a very small number of abbreviation suitable to be used in the lead, mainly of biographical articles. Born, died, Dr, PhD, etc. Like so many things it changed... Rich Farmbrough, 14:01 1 February 2008 (GMT).

Proposal to formalise the relationship between MOS and its sub-pages

Dear fellow colleagues: the idea is to centralise debate and consensus-gathering when there are inconsistencies between the pages. The most straightforward way is to have MOS-central prevail, and to involve expertise from sub-pages on the talk page there, rather than the fragmentary discourse—more usually the absence of discourse and the continuing inconsistency—that characterises WP's style guideline resources now. Of course, no one owns MOS-central, and we're all just as important to its running as other editors. I ask for your support and feedback HERE. Tony (talk) 12:13, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The proposal is that this page be merged into Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations), and why not? More input is required at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(abbreviations)#Merger. Tony (talk) 14:40, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The proposal is that this page be merged into Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations), and why not? More input is required at Wikipedia_talk:Naming_conventions_(abbreviations)#Merger. Tony (talk) 14:42, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Circa and century

I noticed that the abbreviation for circa is given as "ca." or "c." The latter is wrong, as it is the standard abbreviation for century (e.g. "4th c.") If c is used to mean "circa" then it should not be followed by a dot (e.g. c10,000 men). This is confirmed by the supreme authority on the English language, the Oxford English Dictionary. It seems to me that, as a public work of reference, Wiki must follow standard abbreviations and not invent its own. EraNavigator (talk) 21:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

OED isn't the supreme authority, just a well-respected authority. (I suppose usage would be the actual supreme authority, if it could be perfectly documented.) The Wikipedia manual of style may differ from OED without cataclysmic results. Two things can have the same abbreviation, too, such as Street and Saint. "c." seems to be a widely used abbreviation for circa. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Surely ca. is the correct abbreviation for circa. That's the one I've always used; I think I got it from the OED. -- Korax1214 (talk) 02:02, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Afro

When I did charity work in the 1990s, I was always told to avoid using "Afro-" in compound names for ethnic groups, and use "African-" instead, on the grounds that "Afro is a hair style" (the bushy one for which Jimi Hendrix, and the Jackson Five, were famous).

This may not be so worldwide, but it certainly is so in British English (London dialect at any rate); so I've added it to the main page. -- Korax1214 (talk) 02:00, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

lossage

I just noticed that Mt. now appears in the list of abbreviations. There was complete agreement to eliminate that above, which led to a new item in the section Things to avoid. That section no longer exists. The addition of the Mt. entry, and removal of the Things to avoid section occurred with this edit on September 272007 by Crissov (talk · contribs) with the edit summary rearranged. The diff is complex, and it's hard to follow what changed, since the diff seemingly shows everything affected. —EncMstr (talk) 07:46, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

US and U.S.

Although there might be precedence in other countries for the use of US as an abbreviation of United States, such use can lead to confusion. When placed at the beginning of a Title US .... it looks like us and may prove confusing. I think that the Manual of Style should reflect an absolute recommendation that the abbreviation of the United States always be U.S. and never US or USA unless in quoted material or commercial/organizational names. The frequent use of USA when referring to the United States, while in theory acceptable, is not appropriate in encyclopedic material. Use of it should probably be more strongly discouraged. Additionally, for sylistic reasons, when referring to the United States, the use of America should also be discourage as it is extraneous. Other than in information specifically concerning the United States in an introductory manner, such use is not necessary.Andy85719 (talk) 01:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think few folk would disagree with the deprecation of "USA" and "America". But hey, you're behind the times on the you dot es dot thing. Chicago MOS, sadly, clings to it, and so do many—but by no means all—Americans. Considering that US writers have dropped just about all other dots in acronyms and initialisms, it's odd that some of them still insist on the ugly form for the name of their country. Only last night I reviewed a large and fine FAC (or F.A.C.?) on a US miltiary issue that, thankfully, uses what most English-speakers do: the attractive undotted form. The issue has been debated at MOS and here a number of times, and firm consensus was the current freedom to use either. I strongly urge you to consider not dotting. And BTW, it's not confusable with the personal pronoun "us", via upper case and context. That's an old argument that holds no water. Tony (talk) 02:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

US Cities

Im kind of in a tussle with someone over the abbreviation of the US city; San Francisco. I was always taught that generally cities must have a 3 letter abbreviation. Someone keeps editing an article where the city of San Francisco is edited and he/she changes it to "SF" and I keep changing it back to "SFO". Does Wikipedia have anything official on this? I've looked everywhere but cannot find anything. I would like to hear a second opinion on this Aquamelli (talk) 13:56, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, SF is a far more common abbreviation for San Francisco, and thus SFO seems to come out of nowhere (and would, without enough context, make me wonder what was being referred to). While three-letter abbreviations of many cities may work well in a lot of cases (NYC, STL, etc.), I'd say that common usage overrides that for SF and LA, at least, especially since they are also the initials. /Ninly (talk) 18:33, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
Are you thinking of International Air Transport Association airport codes?--SaskatchewanSenator (talk) 17:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
I'd be inclined not to use such abbreviations, unless you're desperate for space, such as in a tightly arranged table. Even "LA", although widely known, is leaning towards the informal. Tony (talk) 17:46, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
  • edit (Feel free to adjust or remove this text).

I work on the airport (Amsterdam) and the three letter code's commonly used for cities are indeed aviation code's. Where NYC and LAX are most commonly known around the world. But to reply to you, SFO is indeed the aviation airport code for San Fransisco. I would advz to use SFO, as it would make sence to a lot of people. there by is SF, (in my opinion) more known to be Sci-Fi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.203.12.10 (talk) 16:21, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

MOS self-contradiction re: Mt. and St.

I notice that the abbreviations "Mt." and "Mt" for "Mount" and "St." or "St" for "Saint" are listed in the table in this MOS article with the lead-in "Wikipedia has found it both practical and efficient to use the following abbreviations." This is in spite of the fact that farther down the page is the statement that: 

Mt. (and the British Mt) should not be used. Mount or Mountain should be spelled out in most situations.
Exceptions are made for official names and registered trademarks. (Similarly "Saint" vs "St." or "St" in
placenames should depend upon their official usage).

From earlier discussions above, it's clear that the consensus is to avoid the use of "Mt." etc. Can anyone come up with a reason why the "Mount" and "Saint" rows shouldn't be deleted from the table? Ipoellet (talk) 21:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I'll take silence as a go-ahead. Thanks, all. Ipoellet (talk) 22:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

i.e. and e.g.

Why does this manual of style advocate that i.e. and e.g. be italicized when other manuals of style outside Wikipedia do not? For example, the Chicago Manual of Style says not to italicize them. Columbia University says the same thing.

This i.e.-e.g. italicization guideline was added to our Manual of Style on February 20, 2008, without discussion and with the edit summary of "tweaks". I reverted it on March 11, 2009, with this edit summary: "According to various style guides outside Wikipedia, i.e. and e.g. should not be italicized". Dabomb87 has chosen to ignore WP:BRD in favor of edit warring on this subject when he reverted my reversion on March 14, 2009, with this edit summary: "italics". Edit warring and ignoring WP:BRD are not how Wikipedia works, which he really should know by now. Tennis expert (talk) 19:31, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

I entirely agree with Tennis E that these items should not be italicised. Part of the distinction between them and, say, per se, is that they occur very frequently. They are already marked off by the use of dots, too. Italicising them is widely recognised as being an unnecessary disruption to the flow. Tony (talk) 09:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Feel free to change the style guide and I will comply, but (to Tennis expert) I would appreciate if you didn't continuously put up accusations of edit warring and disruption. The only reason you became aware of my italicizing i.e. and e.g. is by tracking my edits very carefully—you didn't happen upon here by chance. Dabomb87 (talk) 12:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
There will be no more "accusations" when you decide to quit edit warring and being disruptive. Don't blame the messenger. Take responsibility for your own actions for a change. Tennis expert (talk) 12:25, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
I reverted my changes on this page. It would be nice if there were a sentence that specifically said, "Foreign words and abbreviations should be italicized except for [i.e., e.g., other common foreign phrases/abbreviations. Dabomb87 (talk) 12:12, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, dabomb. And Tennis E, I do agree with your point there, but here's a place we can all be buddies, yes, and work together? It would be so nice to have a respite from the other stuff. Tony (talk) 12:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

CD/Compact disc

I interesting proposal has been made at Talk:Compact Disc#Survey about whether "CD" or "Compact Disc" should be the article name. —Sladen (talk) 00:02, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Acronyms having acronyms as disambiguators

I was wondering if something could be added into the MOS or if I could get input on when a page that uses an acronym is disambiguated by an acronym? Like ECW (WWE). ECW stands for Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) (a former pro wrestling company that ceased operation in 2001), then World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) bought the original ECW company and in 2006 they revived the name as a television program under the same name but overtime they began referring the show primarily by its acronym, so the pro wrestling project decided to rename it to reflect the name used by WWE. But since ECW was a dab, we disambiguated it with an acronym: something about this type of situation is not in the MOS, and I just want to know what we did is correct or not? Thanks for any input.--Truco 503 22:45, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

That seems kinda weird and not very reader-helpful. "Alphabet soup". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

im new here!!

hi im dmoney100 im new here at wikipedia and i just wanted to get some tips from people whove been here longer than myself! thanks - dmoney100 --Dmoney100 (talk) 21:23, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Use of abbreviation as an expansion on flags.

There is a discussion at WP:FOOTY on how to address the MoS usage of flags. There are several proposals under discussion. The one titled "alternative proposal" raises the possibility of adopting a template that produces this output. While discussion is still at an early stage, there is some support for this proposal. However, I believe that this guideline suggests that we shouldn't use unqualified acronymns, certainly not on the first occurance. I was wondering if someone uninvolved could clarify this? Regards, WFCforLife (talk) 20:48, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I've noted WT:MOSICON as well, since this is more up their alley. Summary of my understanding: In tables and lists the overall consensus there has been that this is more or less okay, though some would vastly prefer to see full country names (and some no flags at all). Neither flag icons nor "NOR, GBR, JPN, etc." style acronyms should be used in article prose (paragraph content). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:38, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
I deliberately chose here over MOSICON, on the basis that whether or not flags are used is largely immaterial. As I understand it, while acronyms are fine in lists and tables, it is standard practise to use a key to explain them. If the argument is that England doesn't convey the required information but that said information needs to be conveyed, I don't see how ENG is sufficient, or indeed how England ENG is.
Now that the nuclear button has been pressed, I hope editors will understand that the use of flags for the purposes of this post is immaterial, and merely takes into account all possibilities. The use of acronyms is what I came here to ask about. WFCforLife (talk) 04:05, 23 December 2009 (UTC)
In one case ("USA") the 3-letter abbreviation is well-known to the typical English Wikipedia reader, and no explanation or legend is required. But for most countries the 3-letter all-caps abbreviation is not known to typical English Wikipedia readers (quick! does "AUS" stand for Austria or Australia? does "ANT" stand for Antigua & Barbuda or for something else? does "ISL" stand for Israel or for something else? most readers won't know this stuff) and so a legend or some other sort of explanation is needed at or near the abbreviation's first use. Eubulides (talk) 05:46, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Plural and possessive forms of acronyms

Which of the following are correct?
The announcement of NATOs plans came on Tuesday. or The announcement of NATO's plans came on Tuesday.
The humanitarian NGOs active in Sudan held a joint meeting with the president. or The humanitarian NGO's active in Sudan held a joint meeting with the president.
The use (or not) of an apostrophe seems to be quite random in many article on WP.
The way I was taught at school (in South African English) was that possessives have an apostrophe and plurals do not. Do these rules vary among different varieties of English? Roger (talk) 12:25, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

lii vs LII

Last evening a friend and I were researching someone. She discovered something neither of us has encountered before. I looked it up at Wiki and it was not there. After someone's name, it had in lower case lii. I have never before seen this acronym for anything. It couldn't have been a typo, as it showed up in several other places as well. Does anyone have a clue what this could mean?

Skybear345 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skybear345 (talk • contribs) 23:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If it were uppercase it would be 52 in Roman numerals. The only place I have ever seen lower case roman numerals used are for numbering the preface pages of some books. If you can give us the link to where you originally found it maybe someone will recognise it. BTW the correct way to sign your posts is to put "~~~~" (without the quote marks) at the end of the post. Roger (talk) 13:23, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Looking for a tag

Is there a {{tag}} for "Please expand/explain this acronym"? Roger (talk) 11:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Consolidation?

Please note that this page has been nominated to be consolidated with the primary Manual of Style page. Please join the discussion at the MOS talk page in order to discus the possibility of merging this page with the MOS. Thank you.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 14:16, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

This suggestion has fallen by the wayside in WP:MOS and is now deep in one or another archive. WP:MOS is huge, so if anything we should be looking at moving sections out of that article into daughter articles such as this one. Perhaps this is the best place to discuss such a migration. Martinvl (talk) 14:23, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

MoS naming style

There is currently an ongoing discussion about the future of this and others MoS naming style. Please consider the issues raised in the discussion and vote if you wish GnevinAWB (talk) 20:54, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Chicago MoS and US/U.S.

As of the newly-published 16th edition, the Chicago Manual of Style has changed its position on abbreviating "United States". They now support US, rather than U.S. As Chicago was frequently cited as the rationale for Wikipedia's style preference, perhaps it is time to revise our own MoS as well? // ⌘macwhiz (talk) 14:26, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Support: I previously used the "U.S." style, but after reading the discussions pertaining to this, I think "US" is more inline with the seemingly universal shift to writing acronyms without periods. OSX (talk • contributions) 05:04, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
After some years ago persuading some extremely reluctant, and very productive editors to switch to U.S., I must take the pain of supporting this. Not because of Chicago, which while worthy should be do more than inform our decisions, but because the abbreviation is used so often in the un-dotted style with other un-dotted country and entity "names" (UK, UAE, USSR, NAFTA, NATO, EU), that dotting it introduces inconsistency. Rich Farmbrough, 19:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC).

In light of this, should we change Wikipedia guidelines to say that all initialisms should not be dotted? Or are we to take the view that only certain ones should not be dotted, depending on what "looks best"? McLerristarr | Mclay1 22:26, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Linking abbreviations and their expansions

Hi folks. This is prolly bikeshedding, but: Is anyone aware of any WP:MOS guidance on how abbreviations and their expansions should be linked? I can think of three approaches:

# Technique Markup Rendering
1 Link first only Use a [[Uniform Resource Locator]] (URL) for links Use a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for links
2 Link both together Use a [[Uniform Resource Locator|Uniform Resource Locator (URL)]] for links Use a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for links
3 Link both individually Use a [[Uniform Resource Locator]] ([[Uniform Resource Locator|URL]]) for links Use a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for links

If there is no guidance currently, should there be some? Or would this be WP:CREEPY?

Assuming there isn't but should be: Personally, I prefer #1. Partly I just like it aesthetically, but it also makes the markup cleaner. #2 might be mistaken for disambiguation, or just part of the article title, and thus violates WP:SURPRISE. On the plus side, it makes it clear that the two terms are one. #3 might tread on WP:OVERLINK, but makes it clear what the abbreviation is.

Full disclosure: I came here after editing the intro to Picture archiving and communication system and wondering how things should be.

Thoughts? —DragonHawk (talk|hist) 17:17, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

The first one is definitely the best, in my opinion. The MOS doesn't specifically mention how to link them and I'm not sure it's entirely necessary. I think most people would have the common sense not to use the third one (because of over-linking) but there's nothing particularly wrong with the second. If we were to provide a guideline on this, how would you word it? McLerristarr | Mclay1 03:38, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
I agree, the first is best. Do we need to mention this? If it seems to be a problem, perhaps we should. JIMp talk·cont 02:53, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

RFC: restructuring of the Manual of Style

Editors may be interested in this RFC, along with the discussion of its implementation:

Should all subsidiary pages of the Manual of Style be made subpages_of WP:MOS?

It's big; and it promises huge improvements. Great if everyone can be involved. NoeticaTea? 00:24, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Et al.

Should "et al." be italicized in the {{harv}} family of templates? (These templates are widely used to produce short citations and parenthetical citations in Wikipedia of the form (Smith et al. 1970) ) There is some disagreement about this. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 06:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Generally, Latin words and phrases are italicised, as are all foreign words and phrases; however, sometimes abbreviations are not. I don't think there is anything about this is the MOS yet. McLerristarr | Mclay1 06:11, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
See WP:MODENG. We don't italcize foreign terms (whole or abbreviated) that have become fully assimilated into English. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 22:37, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Abbreviations for U.S. states and Canadian provinces in listings

The MOS states that "postal codes and abbreviations of place names (e.g. Calif. (California), TX (Texas), Yorks (Yorkshire)) should not be used to stand in for the full names in normal text." Does "normal text" refer to prose? The reason I'm asking this is in regards to articles on concert tours, which typically feature a list of tour dates. For purposes of efficiently scanning tables of tour dates, I feel it best to list U.S. and Canadian cities with the abbreviated form of their respective state or province, as opposed to full and sometimes lengthy place names such as "Pennsylvania" or "British Columbia".

A lot of Wikipedia articles on concert tours omit the state entirely in their date listings, which I feel is no good at all, because a lot of concert venues are located in suburbs of main cities, and these suburbs are likely unknown to users (such as Sunrise and Duluth, in Florida and Georgia respectively). Then you issues of cities with similar names (eg. Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine; Springfield, Illinois and Springfield, Massachusetts). At least listing the state in some shape or form can give some indication as to the whereabouts of the particular city or suburb.

Here is an example of a page with listings featuring state and province abbreviations: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Epitaph_World_Tour&oldid=438618871 and the recent update which replaced the abbreviations with their full name: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Epitaph_World_Tour. (Freak.scenery (talk) 14:30, 11 July 2011 (UTC))

I'm not entirely sure what the writer meant by "normal text" but I would assume they meant prose. In "Epitaph World Tour", I wouldn't bother putting the state anyway. I'm not really sure why Americans feel it necessary to always add the state after a city. The problem with American state abbreviations is that the abbreviations are not always obvious to non-Americans and are therefore unhelpful unless linked. McLerristarr | Mclay1 12:17, 15 July 2011 (UTC)
I acknowledge that not everyone will be familiar with state and province abbreviations. The issue I have is that there are smaller and/or unfamiliar cities and suburbs listed that persons knowledgeable of U.S. geography may not be able to identify. At least listing abbreviations can give a general indication of the location of a city in the U.S., and also removes the ambiguity issue in the cases of similarly-named cities such as Springfield and Portland. (Freak.scenery (talk) 16:00, 15 July 2011 (UTC))

An incorrect Briticism

The use of "full stop" in this page isn't actually correct. The proper British term in this case is "point". A "full stop", as its wording clearly indicates, is the use of the point (dot, period) character to end a sentence, as opposed to other "stops" that simply cause pauses in and logical divisions of the sentence, such as commas and semicolons. I don't think anyone even calls those "stops" any longer; the terminology derives from telegraph messaging. The point character when used in other contexts for other reasons, e.g. to indicate an abbreviation, in decimal notation, or in series as an ellipsis, is not a full stop, just a point. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 22:37, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Good point JIMp talk·cont 13:41, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Additional place abbreviation

Propose that Fort (Ft or Ft.) be added to Wikipedia:ABREV#Widely used abbreviations in Wikipedia. Would make writing about sieges, battles, campaigns, etc a little easier in military history articles. But I recommend it only be abbreviated after first use in the prose, not in titles/headings. e.g. Fort McHenry initial mention and Ft McHenry thereafter, etc. No one is going to mistake the meaning. Cheers, Ma®©usBritish [Chat • RFF] 19:55, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

AKA or aka? Or a.k.a.?

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Miscellaneous initialisms: Is "also known as" usually abbreviated as AKA in uppercase, as shown? I think I've always seen it as aka in lowercase. In uppercase it looks more like an abbreviation for some organization - the American [something-or-other] Association, etc. Or should it be a.k.a., which is clearer, but this may be unusual, I think. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:40, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

There's no such word (in English) as "aka". its occurrence in informal prose is on par with the abuse of quotation marks for "emphasis" like that, use of the non-word "irregardless", and grocery store ignorance like "Express Lane - 10 Items or Less". If there is one typo I would write a bot to hunt down it would be "aka". It is conventionally "a.k.a.", because as you point out "AKA" looks like an organizational acronym, or like a technical standard (USB, ASCII), title (CEO, MBE), or other subject, instead of an abbreviation of convenience like "n/a", "c.", "etc.", "misc." That said, AKA is a thousandfold preferable to "aka". — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 01:29, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
So in that case the WP initialism should be changed from AKA to a.k.a.. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:38, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
I've at least included it as allowable. I personally think it's preferable, but others' input wouldn't hurt. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 09:48, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Well, put me down as definitely preferring a.k.a. over AKA. I can't think when I've ever seen the latter in actual use, outside various style manuals. Milkunderwood (talk) 10:05, 14 February 2012 (UTC)
Same here. It's like n/a and c/o - it's one of the ones that has resisted change to "military style" NA or CO. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 06:37, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:ACRONYMTITLE discussion

I've started a discussion which concerns this page's stance on article titles at Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Weakening the wording of WP:ACRONYMTITLE. Comments welcome over there. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 12:59, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Acronym exceptions

The list seems inconsistent. For example, laser is included, but maser is not. NASA is included, but FBI, CIA, NAFTA, EU are not. Then also BBC is included, but CNN is not and so on. Then also some medical acronyms, like MRI, CT, etc. are very frequent but not included. What was the basis for the list? It seems to be just thrown together. Probably it would be better to leave the choice whether to use an acronym to editor's discretion, and a link to the corresponding article should be provided, if someone does not understand it. --Eleassar my talk 12:22, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

It's obviously haphazard and just some one or handful of editors' personal pet peeves. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 09:46, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Concerns over "proper nouns": changing the lead at WP:MOSCAPS

Colleagues, please take note of this new section at WT:MOSCAPS:

"Proper nouns", "proper names", and other concerns: amending the lead

Your contributions to discussion would be appreciated.

NoeticaTea? 00:31, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

ante meridiem - two contradictory guideline pages

This guide says "It should not be written AM or a.m.", but WP:MOSTIME says "12-hour clock times end with dotted or undotted lower-case a.m. or p.m., or am or pm". So is "a.m." permitted or not? Chris the speller yack 04:07, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

"It should not be written AM or a.m." appears to permit either "A.M." or "am". If we conform to both, then it's "am" only. WP:MOS & WP:MOSNUM agree with WP:MOSTIME. JIMp talk·cont 09:07, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
This guideline was changed to forbid "a.m." on February 14, 2012 by McCandlish, probably as an innocent typo, intending to forbid "A.M.", which would agree with the other guides. I found no discussion, so it was probably not meant to cause a sea change. I will change this guide to proscribe "A.M." and "P.M.", to agree with WP:MOSTIME. Chris the speller yack 15:07, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

For fans of contradictions, there is another one of the same kind here: c. for circa "only in small spaces and in the opening sentence of a biography", but WP:YEAR says "c. is preferred over circa" without mentioning "small spaces". Art LaPella (talk) 05:28, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Overuse of Acronyms

In patrolling new articles, I've noticed a growing tendency for overuse of acronyms. The article is titled something like "Southeast Big Park College (SBPC)" though there is no need for disambiguation as there is no other "Southeast Big Park College". Similarly the articles include the title and immediately after an acronymization of the name though the acronym is never used in the article. It seems like this is an attempt to make the subject appear more notable.

Acronyms should only be included when they are actually in use. Wikipedia isn't here to create that use, only reflect existing use. I'm not seeing it in this MOS entry, is there another guideline or even essay I can point editors to on this ?--RadioFan (talk) 17:15, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Agreed.
I would like to see something explicit added to MOS:ABBR#Acronyms and initialisms along the lines of "Do not use define acronyms in the article unless the acronym is verifiably used in reputable sources." This is mentioned in WP:DABACRONYM, but it should also be in MOS:ABBR. Does anyone else have any comments, or objections to my adding such a statement? Mitch Ames (talk) 10:02, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Advice on "e.g." in table apparently no longer under discussion

In the table of miscellaneous initialisms, the guidance on "e.g." is marked as "under discussion" but I could not find any current discussion. There was a discussion in the archives but that seems to have been settled. The ongoing discussion about the following comma does not seem to be relevant to that table. Is it appropriate to remove the tag?

I was actually looking for guidance on where "for example" may reasonably be replaced by "e.g." (I would often prefer "for example" in running text when only one example is provided and there are no parentheses). I presume the current wording is intended to mean that the Latin phrase should not be written out; perhaps that could be made clearer. --Boson (talk) 10:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes. The Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors, and I think some other style guides, advise writing "for example" instead of "e.g." unless there are constraints on space. I think "for instance" will also serve. -- Alarics (talk) 12:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Est.

Resolved
 – No one objected, so it was removed several years ago. 08:39, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I propose to remove this one, seems of limited use and should usually be spelled out. Rich Farmbrough, 11:13 13 May 2009 (UTC).

Comma after i.e., e.g.

Chicago Manual of Style (and others) specify a comma after i.e. or e.g. I'm not sure why the instruction to omit them was added. Are there contrary guidelines for "e.g."? I know some style manuals forbid (or at least make optional) the comma after i.e. -- JHunterJ (talk) 20:04, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Sure, that edit (by Mclay1, in June 2011) was over-reaching and non-consensual, just like yours now. Establish consensus before making a substantive edit to a MOS page; and if you do reverse a provision, at least mention that you are doing so in any discussion here. I have reverted your edit. New Hart's Rules prefers no comma after "i.e." or "e.g." Essentially it's a matter of having a simple, no-fuss, economical style for Wikipedia that will yield fewer disputes and a better experience for readers.
NoeticaTea? 23:42, 7 June 2012 (UTC)
For consistency on the page I have now reverted this edit of 28 February 2012. It did not take account of the recommendation in the Latin abbreviations section, which had stood uncontradicted since June 2011. None of these edits (including JHunterJ's just now) was accompanied by discussion; but I have now restored the necessary consistency, and a recommendation that has stood longest on the page over the last year. If anyone wants to alter it, let it be discussed here to find what consensus there might be.
Unlike WP:MOS itself, this page is marred by guerrilla editing and a poor standard of documentation in edit summaries. The page is an important component of the Manual of Style, and now needs to be watched more closely.
On the substance, I quote The Cambridge Guide to English Usage (Pam Peters, Cambridge UP, 2004) with my underlining and gloss:

The punctuation before and after e.g. has long been the subject of prescription. A comma used to be considered necessary after it, and is still usual, according to the Chicago Manual (2003 [=CMOS15; current is CMOS16, which makes the same provision]). But most style guides now dispense with the following comma, and simply emphasize having one before it. Other punctuation marks, such as a dash, colon or opening parenthesis could equally well come before it, depending on the structure of the sentence. (p. 175)

This resource is known for surveying a wide range of guides and delivering its conclusions accordingly. I have already cited New Hart's Rules above, which is probably the major source contributing to the Cambridge assessment. It is interesting that the Cambridge guide singles out CMOS as running against the trend. Best for our Manual of Style to go with the trend, unless there is a compelling reason to do otherwise – as there sometimes is.
NoeticaTea? 04:25, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
You replied to my note here, so clearly you saw that my edit was accompanied by discussion. It sounds like the inclusion (or exclusion) of the comma could be a WP:ENGVAR issue, and so should not be directly dictated or forbidden here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:35, 8 June 2012 (UTC)
No thanks to you, that I connected a mention on this talk page and an edit in the guidelines themselves. Clearly the page has been edited in cavalier fashion for too long. We need to take more care with consistency (which you and earlier editors did not, for the present point), documentation of changes in edit summaries, signalling discussions in edit summaries, and signalling any edits that we make to the project page even as we discuss the matter here.
Punctuation is expressly not treated under WP:ENGVAR (which along with a comprehensive coverage of punctuation itself is a part of the core page of the Manual of Style, WP:MOS). There are a small number of descriptive observations of variation in the MOS treatment of punctuation: capitalisation after a colon; tendencies in the deployment of hyphens; and use of periods with abbreviations. These are only loosely aligned with systematic variations that ENGVAR is concerned with. The general variability in punctuation practices is so great out there that it swamps regional or "varietal" considerations.
A rationally settled and uniform approach to punctuation benefits the Project enormously. It is largely achieved at WP:MOS, and consensus for it is affirmed when the wider community has its say (as in the great Dashfest of 2011). That sort of consultation is very welcome at WP:MOS. There should be more of it for the present page also, and for all other pages of the Manual. And of course for WP:TITLE, which remains in a desperate and seemingly perpetual state of confusion.
NoeticaTea? 00:34, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
I must give editors too much credit by thinking they could connect a mention on this talk page with a contemporaneous edit on the guidelines. How silly of me. I'll lower my expectations appropriately. Or you could try being civil. -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:20, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
While it is certainly wise to start a discussion before making a change, there is no rule that requires it. In fact, bold editing is encouraged.
If some style guides require the comma and other style guides permit it, but none of them ban it, then Wikipedia certainly shouldn't ban it.
Punctuation is not included under ENGVAR, but it should be. There's no good reason not to include punctuation under ENGVAR. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:44, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Noetica has provided a good reason to separate punctuation from ENGVAR generally, namely that much of the variation in punctuation is within English varieties. There are a few clear ENGVAR cases, already covered, such as the use of spaced en-dash versus unspaced em-dash. I support as uniform an approach to punctuation as possible, striving to find commonality across varieties of English. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:33, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
If no other style guide bans the usage, why should Wikipedia? That is unhelpful consistency based on preference. older ≠ wiser 23:28, 20 June 2012 (UTC)
That's right, ≠ (User:Bkonrad): "if". In fact, I have pointed out above that CMOS is unusual among guides to style in requiring the comma in question. Other guides favour omission of the comma. (My quote from the Cambridge guide above: "But most style guides now dispense with the following comma, and simply emphasize having one before it.") Wikipedia's Manual of Style gives style preferences based on its reliable sources: other manuals of style and guides to style, especially major ones. There is considerable acceptance in the Wikipedia community of MOS in this role: settling needless disputes and removing instability over trivial matters. It is desirable to have a single, rational, discussed recommendation for common abbreviations like "e.g." and "i.e." – especially one that accords with widespread practice in quality publications. We have that now. Let it not be removed or reversed without consensus to do so.
NoeticaTea? 00:34, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

It is also rational and efficient for MOS to track widespread usage in major style guides. MOS works best when it tracks majority usage. What we have now is a 2011 change to the MOS for which there was no consensus, and for which a handful of editors now claim an ex post facto rationale and a consensus of inertia. That's not consensus; that's an attempt by a determined minority to stalemate discussion. Here's one editor adamantly in favor of the comma. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 00:47, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:44, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Are we talking about a comma after when there is, or is not, a semicolon before? Certainly, if there's a semicolon before, then there has to be a comma after; are we agreed on that, at least? --Trovatore (talk) 01:57, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
Personally, I have always used comma after, but I don't see how the semicolon before is a decisive issue here. I'd be fine with a guideline saying not to use the commas, or to use them only when what follows is long and needs to be set off; e.g. not like this. Dicklyon (talk) 02:15, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that looks good. My reasoning is that i.e. is effectively an abbreviation for "that is", whereas e.g. abbreviates "for example". Surely you wouldn't write (in careful, formal text)
...or to use them only when what follows is long and needs to be set off; for example not like this.
would you? --Trovatore (talk) 02:18, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Because "i.e." can be replaced by "that is" does not mean it has to be punctuated in the same way. The purpose of punctuation is to achieve clarity of meaning. "That is" can occur in other contexts ("that is always present") so a comma distinguishes and makes parsing easier ("that is, always present"). A comma in not needed in the case of "i.e.": "i.e. always present" is just as clear as "i.e., always present" and the sequence ".," is clumsy. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:05, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, that's one purpose of punctuation. Another is to indicate where speech would or might be inflected or interrupted. --Trovatore (talk) 21:09, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
But how is ".," clumsy?! I'd add, "It's no clumsier than the interrobang or than a period followed by a quotation mark." (I agree that a comma is not always needed for i.e., and that there is no need to specify here that one must be used.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:44, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
I used to do the hedgehog punctuation cluster, from the days when a company I worked for insisted. But subsequently, clients turned their noses up at it. I do believe it's clumsy now, and a bit disruptive to readers. Tony (talk) 12:27, 21 June 2012 (UTC)
OTOH, I believe it's clarifying when used correctly, and not disruptive to readers. This reader, for example, finds its absence disruptive in most instances. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:52, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

This is just my two cents, but I think the grammatical approach is to use a comma, just like you would in "for example, such-and-such..." Since e.g. is more or less an abbreviation of "for example," (albeit, in Latin) it makes sense to me. I don't personally use a comma, primarily because English's approach to commas is flexible. Some sentences might call for many commas, but 6 or 7 commas in a single sentence could be too turgid to read. I also don't like stacking punctuation. I'll avoid it if at all possible. For that reason, I place parentheses after punctuation. (e.g. like this) It's non-standard, but that's just another approach to grammar and aesthetics; however, it would be too difficult to reach an official consensus on something as arbitrary as aesthetics.

Err, I don't think I actually contributed anything useful to this discussion... 98.86.97.111 (talk) 20:32, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

I think you did—at least for this editor. You wrote: Since e.g. is more or less an abbreviation of "for example," (albeit, in Latin) it makes sense to me. You included the comma inside the quotation. Written that way made it clear to me that e.g. acts as a text replacement template. There isn't one, but, imagine that there were an {{eg}} template. It might have the purpose of inserting the text string for example, (with the comma) into a sentence. Conceptually, the e.g. abbreviation is an IRL text replacement template. Because the 'template' includes the comma, a comma after the e.g. 'template' is inappropriate:
<vaguely worded text>, e.g. <clarifying example> expands to: <vaguely worded text>, for example, <clarifying example>
<vaguely worded text>, e.g., <clarifying example> expands to: <vaguely worded text>, for example,, <clarifying example>
This same applies to i.e.
In general, e.g., i.e., and their written-out equivalents are used too freely. Very often, a sentence can (really, a sentence should) be rewritten to avoid the necessity of these parentheticals or their abbreviations. If the abbreviation is required, it should be used without the comma.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 15:16, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
That template argument is quite a stretch. The comma usage there is more likely simple American style of including it before quotation marks, not intended as part of the abbreviation. Or another way: "e" is for exempli, "g" is for gratia, the periods denote the abbreviation of those words, and the comma is nowhere to be found within the abbreviation. Check any of the definitions, you'll find none of them claim that e.g. is an abbreviation for "exempli gratia," (with the comma) nor for "for example,". -- JHunterJ (talk) 18:05, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

"Where's the consensus"

[Art la Pella: I have boldly moved your new section to be a subsection of the discussion that it referred to – indeed, that it continued. This will be useful for others who may want to join in, and for later archiving. Your section could not easily be understood on its own terms. ☺ –NoeticaTea? 03:13, 6 July 2012 (UTC)]

Pro-comma: JHunterJ, Darkfrog24, Bkonrad, Dirtlawyer1, Trovatore, 98.86.97.111, possibly Dicklyon, Haeinous [8], Peter coxhead, 98.97.92.13 [9]

Anti-comma: Noetica, Tony

Of course there may be errors in this list. Art LaPella (talk) 02:31, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm neutral on the comma, and have reverted those table entries to the relatively long-lasting Feb 2012 SMcCandlish version, the version before the June edit wars. I understand that nobody is happy with that version, so it seems like the closest thing to a neutral place from which to plan which way to go. If there's some hint on consensus above, I'm missing it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:18, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
There is no consensus to change the guideline to be silent concerning that comma, or to explicitly allow it. Nor was there ever a well-established consensus to disallow it. In such a situation, we go with the best approximation to a pre-existing consistent recommendation. That was to disallow the comma; and as I have shown, it is well supported in external guides.
Art, your list does indeed contain many errors.
  • Peter Coxhead spoke more in favour of a singular recommendation, and noted my argument favourably, including in these remarks:

"Noetica has provided a good reason to separate punctuation from ENGVAR generally, namely that much of the variation in punctuation is within English varieties. There are a few clear ENGVAR cases, already covered, such as the use of spaced en-dash versus unspaced em-dash. I support as uniform an approach to punctuation as possible, striving to find commonality across varieties of English."

"A comma [is] not needed in the case of "i.e.": "i.e. always present" is just as clear as "i.e., always present" and the sequence ".," is clumsy."

  • Haenious shows no evidence of taking note of this discussion, and merely edited WP:MOS in a way that introduced an inconsistency of style on the page, contrary to the page's own recommendation and the standard Wikipedian principle of intra-page consistency.
  • 98.86.97.111 offered confused observations that could be read either way.
  • Dicklyon is neutral.
  • Bkonrad ignored my comprehensive answer to his conditional assertion, and therefore cannot be said to have entered an argued and well-evidenced opinion here.
A revised list of positions:
  • Pro-comma: JHunterJ, Dirtlawyer1, Wahrmund
  • Pro-choice or pro-complexity: Darkfrog24, Trovatore, Bkonrad (≠)
  • Indeterminate or neutral: Dicklyon, 98.86.97.111
  • Pro-singular guideline, anti-comma: Peter coxhead, Noetica, Tony
[These were listed before, but were not in the discussion: 98.97.92.13, Haenious.]
Let the discussion continue. It takes more than the few shallow starting-position remarks we have seen so far to give evidence of consensus on Wikipedia, for a guideline affecting 4 million articles. There is no consensus for removing the best stable provision regarding such a comma that we have yet found.
♥
NoeticaTea? 03:47, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
You're right about Peter coxhead; I can't explain where I got that from. Dicklyon has spoken for himself. However, the issue isn't whether to require a comma, it's whether to forbid a comma. So pro-comma was a somewhat misleading abbreviation for "opposed to a guideline forbidding the comma", and thus includes "pro-choice" and "pro-complexity"; I have no objection to renaming it. Yes, 98.97.92.13 and Haenious edited the main Manual of Style page, not this discussion, as long as we agree that their edits obviously show opposition to a guideline that would forbid their edits. Art LaPella (talk) 04:25, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
You can count me as in favor of MOS stability. I have no problem with the statement that there should not be commas; also no particular problem with SMCandlish's version that states that some editors prefer commas to set up longer passages. I'll support any version that achieves consensus, but at this point I don't support a change. Dicklyon (talk) 04:52, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
How many times has it been noted that a vote is not a consensus, and that polling is not a substitute for discussion, but that the process involves an effort to incorporate all editors' legitimate concerns.
So far, the rationales for the comma are : "I like it." "Me too." "CMOS16 likes it" "English's approach to commas is flexible." "It's a question of aesthetics and should not be arbitrary."
The rationales against the comma are: "New Hart's Rules" likes it." "The Cambridge Guide to English Usage likes it." "It may put too many commas in a sentence." "Stacking punctuation should be avoided." "Parentheses are better." "Clients reject too much punctuation clustered together as disruptive to readers."
Since putting i.e and e.g. in italics still looks "right" to me (but nobody else), I turned to teh internets for guidance, and found a lot of examples of comma after i.e and e.g.; possibly even a majority of style guides recommend it. A notable exception seems to be Fowler's Modern English Usage, which I understand is based on British usage. Other guidelines I saw mentioned were to omit the comma if preceded by other punctuation, or that "i.e." should not have a comma, and "e.g." could have a comma, based on usage, i.e. if it was at the beginning of a sentence, but in the middle of a sentence should have a colon. A lot of these usages are hard for me to picture, as I am used to punctuation "looking" a certain way, and they contain a lot of details that seem unnecessarily hard to remember. At this point some examples would probably be helpful.
Neotarf (talk) 11:37, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
You missed the opening rules for the comma: "Chicago Manual of Style (and others) specify a comma after i.e. or e.g." Also, we can add me to the Pro-choice or pro-complexity group. And rename it Anti-prohibition. Which would include 98.86.97.111, Dirtlawyer1, and Dicklyon. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:45, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
JHunterJ, no I didn't miss it,..."'CMOS16 likes it'". And please could we cool it with the divisive "pro" and "anti" labels. Too much trouble starts with packing complex ideas into simplistic labels, and then reacting to the labels on the outside of the container, as if it was some kind of warfare model. As far as Chicago Manual of Style, I don't see why we need to consider that as an authority here, even if some may consider it to be prestigious or edgy or even stodgy. For one thing, there's its obvious American bias, where MoS strives to be international; for another thing, its tradition is in the printed word, while what we are doing here is uniquely electronic. Neotarf (talk) 17:13, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
No, it wouldn't include me; I stated "I'd be fine with a guideline saying not to use the commas." And that's the kind of guideline we've had for a year, even though I wasn't specifically aware of it; I'm fine with it, even though outside WP it's not what I do. I also use title case outside WP--that doesn't mean I'm against WP's caps style. I think it's important for WP to have style guidance. Dicklyon (talk) 15:57, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Ah, I see. Sorry. -- JHunterJ (talk) 16:08, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
For the record, please note that Dick is hunky-dory with the guideline that we've had since June 28, 2011, which was created by our anonymous IP friend from Brisbane, without prior discussion and with no consensus. So noted. For those of you who are actually curious how this came about, here's the diff: [10]. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:20, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
I recently warned Dicklyon about sarcasm, so he would notice if I didn't mention the edit summary "Should lead to MOS stability when inserted so". Art LaPella (talk) 16:55, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you, Art. I appreciate you playing it down the middle. Yes, my edit summary was intended to be sarcastic. I obviously do not have the ability to rephrase my actual edit summary, but in light of your gentle admonition, please consider my edit summary to read "Ah, yes, Dick favors the guideline that was inserted without discussion and without consensus. So noted. This will not, in all likelihood, lead to the MOS stability he seeks when inserted without discussion and without consensus." Sarcasm expunged. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:24, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you. Art LaPella (talk) 18:37, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Dirt, you keeping talking about "no consensus" and "without consensus" with respect to the 2011 insertion. I agree that policy and guideline pages should not usually be editted without prior discussion, but it does still happen a lot. If you look at WP:CONSENSUS, you'll find "Consensus is a normal and usually implicit and invisible process across Wikipedia. Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus. Should that edit later be revised by another editor without dispute, it can be assumed that a new consensus has been reached." So, without discussion--bad; but without consensus? Not really. Given how long the guidance against commas was there, we have to presume that's the consensus guideline, until we have a new consensus. If you try to understand how WP works, you might be able to put your lawyering skills to better use, instead of just slinging dirt. Dicklyon (talk) 20:12, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
FWIW, I agree that the style guidelines need to provide style guidance. Which they can do without nailing things down that don't need to be nailed down (or shouldn't be nailed down). For instance, I don't think there's style guidance on whether we should always or never put a comma after a prepositional phrase (or before a quotation embedded within a sentence), because it's not an always or never situation. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:01, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
JHunterJ, if you read through the style book comments on point that I have summarized below, not one of them formulates its rule for the use of the trailing comma for e.g. and i.e. as an absolute, and several cite possible exceptions. I think that reflects the obviously more sophisticated position, contrary to the absolute prohibition against the trailing comma advocated by the minority. I also note that even among those sources cited by Noetica as generally disfavoring the trailing comma, most, if not all, do not do so as an absolute prohibition. This again reflects more sophistication than our sad little insert of June 28, 2011. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:24, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't own a copy of the Cambridge guide, but I'll accept that it frowns upon the trailing comma for these two abbreviations. Here's what several other well-known style and grammar guides have to say on point:

  • The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation -- Provides clear examples that consistently use a trailing comma after e.g., but provides no guidance regarding the use of a trailing comma with i.e. As commonly used abbreviations in the English language, neither is italicized (and lawyers do use many uncommon Latin abbreviations that are italicized). For those of you who are not familiar with it, The Bluebook is the standard citation and style guide for academic legal journals in the United States. Virtually every first-year law student in the United States is required to purchase a copy, and, as a result, it is the default reference for most American lawyers because they actually own one.
  • Strauss' The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation -- "Use either a comma or a semicolon before introductory words such as namely, that is, i.e., for example, e.g., or for instance when they are followed by a series of items. Use a comma after the introductory word."
  • Chicago Manual of Style -- According to CMOS, a comma is usually used after i.e. and e.g. Interestingly, the stodgy old CMOS now suggests that the periods in e.g. may be omitted.
  • The Columbia Guide to Standard American English -- According to Columbia, editors typically require a comma after the second period of both abbreviations.
  • The Elements of Style -- Strunk & White, the most widely circulated style guide in the United States, and Noetica's personal favorite, states: "The abbreviations etc., i.e., and e.g., the abbreviations for academic degrees, and titles that follow a name are parenthetic and should be punctuated accordingly," i.e., with a trailing comma, as shown in several examples.
  • Fowler's Modern English Usage -- According to Fowler, commas do not usually follow i.e. Fowler actually makes no explicit comment on whether e.g. should use a trailing comma.
  • Lynch's Guide to Grammar -- "Both abbreviations should be followed by a comma." As commonly used abbreviations in English, neither is italicized.
  • MLA Handbook for Writers -- Both "e.g." and "i.e." should be "set off by commas, unless preceded by a different punctuation mark." [reference provided by Neotarf below, and added to this list by Dirtlawyer1]
Fowler (1926) says explicitly that "[i]talics, & a following comma, are unnecessary, but not wrong" for e.g. This is repeated in Nicholson (1957). Modal Jig (talk) 12:33, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

It is interesting to note that while apparently a majority of all English language style guides (including the overwhelming majority of American English style guides) suggest the continued use of the comma following these two abbreviations, most of them stop short of an absolute requirement to use the trailing comma, and employ weasel words such as usually, typically and should. Several expressly allow for a no-comma exception for the single word or brief phrase following. Others suggest that the test is to substitute the full phrases "for example" for e.g. and "that is" for i.e., which virtually always requires the abbreviation to be set off by commas as a parenthetical.

Bottom line: an apparent majority of British style guides continue to suggest that the use of the trailing comma is either best practice or permissible; virtually all American style guides continue to suggest that trailing commas should be used. I have often said that Wikipedia MOS works best when it tracks majority usage in the literate English-speaking population at large. Once again, we find ourselves in a situation where a determined minority of MOS regulars want a hard-and-fast MOS rule that is consistent with how they feel the English language should evolve, but is inconsistent with actual majority practice. At some point, we need to recognize the peculiar form of insanity that is inherent in a small Wikipedia MOS committee shaking its enlightened little fist at the English-speaking world, and saying "I'm right, and you're wrong." Wikipedia and its MOS should not be the means for forcing change on the English language. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:49, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

MLA Handbook for Writers (much more commonly used in the U.S, than CMOS)says that both "e.g." and "i.e." should be "set off by commas, unless preceded by a different punctuation mark." Does that mean no comma after parentheses? Colon? Perdue Owl doesn't address the subject, but oddly enough, uses both formats in the text. Note, these are still American English sources. Wiktionary makes a distinction between American and British usage, saying preferred British usage is without the comma. [11] Neotarf (talk) 17:58, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Neotarf, I did get a chuckle out of Purdue Owl's apparent inconsistency in usage; perhaps on more careful examination, it is relying upon the exception for a single word or very brief phrase that follows the abbreviation. Several of the sources cited above, which generally support the use of the trailing comma, also suggest that the comma may be omitted when the abbreviation is followed by a single word or very brief phrase. Perhaps Purdue Owl is just being subtle and sophisticated. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:27, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Even more subtle and sophisticated than Strunk and White? Neither format really looks odd to me (and I'm still looking for a platen under my laptop), and apparently didn't look odd to their proofreader, either. It was the inconsistency that we both noticed. The comma cluster problem also seems to get a lot of mention online, and seems like a reasonable concern. That said, I would like to see some actual examples of text with both formats. Some mention has been made of different usage after a semicolon or em dash as well. Perhaps someone will be along presently with some examples or some nice n-grams. Neotarf (talk) 19:13, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I find the use of these old Latin abbrevs problematic in general, which is why I usually replace them with "for example", or "that is", for which there is seldom any disagreement about how to punctuate. The trouble with the abbrevs is that at least half of the typical general readership is not literate enough to know what they stand for or what they mean; they typically interchange them in writing, and get little out of them in reading. How they are punctuated has little or no bearing on those main problems. I'd be happier with an MOS that says for the general audience it is generally preferred to replace those abbreviations with the English word equivalents. Any support for that idea? Dicklyon (talk) 19:27, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that's correct as a general rule. As long as it doesn't get interpreted as a rigid rule, I'd support it. --Trovatore (talk) 19:29, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
I'd agree with this also. older ≠ wiser 19:34, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Dick, that's a potentially brilliant solution on two levels: first, it eliminates the comprehension problem you described, and it reinforces the "plain English" movement that I believe most of us support; and second, it also clarifies the punctuation situation—because "for example," "in other words," and "that is," all will typically require a trailing comma. As long as we phrase the guideline as the plain English phrases being preferred over the Latin abbreviations, and not a prohibition against the abbreviations, I could be convinced. I do believe that the abbreviations would still have a fairly useful role in footnotes. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:07, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Dicklyon, that's the basic (American) AP style, which is hugely influential for publications in the U.S. A lot of publications base their house style guides on AP or just flat-out use AP style guide directly: "i.e. – avoid in AP style because it is too often confused with e.g." I checked with some British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand sources and none of them are doing away with the abbreviations, it's a purely American phenomenon. Neotarf (talk) 14:35, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Great idea! Use the abbreviations only in footnotes, if at all. Though I don't think saving space in footnotes is usually important. Chris the speller yack 23:05, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

You can add me to the list of editors who disapprove of putting a comma after e.g. In 45 years of writing and editing in British English, I have never used it and rarely seen it. It is completely unnecessary, and to me it looks odd. A comma (or dash or semicolon) *before* e.g., on the other hand, is essential. -- Alarics (talk) 12:23, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Alarics, as a knowledgeable writer in BE, it would be helpful to our survey of both British and American references if you could share whatever BE style, grammar and punctuation references you may have on your shelf, and quote their wisdom regarding e.g. and i.e. Also, with your permission, I am going to move your comment to the section above (right now, it's in the unseemly argument section comment moved/refactored with editor's permission). Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:36, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, please do. -- Alarics (talk) 17:53, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I have seen e.g used with and without comma. Above, someone quoted several style guides, and it's clear that the comma is either recommended or not forbidden. Given this, I don't see why we should forbid the trailing comma here. --Enric Naval (talk) 07:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Had a look at some British style guides and none of them hints at the possibility of a comma following either e.g. or i.e. It seems to be mainly an American thing. I think the only solution for WP is to allow either style, by analogy with ENGVAR, and stop worrying about it. -- Alarics (talk) 10:08, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Funnily enough, I used to apply a comma in every case, and it was American collaborators who said "get real, lose that hedgehog". Tony (talk) 12:45, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I was surprised that there has been no mention of what I presume to be the reason for omitting the comma, namely that "e.g." and the following example are often spoken together as a single tone-group (meaning that there is no perceived pause between the "e.g." and what immediately follows). Since commas normally reflect the separation of utterances into tone-groups, the advice of various style guides to omit the following comma would seem logical, especially since the whole phrase (e.g. this one) is often a single parenthetical remark. Where "for example" is itself used parenthetically, as, for example, here, it is not normally abbreviated (in English). I do not understand Strunk & White's explanation that "e.g." and "i.e." are parenthetic, especially since they do not give an example. Of course, the whole phrase beginning with the abbreviations may be parenthetic, but that does not explain the introduction of a comma in the middle of the parenthetic phrase. Indeed, one could infer from Strunk & White's use of the word "parenthetic" that "e.g." should not be followed by a comma when it is not parenthetic (but is merely introduces a longer parenthetic phrase). --Boson (talk) 11:38, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Precisely. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:41, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Accusation and response

Noetica, please provide a link for the demonstrated consensus for the prohibition language that your are stonewalling and attempting to defend. If you cannot, we can all start with the proposition that the original 2011 change instituting the prohibition against commas following abbreviations i.e. and e.g. was made without consensus and should be immediately reverted to the status quo ante. You are on shaky procedural ground on multiple fronts. Thank you. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 03:53, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

DL, why the accusatory language, and why your accusation that I'm somehow acting in tandem with Noetica? Not so: I have these pages watchlisted, and vaguely recalled discussion about e.g. I believe further discussion (perhaps more widely advertised) might be necessary—not comments that are unconducive to practical outcomes or community cohesion. Tony (talk) 04:06, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Tony1, please do not play the wounded innocent, especially in light of your tag-team edit-warring with Noetica in defense of a non-consensus change that represents your preferred outcome (i.e. no commas after the subject abbreviations), as well as your uncivil edit summary on your talk page and your nonsensical warning/comment on my talk page. As tallied by Art La Pella above, there is not now a consensus for the comma prohibition that you and Noetica support, nor has there ever been such a consensus. The comma prohibition that you support as a "consensus" was a change slipped into the MOS text on June 28, 2011 by an unregistered IP user with absolutely zero talk page discussion, and certainly without a demonstrable consensus in support of it. It is really quite odd that a random, unregistered IP user from Brisbane would choose to make material changes to an obscure MOS page—and demonstrate a fairly sophisticated understanding of Wikipedia in the process. Even more odd when one notes that it was one of six total edits made by this IP user. Those are the simple, undeniable facts; anything else is a misrepresentation of present reality and the history of this change. No "accusations," to borrow your word, are necessary. The facts are self-evident to anyone who is following this thread. Please direct your further comments as to all parties, rather than me; I am going to let the other anti-prohibition editors speak for themselves. Consistent with the "no MOS changes without consensus" policy so articulately advanced by Noetica, this page should be immediately reverted to how it existed at 02:10 on June 28, 2011. Then we can determine if there is a new consensus to modify it—to your preferred outcome or any other. Right now, you are arguing to support a status quo that was initiated by an IP user without discussion, without consensus, and without any semblance of an orderly procedure. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:41, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
I communicated with no one before making that edit. Believe what you want, however�. Tony (talk) 12:07, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
So, I take it that you have no comment and cannot bring yourself to acknowledge that the position advocated by you is the one that was inserted by a Brisbane IP user with no prior discussion and without consensus, but, hey, that's okay because the end justifies the means and those pesky little discussion and consensus procedures are only for the changes advocated by others. It appears that we are a tad inconsistent in the enforcement of the MOS discussion and consensus requirements, especially when it does not favor our desired outcome, eh? Machiavelli's English Style and Punctuation Guide, anyone? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:03, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Dirt, you want to roll back to June 2011, but you object to Noetica's rollback to Feb 2012. What's the difference? When a guideline has been stable for months, some discussion is in order if someone tries to change it and someone objects. That's where we are; until we establish which way to go, we're stuck with the recently stable version. I agree with Noetica that the Feb. edit introduced an inconsistency that needs to be rectified; and I agree that the simplest way to rectify it is to revert to what was stable from June through Feb. That makes a lot more sense than what JHunterJ first did, which was to completely reverse that guideline, or than what you guys are now pushing, which is to remove it. If you want to go one of those directions, you'll have to establish a consensus to do so; given that a number of editors who care about MOS are objecting already, that seems unlikely. The attempt to justify it by counting small numbers of inferred votes, and (JHunterJ's) counting me on your side, is amateurish, as was your set of 3RR warnings and ANI complaints that make it clear that you are failing as a wikilawyer, being off by one on the number of reverts allowed, warning people with little involvement, and filing complaints without notifying the parties. Stop the amateur lawyering and return to the a reasonable process for discussion, please. Dicklyon (talk) 20:01, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

"Amateur lawyering?" Dick, please accept your own advice and cease the grade school insults. The insults are not conducive to a "reasonable process for discussion." Perhaps you don't want to acknowledge it, perhaps you don't want to hear it, but the absolute prohibition against the comma that was slipped into this guideline on June 28, 2011, was outside all normal procedure, was executed without any discussion, and certainly not supported by any consensus. Dare I say it? The June 28, 2011 edit shows all of the signs of having been done by an MOS regular while he was logged out. The only thing it has in its favor was that it existed for several months until someone noticed it and started tinkering it with again. If you were the least bit consistent in your own arguments, you would insist on rolling this back to the last legitimate version at 02:10 on June 28, 2011. Unfortunately, you are not consistent, and apparently see some negotiating advantage in the present situation. Calling it "stable" does not make it any less illegitimate. And you're apparently smart enough to know better. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:26, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
A "grade school insult" is like what you tried to do to Tony above, by implying that he's the IP editor who made the change that you don't like. But if you look at the next diff, that editor identified himself as User:Mclay1; he's from Mundoolun, Queensland, Australia, he says (not far from Brisbane, but you didn't have to use an IP whois service to work that out, since he says it on his page). He may well be an MOS regular – he has some MOS items on his to-do-list subpage. But I am not really familiar with him; certainly he appears to have been acting in good faith. Dicklyon (talk) 00:03, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Dick, it is self-evident that you are hell-bent on defending the indefensible. Nowhere did I imply, infer or deduce that Tony or Noetica was the author. I was well aware that Noetica's principal residence is in the Melbourne area and Tony's is in the Sydney area. If Mclay1 is the IP editor responsible for the June 28, 2011 edit that has created these problems, he has done all concerned a grave disservice. You, Tony and Noetica are willing to defend what every party to this discussion knows did not then and does not now have consensus support. As I am sure you can recall with only a little effort, most of the parties understand where the focus of this intrepid little band was last June: the Great Spaced Dash Controversy. Consensus does not imply unanimity, nor does it imply "accident." No one was paying any attention to the IP user/Mclay1's edits until long after he fact. Above, you proposed a rather sensible compromise solution; I suggest you focus your efforts on that, rather than attempting to brow-beat me or any of the other editors in this discussion. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:28, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Was your phrasing "So, I take it that you have no comment and cannot bring yourself to acknowledge that the position advocated by you is the one that was inserted by a Brisbane IP user..." to Tony just an accident then? Anyway, what I'm in favor of is stability and discussion; your attacks on Noetica and Tony, inappropriate 3RR warnings, running off to ANI instead of engaging, taking the disputed recommendation to another MOS page and applying it, etc., just really annoy me. As for my "compromise" suggestion, it's not really that; a recommendation to avoid the abbrevs would be quite orthogonal to what punctuation to use when they are used. Dicklyon (talk) 05:49, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Accidental? No, but my statement to Tony is being mischaracterized by you; I choose to believe that is not intentional on your part, but simply a consequence of your "annoyance" and resulting difficulty in assuming good faith. As a result you're seeking and finding something that isn't there. Please note Tony jumped in the middle of my original query directed at Noetica, and Tony tried to change the subject to something about "accusations." My statement regarding the IP user could have just as easily been directed at Noetica, Tony or you. I have continually tried to refocus this subthread on my original point, as stated at the top, that the June 28, 2011 change does not now and has never had consensus support. (See, I just did it again, and have consistently done so in every post in this subthread.) If there is any confusion, it arises from the repeated attempts by others to change the subject in this subthread, and refusal to answer the original query or acknowledge that there is no consensus for the "prohibition" language advocated by Noetica or Tony, and by implication, yourself. If you want "stability," I suggest you seek agreement. Stability does not arise from three editors defending a non-consensus. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 06:15, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Misrepresentations and incivilities

  • Dirtlawyer has written above: "... Strunk & White, the most widely circulated style guide in the United States, and Noetica's personal favorite, ...". Whatever the intent was, the effect is to misrepresent me in the grossest way. For the record, I deplore Strunk and White, as do almost all professional linguists and most style experts.
  • Dirtlawyer has defamed me (and Tony) in an ill-advised 3RR action (my underlining): "Noetica and Tony1 are experienced editors who have a long history of MOS edit-warring and tendentious editing on MOS pages, and manipulation and stonewalling of MOS talk page discussions in order to maintain their preferred changes to MOS previously made without consensus, ..." (the diff). He failed to advise either of us that he had posted there, and the action was duly dismissed but without our replying.
  • Admin Bkonrad (≠) has defamed me in an edit summary. This diff shows both what he reverted (including a "discussion" template), my own full explanation in my edit summary, and his words "rvt notable stonewaller".

I am waiting now for retractions and apologies from both editors. When I have those, I will again take part in the discussion toward a resolution of the present difficulties. Meanwhile, I reserve the option of reverting undiscussed changes to our Manual of Style (affecting 6,818,530 articles), toward stability and durable consensus in the guidelines.
♥
NoeticaTea? 00:23, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

So is it a promise that if I don't apologize for speaking the truth that you won't partake in discussion. That seems almost too good to be real. Of course, you reverting changes without discussing them is simply expected as your modus operandi. older ≠ wiser 02:14, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Bkonrad, you're an admin???? You should resign immediately ... like, now. You've been breaking fundamental tenets of admin policy . Tony (talk) 02:18, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Why? Because Noetica was wrong and because I pointed out that he has a history of stonewalling? I think not. older ≠ wiser 02:29, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
This "history of stonewalling" is a concept made up by Born2cycle, and applied to a bunch of us. Are you buying into his nonsense now? It's an incivil and unsupportable accusation. Dicklyon (talk) 03:50, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Aw come on, accusations like "history of stonewalling" are routine at the Manual of Style [12] [13] [14] [15], even from Tony and Noetica, so all those people can't be disciples of Born2cycle. Art LaPella (talk) 04:57, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
None of Art LaPella's above 6 links even contain the word "stonewall". Neotarf (talk) 06:00, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Noetica, you give as good as you get: [16]. If you feel defamed, I suggest (a) you grow a thicker skin, (b) carefully review your own history of incivility, brow-beating and insults, (c) engage in good-faith negotiations to determine a real consensus on the subject at hand. As for the "stonewalling," in my world, the truth is always a defense. More often than not, the truth works in a similar fashion on Wikipedia. Whether you chose to take part in this discussion is your decision; but consensus can and will be determined with or without your participation. If you desire that consensus to be determined without your active participation, I certainly have no objection. Shall we just cross you off the list of discussion participants? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 05:28, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
"None of Art LaPella's above 6 links even contain the word 'stonewall'" The last link contains the word "stonewalling". If the literal word "stonewall" is what matters to you, it's easy to search for more examples. Or if Born2cycle's exact phrase is what matters, it was "status quo stonewalling", not "history of stonewalling". Art LaPella (talk) 06:26, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I see it now. I had an unnoticed space in my search. "This is not a climate in which reasoned collegial discussion can proceed. Those who brought about the present difficulties do not budge. Why would any editor want to confront such stonewalling?" A description of a situation, not name-calling. And not unlike the situation on this talk page. More on my talk page, diffs from Noetica showing protection log and record of edit warring, if anyone is interested. Neotarf (talk) 14:21, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Anyway, Born2cycle wasn't the sole inventor of the alleged "nonsense" concept of a "history of stonewalling". Art LaPella (talk) 16:45, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
I first saw the accusation made by Born2cycle's friend "JCSalinger", who turned out to be the sock of a banned user. It is certainly an accusation that lacks evidence. I myself read every accusation posted by Born2cycle in the arbcom capitalization case, and followed every link that was supposed to support the accusation, and found only someone who disagreed with Born2cycle, not a conspiracy. Arbcom did not take any of it seriously either. Why repeat such discredited personal attacks here? The policy Wikipedia:No personal attacks clearly states that such things do not belong on the talk pages; comment should be on content, not on the contributor. This conversation has become a poster-child for the kind of disruption caused to the Project when people make excuses for such personalized remarks. The page has now become so littered with protests against, and rationales for derogatory remarks about other editors, that those few people who have not yet left this sinking ship of a thread cannot even figure out where to post a comment. Neotarf (talk) 15:24, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
"Why repeat such discredited personal attacks here"? Because I was simply objecting to Dicklyon, who repeated them first. I didn't discuss most of what you want to talk about at all. I even used the word "alleged" to avoid siding with or against Born2cycle. So was your previous post directed against me or Dicklyon? Art LaPella (talk) 15:44, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Check again. Dicklyon repeated nothing; attempts have been made to tar him with the same brush. Dicklyon called the accusations "incivil and unsupportable", which they are.

I read "alleged ‘nonsense’", not "alleged concept". Not the same.

But now that the subject has been raised, is it "truth" that Noetica is an eeeevil stonewaller? No. Here is the Protection log for WP:MOS, showing the lockdown of the main page of WP's Manual of Style between June 7 and August 5, 2009. During that time, was Noetica busy edit-warring and doing controversial edits? No. He was absent from the page altogether. And when he began to edit later, what did he do?

This doesn't look like a Thunderdome warrior to me. More like Bob Cratchit with a green visor doing gnomish edits with dashes and restrictive clauses, perhaps even by sputtering candlelight. But don't take my word for it, look at some of his edits for yourself and make your own judgment. Neotarf (talk) 13:39, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

If Dicklyon didn't repeat Born2cycle's attacks then I didn't either, as neither of us endorsed them. Art LaPella (talk) 14:01, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable to me. Neotarf (talk) 14:08, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Can we stop bickering and come to a consensus?

It's clear to me that there was never any consensus to prohibit a comma after "i.e." or "e.g.". Can we at least agree to leave it in that state until a consensus is formed otherwise? Powers T 17:15, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Not clear what you mean. WP:CONSENSUS says there's a consensus when nobody objects, which is how it was for many months. We can work on a revised consensus now. Dicklyon (talk) 17:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Come on. Very few people have all these MoS subpages on their watchlists. It's far too easy for a change like this to sneak in without anyone noticing. I know I don't regularly review every MoS page for subtle changes that might have gone undetected. Seriously, if I managed to change a page to read "Jimbo Wales is a doody head", and no one notices for four months, does that mean the statement has consensus? Powers T 17:57, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Dick, let's be perfectly clear what we mean: "Wikipedia has a higher standard of participation and consensus for changes to policies and guidelines than to other types of articles. This is because they reflect established consensus, and their stability and consistency are important to the community. As a result, editors often propose substantive changes on the talk page first to permit discussion before implementing the change. Changes may be made without prior discussion, but they are subject to a high level of scrutiny. The community is more likely to accept edits to policy if they are made slowly and conservatively, with active efforts to seek out input and agreement from others." Quoted from WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, with my italicized and bolded emphasis added. As I said above, consensus does not require a unanimous vote, but consensus does not occur by accident. What we had prior to Noetica's recent deletion of the prohibition of commas, was a train wreck that was inserted by a single editor without discussion, with no determination of consensus, and was later defended by Noetica and Tony, and by default, yourself. As I said above, three editors defending a non-consensus is not a consensus, and the passage of time does not obviate the need for "a higher standard of participation and consensus for changes to policies and guidelines." The unilateral June 28, 2011 edit made by the IP user/Mclay1 is now receiving that "high level of scrutiny," and it is perfectly clear that such change was not supported by consensus then or now. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:07, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Dirt, I haven't yet received an apology for your repeated accusation that I edited as an anon, from a city I don't live in and visited for the first time, for two-day wiki conference, in May. Or are you still insisting on this little piece of your truth? One way or the other, please. Tony (talk) 11:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Nor will you ever receive an apology for such an accusation, Tony, because I never made such an accusation. I suggest you re-read the thread and my actual comments. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 11:57, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Is it really necessary to rehash an argument in a section explicitly called "can we stop bickering"? Powers T 17:18, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm with Dirtlawyer1 on the actual issue before us (I take no side in the bickering, and it was TLDR anyway). I regularly use a comma after "i.e." and "e.g." when it helps clarity/readability, and regularly eschew the comma when it doesn't help. This is the kind of micromanagement that MOS needs to avoid getting into, per WP:CREEP. I would cite WP:IAR on a daily basis over this matter alone if MOS tried to actually prohibit commas after these acronyms (or require them). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:34, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:ARBATC

All parties are reminded to avoid personalizing disputes concerning the Manual of Style, the article titles policy ('WP:TITLE'), and similar policy and guideline pages, and to work collegially towards a workable consensus. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:16, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Yes! The regularly unpleasant tone of discussions on such pages alienates those who aren't frequent contributors. A consequence is that it becomes easy but incorrect to claim "consensus" because no-one objected. Consensus is not achieved by driving away other editors. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:44, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
That said, everyone is responsible for their own emotions, and competency is required, including the ability to rationally engage in argument when it arises. People who simply cannot at all handle spirited debate should stay out of spirited debates, and have limited right to complain about their feelings being hurt if they won't stay out of them. That said, yes, things on MOS pages do tend to get overly heated, especially when one or another editor has some kind of WP:AXE to grind about a pet peeve. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:07, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Circa

I made this edit to be consistent with MOS:#Abbreviations, WP:YEAR, WP:SMOS, and MOS:DOB. Consistency was the only reason, together with the introduction to the main Wikipedia:Manual of Style, which says (as of a few weeks ago): "In cases of discrepancy, this page has precedence over its subpages ...". So if you prefer to abbreviate "circa" "only in small spaces ...", please change MOS:#Abbreviations, WP:YEAR, and WP:SMOS to be consistent. Giving editors opposite orders is among the easiest ways to get them to stop reading. Simply reverting me won't change the effective guideline anyway, because of the "precedence" clause quoted above. Art LaPella (talk) 19:20, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I undid your change because we need to talk about what consistent result we want first. Just because one page has precedence doesn't mean we should blindly propagate what it says without talking about what to do with the inconsistency. So we want to use the abbreviation c. only in tight spaces for dates, and write out circa otherwise and in sentences? Or always prefer the abbreviation? I'll reserve judgement until hearing opinions from others. Dicklyon (talk) 20:02, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
There's some discussion of this at WP:User_talk:Noetica#Circa. Neotarf (talk) 00:17, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
The real link for that previous discussion is: User_talk:Noetica#Circa. This editor thinks that user pages are NOT where articles should be discussed. Don't take the conversation to Noetica's talk page.
—Trappist the monk (talk) 00:48, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
I disagree that re-introducing the contradiction is the way to get a consensus. I have complained about that contradiction for years, and that didn't get a consensus either. I will continue to ignore "circa" on this page anyway, because it is ineffective as a guideline, as explained above. But assuming nobody resolves the contradiction and the discussion dies as usual, we will then need a consistent result. Any consistent result. Flipping a coin would be better than talking out of both sides of our mouths. The rest of the page doesn't matter much if editors conclude we care only about demonstrating our knowledge and don't care about the editors' situation, and if the editors then stop reading. Art LaPella (talk) 02:45, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing the link, the discussion on Noetica's talk page was about this edit [17] at Pi. As the various pages of MoS now stand, there is plenty of justification for anyone who wants to make such an edit, and change any occurrences of circa or approximately in the body of a text to c. Neotarf (talk) 09:44, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
No discussion of the ideal "circa" guideline has resulted from restoring the contradiction, neither here nor at Noetica's talk page. So I restored my edit and removed the contradiction. That does not prevent any future discussion of the "circa" guideline. Nor does it prevent any consistent editing to the guideline, in every place it appears. It only prevents people from thinking the current effective guideline is different from what it really is. Art LaPella (talk) 04:31, 27 August 2012 (UTC)
Speaking of circa, it's been bothering me for a long time that a large number of people, including professional writers on both sides of the Atlantic, prefer the abbreviation "ca." to "c.", especially since "c." is frequently used for other things, including "century". This guideline needs to recognize that. I would even advocate that it prefer "ca." and deprecate "c." as potentially confusing and ambiguous to too many readers. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:20, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Acronyms

This is a pretty trivial dispute. All it points out is that the list is not exclusive, so instead of saying:

"Acronyms in this table do not need to be written-out in full upon first use, except in their own articles or where not doing so would cause ambiguity. They should only be linked to their expansion if their article is named that way."

something like:

"Many acronyms do not need to be written-out in full upon first use, except in their own articles or where not doing so would cause ambiguity, as they are well known. The following are some of these, but is not a complete list."

The advice that "They should only be linked to their expansion if their article is named that way." Does not appear to be needed. Linking is obviously done to whatever the article is called, and besides, redirects are not very serious. Apteva (talk) 03:36, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Also in the paragraph above, replace "Unless specified in one of the two tables below" with "Unless well known".

And delete the last two sentences "When not written out in full on the first use on a page, an acronym or initialism should be linked. An unambiguous acronym can be linked as is but an initialism or ambiguous acronym should be linked to its expansion."

There really is no hard and fast rule about what needs to be linked and what does not need to be linked and it has nothing to do with being written out or not. Apteva (talk) 04:01, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

We need to be very careful with any adjustments to the abbreviation/acronym/initialism section, Apteva. What is a well-known abbreviation in Scotland may not well-known in Mississippi; what is well-known in Ohio is not necessarily well-known in South Africa. Remember, we are writing for a world-wide audience, and should be conscious of that fact. I strongly believe that the general rule should remain that the first time the full phrase is used in an article, the abbreviation should be introduced in a parenthetical immediately following the full expression. This is consistent with typical formal writing and best journalism practices, and is usually recommended by most style guides. Specific exceptions can and should be made for abbreviations whose meaning is almost universally understood throughout the English-speaking world; clear-cut examples include NASA, NATO, UN, UK, U.S., USSR. What may be nearly universally understood in one country, region or subgroup, may not be understood or even have a different meaning in another country, region or subgroup. The fact that "NFL" has a specific meaning for American football fans does not mean someone from Pretoria, Edinburgh or Sydney will understand it or even impart the same meaning. I think we are on much firmer ground when we stick with the general rule, and make specific exceptions. This is an encyclopedia; readers should not have to click on a series of links to discover the intended meaning of an abbreviation. If they want more information about a term or phrase, then they can click on the link with some understanding of where that link may lead. Dirtlawyer1 (talk)
I completely agree with Dirtlawyer1. TRLIJC19 (talk • contribs) 19:22, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
Same here. I'm honestly skeptical that the "Widely used abbreviations in Wikipedia" list serves any purpose or actually reflects wide use. I've worked on it several times to improve it, over the last several years, but each time I do, I think "why is this crap even in here?" Also, as usual I have to strenuously disagree with Apteva for the most part. It often does indeed matter whether or not the item in question first appears in acronym form or written out; there is sometimes no need to link to an article on an acronym's expansion if it's given as the expansion first. Most often, we'll want to link to the article anyway, but there are times when such links are not helpful in the context, especially when they're just units of measure or something otherwise pedestrian and mundane. That said, I agree with his take that The advice that "They should only be linked to their expansion if their article is named that way." Does not appear to be needed. Linking is obviously done to whatever the article is called... On that point, he's right. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:21, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
That is his or her, and he or she, thank you, or even better "the advise/suggestion/point" - see WP:FOC - never discuss the participants, only the subject of the discussion - all three of the above posts are guilty of violating FOC. But I can not believe this discussion is still open two months later. I would recommend anyone make any needed corrections and delete the disputed/discussion tag. Apteva (talk) 07:12, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Honorable

The MOS says to use "Hon." but is linked to a page that clearly states one must us "the" when using "honorable" or "hon" The consensus of style manuals around the world require "The" when using Honorable. I propose a change to the WP MOS.--Revmqo (talk) 03:27, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

Meh. This subguideline is about the abbreviation; whether it's preceded by "the" or not is a matter for a different part of MOS, and applies whether or not it's abbreviated. Articles would not normally use this, anyway; we don't write about biographical subjects using any honorifics of any kind. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:28, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
If it were mentioned here at all, it should simply by way of showing it in an example, without any lecture about how "the" is required, since that's just off-topic in this guideline. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:47, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

"a RFC" vs "an RFC"

Should this guideline state the rule on "a" vs "an" prior to an acronym that starts with a consonant, but sounds-out like a vowel? E.g. "a RFC" vs "an RFC". I'm guessing that the rule is to pretend the acronym is fully spelled out, so "a RFC" would be correct. In any case: can someone add that guidance to this page? --Noleander (talk) 15:10, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

"An RFC" is certainly acceptable. It seems more likely that we need to let each article come to its own consensus. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:02, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
I believe the general rule (which, alas, I can't find a reference for right now) is that one should use "a" or "an" as if you were reading it aloud - the reason being that "an" is used to separate vowel sounds. "RFC" is pronounced "arr eff see", starting with a vowel sound, so "an RFC" is correct. "A RFC" would be pronounced "a arr eff see", which has consecutive vowel sounds ("a arr"). Mitch Ames (talk) 07:03, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Likewise, we say "a UFO" ("a yoo eff oh"), although "U" is a vowel.
—Wavelength (talk) 15:03, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
This is not a MOS matter, it's a facts-at-the-article matter, when it arises at all in a way that has any encyclopedic relevance. I tend to write "a RFC" myself, because "an R-anything" looks weird, even if reading aloud I would say (in this case) "an arr-eff-see" (and see beginning of this post – I wrote "a MOS matter" automatically, even though I would sound this out as "an em-oh-ess matter"; the construction "an M..." simply doesn't look right, and I would not normally write that). Some acronyms are sounded out as letters, some are parsed as if they were words, and some are handled differently by different people. How do you parse "FAQ", for example? About half the people I know say "eff-ay-kyew", and half say "fak"). Some people also parse acronyms as letters when they read them, even when they might sound it out as a word if they were speaking out loud, or a mixture E.g., I parse "etc." as "et-see" (yes, "et-see", not "ee-tee-see") when I see it, for geeky reasons I won't get into here, but I would always read it aloud as "et cetera". My grandmother always read it aloud as "and so forth" – she parsed it's English-language meaning and didn't see it as a word/abbreviation per se, the same way most of use know that "pp." in the context of bibliographic information is pronounced "pages" not "pee-pee". The point being, this is handled so many different ways by so many different brains that MOS shouldn't legislate about it. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:18, 28 December 2012 (UTC)
SMcCandlish makes an interesting point about terms like FAQ, which some people pronounce as one word and some pronounce and individual letters. Acronyms/initialisms can be:
  • consonants only (eg RFC) which one cannot reasonably pronounce as a single word
  • easily pronounceable as a word (FAQ) - some people will pronounce it as a word, some won't
"Consonants only" might start with a vowel sound even though the first letter is a consonant, so RFC could be either "an arr eff see" or "a Request For Comment". The same applies to "pronounceable" acronyms, eg MOS - "a moss" or "an em oh ess" or "a Manual Of Style". The reverse also applies: UFO could be "an Unidentified Flying Object" or "a you eff oh" (or "a you-fo").
The obvious thing to do would be to check a good online encyclopaedia to find out what other style guides say, or what people in general do, but the Acronym article doesn't mention it - an omission that I have suggested we should address. Mitch Ames (talk) 07:08, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Please look at Acronyms & Initialisms: When to Use A or An?, which addresses what The Gregg Reference Manual (10th ed) says (it's a quite good book). In brief, acronyms are always preceded by an 'a'; as are initialisms unless they begin with a F, H, L, M, N, R, or S. It's an FBI agent, an NPR interview, an MLB game, and an RFC; but a USB mouse, a UFO, and a IRS office. As that site notes, this is a case where if you read it out loud incorrect usage sounds wrong.

The grammar you write doesn't depend on how you parse it. A person who parses 'UFO' into 'Unidentified Flying Object' will (should) just as easily, and correctly, parse 'a UFO' into 'an Unidentified Flying Object' when reading. Writing an UFO (which makes me cringe) is expecting the reader to parse the 'UFO' and not the word before it. Essentially doing it wrong to cater to people who don't read good. :P

The confusion in cases like MOS is that it's actually an acronym if it's a "moss", but an initialism if it's a "M O S".

On a related note; I, myself, am an I; as it is a 'word starting with a vowel sound'. The letter 'I'; which is a proper noun, not a word (I could name myself 'QkQtdnds' if I wanted to, but it wouldn't suddenly 'become' a word); is a 'I'. It is a United Airlines airplane, but an uniform procedure.
BTW, that last intentionally convoluted paragraph is grammatically correct. This is MOS talk, after all. If I wrote it in an article, though, it would be horrible. If it's hard to 'read', then 'read it out loud'.  :)

Just for humor's sake, I'll end this with a QED. Revent (talk) 10:19, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Something else people do wrong, that the difference between written and spoken grammar reminded me of. You might have trouble reading what I wrote, unless you realize that "I'm saying this", and 'I'm thinking this'.

I'm also saying "A LGM said 'Look, at a Unidentified Flying Object named after an Unidentified Flying Object,'" while riding inside a UFO. Get it? Revent (talk) 10:55, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Full stops, and examples

I've made an effort to explain the full stops section better and more accurately (it's simply incorrect to suggest that apostrophe-free contraction abbreviations can be left without a period/stop in American English, or typical Canadian for that matter). My presumption in this rewriting has been that the stop-free British usage (e.g. "Dr Morris" vs. "Dr. Morris") is intended to be permissible as a WP:ENGVAR matter, and have written it that way. I've made corresponding tweaks to the list of common abbreviations (and some corrections - there were two entries in there that were not valid even under permissive British punctuation rules). I also added some obvious examples, nested some categorically, and removed two really uncommon ones that are unlikely to ever come up in actual articles (e.g. "cl." for "close" in an address; WP is not a directory of postal information, so it's just not relevant). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:26, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

propose adding compass-directional abbreviations

Since abbreviations commonly found in postal addresses are accepted in this guideline, I propose to add two more sets, the first being the more important:

  • N., S., E., and W., for North, South, East, and West, respectively
  • N.E., N.W., S.E., and S.W., for North East, North West, South East, and South West, respectively, also expanded as Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest, respectively

I don't propose to add a set of 8 used in nautical navigation, e.g., N.N.E. as 'north by northeast', because they're probably used less often, unless someone disagrees and says they're needed, too.

I tried checking frequency of use but a search for "W." got me too many irrelevant results. If someone knows and says they're hardly used, I'll be surprised but then I guess there's no occasion to add any of these sets.

I'd add to the table in the Widely Used Abbreviations in Wikipedia section.

Both with-period/s and periodless forms would be included; the U.S. uses both, especially since the U.S. Postal Service probably requires periodless forms on bulk mail to qualify for postage discounts.

I'll wait a week for any response.

Nick Levinson (talk) 21:09, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea because while it makes sense to abbreviate directions in addresses, I wouldn't want to give general permission for people to abbreviate directions in text. If the instructions made that distinction clear, I would have no problem. Thank you. SchreiberBike (talk) 23:51, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
Done. Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Consistency with other parts of the MoS

This subpage of the MoS in the section for the acronym AD says "Prefer CE for non-biblical topics (see MOS:NUM)." . Similarly the section for BC says "Prefer BCE for non-biblical topics (see MOS:NUM)." Preferably without going into discussion about the appropriateness of various era styles and recognizing that MOS:NUM does not in fact express those preferences, would there be any objection to removing those statements? Thank you. SchreiberBike (talk) 05:21, 22 April 2013 (UTC)

'c.' as an abbreviation of 'approximately'

The MoS says we prefer 'c.' to 'approximately' spelled out. I agree, when we are speaking of dates, but I would write "he threw the ball approximately 65 yards", or "about 65 yarda", not "c. 65 yards". Shouldn't the MoS indicate that this only applies to dates? Chris the speller yack 16:49, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Dates are the vast majority of uses of c., but I also occasionally see it used in populations or measurements. The meaning remains clear and I don't see it as a problem. SchreiberBike talk 18:05, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
Just above it in the table, it indicates that 'approximately' is preferred over 'approx.', and given that 'c.' is preferred over 'approximately', why do we need the middle man? Some clarification is still needed. As it stands, 'approximately' should never be used. Chris the speller yack 22:43, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
It also seems to say that circa should never be used. That seems to me to be a contradiction to the general rule that unnecessary abbreviations should be avoided. SchreiberBike talk 03:21, 14 June 2013 (UTC)
Isn't the use of any form of circa in relation to figures other than dates a grammatical error? That's always been my understanding, and I was surprised to find that the MoS now suggests using it for approximately without noting "in connection with dates", or some similar phrase. SJ Morg (talk) 05:53, 21 July 2013 (UTC)
I added "In dates" to WP:ABBR so that the scope is clear. WP:MOSNUM only discusses "c." in the section about dates. Chris the speller yack 16:15, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

"FC" or "F.C." for football clubs

MOS:ACRO says: "Wikipedia generally avoids using full stops in upper-case acronyms."

This disregards, or is disregarded by, thousands of articles about football (soccer) clubs. For example:

At least there is a tendency towards consistency within each nation, though not internationally. Why is this? Should the thousands of articles be moved to be brought into line—and if so, how should we go about this? Or should the MOS be amended to account for this variation? Or should we just leave well enough alone? —sroc 💬 09:39, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

  • I would say leave well alone. It's how many clubs label themselves in real life (see an example here). It's worked fine like this for the best part of a decade. Number 57 14:09, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

On apostrophes

Could someone who knows more than I about the MOS please take a look at Talk:European_Neighbourhood_Policy#EU_or_EU.27s? An IP is claiming that possessive apostrophes can't be used for acronyms, but I don't think that this is correct. TDL (talk) 02:18, 29 August 2013 (UTC)

Responded at Talk:European Neighbourhood Policy#EU or EU's. – Paine Ellsworth CLIMAX! 21:48, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

"Acronyms in page titles" updated

I think this section documents better now that Wikipedia is essentially inconsistent on this matter. The two lead examples (NASA and CIA) have seen almost unanimous (and explicit) consensus for their present titles, although this consensus is pretty dated (2005 and 2008, respectively). (I doubt there is any non-crowdsourced reference work which would have an article/chapter titled "NASA" and another spelled out as in "Central Intelligence Agency".) I've also tried to make more clear which examples have talk page discussion and which haven't, though perhaps adding links to the move requests as footnotes would make that even more clear. (The guideline previously suggested that there may have been some controversy about "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" vs "DMCA" but there was not a move discussion I could find and the only actual moves of the page I found were pure vandalism, not moves to the acronym.)

In general, the arguments in those discussions are pretty weak, both ways. More recently someone tried to argue (on the USB page) that using google ngrams is the way to go. Unfortunately that would move almost any page to its acronym because the test doesn't discern between body and title use of the terms, nor does it distinguish between the same acronym denoting something else. Since we're talking about titles here, I'm surprised nobody tried to introduce how sources mention the subject in titles (rather than text body) as a test. Granted this isn't all that straightforward because a source may be inclined to abbreviate if the subject is part of a longer title. Someone not using his real name (talk) 06:59, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Mr./Mrs.

Admittedly the text says "Prefix titles such as Mr and Dr should not be used" but they are, nevertheless, frequently. Dr appears in the table Abbreviations widely used in Wikipedia but Mr doesn't. Both Mr and Mrs should appear in this table: pedants like me want to know how we should be spelling them when they are actually necessary. See for example the article Assassination of John F. Kennedy where Mr. President and Mrs. Kennedy both appear, the latter both with and without the period. Wellset (talk) 12:50, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

fl. in italics

This part of the Manual of Style gives the abbreviation for floruit as "fl." in italics. The Dates and numbers part of the MoS gives "fl." in regular type. Template:Floruit, {{fl.}}, gives "fl." in regular type. Would there be any objection to changing the example of "fl." in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations to "fl."? Thanks, SchreiberBike talk 06:45, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

United Nations

It's not clear to me from the MoS pages which is preferable (at the first occurrence): "United Nations (UN)" or "UN" (or for that matter "United Nations (UN)"). I couldn't find a discussion of the issue in the archives. Any comments? - MatthewDBA (talk) 19:43, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Full stops

This is very confusing.

Modern style is to use a full stop (period) after a shortening (although there are many exceptions) but no full stops with an acronym.

Then the example of U.S. is given, yet subsequently in this page there are multiple instances of "US or U.S." and "UK". Well, which is it? This confusion is compounded later with:

To help navigation, please create redirects that contain (US) and (U.S.). For example, "Great Northern Railway (US)" should redirect to "Great Northern Railway (U.S.)" (or the other way around).

"Or the other way around" is really not helpful. — Scott • talk 16:41, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

I haven't seen the discussion, but my guess is that in the past there have been proposals to always use "US", or to always use "U.S.", but there was no general agreement (in fact there was probably acrimonious disagreement) and the confusion above is the compromise. The same confusion is reflected in the general Manual of Style at WP:NOTUSA. If we can't take away the confusion, it's at least good to understand its origin. SchreiberBike talk 19:00, 18 April 2014 (UTC)

Periods and spaces after initials

WP:ABBR#Initials may be affected by a discussion taking place here: WT:NCP#Why are there spaces between initials? --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:39, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

LSD the drug as an example of a page title with no consensus

I think it would be helpful to include what we just learned at Talk:Lysergic acid diethylamide#Move request: Lysergic acid diethylamide → LSD. Currently [18] this guideline reads In general, if readers somewhat familiar with the subject are likely to only recognize the name by its acronym, then the acronym should be used as a title. However, there is still no consensus to do this with respect to the drug LSD.

Perhaps then LSD should be cited as an exception, summarising the arguments against in the recent RM, similarly to the existing parenthetical note concerning CIA? That might save us reinventing the wheel, at the price of a little instruction creep. As it stands, the guideline does not accurately reflect our current practice. Andrewa (talk) 22:46, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

When comma before "Jr." and "Sr." isn't desirable

We should probably indicate that a comma is not needed between surname and "Jr." or "Sr." (if we stick with demanding one at all, which I think is really a WP:ENGVAR matter) in surname-only constructions, as here: "The use of such repetitive, predictable shots by Spinks, Schaefer Sr. and their contemporaries led to the development of the more advanced and restrictive 14.1 balkline rules...." The use of the comma there will not be helpful at all, requiring the messy construction "Spinks, Schaefer, Sr., and their contemporaries..." (Yes, I'm aware that fans of the Oxford comma will want that to be "Spinks, Schaefer Sr., and their contemporaries", but that's not the issue here. It could have been "Spinks, Schaefer Sr., Demarest, Daly, and their competitors", and the point I'm making is that we don't want this to be "Spinks, Schaefer, Sr., Demarest, Daly, and their competitors" because it's less easy to parse.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:44, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

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