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Conflict between MOS:CAPS and MOS

Some editorial attention is required on the obvious conflict between WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Common names and the main MOS page at WP:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms. I tried to address these issues here (in a factual manner, and one that even clarifies how to avoid further editwarring) but was revered, by an editor involved in a dispute with me at WT:AE. I think it would be best if others tried to fix this instead of me doing it, but it has to get fixed one way or another. This short version is that MOS says "do not capitalize common names of species", and grudgingly mentions that there remains a nominally unresolved controversy over the application of this rule to birds. People have for several tears tweaked MOS:CAPS (and WP:NCFAUNA, but that's another issue for later) to contradict MOS, which has had a stable consensus on this for 5 years now, by implying at MOS:CAPS that birds are a MOS-endorsed exception, that there are more of them, and that the threshold for getting an exception is, basically, just failure of a topical wikiproject like the insects one to come to a consensus to agree with MOS! It's an absurd pretense that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy never happened. People are still using the variant take in MOS:CAPS, confusedly, to insist on capitalizing some common names. The failure of MOS:CAPS to tow the MOS line is also making it more difficult than necessary to finalize MOS:ORGANISMS. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 19:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Uppate: I have re-inserted some changes at MOS:CAPS, one at a time with policy-based rationales, and will see if they stick. The main problem still extant at MOS:CAPS is the suggestion that because WP:INSECTS never could make up its mind about capitalization, before MOS:LIFE did so in 2008, that this somehow magically means that MOS:CAPS has to include a special section for "maybe" capitalizing insects sometimes. It doesn't even rise to the level of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, since talk archives of that project show that the capitalization idea was never discussed at that project at all; one editor simply added the idea to the project's main page, and no one else cared.

I propose that the insects bullet point needs to be removed from MOS:CAPS, as no one from the insects project is or has been making a WP:BIRDS-style argument against MOS:LIFE and in favor of capitalization. It appears that everyone at the insects project understands that the caps preferred some but not all academic publications in two subfields of entomology journals are not a Wikipedia styling matter, and have expressed no interest in starting MOS disputes on the matter. The "may be capitalized" wording at the project page should also be removed, but that's far less important than having MOS stop conflicting with itself at the MOS:CAPS subpage. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 21:19, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

PS: The recurrence of problems like this is one of the reasons I think that the sub-pages should simply be elminated, and everything folded back into MOS. It would make the page long but it would stop these policy POVforks, and would make in-page searching for the answer one is looking for trivially easy (a facility the lack of which is frequently frustrating even to long-experienced editors who cannot memorize which subpage every single nit-pick is in). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 06:21, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The real issue is how prescriptive the MOS should be. I would prefer the MOS to state clearly that the default style is lower case for the common names of organisms, so that editors who choose to use a different style need to justify it and reach a consensus on talk pages; however that consensus should then be respected, as it is in other cases where style differences exist (variants of English, including spelling; references; dates; etc.) There's then no need to mention any particular exceptions in the MOS, and MOS:CAPS would not be contradictory.

What I object to most strongly is creeping prescriptivism in the MOS. It violates the last two of Wikipedia's five pillars. It is not respectful to those editors who choose one style rather than another based on what seem to them good reasons. It promotes rather than eliminates edit-warring. It prevents the MOS being accepted as a source of sensible, unpartisan advice and being respected by as wide a community as possible. It needs to stop. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

There has never been any consensus discussion at WT:INSECTS in support of the idea that two kinds of insect common names should be capitalized (go look – there is not a single discussion in the archives of that project about it). One editor who thought it was a good idea for personal reasons added it to the project page, and to the extent anyone noticed at all, no one cared enough to comment. It does not belong in MOS:CAPS, any more that advice to capitalize music genres would be acceptable there just because someone changed WP:MUSIC without consensus to suddenly recommend that. This two-kinds-of-insects thing is not recognized by WP:MOS as any kind of open dispute like the birds issue. Your desire to see MOS's "do not capitalize the common names of species" position be watered down to "do not capitalize the common names of species unless you want to" is an idea that in nine years has never gained traction here, not even after some members of WP:BIRDS massively canvassed, disrupted polls that weren't going their way, threatened editorial strikes and walk-outs, abused WP:DRN as a forum for anti-MOS campaigning, etc., etc. And it has nothing to do with insects, and nothing to do with MOS:CAPS presently contradicting WP:MOS by making up exceptions that have no consensus support (not even a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS discussion!) — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 06:05, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

PS: MOS's entire purpose is to be prescriptive. That's what a manual of style does. It's is not a piece of descriptive linguistics research. It is a list of dos and don'ts, whether you want to call them rules or recommendations. These are prescriptions by definition. MOS most often and most obviously fails when it is not clearly prescriptive enough and leaves "wiggle room" for people to start fights over. There is not one single thing in MOS that someone – many someones – do not disagree strongly with. The same is true of every other style guide on the planet. It's the nature of the beast. It is not a flaw in MOS that certain unbearably tendentious editors refuse to "accept" and "respect" MOS. This happens all the time, for myriad reasons, from hatred of diacritics to disbelief that capitalization Should NOT Be Used For EMPHASIS, to occupational and avocational publications having style quirks that adherents to refuse to accept are not thigns that Wikipedia is bound to follow on our own pages. The only difference between someone who insists on the "correctness" of "grocery apostrophes" (as in "Apple's 5 for $1") and someone who insists on the "correctness" of capitalizing the common names of one particular kind of animal is that the latter lean toward the academic side and thus get haughty and righteous about it, and may even try to organize. They are in fact outnumbered by probably at least two orders of magnitude by people who use the non-standard apostrophe-as-a-plural-indicator! — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 06:21, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The claim that the MOS fails "when it is not clearly prescriptive enough" and that that causes fights to start does not match my perception. In fact it's very nearly the opposite. Fights start when MOS prescriptions don't match the reality of editors' experience and common practices in their subject areas. You use "majority practice in the real world" as an argument for style you favor, then blithely ignore or actively attack majority practice when it's against you. A less prescriptive MOS would lead to fewer fights. MOS denizen's act as though a rigid prescription is the only way to settle questions of style that would otherwise cause so much conflict that Wikipedia would surely implode. In fact questions of style are mild compared to political arguments that Wikipedia deals with all the time. These far more combustible issues are resolved by examination of the sources, and this approach could also resolve stylistic issues with far less rancor than what we are doing now. Quale (talk) 09:24, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Oh, So Very This. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 13:14, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Well said. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:40, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Except you're missing the point that excessively loud holy-hell-raising by a tiny number of tendentious editors is not an indication of lack of consensus, only refusal to accept that consensus isn't with them. Wikipedia at large is not rising up against MOS on this or any other point, rather "very nearly the opposite". Several much more widely disputed ideas in MOS have settled without further incident, including logical quotation and auto-linking/auto-formatting of dates. These calmed down mainly because a) there weren't many tendentious "warriors" on the topic, or b) they were shut down at WP:ANI/WP:AN/WP:ARBCOM as disruptive. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 20:39, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Furthermore, the strongly implied reasoning Quale is advancing and SarekOfVulcan and Peter coxhead are endorsing, that because capitalization or hyphenation or whatever style issue in on the table is not as important as settling the violence in Israel or whatever, we "therefore" simply shouldn't have any real rules, is a proposition that doesn't logically follow from its premises. The entire history of MOS and Wikipedia is proof that a less prescriptive MOS does not lead to fewer fights, because almost everything in MOS – down to very specific words and phrasing in many, many cases – has evolved almost entirely in response to settling arguments, and for no other reason (per WP:CREEP, which is frequently cited in response to people trying to add their pet-peeve style or grammar point to MOS when we don't actually need it). MOS does not have "denizens". Like every other page on Wikipedia (that anyone cares about) it has a rotating-over-time, self-selecting editorship of people who bother to pay attention to it and improve it. As far as I know, every single regular editor here, throughout MOS's entire history, has been a productive editor in articles and in other aspects of Wikipedia (creating templates, whatever). Quale, if you have evidence of WP:SPAs dominating MOS, we'd all be very interested in that evidence, because it would indeed be a serious problem. If you don't, then please do not cast such aspersions (see warning at top of this page). No one who participates at MOS regularly ever suggests that "MOS would surely implode" or anything remotely like that but less hyperbolic. We all think it's important to the cohesion, credibility and usability of the project, of course, but MOS did not exist when WP was created, yet WP took off and has grown. WP evolved a Manual of Style because it collectively wanted and needed one. It works the way it does because that's the way it needs to work. Virtually everyone first starts editing at MOS because they disagree with something in it and try to change it. Over time they realize that MOS's stability and consistency is generally far more important than the specific rules it applies; some of them are entirely arbitrary. But many are not, and have real reasons behind them, arrived at by extensive consensus discussions. Not capitalizing the common names of organisms is one of those. If you want to see people making statements that approach "WP will implode" levels of hysteria, I'll be happy to point you to some, but they won't be coming from MOS regulars, but rather from pushers of some outlying WP:LOCALCONSENSUS (e.g. that capitalization by some but not all journals in a field trumps the orders of magnitude larger bulk of all other publications who do not capitalize even when writing about the same topic) or personal pet-peeve style theory (e.g. that en dashes are never appropriate in proper names of any kind and must be replaced with hyphens). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 13:52, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

PS: Show us even one case of this: "Fights start when MOS prescriptions don't match the reality of editors' experience and common practices in their subject areas." What we'll actually find is that, rather, fights start when general editorial/writing practice here (and in offline general-audience sources of all kinds) doesn't match the reality of some editor's experience and common practice in [probably not even all] entirely specialist publications limited to their subject area. and this particular editor gets it into their head to try to force a general purpose encyclopedia to do what some extremely narrowly focused journals read by a vanishingly small percentage of the population, among whom virtually nobody actually cares about the style quirk in question and certainly would not irrationally try to impose it on a work outside their field. After enough tendentious bickering, MOS ends up making a rule to stop the editwarring. This rule usually sides with specialist practice when it does not directly conflict with everyday English (e.g. capitalize and italicize genus and species), but with general practice when they do conflict, because a) most of our readers are not specialists in that field and are confused by the weird usage, b) all specialists in the field are used to non-specialist publications not obeying their style quirk and don't have a problem with that, except for a few tooth-gnashers, but consensus does not require unanimity, so too bad for them, and c) the vast majority of reliable sources on English writing, prescriptively, descriptively and in actual real-world usage, don't honor the specialist style quirk, which is eschewed even by other academic publications that don't happen to be in that specialty. I can't think of a single case where this is not the pattern. I don't think there is even one example of something in MOS being an arbitrary "rule" out of nowhere that experts later flipped out about. Rather, in various fields one or a very small number of editors have tried to abuse WP as a linguistic playground by pushing something from a journal (or hobbyist publication or some other super-specialist, jargonistic, exclusivist source), pissed off others, resulting in a firestorm, and MOS has put a stop to it (sometimes in favor of the specialist practice); resolving such disputes is why MOS exists. Take the species name capitalization issue: People have been objecting very strenuously to the idea for at least 8 years, but there was constant editwarring and circular talk page debates. MOS, after much deliberation here, was modified in 2008 in favor of the overwhelmingly common general usage of lower case, not the extremely rare capitalization used with any consistency in a grand total of maybe three biological fields, and been entirely stable on the matter ever since. MOS did not start the dispute; it mostly ended it, and it was very widespread, from apes to dolphins, I kid you not (see my partial archive of the debate as a whole at User:SMcCandlish/Capitalization of organism names). — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 14:19, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

(e.c.) This seems like a rearguard action by editors who are unaware of the link between reasonable stylistic cohesion—insisted on by just about every publishing house worth the name—and professional quality and reputation. Let me guess ... you just want to do your own thing, unmolested by silly things like a style guide? Sorry guys, but the community does not want stylistic chaos, or cyclical and widespread squabbles at article talk pages. Our continued authority as the world's most significant knowledge base in part rests on the ability of editors—particularly gnomes—to harmonise formatting, spelling, and generally accepted aspects of style. No one beats anyone else up for not adhering to a style guide: that is the essential point in the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. But editors generally want centralised advice on these matters. We've got not a perfect MOS, but at least a good amalgam of the accepted best practice across the most important varieties of English. Thanks. Tony (talk) 13:48, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

To the contrary, at least in my case. I want reasonable stylistic cohesion and I want a centralized style guide that gives advice on how to achieve it. I suspect we differ on what counts as "reasonable". Peter coxhead (talk) 15:07, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

Exactly. To speak to Tony's guess, in fact I think Wikipedia should do what the majority its reliable sources do. To the extent that that's what I want to do, then yes, that's what I want to do. If the majority of reliable sources do something other than what I want, then that's tough for me because the sources should be used to decide. I think the MOS is invaluable in setting standards for things specific to Wikipedia, such the standard sections of an article and the order in which they appear, and how the section titles are formatted. In my opinon the single greatest achievement of MOS in was cleaning up the horrid date linking mess, another issue specific to Wikipedia that required a tremendous amount of persistence to resolve. But when the MOS prescribes to experts what they must call the things in their field, that goes too far. The Real World has already decided how to name things, and Wikipedia ought to follow suit rather than imposing arbitrary rules not used elsewhere. The laughable and yet very sad ruckus at Star Trek Into Darkness is a perfect example of how the "help" provided by the MOS true believers was not a kindness. And make no mistake, without the expansive and overly prescriptive MOS that would not have happened. Quale (talk) 03:18, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

The perpetual problem with this proposition is that adherents to what I call the specialist style fallacy cannot (or pretend, in hopes of getting their way through WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT tendentiousness, that they cannot) understand that reliable specialist sources on the facts about something (i.e. that its common name is "California tiger salamander" and that its range is actually more in Oregon than California, being protected as a threatened species in the latter) are not magically reliable sources on how to write and style English in an encyclopedia. They blindly deny that virtually all actual reliable sources on that – including paper style guides, grammar books, other encyclopedias, dictionaries, and almost all non-specialist, general-audience publications, from newspapers to novels to magazines, do not follow the weird "convention" the specialist editor demands be imposed on Wikipedia. This is a perennial, constant and actually worsening problem on Wikipedia, and is not tied to animal naming at all. People with a "specialization" (professional or avocational) in pretty much anything betray multiple "insider" habits, two of the most obvious and WP-problematic are an insistence on capitalizing things important within that field and which journals and other insider publications in the field tend to capitalize for that captive audience, and dropping hyphens from compound adjectival and nounal phrases that refer to such "insider things". They're both extremely WP:JARGONistic practices, confuse non-insider readers (i.e. almost all readers) and are inappropriate in an encyclopedia. Defending them by pretending that the actually reliable sources on English writing are not reliable just because they are not from the editor's favored specialization is logically bankrupt and a WP:SOAPBOX/WP:CAMPAIGN/WP:GREATWRONGS problem of serious proportions.

PS: Part of this farcical fallacy is that MOS is impermissibly telling experts how to write about their own field. In point of fact every single style guide ever written does this, and it's normal and perfectly permissible and expected. Academics spend a considerable amount of their time tailoring what they write to the extremely specific and nit-picky in-house style guides of whatever journals they hope will publish their papers (and doing so a great deal more when writing for a general-audience, popular-consumption publication like Discover or National Geographic). As an example, there are virtually no refereed, general biological or broader general scientific journals (only one has been found, to date), including the most prestigious like Nature (journal) and Science (journal), that will permit specialists in a particular field that prefers to capitalize common names of species (ornithology, and a few branches of entomology and botany) to capitalize the common names of species even in articles on those "pro-caps" fields. No academics have shitfits about this, and none of them would ever refuse to publish in such a journal just because they couldn't capitalize, but that's precisely what a handful of them are trying to do here. In point of related fact, the vast majority of participants in related wikiprojects here, academics and non-academics, have never spoken up in support of the "must capitalize or else" position held by a few of them. It simply doesn't perturb them in any way that WP is not a specialist journal in their particular field and doesn't follow the odd typographic whims of one. They know better, they get over it just like they would with any other publication in real life, and they move on. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 20:33, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

PPS: You can't logically use a case like Star Trek Into Darkness as an example of anything, because it's a highly atypical situation, according to everyone who's been involved; even the "reliable" sources have not been in agreement about the title. It's also not a valid argument to misuse your perception that someone who sometimes participates here at WT:MOS was, in your personal opinion, not every helpful at that Star Trek discussion, as if that were actual proof that MOS itself is at fault or that people, as a class, who edit it with any frequency are somehow wrongheaded or inimical to the project. It's also fallacious (specifically, both appeal to emotion and ad hominem) to pejoratively characterize repeat editors of MOS as "true believers", i.e. religious-style fanatics, which implies both irrational acceptance of that which has no rational basis, and a refusal to even acknowledge other viewpoints. I suggest you follow the cases mentioned at WT:SSF and watch people tie themselves into tortured logic knots trying to evade the fact that weird style quirks used in their insider publications are not recognized outside of them – i.e. they fail the "majority of reliable sources" test, because generalist publications are more not less reliable when it comes to style in general audience publications, like encyclopedias, and reliable sources for specialist facts, are not magically also reliable sources on style and writing. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 13:52, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

To return to the actual issue here, the subpage at MOS:CAPS includes a suggestion that it's okay to capitalize the common names of certain insects. This passage predates MOS itself coming to a very clear, more general consensus against this idea in 2008. MOS explicitly overrode this idea, and has been stable on this matter (consensus has not changed) for 5 years now, which is pretty much forever in WP time. This bogus "bugs exception" at MOS:CAPS derives from a single editor's addition of the idea to the WP:INSECTS projectpage, ages ago when no one cared, with precisely zero consensus discussion, ever, at that project. It was added to MOS:CAPS back when people tended to interpret "whatever a wikiproject calls a 'guideline'" as a guideline – something we no longer do. Its continued presence in MOS:CAPS (where it was not added after a consensus discussion either) as a direct contradiction of WP:MOS at MOS:LIFE, is a blatant violation of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy. If it even reaches that level: Its defense by a handful of editors over the last year or two is arguably just tendentious refusal to accept consensus, because there isn't even a local consensus among participants at the project or at MOS:CAPS to begin with, just a tiny handful of editors in favor of it (some not from the insects project at all, but just fans of capitalization generally). There is certainly not an organized, disuptive "capitalization wars" (not my term) militia at the insects project who are filibustering on the issue. The insects stuff at MOS:CAPS needs to be removed, as a simple matter of policy, unless and until consensus changes at MOS on species common name capitalization. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 20:33, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Any specific case, like the capitalization or not of species names, isn't the issue. The issue is the appropriate degree of prescriptivity. The MOS is wildly inconsistent in this respect. You can't, for example, use the general argument that academics have to accept journal guidelines to say that editors have to accept any particular guideline in the MOS because, as just one example, academics have to accept very rigid guidelines on referencing style in journal articles whereas the MOS permits almost total freedom.

(If you are in favour of consistency, then I invite you to consider and respond, not here but at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Organisms#Capitalization inconsistency, as to why breed names should be capitalized, which you appear to support, as opposed to, say, bird common names. All the arguments in favour of lower case bird names apply to lower case breed names. Indeed as an exercise I have taken one of your long posts about this and re-worded it to refer to breed names. Non-specialist publications, LOCALCONSENSUS, whatever; all your favourite arguments apply to breed names. This is not an argument for not capitalizing breed names. It's an argument against attempts to impose inconsistent uniformity.)

I, and others who have made similar points, want to see respect for editors who work in different areas. Of course all their peculiarities cannot and should not be catered for – we are constantly and wrongly accused of making this straw man argument. Compromise, reasonable consistency and respect for difference needs to be at the heart of Wikipedia's MOS. This is not a journal, but neither is it the Encyclopaedia Britannica nor any other single paper publication. Peter coxhead (talk) 03:04, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with "respect for editors"; there is no general upswelling of editors who say that lower-casing of insect or bird names is wrong. There is only a very tiny minority of editors (less that two dozen, site-wide, from what I can tell from observing five years of this "force Wikipedia to do what my favorite journal does" WP:BATTLEGROUNDing) , mostly at the birds project but a few floating around here and there who say this. It's a matter of a few editors refusing to accept and respect consensus, not the other way around. The vast majority of participants in even the birds project have never written in favor of capitalization, not here, not at the project, not at WP:RMs. Given that not even all the ornithology journals support the practice, including major ones (e.g., here is the Journal of Ornithology lower-casing common names of bird species!), this isn't surprising. But this is about insects. There isn't even a WP:BIRDS level of sentiment at WP:INSECTS on this non-issue. No one cares there. It's time for us to put this "the Manual of Style can go to Hell" attitude to rest. "Editors who work in different areas" in which capitalization of species sometimes happens all know full well that capitalization is basically never, ever permitted outside their specialist publications, which are not unanimously in favor of it either, and they understand full well that trying to impose it on WP is exactly the same as trying to impose it on Nature and other journals, except that for academics to railing against major journals will harm their careers, while disrupting WP for nine years in a tendentious campaign to force everyone to capitalize just because they like it that way, is just a pointless pastime that few people will take them to task for as long as they also do some productive editing. PS: The arguments for capitalizing breed names are actually completely different, but not germane anyway. I would be entirely happy with lower-casing of breed names, and the only reason I stopped agitating for exactly that is because too many of the non-specialist, everyday sources capitalize them (meanwhile very close to zero of them capitalize any insects species common names, or those of birds or anything, the only exception being field guides, on all topics, for ease-of-text-scanning emphasis; cookbooks often do the same thing, but WP doesn't capitalize "Onion" or "Teaspoon"). "Follow the sources" fetishism is hoisted by its own petard on this. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 02:01, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

PS: Neither I nor anyone else I know has ever proposed that "editors have to accept any particular guideline in the MOS". It's just a guideline, and WP:IAR is policy. If someone is so used to, and so much an fan of, capitalization of the common names of Caudata because their preferred journal does it (there are or at least were some that do, I think), I don't think anyone here would say "get off Wikipedia if you won't stop capitalizing these names when writing material". There's a huge level of institutional WP:DGAF, across the board, for how well people write and whether they'll follow MOS while they're doing it, or even form complete sentences. Someone else will fix it later. What we do object to is WP:EDITWARing to force others' MOS-endorsed lower-casing back to upper case (especially when it turns into a field-wide case of WP:OWN, put in place by blatant WP:FAITACCOMPLI action and other disruptive editing, but that's another matter). Anyway, certainly no one sane could possibly propose, as you mischaracterize me proposing, that editors "have to" accept something in MOS because of "the general argument that academics have to accept journal guidelines". There is not "have to" at issue here. What I have been saying clearly for five years or so, with no one able to refute it, is that the perennial argument "expert editors will quit if you don't let them [use whatever style quirk they're used to in specialist journals in their field]" is ridiculous nonsense, because all academics regularly adapt their writing to their audiences; it's part of their daily job description, and it's grossly insulting to all academics to imply that they are either mentally unable to cope with such a thing or temperamentally incapable of tolerating it. Experts regularly write highly jargonistic material, with or without particular little style quirks, for their specialist journals, depending on what those journals' in-house style guides say. They regularly write less jargonistic material with even fewer stylistic quirks, for more general academic publications, and even with different, unfamiliar stylistic quirks in publications in other fields (e.g. an entomologist writing about rat parasites in a mammals journal). They regularly write very "dumbed down" material, with zero stylistic quirks, for very all-audiences publications, like popular science magazines, and encyclopedias. They do all this by following the style guides this differing publications provide. The fact that our MOS is not as prescriptive about some things as others might be is neither here nor there, as is the fact that our MOS is prescriptive about some things, but very flexible about others. Even extremely prescriptivist works like Chicago Manual of Style are not prescriptive about everything.

Experts do leave wikipedia. They don't do it because of typography (I can show you proof of one tendentious alleged academic editor threatening they would quit then making a big show of leaving WP over style matters, and coming back at least 3 times; I challenge anyone to show us any example ever of an expert editor leaving over a style matter and not coming back. For that matter, show us any editor of any kind doing this. Show us any other editor of any kind other than the one I just mentioned even threatening to do so. It not only isn't happening, it's simply not plausible that it would be. Expert editors leave because of POV pushers who are better at gaming the system to insert fringe "facts" than they are at correct them. They leave when serious editors refuse to allow them to cite themselves as sources and otherwise treat WP as an Ask.com-style playground instead of a serious project with real rules. They leave because many don't like non-academics telling them how to cite sources, or to do or how to do anything, for that matter, and like it even less when academics in other fields do so. They leave because they have real lives and demanding jobs. They leave because virtually all of us leave eventually, as enthusiasm for one hobby is eclipsed by another or by something more important than a hobby. They leave because not all of them are good at collaboration (as any academic or even college graduate knows) nor good at working on something without limelight (ditto). They leave because they didn't use their real name and no one knows them from Adam and this is frustrating for people used to public recognition of merit and the building of reputation. They leave, conversely, because they did use their real name and it belatedly occurred to them that their students and their colleague-competitors may be watching for behavioral or content slip-ups to use against them. They leave because they had specific contribution goals and met them. And insert 20 more real reasons here. Capitalization and hyphenation (and whatever the style peccadillo of the week is) are not among them. Wikipedia is actually overrun with academics and non-academic experts of all sorts. Our "lack of experts" problem is mostly one of focus - it can be difficult to get expert attention on an article where it is needed if the topic is a tedious one, the article poorly developed, etc. "Sexy" articles get all the "love". — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 13:52, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Re your point about expert editors quitting because they don't get their own way, no-one in this thread has used this argument, so I'm not quite sure why you're attacking it. As it happens, I agree that it would be a thoroughly bad argument. I'm certainly not going to be persuaded by people who say that if you don't do what I want I'm going to leave. (The only editor I know to have quit recently because they didn't get what they wanted from a dispute is Noetica, a MOS regular, whose departure I greatly regret because of the expertise he or she brought.)

Where we differ is that I believe that the MOS has become too complex, too prescriptive, too contentious, too strident, for it to fulfil its important role in Wikipedia, and I think that there is a growing consensus in support of this view. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:32, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm refuting the "expert editors quit because they don't get their way" nonsense because the those who refuse to accept MOS consensus against species capitalization have used that bogus argument consistently for 8 years running. It's a cornerstone of their argument, and it's being echoed, not very clearly here, above with sentiments like "[MOS] is not [on this point] respectful to those editors who choose one style rather than another", i.e. based on what they do in some journals, and "I...want to see respect for editors who work in different areas" (i.e. see MOS agree with what they prefer to do in their specialist journals), and "when the MOS prescribes to experts what they must call the things in their field, that goes too far" (which isn't what MOS is doing – this "I can't tell the difference between a name and the way the font the name is presented in is styled" pretense is silly and transparent. That last one was followed by "The Real World has already decided how to name things, and Wikipedia ought to follow suit rather than imposing arbitrary rules not used elsewhere", which is the real "cherry-picking" of sources going on here, since it ignores the fact that almost all published sources lower-case the common names of species of everything; the "imposing arbitrary rules not used elsewhere" is the perfect nutshell description of the dogged insistence on capitalization of common names of birds species (always) and two kinds of insect species (if you feel like it). I brought up my "experts aren't really leaving over this" bit, however, because of your statement, "You can't, for example, use the general argument that academics have to accept journal guidelines to say that editors have to accept any particular guideline in the MOS", which has the latent implication that because a) if an academic demands to capitalize and a journal won't let them, the academic has to give in on that point, or vote with their feet to another journal, then b) "therefore" MOS recommending against this capitalization means academics will vote with their feet by quitting Wikipedia, a proposition for which there is no actual evidence at all, or write how MOS tells them to write, which isn't true either since IAR is policy; they just have to stop editwarring about it.

Noetica didn't quit because he didn't get what he wanted; he quit for the reason I've considered it myself – he was falsely accused of disruptive behavior he did not commit, by an admin who still refuses to acknowledge his error, and whom the "police brotherhood" types in the increasingly elitist "admin community" refuse to overturn. He left because he felt that the Wikipedia administration system was being purposefully permitted to personally abuse him and censor him, without any recourse. The discussion about this at WP:ARCA#Clarification request: Discretionary sanctions appeals procedure actually overall sides with Noetica's interpretation without actually saying so (the Arbs mostly agree that such an admin action has to have a clear appeal path and that it has not heretofore).

Yes, you've made it very clear that you think MOS is too prescriptive, etc. That is something for you to create a higher-level discussion about, even a proposal to change MOS and MOS's approach. Trying to effectuate such a change, sideways, by filibustering the synching of MOSCAPS to MOS is not the way to do that, and borders on WP:POINTy. The problem with the idea that there's a "growing consensus" that MOS is too prescriptive is that you can't actually point to it. If there really were such a consensus, MOS would not read the way it does, because there is no way to prevent anyone from editing here. All you can actually point to is that some individuals, and once in a while handfuls of editors who act as blocs, get worked up about something in MOS, and if they fail to gain consensus for their own special way, then blame MOS and MOS regulars for being unreasonable. WP:CONSENSUS doesn't work that way, and really all that's happened is that consensus did not agree with those people on that point. A gaggle of people who didn't get what they want about totally disparate style matters, from typesetters' quotation to species capitalization to hyphens instead of dashes to linked and autoformatted dates, do not make a consensus that MOS is too anything. Random individuals and little special interest groups that separately believe that it should be legal to have tigers as housepets, not come to complete stops at stop signs, and pay only half their taxes, etc., but without all agreeing with each other on all of these points, does not mean there is a consensus against the laws they live under, nor that something is wrong with the system that generated it or the people regularly participating in that system. This is called the fallacy of composition, the supposition that a quality one has identified in X (e.g. an alleged problem in some particular MOS rule[s] or national law[s] and/or an alleged problem in the fact that changing it/them is meeting resistance) is necessarily also a quality of something comprised of X (e.g. MOS or your national legal system). On the particular point at issue, all over Wikipedia, across all of biology, capitalization is being readily abandoned with no argument, and considerable relief. Disputes about species capitalization have now very rare here. This is clear evidence that there is in fact not a "growing consensus" against MOS being prescriptive about this, but the exact opposite. All of this is really a side point. The issue actually before us here is whether or not MOS:CAPS must stop contradicting MOS, nothing more nothing less. Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy, yes, it does. You are making an argument in favor of changing MOS and changing the actual nature of MOS. Different discussion, and not responsive to this one. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 20:27, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

You make the point I was making very clearly, namely that part of the issue is a lack of respect. I think you need to read carefully what you have written, and consider its tone: handfuls of editors who act as blocs, "police brotherhood" types in the increasingly elitist "admin community", A gaggle of people who didn't get what they want. I could equally well say that what I perceived when I first came to the MOS talk pages was a group of editors who acted as a bloc; who were increasingly elitist; and who resorted to ad hominem arguments when they did not get what they want.

To return to your starting point: it's clearly undesirable that the main MOS is not consistent with MOS:CAPS. So instead of trying to force MOS:CAPS to conform to the main MOS (which generally summarizes what its more detailed subpages say), work on more consensual wording which would get the wider support needed for the MOS to be effective. Study the serious points some of us are trying to make and respond to them, not to straw man arguments.

One such point is this. Where there are strong views favouring one style rather than another, even if those views are held by a minority, the approach generally taken within Wikipedia is accommodation and tolerance of difference between articles (but not within them). Why is the capitalization of common names different? Why is it ok to have widely varying referencing styles between articles, varying spelling and syntax based the variety of English chosen (I am even allowed my favoured Oxford English spelling, which is a real minority preference), but not ok to have different styles of capitalization for common names in articles when editors have strong preferences and some arguments to support them? Why pick on the capitalization of common names? It makes no sense to me.

Anyway, I'm repeating points I've made before, and I think you've nicely made one of mine. So I've nothing more to add to this thread. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:46, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

The perennial bird names capitalization thing

This discussion was refactored out of the above discussion, about the insects-related contradiction of MOS by MOSCAPS, as it is off-topic there. There is no conflict between these two guidelines with regard to birds.

I agree that MOS needs to have more oomph to it as a deciding factor on what we do 'round here, and for the most part it is sensible, but you [SMcCandlish] cherry-picking sources to carry your argument is getting tiresome. If you argue about a few birds editors holding up one opinion, I could equally argue it is a handful of editors who for the most part aren't even interested in editing about birds and instead camp out and stake ownership around MOS and periodically raise this as an argument...they are proper names which you seem to conveniently forget or overlook. Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:33, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

You've been making this "common names of species are proper names" assertion for years, and no one's buying it, not now, not this time last year when the argument last flared up at MOS, and not in 2008. Simply reiterating the assertion doesn't change the fact that MOS rejected the notion over 5 years ago that common names of species are capitalized proper names, and the entire project has agreed and moved on except somewhere between 12 and 20 editors, almost all of them in one project, but not representing anything close to a majority of its participants. External style and grammar guides do not support the idea either. You can lash out at me personally about this all you want to, but that's not going to magically make consensus change here. NB: I do actually edit bird articles, and even worked substantively on the bird naming conventions text at WP:BIRDS, but that's a fallacious argument anyway, a WP:SSF argument - "you're not a birds editor so your opinion about how encyclopedic style applies is invalid any time birds are involved; MOS doesn't apply because we prefer what ornithology journals do." That position fails nonsense tests on at least three different levels. I'm not the one cherry-picking. I simply observed published proof that ornithology journals are not in lockstep in favor of capitalizing as is so often claimed. You're the one cherry picking, in refusing to acknowledge that outside of ornithology (which is proven to actually be open to lower case anyway), virtually no one supports the capitalization when referring to birds (or anything else). Not in more general science journals (only one exception ever found to date, in all of English-language academic publishing, in 8 years of recurrent debates here), not in journals in other fields even when ornithology is the topic, and not in the vast majority of mainstream sources like newspapers and magazines, dictionaries and other encyclopedias. Even by a simplistic "follow the sources" rubric, capitalization is out because it is basically never, ever used except in a WP:JARGONistic way in specialist publications, and it is a style that is not recommended by any major style/grammar guides. More importantly, it was rejected by consensus at MOS over five years ago; this consensus has been extremely stable, and has been resulting in the steady and virtually argument-free lowercasing of the rest of the common names of species on Wikipedia. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 12:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

The issue of the Journal of Ornithology in which that article appeared contains 16 articles whose titles include common names of bird species – 4 of them use lower case, 12 are capitalized. In the latest issue it's 1:19. It would seem that this journal leaves the choice to authors, and a large majority of them choose to capitalize. The claim that this journal permits capitalization is thus true, far from the "big lie" you claim it is. (You should retract that.) Kanguole 00:27, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Just needed a wording tweak from "permit" to "require". The "big lie" in this debate has been the oft-made claim that capitalization is universal in ornithology. It's neither universally supported by ornithology publishers nor by working ornithologists, and is near-universally rejected in other fields specifically, and in science publishing generally, and in general publishing more broadly, all of which myself and others have proven every time the debate pops up. The perennial attempts at WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT are never going to make these facts go away. Honestly, neither I nor anyone else I know of has actually bothered to go look at the rest of the ornithology journals and find more examples, since it's not really necessary (any "If A then B" claim is invalidated by a single showing of A not necessitating B), but you can be sure there are plenty more cases of ornithology journals not capitalizing. I and others have previously provided evidence of ornithology journals publishing ornithologists sharply condemning the capitalization; and of course articles in major but broader journals that ornithologists publish in not using such capitalization (pretty much ever); and info on similar debates in other fields with capitalization of common names being condemned for undermining the field's credibility, unduly "venerating" artificial species distinctions, and violating the KISS/least astonishment principle for no palpable gain; and other fields of zoology publishing explicit conventions against such capitalization, for the same reasons; and so on. I'm sure I'll end up re-citing all of it again when it eventually goes to WP:RFARB or enough of the entrenched find something else to do and stop WP:FILIBUSTERing.

But birds aren't the topic here now, above, with regard to the MOS and MOS:CAPS contradiction. The tendentiousness on the "we get to capitalize bird names or we'll go on editorial strike" front has worn everyone down so much for so many years that we're simply working around it like an inoperable but relatively benign tumor, ignoring it and moving on as best we're able, as long as it doesn't spread again. As what can accurately be described as triage, both MOS and MOS:CAPS agree on explicitly advising editors to stay away from bird name conflicts because of the intractability of the debate. They do not conflict on this point, only on the old idea of dragging insects into it, too. Again, this idea was rejected by MOS 5 years ago, and MOS:CAPS was simply never cleaned up to reflect this; that is all the above discussion is about. It has nothing to do with birds. And really, everyone is moving on. Virtually no mammal names are capitalized here any longer. Fewer and fewer plant articles do it, and very few ever did it to begin with. The reptile and amphibian pages are progressively cleaning up. Hardly any insect articles do it any longer. And guess what? No one's head explodes. No one quit Wikipedia in huff over it, or threatened repeatedly to do so or to organize a project-wide editorial sit-in, or tried to recruit editors to start a competing e-encyclopedia project over the matter, or canvassed to derail a straw poll at MOS, or hijacked WP:DRN as a wikipolitical attack platform on the matter, or any other disruptive nonsense. I can only think of one project in which some participants have engaged in such battlegrounding behavior – without the support of the vast majority of people in the project they presume to act as if they represent, I might add – when it comes to capitalization of species common names. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 12:18, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I'll say what I've said before: 1. Wikipedia is written for general audiences, so it should use general English rules. 2. The specific need of ornithology journals that inspired the capitalization in the first place—the need to distinguish a White-throated Thrush from any thrush with a white throat—is not a serious problem here, so we don't need to bother with the ornithology journal solution. Frankly, I wish we were that sensible more often. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:40, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually in most cases we don't know why sources capitalise or not. SMcCandlish speculates that it's for emphasis; you speculate that it's for a different reason. I think that it's sometimes because writers treat these names as proper nouns. It may also be because the scientific name always uses a capital, at least for the first word, so it "looks right" to do the same for common names. (The style in which the first word only is capitalised is surprisingly common in WP articles before copy-editing.) Another reason is one of those given in an article in BSBI News which discusses why the Botanical Society of the British Isles capitalises the common names of plants, namely the oddity of names of the form "lesser Blogg's periwinkle" where people's names appear apparently randomly capitalized in the middle of a name. The fact is that, except in this rare example where capitalisation is explicitly discussed, we don't know why most sources capitalize or not, and we shouldn't use speculations as arguments any more than we would in the content of an article. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:55, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

It's not speculation. One of the bird fans provided a source supporting his side of the argument; an article about writing ornithology articles said "we do this for this reason." Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:33, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

What the MOS has said in the past and a proposal

The claim is sometimes made that the main MOS has been unchanged in relation to the capitalization of common names for a very long time (five years is sometimes mentioned or implied). As I wasn't around then, I've tended to believe this. However, it's simply not true. For instance, in March 2010 it said:

Common (vernacular) names of flora and fauna should be written in lower case (oak, lion). There are some exceptions:
2. For particular groups of organisms, there are particular rules of capitalization based on current and historic usage among those who study the organisms; for example, official common names of birds.
3. In a very few cases, a set of officially established common names is recognized only within a country or a geographic region. Those common names may be capitalized according to local custom, but not all editors will have access to the references needed to support these names; in such cases, using the general recommendation is also acceptable.

By September 2010 this had been reduced to:

Common names shall not normally be capitalized (e.g. maple tree or zebra).

In September 2011 it said simply:

Common names should not normally be capitalized (maple tree, zebra); as an exception to this general rule, the official common names of birds are capitalized (Bald Eagle).

This wording lasted until 4 January 2012. Then SMcCandlish began changing it. After which it went backwards and forwards for a while. On 10 January 2012 it said:

Common (vernacular) names do not have each word capitalized, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, but Przewalski's horse). As an exception to this general rule, WP:BIRDS follows the consensus in the ornithology literature to capitalize common names of birds (Bald Eagle). Use a consistent style for common names within an article. Create redirects from alternative capitalization forms of article titles.

The present wording, more-or-less, dates only from around February 2012, although the rapid changing back and forward around then makes it difficult to tell.

I cannot discover any consensus at the talk page on which the present wording is based, although as ever the archives are long and difficult to search if you weren't involved so don't know quite what to look for.

What is absolutely clear is that quite different wordings have persisted for at least as long as the present one, which thus does not have any special claim to a long-lasting consensus.

Proposal

It's clearly not right that the main MOS and MOS:CAPS should be inconsistent. However, there's no consensus to whether to fix this by changing the main MOS (e.g. by returning to earlier versions of the wording) or by changing MOS:CAPS.

I suggest that we avoid the inconsistency by making the main MOS text much shorter and cross-referencing to MOS:CAPS. Then we need only argue there about the right wording. Based on the 2010–2011 wording, I suggest:

"Common (vernacular) names do not have each word capitalized, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, but Przewalski's horse). For possible exceptions see MOS:CAPS#Common names."

This wording is not intended to favour one "side" or the other in the dispute over whether any common names should be capitalized. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:00, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

I would oppose this proposal. Given that this is one of the most perennially discussed MOS issues, bumping it off the main page seems like a bad idea. Tdslk (talk) 19:32, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

So could you say what you would do instead to resolve the inconsistency? Is there another way forward? Peter coxhead (talk) 14:57, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

In general, to resolve an inconsistency between MOS and one of its subpages, I would change the subpage to conform with the main MOS. If I were an editor who felt that the subpage was correct, I would discuss here making changes to the main page. I haven't been following the debate at MOSCAPS though, to be honest. It's not on my watchlist, and once I heard that there was yet another lengthy discussion of capitalizing common names, I just, somehow, never got around to diving in, but perhaps I should if I can find the free time. Tdslk (talk) 17:32, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

I tend to think the reverse. As in article space, the main information should be at the much longer article with a summary of it in the top MOS page. This is how the {{main}} template normally works.

I also have a problem because the history of the pages seems to be that they were consistent, as shown above; the MOS was changed around Feb. 2012 making it inconsistent with MOS:CAPS, not as a result of a consensus reached here at that time (so far as I can see); now it's proposed that MOS:CAPS should be changed to be consistent with the changed MOS, whereas the obvious step is to return to the previous wording which was consistent. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:22, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Putting all the rules on just one page makes them easier to find. Don't make editors dig through six and seven pages to find the answer to one question. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:35, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

This is obviously sensible if the "rules" can be reduced, to say, three or four paragraphs. Separate pages exist in those cases where they can't – writing about living things requires understanding very complex rules about scientific names, for example. So what do you propose in such cases? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:56, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Propose adding new "MOS:NOCURLY" shortcut

I'd like to add a shortcut to Wikipedia:Manual of Style called "MOS:NOCURLY". I would define an anchor to the bold pseudo-heading "Quotation characters" (in the MOS:QUOTEMARKS section). I've recently noticed how commonly curly quotes are being used in articles. Converting to straight quotes is a well-defined mini-task and it would be convenient to have a nice shortcut link to explain why the edit was being made. The "MOS:QUOTEMARKS" section is rather big and isn't quite specific enough. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:00, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Curly quotes (“”, ‘’) are not verbotten, merely not recommended. The accent marks (`´) however, are not allowed. Perhaps MOS:NOACCENTQUOTE and MOS:CURLYQUOTE would be better links to this section, as they would reflect the policy, instead of imposing an interpretation not supported by the actual MOS consensus. VanIsaac_{WS Vex}^contribs 20:38, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The "not recommended" vs "forbidden" difference left me uncertain and was one reason I started a discussion rather than just being bold. I couldn't think of a good name for the shortcut. "MOS:CURLYQUOTE" might be okay but it seems to advocate curly rather than not. Still trying to think of a better name but I'll switch to wanting "MOS:CURLYQUOTE" for now. Jason Quinn (talk) 21:37, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

USA abbreviation note?

Do you think it appropriate to indicate that US/USA currently (post US Civil War more or less) takes a singular verb rather than the plural verb it took in for about the first 75 years?Naraht (talk) 15:00, 22 February 2013 (UTC)

Are there actual arguments about this you can point to? If people aren't editwarring to use the plural, which I think only a non-native speaker would do these days, it would probably be WP:CREEP topped with a bit of WP:BEANS to even bring it up in MOS. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 10:00, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Good point. Definitely WP:BEANS.Naraht (talk) 19:41, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

It's a bit late, but I'm thirding this one. Unless people are fighting over it, we don't need a rule about it. If you brought this up because you feel that the information is important and deserves to be on Wikipedia, then please note that it is included in the Wikipedia article United States of America. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:36, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Hm. 'The USs are...' I like the sound of that. — LlywelynII 22:44, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Discussion mentioning wp:engvar

There is a discussion mentioning wp:engvar (as well as wp:commonname) here. It may interest some followers of this page.--Epeefleche (talk) 00:55, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Help:Introduction to the Manual of Style

How up to date is the Help:Introduction to the Manual of Style? It will soon see a modest increase in traffic like with Wikipedia:A Primer for newcomers and Wikipedia:Plain and simple. Was wondering if all could take a fast look at the Help:MOS make sure its all ok. Moxy (talk) 07:13, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Just glanced through that page. I think it could use some work, particularly the fourth page, which seems plainly incomplete. (It says, "This page in a nutshell: It's all in the details, and there's lots of details, get yourself a cuppa to read this with," but then it's only four incomplete bullets that have no accompanying explanation.) At the same time, I realize the goal is not to freak out new editors with billions of rules like MOS:LQ or WP:NBSP that may be confusing and unfamiliar to them. Surely there is a happy medium, though, which I imagine that the MOS intro is intended to communicate; I don't think it's effectively fulfilling this role. But I'm away on vacation at the moment.... Wanted to leave this comment here anyway. AgnosticAphid talk 14:36, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

As for page 4 - was not sure what to do... so I simply linked the main MOS pages. This way readers can for themselves read up on the specific MOS that is related to topics of interests to them.Moxy (talk) 05:28, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Nice work by whoever thought of this, conceptually. I do wish it hadn't been launched without a thorough checking through by editors. I see, at a glance, quite a lot that needs fixing. Tony (talk) 08:53, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Was made in 2010. would love to see you jump in on this Tony. Was actually going to PM you about incorporating your User:Tony1/Beginners' guide to the Manual of Style into the sections (lets move your user space info over into this main space tutorial). the modest increase in views has already started.Moxy (talk)

Is page four of Help:Introduction to the Manual of Style supposed to say "For a comprehensive disruptive directory of all the pages which make up the Wikipedia Manual of Style, see Manual of Style contents"?[[1]]"Disruptive" doesn't seem quite right to me, but what do I know? This is an introduction to a world that tells people to use an "en-dash" for "Mexican-American War" (sorry cannot be bothered to type the non-existent key for that one just on this talk page) but a hyphen for "Franco-Prussian War", so anything is possible.Smeat75 (talk) 02:15, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

LOL good eye all my fault LOL ... descriptiveMoxy (talk) 02:22, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Linking to dictionary entries

I am personally opposed to linking to Wiktionary entries for "hard" words. I think it disrupts the text and potentially misleads (appears to give ordinary English words an encyclopedic status), and I think the decision about which words readers might or might not understand is too subjective anyway. I believe that there should be a global assumption that if readers encounter a word that they do not understand then they will look it up in a dictionary themselves. Is there any official policy on this? 86.176.210.26 (talk) 02:04, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

See these search results.—Wavelength (talk) 03:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I can't say that I'd put much trust in the reliability of Wiktionary; and didn't Sue Gardner recently emphasise that the movement's sites are not regarded as reliable sources? Tony (talk) 08:55, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

As Wavelength's search results show, linking to Wiktionary is recommended all over the place, but like Tony, I'm doubtful as to its reliability. For "technical terms" related to the topic of the article, it's surely much better to link to another WP article, if the term is not explained in the article itself. As for "hard words" other than technical terms, if the editor thinks they need linking to a dictionary, the best solution is not to use them. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:53, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

I would certainly not want articles to depend on wiktionary, and in general topics should not be defined by dictionaries. If an unusual term is used then it should be explained inline. I don't see the point in also linking to wiktionary and it isn't suitable as a citation. Linking in the external section to the wiktionary definition of the article name seems fine to me. Dmcq (talk) 10:54, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

(OP) Well, Wikipedia is not deemed a reliable source either AFAIK, yet plenty of Wikipedia articles link to other Wikipedia articles in order to explain terms etc. If Wiktionary is deemed part of the same "family" then I don't really see the difference on that score. By the way, I've remembered a real example of the issue I had in mind, which is at Vieques, Puerto Rico, where someone has added a Wiktionary link to the word "parlous". I don't think this is desirable or good practice; what do others think? 86.161.61.38 (talk) 14:07, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

That is indeed a good example of when Wiktionary should not be used. When perfectly good more common words are available, they should be used. Incidentally, the format of that link was non-standard. It was in the format "parlous" as an external link. More appropriate would be parlous which is an interwiki link. I think occasional links to Wiktionary are sometimes helpful when an uncommon word is the most appropriate and there is no relevant Wikipedia article, however when every browser I know of allows the user to left click on a word then search the web for it, it's not hard to find the meaning of a word. Thanks, SchreiberBike (talk) 19:36, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Personally I am in favour of links to helpful sites whenever in doubt, but really... For one thing the inappropriate format really made that link disruptively egregious. I suppose that where a word is appropriate and just might not be familiar to all readers is a bad place to link. I would have removed this link myself, except that it would have disrupted this discussion; I would not howl if any of you folks get bold and clear it up.

However, the question of when or whether at all to use Wk is rather more vexed. I think that the foregoing negative remarks, though not baseless, are a bit out of line. Like Wp, and for similar reasons, Wk is not infallible, and is most valuable to users who can read it critically, but nothing is prfect. There are lumps in it. Peter's remark is tempting, but I am not satisfied with it by a long chalk. There are some borderline-technical words and usages that do belong in text, but do need clarification, and there are a lot of disruptive wikilawyers who revel in complaining about short articles and claiming that they are really dictionary material, even when they are talking through their hats; so what is one to do when a word, typically a technical or semi-technical term relevant and necessary to the subject and context, but whose explanation is not appropriate to the article, really needs to be linked? Discussion of such a term can be far too long and off-topic for inclusion, but too much like dictionary work for a full Wp article. In such cases I have on occasion either created a desired Wk entry myself, or augmented an existing one, and linked to it. JonRichfield (talk) 06:50, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Jon, do you mean "a desired Wk entry" in your last sentence? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:24, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Whoops! Sorry! Have corrected accordingly. Thanks. JonRichfield (talk) 08:32, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects" has instructions about adding links to sister projects. For contextual links to dictionary definitions, other dictionaries are available: "word".

—Wavelength (talk) 16:54, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

What you say is of course incontestable, but I am uncertain of the intended sense. I may have missed something but I cannot offhand see any problem in general concerning linking to sister projects. Could you please elaborate? As for your link to other dictionaries, it certainly looks like a useful site in its own right, but I do not see its applicability in terms of linking. We can link seamlessly to Wiktionary and back, whereas, however powerful the facility of having dozens of dictionaries available on-call, selection of which one to try first is distinctly disruptive to reading the passage that prompted the reference to a dictionary. Certainly in comparison to a Wiktionary link. There are necessarily exceptions of course, but it is not as though the typical reference to Wiktionary requires verifiability in the same sense as an un-cited entry in Wikipedia. If I were for hypothetical example to claim that sewerage in Seweweekspoort is in a parlous state, I would have to supply a citation to support the claim, and very properly too. If on the other hand I were to assume it necessary (unreasonably, as I think we all agree here) to assist any reader who might not know what parlous means, by linking to the definition in Wiktionary, it is not as though one's first assumption might be: "good gracious am I supposed to take the word of Wiktionary that parlous really means 'dire, terrible, appalling'? This definitely entails a requirement for citation of the shorter Oxford." I suspect that I have misread your intentions; if we are at cross purposes, could you please say more. JonRichfield (talk) 08:17, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

My post at 16:54, 7 March 2013 (UTC) was straightforward and emotionally neutral. I did not express any intentions in this matter. Editors are welcome to decide whether to apply either one or both or neither of those two procedures.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:23, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Hidden infoboxes

Are collapsed/ hidden infoboxes acceptable? Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#Hidden infoboxes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Related to this, I think we need some help at Wikipedia:Accessibility dos and don'ts. Giano seems to think that it's really, really, really important to link to MOS:COLLAPSE there using a URL rather than a regular wikilink, and keeps removing the formatting. MOS:COLLAPSE says this:

Collapsible sections or cells may be used in tables that consolidate information covered in the main text, and in navboxes.

(That's a direct copy-and-pate out of the edit window for that section, including the original formatting.) Giano keeps removing the italics, and I can't help but assume that it's related to Giano's contention that "Collapsible sections or cells may be used in tables" means "Entire tables, including entire infoboxes as seen in the dispute about Montacute House, rather than just "sections or cells" may be collapsed." So it'd be nice to have some help, at least with the URL vs internal wikilink question. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:30, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Hyphen vs endash in spaced compound adjective

Help me understand. Should a hyphen be used instead of an endash in these examples: United States–related articles, Yellowstone National Park–related articles? If it is a suffix, it should, right? Marcus Qwertyus (talk) 23:17, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

To facilitate archive searches in the future, I am revising the heading of this section from Hyhen vs endash in spaced compound adjective to Hyphen vs endash in spaced compound adjective, in harmony with WP:TPOC, point 13 (Section headings).

—Wavelength (talk) 23:21, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Given that in your examples the first part ("United States" and "Yellowstone National Park") is modifying the spaced "related articles" then strictly it should be an en dash according to the MoS. But it looks rather ugly whatever style of dash is used, so this is good advice: "Use this punctuation when there are compelling grounds for retaining the construction. For example, from a speech that is simply transcribed and cannot be re-worded; or in a heading where it has been judged most natural as a common name. Otherwise recasting is better." I'd much prefer "Articles related to the United States" for instance. George Ponderevo (talk) 01:06, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

"Strictly", we should follow MOS:ENDASH, which says "3. Instead of a hyphen, when applying a prefix (but not a suffix) to a compound that includes a space." So use a hyphen. Or re-open the discussion about perhaps changing this guidance to include suffixes, as some styles do. I'd support that, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 16:34, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Are you sure you've read that guideline correctly? It seems to say the exact opposite of what you appear to think it does. George Ponderevo (talk) 17:18, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

The examples make the intent clear, as does the version before someone added "(but not a suffix)". Dicklyon (talk) 16:30, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

So you have misunderstood then, I thought so. George Ponderevo (talk) 16:32, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

OK, I misunderstand; so please explain and help me out. Dicklyon (talk) 16:37, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Options for clearer attribution?

We should consider more visible and useful attribution on all pages and images. For pages: including a list of top contributors in the footer of the page. For media: including a small "Name/Org" credit just below or running up the side of the image, as is done in most publications. This could link to the commons detail page, or to a footnote, or to the wikipedia article about the creator or org [if they have one].

This came up recently in discussion with an archivist from the Library of Congress, who noted that we don't attribute either photographers or the collections holding their work in a way that meets their standards. And that most readers of our projects have no idea that 'detail pages' exist. This is a gap in our presentation options that we have gotten used to, but it does push the boundary of what "attribution" normally means. – SJ + 00:40, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

The fact that we don't credit the copyright holders of photos on the pages they appear is patently ridiculous. It never made sense and is legally indefensible. Every photo should have a copyright credit. —Designate (talk) 00:44, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

You may wish to tone down your comments a bit and research the miles of previous rational discussions (rather than unsupported assertions) that led to current WP:CREDITS consensus. I agree that it's not "obvious" where to find the attribution, but it's even easier to find it for images ("click on it") than for text (click on "history", binary-search through previous revisions' diffs to find the change), and our actual article content is no freer (and sometimes even less free, compared to PD images) of the attribiution requirement (CC-BY-SA).

We do have "Page information" and "Cite this page" links in the Toolbox, both of which have some tools for finding all or top contributors. And also list the transcluded templates (whose contributors are just as important for attribution as the page itself). Maybe that part of those targets could also have a generated list of links to the embedded media? A one-stop shop for all attribution information related to "everything on this page", with a huuuuuuuge note "check each item below for detailed information about it". DMacks (talk) 01:23, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

Hyphen versus en dash in acronyms

Let's say there is a term, e.g. liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry, that we agree should have an en dash rather than a hyphen. Would an en dash still be used in the acronymn, LC–MS? Or would we only need a hyphen there, LC-MS? Is this worth clarifying in the MoS? –CWenger (^ • @) 22:50, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

To facilitate archive searches in the future, I am revising the heading of this section from Hyphen versus en dash in acronymns? to Hyphen versus en dash in acronyms, in harmony with WP:TPOC, point 13 (Section headings).

—Wavelength (talk) 23:13, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Oops! Thanks. –CWenger (^ • @) 23:30, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I've seen both. Since hyphens would normally be omitted when making an acronym, dashes could be replaced by hyphens. So "LC-MS" should be sufficient. "LC–MS" might suggest a combination of the acronyms "LC" and "MS". But I'm not terribly familiar with this. — kwami (talk) 06:17, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

LC and MS are both analytical techniques that are combined to form a more powerful technique LC-/–MS. So in some ways it is a combination of two acronyms. But I think it's also an acronym in its own right. –CWenger (^ • @) 20:26, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Commonality: Indian currency number conventions

We touched upon this a month or two back, and on that basis I added an example to the section. There were no objections raised. I have also been following through on that front by targeting the removal of crores and lakhs whilst making other style changes to Indian articles. Just today, I have had what appears to be a serious objection from a 'local' editor who argues that because there is a {{INR Convert}} template that converts the lakh or crore denominated amount into US$, that would obviate the need for removing said units. For info, my edits for the most part (examples: 12) change the parameterisation from lakhs/crores to millions/billions (permalink to discussion here). Views please? -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 06:35, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

India-related articles are not just for Indian readers; they are for all first- and second-language speakers of English, throughout the world. Crore and lakh are little known outside the subcontinent, and I believe they are not helpful in the main prose of an article—rather that they are distractions. By contrast, in Indian-language Wikipedias they are highly appropriate. Tony (talk) 06:51, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Is the "local editor" mentioned here, me? Anyway, I only got one issue to clarify: A film's budget should be written as how it appears in the source. Eg: this reliable source [2] states that the Indian film Karnan (1964) was made on a budget of ₹40 lakh (US$50,000), it did not mention ₹4 million (US$50,000) anywhere. even if both are the same, it is not instantly obvious or verifiable. but if the source had stated 4 million, the fact could have been added. Kailash29792 (talk) 11:44, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

But it is instantly verifiable; the relationship is not a variable one, and the conversion falls under the auspices of routine calculations that don't need sourcing, just as any simple multiplicative conversion. As crores and lakhs are typically unknown to those outside South Asia, while billions et al are known and understood in South Asia, we should use the commonly understood system.oknazevad (talk) 19:01, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Oknazevad. -sche (talk) 04:34, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we shouldn't be using crores and lakhs, as almost any non-Indian reader would have no idea what they are, and we should use the million-billion system that is more widely known. Canuck^{89 (have words with me)} 06:37, March 16, 2013 (UTC)

This is like the German symbol ß. Write the word with a double-s and provide the correct variety-specific spelling in the lead. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:19, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm. I've been following this discussion for several days, and I find it to be a fascinating policy discussion and learning opportunity. Based on all of the sources that I've reviewed, the use of the terms "lakh" and "crore" are commonly used in Indian English, probably more commonly used than "million" and "billion." The best solution may not be as simple as just dismissing the most common Indian English numbering conventions, and requiring that Wikipedia articles written in Indian English must use the "millions" and "billions" uniformly used in American and British English. The discussion presents related issues:

(1) In the spirit of ENGVAR, do we not employ Indian English conventions in articles written in Indian English?

(2) To the extent particular Indian English conventions are not widely understood throughout the rest of the English-speaking world, how do we reconcile ENGVAR with the need for the easy understanding of our wider English-speaking audience?

Like Darkfrog, I'm looking to parallel situations for a solution. Normally, when we employ specialized vocabulary or abbreviations, we employ a parenthetical definition to clarify the meaning on first use. Perhaps, in deference to the 99+% of our readers who are not native or primary speakers of Indian English, we should use the more widely used terms. If so, then we should employ a parenthetical definition on first use of "millions" or "billions" to reconcile the Indian English use of lakhs and crores, or alternatively, we could insert an explanatory footnote on each use. I'm sure that there are other reasonable solutions, but whatever solution we choose for MOS, I think we need to acknowledge that lakhs and crores are the majority usage in Indian English, not millions and billions. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 15:06, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

The examples we've been talking about already all have parenthetical US dollar amount equivalents or for the most part. You seem to be suggesting that [every instance of]? the 'crore' ought to be retained out of respect for WP:ENGVAR. It can quite easliy be done by altering the template to give a third output irrespective of what the sources offer. That way, the advantage is that there will be at least one term that some people will understand or identify with. The drawback is that we have 50% extra clutter. So where we have 1 a busy infobox or 2 an article with a number of 'crores/lakhs' (whether in text or in running prose), we should retain them all, offer a translation into plain English, and in addition provide a US$ equivalent amount for easy reference. I'm not sure we need 'crore' to be defined or glossed more than once – just like we recommend repeated links or parenthetical acronyms to be employed with restraint. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 16:18, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

OC, of course the parentheticals with the U.S. dollar equivalents are helpful to American readers, but not so much to Indians who are English speakers. Lakh and crore are their most commonly used number conventions to describe high-value currency amounts. Yes, I am concerned about making infoboxes "busy" and over-complicating text where such rupee amounts are described. I'm not particularly fond of stating every currency amount three different ways. Nevertheless, if we are going to be consistent in our respect for the ENGVAR conventions, I think we need to reach some accommodation whereby the mostly commonly used Indian English number conventions are at least acknowledged in an article written in Indian English. If that's done with parentheticals or explanatory footnotes or by other means, well, I would suggest that we need to put on our thinking caps to figure out the best available means to that end, recognizing that any choice is going to be a compromise because no ideal solution is available. At the very least, I would suggest that we use explanatory footnotes to state the local rupee equivalents in lakhs and crores, thereby keeping the body text as simple as possible. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:10, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

As it's a major reserve currency, parenthetical US dollar equivalents are helpful to international readers (but yes, more helpful to American ones). Just a wild idea: maybe we could create a 'crore' template to the effect, along the lines of {{Contains Chinese text}}, and transclude in each one of the thousands or Indian-related articles. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:59, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR states 'Wikipedia tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English': wp:commonality is part of wp:engvar, so can't be supplanted by it. Logically, if wp:ties or wp:consistency were to trump wp:commonality, the latter should not exist at all. wp:ties and wp:consistency should only apply when wp:commonality cannot be met. Kevin McE (talk) 20:53, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

It seems that "crore" means ten million and "lakh" means one hundred thousand, and I'm assuming that they're used like the word "dozen" or "million." If we're talking about currency, though, then wouldn't such figures be rendered as numerals anyway? Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:33, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Then we get a system that causes no end of confusion to unfamiliar users (read 'non-Indian'). As was observed above, the relationship between the lakh/crore and million/billion is fixed, and that makes me really wonder just how far we need to go to accommodate this in every Indian article. But I wouldn't be here if I didn't note the concern from our at least three of our Indian colleagues on my talk page. Perhaps the use of a footnote would be best; maybe we could fall back on MOSNUM, and add a footnote or a single parenthetical per article explaining what a 'crore' or 'lakh' was. However, even should we agree that WP:ENGVAR really did apply to this case, the different use to which the comma separator is put is definitely incompatible with our conventions. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:28, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

And the use of inconsistent counting words for main and converted currencies? Best to avoid, don't you think? Otherwise, perhaps we should be converting to items such as US$1.2 lakh. Tony (talk) 03:20, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

• Well, I don't think there really are any grounds for exempting something like that, or "a population of 1.2 lakh" either (and I have seen a few of those ex.1). Then there are editors who write "1.2 crore", taking as read that it naturally means Rupees! -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 08:02, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

And another problem I have is the extraordinary degree of precision that is often used (via some template, ahem) when converting currencies: 302.5 million (US$5.51 million). This level of precision is very misleading, since the currency relationship between India and everyone else changes on a daily basis in the range of that level. Tony (talk) 03:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

• Agreed, I don't know exactly what rounding accuracy is used in the template. Perhaps it can be defaulted to -1 significant places. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 06:36, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I would like to make a comment here as a non-Indian who regularly edits Indian cinema articles. I had no idea what crore and lakh meant initially, but the otherwise English language sources nearly always list figures using these constructs. It would be more work for me to translate to thousands, millions, and billions in my head rather than using the sourced figures and letting templates such as INRConvert do the translation work to a more recognizable currency. I would find myself pausing much longer and working harder trying to verify vandalized figures if they were written this way. BollyJeff | talk 14:40, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

• I certainly see the problem. I'm doing much the same thing by using a script, and sometimes my translations fail (usually because the excess precision adopted in the figures – for example figs to 3dp) and have to do the calc in my head. If maintaining that translation is the only issue, I think it should be relatively easy for the template output to be adjusted. If it can translate Rs 990 lakhs and Rs 990 crores into USD using the prevailing rate, it should be easily made to translate these and output into millions and billions of Rupees at the same time. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 15:06, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

You mean enter the figure in crores in the template and it shows it in millions? That would solve the problem for adding new figures, but still require a bit more for verification (you would have to look at the raw markup code instead of the printed text). One more thing. There are some instances, especially for old films, where today's exchange rate would be very inaccurate, so you would not want to use a conversion template at all (unless it can be made to just show millions and not convert to $). Overall, I am still not a fan of changing it from how it is today, but I guess I can figure it out soon enough if it must be done. BollyJeff | talk 16:58, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of using dynamic templates for the purpose of currency translations. These really ought only to be used for amounts that are really current and updated periodically (such as GDP figures); static amounts, or amounts pertaining to a certain fixed period, should use a static rate (maybe average or closing rate for that year). I have modified WP:CURRENCY to encourage choosing an appropriate date/rate.

I have also created a template that could potentially be transcluded onto all Indian articles at my sandbox. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:30, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

List of style guide abbreviations

At 20:32, 8 February 2013 (UTC), I removed from this talk page a sentence linking to a page that had been deleted at at 22:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC). At 23:30, 19 March 2013 (UTC), I started the page "List of style guide abbreviations" as a replacement for that deleted page, and I invite editors to expand it. At 23:39, 19 March 2013 (UTC), I added to this talk page a sentence linking to the new page.
—Wavelength (talk) 23:41, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

British English dates

Johnxsmith made this edit, claiming that "British English ALWAYS places either st, nd, rd or th after the number in a date."

Let's look at some empirical evidence. From the ODNB biography of Winston Churchill:

The very first sentence says this:

Churchill, Sir Winston Leonard Spencer (1874–1965), prime minister, was born at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, the family home of the dukes of Marlborough, on 30 November 1874.

In the next paragraph it goes back to the marriage of his parents:

Jennie and Lord Randolph were married at the British embassy in Paris on 15 April 1874.

More:

Churchill delivered his maiden speech to the House of Commons on 18 February 1901.

and so it continues, eventually reaching his death:

In December he dined for the last time at the Other Club, sitting in silence but apparently knowing where he was. On 10 January he suffered another stroke and after lingering for a fortnight died at 28 Hyde Park Gate shortly after eight o'clock on the morning of Sunday 24 January 1965, seventy years to the day after the death of Lord Randolph.

Maybe the ODNB style is an example of a degenerate form of British English, but it is written and edited by British academics and very likely representative of the type of British English one expects to find in an encyclopaedia. --Hegvald (talk) 10:35, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I also notice that the BBC website and the paper copy of the Daily Telegraph newspaper use the plain date - i.e. without the st, nd, rd or th.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:42, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

As a claim, it's simply not true (the key point for British English of course is simply the order – ie the day preceding the month rather than the opposite, as usual in US English). The use or otherwise of th/st etc is a more minor and arbitrary style point that will vary between different British publishers. And here on WP, WP:DATEFORMAT holds against them. N-HH talk/edits 10:59, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Maybe this is a question more suitable for the reference desk, but I may as well ask it here as it is on-topic: Was Johnxsmith's claim true for any time in the past? --Hegvald (talk) 11:11, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd hazard a very unscientific guess that the use of st/th etc was more common in the past within British English than it is now but I'd be surprised if it's ever been universal, as was claimed. N-HH talk/edits 11:16, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't be surprised if it were universal, actually, at a time when we had y^e and a dozen other words in such a presentation (n^o is, I believe, as survivor). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:03, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I think the use of ordinal dates is quite common in RL, and it may even be taught in schools in the UK. But whether it's common or not is academic for us. Our convention is to eschew them. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 12:38, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Probably more important is that academic publishers in the UK always say no st, nd etc. It may have been the case in the past, but that would be the fairly distant past.--SabreBD (talk) 13:00, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

• th, nd, and rd have been confined to the dustbin all over—at least in the style guides, including those for government publications. Tony (talk) 13:20, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

This is something that we should leave up to local consensus at the article level (ie intentionally not make a rule about it). It isn't wrong to include th, nd, rd... neither is it wrong to omit them. As long as we are consistent within an article, there is no need to be consistent between articles. Blueboar (talk) 14:02, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

It is wrong, in any publication, to violate the rules set out in the style guide for that publication, whether it be a book being published by the University of Chicago Press, a journal article being published by the International Astronomical Union, an article in a newspaper that follows the Associated Press Stylebook, or a Wikipedia article that follows this guideline. Blueboar seems to be promoting the position that this guide is kind of like a style guide published by a university library that can offer some general hints, but must always defer to the course instructor for whatever style guide and special rules that instructor feels like adopting. Or maybe Blueboar accepts the idea that this guide does set encyclopedia-wide rules, but that this particular rule should be removed. So, Blueboar, which position do you advocate? Jc3s5h (talk) 15:01, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

It would be amusing if it were not so pathetic, to see this kind of niggling over trivialities in the fashion of 19th century <ahem> military drill specifications in a 21st <cough> century publication produced by intelligent, educated persons of good will and effective intention. BB has a good enough point. The rest of us should have good taste and good sense enough to know when to omit what isn't worth explicit legislation against flexibility, let alone prosecution. That way not only wikilawyerism, but wikiredtape lies. We all know the right way to write a date anyway: 2013 03 16. JonRichfield (talk) 2013 03 16, 15:15 (UTC)

Shall I interpret JonRichfield's post as a proposal to delete the Manual of Style? Do you see any value to manuals of style, or do you think Chicago Manual of Style, Associated Press Stylebook, and all their kin should go in the dustbin? Jc3s5h (talk) 16:20, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't dream of insulting Jc3s5h's good judgment by presuming to propose his choice of action in such matters; just one request though: whatever he does, please will he not claim that it was my idea, and if he cannot oblige me in that respect, then would he at least do me the courtesy of explaining which part of my posting he interpreted to mean anything of the kind. In fact of course, an alternative project of exactly the same magnitude and significance would be to double the size of the existing MOS by augmenting (as in Augean) it with comprehensive lists of strictures such as stating exactly when to use commas, forbidding diacritics and apostrophes, specifying standard abbreviations such as 4u, oK, or OTOH and where and when to capitalise them, explaining in which parity to write your s's and z's or their mirror images, and demanding split infinitives and dangling parts... parsnips, thingy... That sort of thing anyway. After all, if every deletion of a senselessly nit-picking obstruction is an evil, every added constraint must be a benefit. Simple logic, right?

If OTOH we speculate on the concept of a MOS intended to assist authors and editors in producing material of value, efficiency and even, by occasional good luck, of good taste as well, we might hazard a further speculation to the effect that redundant regulation is pernicious; it interferes with the reference to and comprehension of the body statutory (who the bleep would read through the MOS and memorise hundreds of gems of puerility, such as whether to superscript or subscript dates with sts and nds and the like, and heaven help us, where and when it was de rigeur and why, and if he did, how much time should he allocate to getting it right, rather than getting his material right?) It also is damaging in that disrespected regulation does nothing more useful than teach contempt for the rule book and any organisation associated with it.

You want a real proposal? See how slim you can make the MOS and still make it comprehensible and functional. Make it easy to read and easy to understand the underlying reasons for the rules; make sure that it includes some form of indication for what to ignore and what to do about editing disagreements. (I am not sure about that one, but it might be something along the lines of some arbitration mechanism. But I am sure you would be equal to a little challenge like that. And after that little tour de force, try making it a pleasure to read as well. And as for walking on water... Hmmm...) JonRichfield (talk) 2013 03 16, 18:46, (UTC)

It has been old fashioned to use "st" etc in UK business letters and legal contracts (ok many contracts are in old-fashioned language, but others are not) for a few decades now. Looking around my desk I see a dividend "Tax voucher", a "Deposit Fund" Fact sheet, a medical letter, a National Gallery departmental catalogue of 1970 etc, none of which use the suffixes. I think they began to disappear from after WWII, or maybe the 1960s. Johnbod (talk) 15:27, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Agree. I think it was around the 1970s, in the UK, Australia, NZ, at least. I wonder about North America's timing. Tony (talk) 23:33, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

• It's still very much used in spoken form, even though it may have disappeared from the popular written from decade ago. I suspect many are anchored to the security of the vernacular. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:00, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Well of course it's still spoken. It's pronounced "eighteenth" but spelled "eighteen."

Changes of this kind should be backed up by sources. Johnxsmith has not offered any style guides that support this position. Evidence might not trump sources, but it sure trumps a lack of sources.`Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:16, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

Again... why make a "rule" about this? We already allow different articles to style dates differently as it relates to Topic (with some using UK styling and others using US styling)... I see no reason to not to also allow different articles to style them differently when it comes to petty issues like including ordinals. As long as the format is consistent within the article, why does it matter which is used? Blueboar (talk) 19:28, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

If there isn't a rule about things like dates, then sure as eggs are eggs, people will edit-war in order to enforce their own personal preferences. (And note that this discussion was a result of someone effectively changing MOS to enforce use of ordinals for British English articles by saying it was a requirement of British English).Nigel Ish (talk) 20:19, 17 March 2013 (UTC)

But why not have a flexible "rule"... something like: "Whether to use ordinals or not is determined by consensus among editors at each individual article. DO NOT change from one to the other without discussion and consensus, and do not edit war to impose your preferred version." Blueboar (talk) 17:05, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Because we would then have (up to) 4 million talk page discussions on something trivial. And those discussions get more heated and long winded than the discussions here. See The/the Beatles... Rich Farmbrough, 09:14, 20 March 2013 (UTC).

Get real! That is what we have now. Sensible toleration of flexible or implicit rules is the most efficient option for most purposes, and works fairly well for a myriad of examples. It patently isn't working for the rigid rule right here right now, where all the control freaks want it their own way. JonRichfield (talk) 18:46, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

In general I'm in favour of tolerating flexible styling, but there must be reasons for choosing one style rather than another, not just "I like it this way". I haven't seen any reason put forward to prefer the presence of "th", etc. It can't be because this is the way it's read, because I would always read "March 20, 2013" as "March the 20th, 2013" but no-one writes it this way. Further, it's not, in my experience, the most common style used by those who prefer the ordinal; they are more likely to write "20^th March 2013". Peter coxhead (talk) 19:39, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

• "Wikipedia does not use ordinal suffixes". End of story, I think; except we may want to decide whether it's important enough to duplicate here at MOS main page. Tony (talk) 02:38, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm... looking though the archives, I note that this sentence a) was originally adopted with minimal discussion, and b) has been questioned multiple times since then. So the story may not be at an end. I have to wonder whether it really does reflect broad consensus or not. Blueboar (talk) 17:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

I believe readers are more likely to search for dates using their browser's search feature than other particular character sequences. For example, during the course of all of an average reader's use of Wikipedia during the reader's lifetime, the reader will search for "January 1, 2000" more often than "blue-coloured" using the browser's search tool. Therefore I consider it helpful to limit the number of different date formats so it is easier for the reader to guess which format to search for. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:20, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. We already have to live with the archaic ordinal numbers embedded within just as archaic quotes. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:03, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

It is true that British English will always pronounce the ordinal "third of July" (occasionally "July the third") never "three July" or "July three", however the convention to write "3 July" is well established, and mostly harmless. Rich Farmbrough, 09:09, 20 March 2013 (UTC).

• Google ngrams are very convincing in favour of the "plain number" format. I've tried lots of dates, but they all give results more-or-less the same as this one. Around 1940–1960, the ordinal forms decline sharply and by 1970 the "plain" forms predominate. (For those into advanced ngram searches, I've also tried searches with "_NUM_" at the end to pick up the year. It doesn't alter the patterns.) Modern British English does not use ordinal endings in dates. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:05, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Clarifying "figures of veneration"

Sad to say I always end up regretting posting a question here (I hate to be the cause of bloodshed) but some morbid compulsion forces me to do so nonetheless. I originally intended to propose clarifying (WP:MOS#Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines)

Pronouns for figures of veneration are not capitalized, even if capitalized in a religion's scriptures.

as

Pronouns for figures and objects of veneration are not capitalized, even if capitalized in a religion's scriptures (died on the cross, not died on the Cross).

But I now realize that WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines and their adherents has a slightly different explanation that pretty much answers my original question (which was Cross vs. cross) and I have to ask: I understand that the main MOS page has to be an abridgement of the many other pages, but on this topic the main-page text is about the same size as that on /Capital letters -- so why not collapse them into one? Are there other cases like this? Or am I missing something? EEng (talk) 17:02, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't see it made clear in that section, but my understanding is that we use caps for proper nouns, as indicated by the invariable use of the definite article. Hence, "the Cross upon which Jesus died", but "a cross could be made of any available wood". LeadSongDog come howl! 17:45, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Now that you point it out I realize I wasn't paying attention that well. What I was looking at was

Pronouns for deities and figures of veneration are not capitalized, even if capitalized in a religion's scriptures: "Jesus addressed his followers", not "Jesus addressed His followers" (except in a direct quotation).

I kind of overlooked the "pronoun" part and focused on the Him vs him, concluding that if him isn't capitalized then cross (as in relic of the cross) isn't either. But now I don't know. I'm not convinced by your definite-article test. Many people were sent to the guillotine. The guillotine took many lives. He was sentenced to the guillotine. He abolished the guillotine -- yet we don't capitalize the g.

On the other hand, isn't the c/C/ross an "object of veneration" as in the passage I quoted at the start of this thread?

Putting c vs C aside for a bit, what do you think about merging the section on main MOS and the section on /Capital letters? I don't propose doing it myself -- I have an educational gap in this area. EEng (talk) 02:25, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

A lot depends on context... "Jesus died on a cross"... vs... "Jesus died on the Cross". Blueboar (talk) 15:43, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Article titles

Earlier today I made a very BOLD change to this section... from:

• "MoS applies to all parts of an article, including the title. See especially punctuation, below. (The policy page Wikipedia:Article titles does not determine punctuation.)"

to

• While MoS guidance generally applies to all parts of an article, including the title, it is important to remember that Wikipedia does make exceptions to the MOS when consensus indicates that an exception should be made. This is especially important to remember when the discussing how to style people's names. For example, if the English language sources that discuss a particular musician commonly use a non-standard styling when mentioning that musician, our articles should follow the sources, and use that non-standard styling. Such exceptions are made on a case by case basis, and do not negate the MOS guidance in other articles. The fact that we make an exception in one article does not mean we must make a similar exception in some other article.

This was reverted (which is fine... that's how the process works). So now it is time to discuss. I see my change as simply an expression of how things actually work in reality. We do make exceptions to the MOS guidance when there is a consensus to do so... and names of people are the most common situations when we do this. However, it is also true that any exceptions are made on a case by case basis, and an exception that is made in one article does not mean we must make a similar exception in some other article. Your thoughts and comments please. Blueboar (talk) 00:02, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I generally agree with the sentiment being expressed there. Another thought: there was some MOS issue that I was involved with a year ago or so, and I remember searching for some MOS guidance that said "The MOS contains the general principles, but on occasion the community consensus can override the MOS guidelines for a particular article. When that happens, consensus must be clear, and no precedent is set for other articles". But I could not find such a guideline at that time. I guess this principle just goes without saying ... or is just another manifestation of WP:Ignore all rules ("If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.")? So, I'm wondering if your proposed text would be better off at a higher level within the guideline (not limited to Titles section) applying to all MOS rules? --Noleander (talk) 00:17, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I see up at the very top of the guideline, in the topmost box, this guideline says "Use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions." But I don't see that concept repeated down in the body of the article. Maybe we could just repeat (& elaborate) on that "occasional exception" concept down in the guideline's body? --Noleander (talk) 00:22, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I was (attempting) to do... elaborate on the "occasional exception" theme, as it relates to article titles. Blueboar (talk) 01:19, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I like Blueboar's edit too. It seems to reflect what actually happens, and I couldn't see anything in it that would cause a problem. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:33, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we need to say that this applies in particular to people's names, or use musicians as a specific example. If we want the general rule to be that we follow the most common styling in other sources then this is not an "exception", it's already the rule - but is it actually the rule? It seems like the proposed language here is bringing in a separate issue (names) in two sentences, when the rest is just a general description of exceptions to the MOS. If those two sentences were removed, the remainder seems fine to me. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Just to explain... The inspiration for my edit was a series of discussions over at WP:AT... where we keep having a debate between those who say "MOS always trumps WP:COMMONNAME" and those who say "WP:COMMONNAME always trumps MOS". Neither of which is actually accurate in my view. The reality is somewhere in-between. Any way, that's why I kept mentioning "names". I would assume that "descriptive" titles would have far fewer (if any) exceptions to MOS guidance. Blueboar (talk) 03:09, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the two as being in conflict. We can use the common name, and then style it to match the MOS - it will still be the common name, because a variation in style does not make a different name any more than a variation in capitalization makes a different word. But this makes me think that you may be trying to clarify the general rule, rather than clarifying exceptions to the general rule. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:22, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't see the two as being in conflict either... but if you look at the Wt:Article titles talk page, it is clear that a bunch of people do see a conflict. I am trying to address that. Blueboar (talk) 14:41, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I strongly oppose this change. It seems to be trying to mould the guideline into one person's particular view (and seems to particularly relate to k.d. lang), rather than allow editors to make reasoned judgements. It also isn't how the process works. We do not base our styling on sources - if we did, there'd be no point in having an MoS. Only when there is clear and overwhelming consensus to make a change that goes against the MoS would we allow a possible exception. Consider the ramifications across Wikipedia to a great number of article titles if we make this change, and the arguments that would ensue. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

No, it does not relate specifically to the k.d. lang article (that was simply discussed as an example in the discussions over at WP:AT, but as an example it stood in for any article where the subject adopts a non-standard styling as part of their stage name). You say "We do not base our styling on sources" ... the problem is that according to WP:AT we should. It says quite clearly that we should base titles on our sources, and the assumption there is that this includes styling. This creates a perception that the two pages are in conflict. The reality, or course, is somewhere between. To resolve the perception that there is a conflict, we need to make it clearer that this is not an always thing. It is a "sometimes" thing that very much depends on specifics. Again, it is a case by case thing. I question whether there really would be "ramifications across Wikipedia to a great number of article titles" if we adopted my suggestion. Can you give me some examples of articles where you think this might cause problems? Blueboar (talk) 14:41, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Your assumption that WP:AT suggests that we should source the styling of titles is false. The title of an article does not include the styling. Have a look at WP:TITLEFORMAT. If the conclusion is being drawn that we do source styling, then we should correct WP:AT to address that. However, as Carl points out, the two are not at odds, but complementary. We use WP:AT (WP:COMMONNAME, etc) to pick the article title, then WP:TITLEFORMAT to pick the styling. By extension, that may lead us to WP:NCCAPS, WP:NCPEOPLE, etc., and the WP:MOS for additional styling. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:49, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I disagree... when the title of an article is someone's name, and that name uses a unique non-standard styling, then the styling most definitely does become part of the article title (because it is part of the name). Take a look at Category:American rappers... it is full of names with non-standard styling variations... and we (appropriately) use these non-standard names when creating our article titles. Blueboar (talk) 15:13, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay, I'm starting to see where you're coming from. However, i think this bizarre alphanumeric collection of semi-abbreviations and punctuation is unique, and could only be expressed in this way for their article titles (I guess the MoS works best when we have recognisable words!). Rather than add a clause at the main MoS which, as the reverting editor commented, is "big enough to drive a truck through" and that opens up the issue of sourcing style to every single (non musician) article, I'd think it would be more appropriate on a more topic-specific page - WP:STAGENAME for example? --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:21, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

But the principle isn't limited to musicians, it applies to names in general... granted musicians are a useful example (because they are a group that commonly adopt unique non-standard stylings in their names) but the principle would apply to movie stars, book titles, indeed any name that adopts a non-standard styling. Let's take an admittedly unlikely (but still plausible) scenario... someone builds a new casino in Los Vegas, and the owners adopt a unique non-standard styling in the name of that casino. That odd styling is an intentional part of the resort's name. I hope you would agree that we should use this name (including that odd styling) as our article title. We (the editors of Wikipedia) should not try to "correct" the name by using a more acceptable styling. Blueboar (talk) 16:04, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't completely agree with that; I don't view the "style" as part of a name. Whether I write Carl, carl, or CaRL, etc., it's still the same name. A combination of text and style, color, graphics, etc. creates what I would call a logo - but our article titles are not intended to be logos, they are just intended to be words that identify the topic of the article. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:26, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

It depends what that casino was named. If it was a standard word then we use our MOS. This is covered at MOS:TM. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:31, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

• question When would we not respect the non-standard punctuation/capitalization of a name? The exceptions seem to be cases where most references ignore what is "non-standard", most commonly for names in non-English characters which are either transliterated or have their diacritics stripped off. Mangoe (talk) 16:37, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I think we should respect diacritics, but that raises an interesting point regarding reliable sources that do strip these. However, that's not what we're talking about here! In my mind, we ignore the styling found elsewhere for everything and apply our MoS. In practice, for the most part, the two will be the same. In my experience, MOS:CT and MOS:TM have both cropped up where differences occur. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

eBay is another example. If Blueboar will correctly hyphenate case-by-case basis, then I would support the change. It might be helpful to link to the American rappers cat to give people examples of when and how this is done. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I think the middle two sentences completely undermine the whole idea of the MoS. Do you not think the American rapper issue is better off clarified at the more specific WP:STAGENAME, rather than here on the main MoS? --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:05, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that the issue is not limited to stage names. While stage names are probably the most common example of the phenomenon, it is possible for anyone to adopt odd, non-standard stylings as part of their names. And it even goes beyond people... odd, non-standard stylings can be found in place names, literature (poems often use odd stylings) Book and movie titles... etc. These are not mistakes... they are intentional stylings... and thus the styling can and should be considered an intentional part of the subject's name. If a notable person (no matter what his profession) styles his name "CaRL", that styling creates a name that is distinct from "Carl" (just as "Karl" is distinct from "Carl"). If a poem is entitled "i. h8. the. iNtErNeT!" ... all that weird styling is an intentional part of the poem's name. We should not ignore the intent of the poet by "correcting" his styling choice. Blueboar (talk) 13:15, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

The Carl/CaRL thing is not the same as Carl/Karl, but I see your point regarding an intentional artistic spelling of the poem title. A problem we do have is what constitutes intentional, and what is simply a different publisher following a different MoS than ours. Take "Bridge Over Troubled Water" (per the sleeve) vs. "Bridge over Troubled Water" (per our MoS). I don't think that this is an artistic stylistic choice, merely a different convention regarding which prepositions to capitalise. In your poem, I can see merit in following the capitalisation from the primary source, but in "BoTW", we should ignore it. However, using mid-word capitalisation does not reconcile with MOS:TM. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:53, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Re..."simply a different publisher following a different MoS than ours." You can not determine the WP:COMMONNAME by looking at just one source (such as the album sleeve). You have to examine lots and lots of sources (in fact, the idea would be to examine every published reliable source). If a significant majority of those sources use an upper case "O" in Over, then we should make an exception to our MOS. Why?... because that upper case O is what will be the the most recognizable to our users. If a significant majority use a lower case "o", then we should follow that (despite the "official" styling on the album sleeve)... why?... because that lower case "o" is more recognizable. And if we find the usage to be mixed... and we are not able to say that a significant majority does it one way or the other... we fall back on our MOS to break the rough tie. Blueboar (talk) 11:23, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd generally disagree with that. One of the first points at WP:MOS is "Consistency in language, style, and formatting promotes clarity and cohesion", which is mirrored at WP:NCCAPS with "because Wikipedia strives to become a leading (if not the leading) reference work in its genre, formality and an adherence to conventions widely used in the genre are critically important to credibility". We should use our MoS, unless there is overwhelming consensus to make an exception. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:43, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

• @Blueboar: Orthography requires strict accuracy, style is predominantly a matter of editorial presentation. If the distinction between a style and an orthographic issue was clear in your head, I'm sure we wouldn't be having this discussion. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 15:15, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Bb is quite correct. Consider for example Baron ffrench; that is not a misspelling. In fact, though it is not the case in all names beginning with ff, in that particular name to change the first f to capital F is an actual misspelling, no matter what WP authorities might think, just as spelling the german word "schrank" with a small letter is misspelling whether it appears in the middle of a sentence or not. JonRichfield (talk) 14:25, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Then we should be incorporating these specific instances in our MoS and embracing them rather than putting in a clause that effectively junks the MoS. Rather than add all of these instances here, we should be adding this kind of information to subject-specific guidelines. It would appear that common usage for "Ffrench" could go either way, so maybe include reference to that at WP:NCPEOPLE also, stating that in these specific cases, we should refer to a primary source for the "official" spelling. --Rob Sinden (talk) 14:53, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

I really don't understand why you think that an edit along the lines of Blueboar's proposal means junking the MoS. Why is endlessly adding more and more specific exceptions to the MoS better than explaining the principles on which these exceptions are based? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:48, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

By explicitly stating at the top of the MoS that we should follow sources for styling, this would open it up for confusion when styling titles of other types of articles not specifically mentioned. If we leave the specific exceptions for the subject-specific guidelines, then we create a specific guideline for that case. By including it here, we are going to create more problems than we solve. There will be eventualities that we have not yet thought of, that will not benefit from the weakening of this guideline. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:03, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The central part in Blueboar's proposed change does, I believe, need some tweaking. Is this the source of your objection? The surrounding material seems unobjectionable to me: While MoS guidance generally applies to all parts of an article, including the title, it is important to remember that Wikipedia does make exceptions to the MOS when consensus indicates that an exception should be made. ... Such exceptions are made on a case by case basis, and do not negate the MOS guidance in other articles. The fact that we make an exception in one article does not mean we must make a similar exception in some other article. If so, is it possible to work here to improve his text, rather than just reject it? I believe strongly that we need a workable compromise; everyone sticking to their fixed positions isn't helping. Blueboar is at least trying! Peter coxhead (talk) 09:53, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

The green text seems generally OK to me; I was most concerned with the specific example of names and musicians, which I think would encourage too many exceptions. Re JonRichfield, "carl" cannot be a misspelling of Carl, nor Ffrench of ffrench, because they have the same letters. One could argue that the capitalization is "wrong" - but capitalization is a matter of editorial style, not a matter of absolute correctness. The same word is often used with different capitalizations in different places, and the capitalization is not a property of the word itself. — Carl (CBM · talk) 11:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Sorry Carl, but you have got a few things wrong. When a mode of representation changes the meaning of a word then its inappropriate use is an error, not a matter of editorial style, and is indeed a matter of absolute correctness. If I say "A Good whine needs no Bush" it does not mean the same as "A good wine needs no bush." "Going to Earth" does not mean the same as "Going to earth" (ask any fox or fox hunter or cosmonaut). And "General French" does not mean the same as "General ffrench", which does not mean the same as "General Ffrench"; those are three different names and origins; they are not arbitrary whims. And the same applies to diacritical marks; where I live, the meaning of "hoërskool" has a meaning disastrously different from "hoerskool". Those are jist az much errors, just as important, and functionally identical with errors of letter omision, adddition, chioce seqeunce and place ment. To make a song and dance about whether they are errors of orthography simply because you always have learnt that spelling means only errors of letter choice, is artificial and in context is a reed hearing; and what does the reed hear? "My dis hes as his hears!" Even to claim that ffrench and Ffrench (both genuine and different names, please note!) have the same letters is arguable, and I for one would not accept that claim as generally true. Nor would the MC of any spelling bee accept july as the correctly spelt name of a month, nor FTM "carl", though a genuine word, correctly spelt, as the name of a man (which needs a capital), nor a matter of style, editorial or not. You might argue that this is all a matter of convention, but firstly, violation of convention is in such contexts an error; not nearly an error, but really an error, whereas correct spelling in terms of letter selection and placement is just as much a matter of convention (especially in English and that other language from further West). JonRichfield (talk) 19:25, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty much in agreement with Carl (and as I mentioned, the musician issue can be clarified at WP:STAGENAME (part of WP:NCPEOPLE)). I'd like to remove the word "generally" from the green text - the MoS does apply to all parts of the article. If we're highlighting that exceptions can be made, then there's no need to make the guideline looser in the first place, but otherwise I think I'm pretty much on board with this revision. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:49, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Article titles (arbitrary break)

I don't think it's a bad idea to add something about the odd exception to the MoS, suggesting that exceptions may be more common than would be allowed by WP:IAR. I also think examples are useful, to give an idea of what sort of exceptions are possible (What sort of punctuation? Capitalization? CamelCase? Non-Latin characters? Special Characters?) However, I think the proposed wording, by stressing local consensus, might be understood by some to mean that, since consensus on the article talk page is what matters, the MoS can practically always be ignored (e.g. by the opinion of three editors for overruling the MoS and two editors against, on the talk page of some obscure article with few watchers). Ideally, perhaps, the relative weight of the MoS should be reflected in the amount of text devoted to its relevance, compared to the amount of text devoted to the exceptions. Perhaps it should also be stressed that adherence to the MoS is important where consistent choice of style conveys meaning. --Boson (talk) 21:29, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Determining the COMMONNAME is a bit more complex than simply reaching a local consensus... what we are determining in a COMMONNAME discussion is whether there is a broad external consensus (ie a consensus among sources outside of Wikipedia), and (if so) then reaching a local consensus to follow that broader external consensus (because that common usage will be the most recognizable). Blueboar (talk) 11:49, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

For those who do not know the AT policy, "common name" can be misleading as it is a phrase that pre-dates the change in the AT policy that incorporated the principle of restricting the survey of usage to reliable sources. So common means "as commonly found in a survey of reliable sources", not "as commonly found in survey of all sources". -- PBS (talk) 15:03, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you... a very important clarification. Blueboar (talk) 15:50, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that is how the proposed wording would necessarily be interpreted. If that is the intended meaning, I think the wording needs to be changed in order to clarify that a local consensus to use a particular style is not sufficient. It should also be clarified that the style should not be based on a common style that possibly results from the particular sources' style guides. For instance, if there are three articles, Member states of the European Union, Member states of the United Nations, and Member states of the Commonwealth of Nations, the capitalization in the three article titles and in the body of the articles should be the same, and it should be based on compliance with the MoS, even if most of the sources used for Member states of the European Union consistently capitalizes "Member States" because they are based (directly or indirectly) on the European Commission's style guide. Similarly, if the MoS says that an en-rule and a hyphen are used differently, to indicate a different meaning, following the sources would make nonsense of this distinction, since different articles will use sources that happen to use different means to express the difference in meaning (e.g. using a '/' or a '-" instead of an en rule). All the sources used for a particular article may use all caps rather than bold type for a particular term or heading level, but that should not be relevant. Style and name are normally separate issues; exceptions to this general rule (including when it may be appropriate to follow the style of other publications) should be defined consistently at WP:MOS.--Boson (talk) 15:45, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

If Member states of the European Union came up for serious discussion, the first question I would ask is: do we consider the phrase "Member state of the European Union" to be a "Proper Name" or a Description of the topic. If it is a NAME, then WP:COMMONNAME would apply, (and our resulting title might end up as an exception to the MOS).... if it is a description, then our MOS would apply. Blueboar (talk) 16:04, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

As for hyphen/dash (and other punctuation) issues ... in any examination of COMMONNAME that involved punctuation, I would expect to see some discussion of the sub-issue of typography. We would certainly want to examine whether the sources that present a name using non-standard or "incorrect" punctuation are doing so intentionaly or not. I would especially look to see if the source normally does distinguish between dashes and hyphens, but makes an exception to their normal usage when presenting specific name under discussion (I would highlight that, and argue that we should give that a lot of weight in our determination). Blueboar (talk) 16:29, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Even if it were a "proper name", our MOS would still apply, per WP:TITLEFORMAT and WP:NCCAPS. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:08, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, both of those say "except for proper names/nouns" within the first sentence or so. Mangoe (talk) 17:56, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

You clearly haven't read them. They explain how to deal with proper names/nouns and how to apply the MoS to proper names and nouns. --Rob Sinden (talk) 20:31, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose the repetition of a general principle (which is like reminding readers continually in the body of the MOS that "this does not apply to directly quoted text", for example). I do not see the reason for trying to drum it in to editors, either. Tony (talk) 12:01, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

• I do not understand what you mean, what general principle? What is it that you strongly oppose?-- PBS (talk) 15:03, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

This conversation has to be read in the context of Wikipedia talk:Article titles#RfC on COMMONSTYLE proposal which indicates that there is no consensus for the sentence that Blueboar replaced. An example that has been mentioned in the past (24 August 2011), are the article titles of "Finnegan's Wake" and "Finnegans Wake". -- PBS (talk) 15:03, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I'd suggest that "Finnegans" vs "Finnegan's" is not an issue of styling, but one of punctuation. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Punctuation is (at least currently) considered a style issue. Blueboar (talk) 16:04, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

No, incorrect use of punctuation is a misspelling (intentionally or not). --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:08, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps... But it is not our job to "correct" intentional misspelling. Blueboar (talk) 16:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree. That's why I don't think it's an MoS issue. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:41, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Two of the three sentences up for replacement are "See especially punctuation, below. (The policy page Wikipedia:Article titles does not determine punctuation.)" which seems to contradict what is being said in this specific sub-thread. So Rob Sinden as you "I strongly oppose this change." and then say "I agree. That's why I don't think it's an MoS issue". Does that mean you are in favour of removing the two sentences I have quoted? -- PBS (talk) 17:11, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Punctuation in a work/composition title such as the example of Finnegans/Finnegan's Wake is different to punctuation in running text. However, the specificity of punctuation being in the guideline at this point seems as arbitrary as the one for musicians. My strong objection was the "source stylings of the musicians" clause. I have agreed to an amended version above. --Rob Sinden (talk) 19:39, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I have said this elsewhere but the discussion keeps moving, so I will reiterate it. The MOS should apply to article titles. Examples include "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" "Lowest common denominator" "History of chemistry" and soforth. Any title which is a combination of multiple words should be styled according to the MOS. EXCEPT proper nouns. The problem the "rigidly apply the MOS" side are creating is that they conflate and equate proper nouns and regular article titles. Proper nouns should NOT have the MOS applied to them. If the author authors something with a funky title, we should respect it. If a city was named pARIS, that should be the article title. This is why redirects exist. You can create an article with your reinterpretation of the title with respect to the its orthography and the MOS, and redirect it to the actual article. Internal consistency should not be creating titles that have never been used outside of wikipedia. Xkcdreader (talk) 23:13, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I think we all agree that we "should not be creating titles that have never been used outside of wikipedia." Have you read MOS:TM? Anyway, we never change spellings, but we do have to choose stylings (caps, punctuation, typography, including diacritics). It's often not even clear what's a proper name; for example, is Kingston–Rhinecliff Bridge a proper name? Or is it a conventionally capitalized description of the George Clinton Bridge from Kingston to Rhinecliff? And should we go with the majority of sources that use a hyphen, or follow our MOS and use an en dash to connect the two distinct place names, like a few sources (like this book) do? Normally, we follow the MOS and nobody is bothered, but every now and then someone comes up with a new theory, like that proper names never get en dashes, and start a big brew about it. Dicklyon (talk) 01:05, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I may have also said this elsewhere, but we need to distinguish between different names and different representations of those names. A (legal) person can choose their name (within limits) but use of different logos, symbols, (trade) marks, or glyphs to represent that name does not (necessarily) mean that a different name is being used. So we have to decide whether unconventional capitalization, for instance, constitutes the use of different letters (meaning a change in spelling) or merely the use of a different case for the same letters (constituting a change in style or representation). Traditionally, the choice of where to use lowercase or uppercase has been a matter for the language community (proper names are capitalized, common nouns in sentence style text are not) or the publisher (titles and headings use down style or up style), not of the person who who created the name. The same applies to punctuation, typeface, colour, etc. An organization may also specify the exact colours to be used in their logo, but that does not mean that Wikipedia has to write Coca-Cola in red italics. In other words, we are really talking about where to draw the line between a difference in name and a difference in style. --Boson (talk) 10:45, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

I think you are confusing the WP:COMMONNAME with the WP:Official name. To clarify:

Re: A (legal) person can choose their name (within limits) but use of different logos, symbols, (trade) marks, or glyphs to represent that name does not (necessarily) mean that a different name is being used.

True... it does not "necessarily" mean a different name is being used. On the other hand sometimes it does mean that. The hard part is determining whether a unique styling constitutes a different name, or not. That is where WP:COMMONNAME comes into play. We (Wikipedia editors) look to our sources to determine whether the adoption of a certain styling constitutes a unique name or not. If a significant majority of our sources ignore the styling choice, then so do we (per WP:Official names). However, if a significant majority of our sources repeat the styling choice, then so do we.

Re: Traditionally, the choice of where to use lowercase or uppercase has been a matter for the language community (proper names are capitalized, common nouns in sentence style text are not) or the publisher (titles and headings use down style or up style), not of the person who who created the name.

Traditionally, yes... but my concern is nontraditional situations. You are correct in saying that the fact that a person has (legally) changed their name does not (necessarily) mean we must adopt their choice. Again this is covered by WP:Official names. However, when a significant majority of our sources have adopted their choice... then our policy is that we do so.

Re: An organization may also specify the exact colours to be used in their logo, but that does not mean that Wikipedia has to write Coca-Cola in red italics.

(actually, Coke's official logo is for white script on a red background... but I digress)... Your point is valid. However, if a significant majority of reliable sources discussing the topic routinely and consistently print the name "Coca-Cola" in red italics, then we should do so as well. Not because the Coca-Cola company wants us to do so... but because there is a general consensus (external to Wikipedia) that this is how the name should be styled. Blueboar (talk) 13:24, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Actually, that's a perfect example of what we shouldn't do, and why we don't source styling. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:58, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Article titles (a different phrasing)

OK... trying to incorporate at least some of the comments made so far... how about:

• While MoS guidance generally applies to all parts of an article, including the title, it is important to remember that Wikipedia does make exceptions to the MOS when a significant majority of reliable sources indicate that an exception should be made. Such exceptions are made on a case by case basis, and do not negate the MOS guidance in other articles. The fact that we make an exception in one article does not mean we must make a similar exception in some other article.

Alternative suggestions, ideas and tweeks are welcome. The goal here is to try to find common ground, not to impose any specific language or view point. Blueboar (talk) 13:53, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't "generally apply", it "applies". --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:12, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

"These are the rules..."

"There are occasional exceptions to these rules, each case is treated on its own merits" — seems a bit like stating the obvious. ;-) -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 10:08, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Agree - not sure we need to reiterate here. Otherwise we would be including it on every single guideline page. --Rob Sinden (talk) 10:28, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

We need to reiterate because enforcement of the MOS has become a constant (and consistent) bone of contention throughout Wikipedia. There are editors who just don't seem understand that exceptions to the MOS can be made, should be made, and are routinely made... and these editors sometimes need to be hit between the eyes with a two-by-four to remind them of this fact. A thoughtful and flexible application of the MOS (as "guidance") is a good thing... narrow and unthinking enforcement of the MOS (as "rules") is not (it simply pisses people off). Blueboar (talk) 14:48, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, some editors are pro-enforcement of MoS. Other editors are anti-MoS. But as with any guideline, exceptions can be made. To single out this guideline for re-iteration of the possibility of exception seems to put undue weight in the hands of the "anti-" camp when weighing up whether exception is reasonable. I already see enough arguments citing WP:IAR as a reason to do anything, without determining whether an exception is justified or not. This proposed change seems to want to dilute the guideline, and potentially could have a similar effect. --Rob Sinden (talk) 15:03, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

And there in lies the problem... too many think of this as a Pro or Anti debate... but it does not have to be such. There is a middle ground (you can be Pro MOS... but reasonable about making exceptions to it). What I am trying to do is give clear guidance so that editors understand when to make exceptions (and when not to do so). I am trying to find the common ground between Pro and Anti. Blueboar (talk) 13:35, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

But we can always make exceptions if there is consensus to do so. To highlight it as much as this almost seems to encourage the editor to make an exception. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:47, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I think this misses the point. The way the MOS is written should allow editors to balance principles and reach decisions without constantly needing to add "special cases" a.k.a. "exceptions" to the MOS itself. I wouldn't quite use the wording Blueboar suggested ("Wikipedia does make exceptions to the MOS when a significant majority of reliable sources indicate that an exception should be made"). I would rather prefer to say something along the lines of "The styling guidance in the MOS is a default which should be followed unless a significant majority of reliable sources indicates otherwise." Peter coxhead (talk) 17:22, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

That would be absolutely fine with me. It expresses the "middle ground" stance I was trying to achieve, without the unnecessary verbiage of my suggestion. Blueboar (talk) 22:45, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I still think it completely unnecessary. It doesn't need to be explicit on every guideline that exceptions can be made if there is consensus to do so. This is inherent. There's already the box at the top of the page that says "Use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions." --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:03, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree that it does not need to be made explicit in every guideline... but I do think it needs to be made explicit in this guideline. The perception that there is a conflict between MOS and COMMONNAME has become a serious bone of contention that pervades Wikipedia... we need to address it. Blueboar (talk) 13:06, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

But as we've established, there isn't a conflict. If anything, underlining that we can make an exception to the MoS perpetuates this myth. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:12, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

• Can someone provide examples of where the instruction at the top concerning "apply common sense" and "occasional exceptions" is inadequate for a situation? Tony (talk) 13:46, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Sadly, Tony, as you of all people are well placed to know, the instruction "apply common sense" has proved to be more or less useless, witness the long, bitter and time-wasting disputes which have recently taken place in relation to the MOS, which have led to administrative warnings and sanctions and long-serving editors quitting. I really don't understand how anyone who has followed the relevant talk pages can doubt that Blueboar is right in saying that the perceived conflict between MOS and COMMONNAME needs to be addressed, regardless of whether some editors think it is real or not. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

If there is a perceived conflict, this would be the back-to-front way to address it. All this would achieve is the relegation of the MoS to something secondary to the naming conventions guideline. It shouldn't hold any less weight than that guideline. --Rob Sinden (talk) 09:15, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Um... just a quibble: WP:COMMONNAME is guidance, but it is policy level guidance (part of our WP:Article titles policy)... and as such it should carry a fair amount of weight. I don't think it is out of bounds to say that the MOS needs to be amended to better reflect guidance that is given at the policy level. Blueboar (talk) 11:49, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

By the same token, WP:TITLEFORMAT is also policy, and that mirrors the MoS. --Rob Sinden (talk) 11:55, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

True... the difference is, WP:TITLEFORMAT is not perceived as conflicting with WP:COMMONNAME, while at least some of the guidance here on the MOS page is perceived as conflicting. Blueboar (talk) 16:43, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Although the content maybe perceived as conflicting, I don't think it is. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:53, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

In fact, the whole "Article titles" section makes reference to WP:AT and WP:TITLEFORMAT, so it's all perfectly clear anyway. --Rob Sinden (talk) 16:58, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Rob, you may find it clear... but given the amount of conflict over this, if is fairly obvious that it is not at all clear to others. Sticking your head in the sand and saying "I don't see a problem, therefore we don't need to address it" boarders on WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. Blueboar (talk) 19:21, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Copy edits

MOS presents Wikipedia's house style

MOS is Wikipedia's house style.

to help editors produce articles

Wikipedia editors "write" articles; they don't produce them.

makes provision for

Allows; permits

Any issues relating to style guidance can be discussed on the MOS talk page.

Passive; wordy. Discuss style issues on the MOS talk page. Fluous (talk) 21:15, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Please see "Confusion over avoiding the passive".

—Wavelength (talk) 21:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Definitely agree that passive voice isn't always bad. But here, passive voice was combined with wordiness. Bad combo. (See Garner's Modern American Usage, pg. 612-13.) Definitely okay to use passive voice after revision. "Style issues can be discussed/ Discuss style issues." Whichever.Fluous (talk) 21:55, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

This discussion is about your revision of Wikipedia:Manual of Style at 21:15, 26 March 2013 (UTC). The version immediately before your revision was not excessively wordy. We do not need to be like newspaper headline editors, who apparently prefer the minimum number of characters possible in a headline.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:02, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Hm. No, it was not excessively wordy. Doesn't have to be. That's not the standard. Generally, in plain language, the standard is "use more words than necessary." MOS encourages plain language, so any edits in the spirit of the rule should be welcome. Will change the sentence to passive for you, as a show of good faith. Cheers. Fluous (talk) 03:31, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Precision of wording is more important than trying to have fewer words. If there is an appetite for re-writing some sections, let's do it properly by consensus. Bold editing does not really sit well with the purpose of MoS. Kevin McE (talk) 07:15, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Totally agree. Brevity of expression is a goal, but plain language writers are cautiously willing to use more words to write clearer, more accurate, easier to understand sentences. "What Plain English Really Is" (pg. 63-64)(SSRN) by Wayne Schiess. (Hey, that sounds good. We should add that somewhere!) But brevity is a goal. We must respect readers' time. It may not matter for a few words, but it matters over the course of a long article. At any rate, consensus sounds good. Cheers Fluous (talk) 15:00, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Whoa. Just noticed that you reverted *all* of my changes. You should have a valid reason. That wasn't the case here: you reverted everything without distinction. Not the way to go about things. If you feel that I changed the meaning or made it less clear, by all means. Revert that change; and not the others. But the idea that I have to discuss *every* copy edit is not the policy, even for important articles like MOS. Fluous (talk) 15:32, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

The reasons currently provided for using straight quotation marks are dubious at best

The previous quote, taken from Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Register#Curly or straight is really an understatement. In 2013 straight quotes have no place outside programming languages. I think that replacing curly quotes with straight quotes should not be allowed. Mapcho (talk) 14:39, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

WP's default editor makes it a big hassle to include curly quotes, and thus no reason to move away from straight quotes. It also assures better portability. --MASEM (t) 14:53, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I would just change that line to "The reasons currently provided for using straight quotation marks are compelling" and be done with it. I'd add one: we should, in the absence of compelling reasons to the contrary, use characters available on a standard keyboard.—Kww(talk) 15:36, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

As a side note, I find the assertion in that discussion that "nobody complains about other special characters such as 'Rao–Cramér inequality'" to be a gut-buster.—Kww(talk) 16:00, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

It has always seemed illogical to me to ban curly quotes but insist on four kinds of "dash": hyphen (-), en-dash (–), em-dash (—) and minus sign (−). Where's the logic? Why is entering four kinds of curly quote marks (single and double) more difficult than entering four kinds of "dash"? Peter coxhead (talk) 16:24, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Insisting on using four kinds of dash actually tends to make editors the recipients of topic bans. Use of en-dashes and minus signs is considered to be disruptive editing by a large percentage of the community, and edit-warring to enforce a personal preference is considered disruptive by a majority of the community.—Kww(talk) 16:28, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

I was referring to the MOS: it does "insist" on four kinds of "dash" just as much as it "insists" on not using curly quotes. You and I might agree that the MOS is only guidance, but that's not how its text is written and not how it's interpreted by many of those who regularly comment here. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:32, 21 March 2013 (UTC)

Directional curly quotes may look prettier, and have the advantage of unambiguously signifying opening or closing of a quotation, but in fact, the space before or after the quote mark usually already does that job well enough. I defy anyone to provide me with an example where any construction is bestowed with a different meaning when a different style of quote marks is chosen. That is not the same with the hyphen vs the dash. And one reason why camps may edit war over the hyphen vs dash is that some people don't believe or see the reason why there is/should be any functional difference between the two. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:51, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

If the reasoning is the objection, then why not just remove the reasoning from the MoS? Just say "Wikipedia requires straight quotes, not smart quotes, in all cases." No explanation is required. This way, no one will be offended by any assertion that straight quotes are more logical/less logical/trouble makers/easy to use/hard to use/primitive/highfallutin', regardless of whether that assertion is true or false. Put the instructions here and move the exposition and opinion to the Quotation mark or Typography article space, where they can be properly sourced. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:43, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

Seems sensible. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 05:24, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

So the MOS should be made to appear even more authoritarian, by removing an explanation? That doesn't seem sensible to me. I think we need more not fewer reasons provided in the MOS as a whole, although footnotes seem better for this than cluttering the text in the body. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

The MoS is authoritarian. We make decisions here about rules that others must follow. The less we pretend otherwise, the better. Also, providing the "explanation" 1. invites objection (that's not in itself bad, but it does require that the rule be defended) 2. places opinion-based claims in the MoS, and those are best addressed at full length in the article space. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:27, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, there's no possibility of making rules that others must follow. The strongest statement possible is that edits which change styles to those recommended in the MOS should be immune from reversion (although they are certainly not!). Peter coxhead (talk) 20:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

Bull effing ess. Try writing in a manner not consistent with the MoS in the article space and you will find out that you disobey it at your peril. That's why we must be extra sure that everything that goes into the MoS actually belongs there. If we want the MoS to seem or better yet to be less dictatorial, then every rule in it should be tagged and sourced. That would show that its contents are not the whims of the people on this talk page. However, that would mean that the whim-based rules would have to go. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:51, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Going back to the issue, note that one differentiation in the "quote mark family" is part of the MOS: 3°4'11" should be replaced by 3°4′11″ (see MOS:NUM#Specific units). Since the meaning is without doubt the same in both cases, and the difference is only aesthetic, by Ohconfucius' logic above the use of primes rather than straight quote marks should be rejected on the same grounds as the rejection of curly quote marks. It's this kind of apparent inconsistency (even double standards) in styling guidance which seems to me to cause the most annoyance among editors. A clearer focus on the principles underlying MOS guidance on styling and then on ensuring that the MOS is consistent with these principles could, I think, restore some of the respect it seems to have lost. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:18, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the given reasons are not very convincing. I don't get the one about Google; the others about browser and Wikipedia searches would seem halfway legitimate unless, at the same time, dashes were allowed. Note that the German Wikipedia uses typographic quotes for a long time without problems. To make them easy to use in the standard Wiki editor, one would just have to move them from the "Symbols" to the "Insert" section where they are quickly available. --Momotaro (talk) 20:44, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Contrariwise, using a standard IBM keyboard with no not-inconvenient access to other characters, I am annoyed by the distinctions between four different kinds of dashes - and certainly never bother with them on talkpages like this - but I do understand the important differences that they uniquely signify. But curly or angled quotes are aesthetic only and serve no signifying function. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:47, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

As with dashes, the inconvenience of typing them shouldn't really affect anyone that prefers to use the old ASCII way; anyone can enter hyphens where dashes belong, and get no flack for it, as long as they don't fight those who try to move them toward MOS compliance. The question is really about whether it's OK to go out of one's way to convert nicely styled text back to plain ASCII. At time this, though, I do agree with you that it's more important to have the dash distinctions, which convey meaning, than to have the curly quotes, which only convey a little meaning (open vs. close, which is usually pretty easy to tell anyway with straight ones). Personally, I'd prefer if we went with curly quotes; but at present that's not the consensus at MOS, and the reasons are reasonable, if not compelling. Given that some people still cause trouble over dashes, I hate to think the trouble we'd be in if the MOS encouraged curly quotes; but hopefully some day we'll grow out of ASCII and get there... Dicklyon (talk) 04:28, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Please see the explanations by Noetica in support of straight quotation marks at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 94#Straight vs. curly quotation marks and apostrophes (November and December 2007).

—Wavelength (talk) 22:54, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't see that any of this archived discussion really deals with the following reasoning:

• No-one is forced to enter curly quote marks any more than they are forced to enter the proper kind of dash. If it's not convenient on the system they use, then they can and will simply enter plain quote marks or hyphens.
• Any later copy-editor can change them to the more typographically appropriate symbols. But editors should not replace correctly used curly quote marks by straight ones, any more than they should replace correctly used dashes by hyphens.

Why is this not a sensible approach? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:42, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

These excerpts from those explanations by Noetica deal with that reasoning.

• "Until Wikipedia evolves to accommodate curly quotes better (for ease of input, as in Word) and browsers evolve also (so that these characters can be searched for easily), and people are educated about their use, it is plainly better to leave them out."—21:58, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
• "I agree that similar difficulties arise for the en dash. But that is much more rare, as an element in the composition of phrases (as opposed to its spaced use in sentence punctuation). This does weigh slightly against en dashes substituting for certain hyphens; but there the distinction is not merely typographical: it is textual and semantic. Not so for the mere form of apostrophes and quotes."—23:59, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

—Wavelength (talk) 21:13, 26 March 2013 (UTC) and 22:13, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

@Wavelength: I agree that the case for en-dashes is slightly stronger than the case for curly quote marks – but only slightly. There's no semantic distinction between "marks - but", "marks – but" and "marks—but" or between "1900-2010" and "1900–2010". These are purely typographical differences, like straight or curly quote marks. The only semantic distinction applies to cases like "Runge-Kutta" (perhaps one person with a hypenated surname) and "Runge–Kutta" (a statistical method named after two people). Peter coxhead (talk) 13:51, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

@Peter... Re: "editors should not replace correctly used curly quote marks by straight ones, any more than they should replace correctly used dashes by hyphens."... what if an editor feels that using a curly quote mark (or a dash) isn't "correct" in a given situation? From my experience, that is how most of the arguments about the MOS guidance start. Blueboar (talk) 13:18, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

(Just in case it wasn't clear, I was putting forward a possible policy and asking for objections.) You're clearly right that this is indeed how many (if not most) of the arguments start, particularly when someone who hasn't worked on an article turns up and starts altering things on the grounds that this is what the MOS says. However, we need to distinguish between "I don't like it"/WP:OWN responses to the edits and those situations where the MOS is being treated as law rather than guidance to be evaluated. The existence of the first kind of response isn't an argument against putting guidance in the MOS. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:51, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Curly quotes are the norm in good typography. See Butterick. Judging from the looks of things, good typography isn't valued in these parts. To each their own! But put me on Team Curly.

—Fluous (talk) 18:08, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Article titles - "must" vs "should"

OK... time to stop edit warring ... we seem to have a disagreement between:

• The title of an article must be based on the Article titles policy.

vs

• The title of an article should be based on the Article titles policy.

Please discuss. Blueboar (talk) 13:00, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Well the long standing wording is should. So that should be what remains. This is a guideline not a policy so it should be worded with should and not must. Must would be for policies not guidelines. -DJSasso (talk) 13:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

My view exactly. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:03, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:05, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't really have a view, but the above reasoning seems illogical to me - we're talking about a policy, so if "policies" are a must while "guidelines" are a should, then the word here should be must. (If this is a problem, there must be a number of ways of rewording it to get round it - "For rules on choosing titles for articles, see the Article titles policy", for example.) Victor Yus (talk) 13:07, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I do see your point, but its up to that page to say what you must do. But rewording to avoid the situation is good as well. -DJSasso (talk) 13:36, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

How about "The title of an article is determined by the Article titles policy"? --Rob Sinden (talk) 13:42, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Must it be should or should it be must. GoodDay (talk) 13:49, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the title is determined by the policy (which would imply some kind of precise algorithm); it's determined based on, or with reference to, that policy. I don't really have any objection to the present should, in fact - I don't think it's in any way significant that the page in question is marked as a policy, and I don't think that policies really are a must (well not policies like that one, anyway). Victor Yus (talk) 14:13, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines/Archive 13#Should (September and October 2012).

—Wavelength (talk) 16:02, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, WP:AT is a policy... but not all polices are equal. Some should be followed... only a few must be followed. The word "must" is an emphatical that really is best reserved for when we talk about our core policies.

That said... I do like the suggestion of rephrasing. Perhaps: When determining the title of an article, refer to our Article titles policy. Blueboar (talk) 17:23, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

It's going to be interpreted as "must" no matter what we do, so we might as well tell it like it is. If we want to establish that the policy is optional, we'll have to do a lot more than say "should." We'll have to give examples of exceptions and spell it all out. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:40, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

There's no difference between "must" and "should" in this context, but I agree that Rob/Blueboar's suggestion sounds better anyway: When determining the title of an article, refer to our Article titles policy. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 23:00, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea of rephrasing it to avoid the question entirely.

I also think we should get back to the question of whether to define must and should at WP:PG, and to review the existing policies and guidelines to make sure that they use those words in as non-confusing a manner possible (a daunting task). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Ok...several people have said they like the idea of rephrasing to avoid both words... Do we have a consensus? Does anyone object to the suggested replacement language? Blueboar (talk) 13:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

A consensus on a change to the MOS? Wow! Yes, I agree that it's best to avoid both words. They are simply not helpful in the context of a collaborative voluntary enterprise. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:23, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah, go for it; it is hard to think of anything less profitable than otherwise sane, well-intentioned people slaving indefinitely to produce gavage for the wikilawyers and time-sinks for the rest of us. It is not as though wikilawyer livers were appetising or anything. The mere existence in the policies of exhortations containing words such as "bold" implies intentions more constructive than mindless, context-independent fundamentalism in imposition of arbitrary interpretations. JonRichfield (talk) 14:29, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Fine by me (but the "when determining" version, not the "are determined by" one). Victor Yus (talk) 14:34, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

U.S. State Abbreviations

Hello:
Is there any consensus on whether to use USPS abbreviations (i.e. FL), or the AP style abbreviations (i.e. Fla.) in regard to a U.S. State following a city?
Ben S. Henderson (talk) 13:02, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Any good reason to use an abbreviation at all that will not necessarily be recognised by non US readers? Kevin McE (talk) 19:27, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

In my opinion, there is no reason to use either form of state abbreviations in main body text. In fact, I believe the usage of such abbreviations is a poor style choice. There may be specific reasons to use abbreviations from time to time in space-limited infoboxes, but the unabbreviated forms are preferred otherwise. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:33, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Well said. Ditto! —Fluous (talk) 22:03, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree. US state abbreviations are a mystery to me. (What's the capital of WA? Olympia? Nah mate, it's Perth.) I see no reason to use them unless we're pressed for space. JIMp _talk·cont 23:51, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Right, the seven abbreviations that start with M are fairly hard to keep straight (for example MI could easily be Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, or Mississippi, and Maine in isolation might easily be MN or even MA), and who would expect Nebraska to be NE instead of NB? But NB is New Brunswick. These things are problematic enough just for Americans, to say nothing of the rest of the world. --Trovatore (talk) 06:41, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Trying to use in a template, where space is an issue. Thanks, guys! Ben S. Henderson (talk) 01:47, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

As the others have said above, they are generally not to be used, but when space is tight, I would favor the USPS style as the other style is almost archaic. Another place where state abbreviations are appropriate would be in references where a publisher's city needs to be identified by including the state. SchreiberBike (talk) 06:14, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

As SB says; in our context it is hard to imagine space saving on such a picayune scale being worthwhile, but conversely, if for some practical reason it actually is worth it in a template, then the converse issue of comprehension is less important; who is to read it and suffer anyway? Not the intended WP end-users, surely? JonRichfield (talk) 14:40, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Article titles - repetition of WP:TITLEFORMAT

Given that the first paragraph of this section now starts with:

• When determining the title of an article, refer to the Article titles policy.

Do we really need the second paragraph (which simply repeats stuff from the Article titles policy)? It's in the AT Policy... which we just told editors to refer to. Is there a need to repeat it here?. Blueboar (talk) 19:43, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

No. It is always dangerous to have the same information in two places. I think this dates from an editor who might not have known that WP:AT existed and wanted to have something about how titles are chosen. MOS predates AT, but only by a few weeks. Both are over a decade old. Historically there has never been anything in the MOS about choosing titles. Apteva (talk) 22:48, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

I think it makes sense to repeat in MOS the key points about title case, italics, and punctuation; the other points are more about title selection than styling, so no need to repeat them in MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 23:29, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

One problem with repeating the text of one policy/guideline page in another is that (over time) each version gets tweaked (in different ways)... and inevitably they start to give conflicting advice/instruction. Blueboar (talk) 12:45, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Blubeboar that this kind of duplication is undesirable. It's easy to give examples of such conflicts. (One which is still unresolved is the differences re capitalizing the common names of organisms between MOS:LIFE, WP:FAUNA, MOS:CAPS#Animals, plants, and other organisms, etc.) Further such overlaps allow gaming in the following way. Two policy/guidance pages start out being consistent. An editor who doesn't agree with a view expressed in them manages to change one of the two (usually the least watched one). He or she then argues that the other part needs to be changed to be made consistent, gaining support from editors who haven't noticed how the inconsistency arose. The less redundancy the better. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:34, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

"As of 2011"

The advice on this page that the form "As of 2011, he is the ambassador to ..." is "correct" is I believe common only in US and related Englishes: this use of "as of" is not a natural one in UK English (and perhaps others), where the appropriate form would be simply "In 2011 he was the ambassador to ...". Deipnosophista (talk) 08:27, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

To amplify what Deipnosophista said and point out that the usage, apart from being (I suspect) a neologism, is confusing, I think that the UK & general English translation would be "Since 2011 he has been the ambassador to ...", or, depending on intention, "From 2011 until ... he was the ambassador to ..." etc. JonRichfield (talk) 10:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC) Sorry if those grate on ears of those who struggle to interpret the wording. In fact, even in US English "as of" is (ab?)used in more than one sense. JonRichfield (talk) 10:32, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I understand it as meaning "He is the ambassador..., and it is 2011 at the time of writing." Allowing one to write naturally in the present tense, while hedging against the possibility that the words will be read sometime in the future when the statement (in that tense) may no longer be valid. Victor Yus (talk) 11:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Victor Yus, "In 2011 he was the ambassador to ..." means he was only the ambassador during all or part of 2011, and not at any other time. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:50, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I congratulate VY on an interpretation that I have not I have not yet encountered and that I bet does not occur to more than 1% of unprepared readers, whether English or American. Nor is any such function particularly useful in context. I also bet that 98% of native English speakers sufficiently educated to understand the various tenses would interpret it in the sense of "(at and) since (some time in) 2011", or if you prefer, "beginning at some time in 2011". The suggestion that it implies that it is 2011 at the time of writing is simply eccentric; you cannot support it and it is not the customary interpretation in English or American. No more could you support the idea that the condition referred to must logically terminate in 2011. Unlike you, I have gone to check on my claims; let's see you come up with a citation or any functional examples in English or American (non-contrived if you please!) Weidmannsheil! JonRichfield (talk) 16:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I would refine my interpretation of Victor Yus' meaning. I would interpret "as of 2011" to mean that the writer, writing in or after 2011, checked the status of the ambassador, and could only confirm he/she was the ambassador during all or part of 2011. The writer was unable to confirm if the ambassadorship began earlier. If the writer was writing after 2011, the writer was unable to determine whether the ambassadorship continued after 2011. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:03, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I think Victor's interpretation is dead on. For dates in the past: "he was mayor as of 2011" usually means that the information was accurate when added (in 2011), but is questionable as to whether it is accurate today (2013). It is sometimes also used when referring to the future: "He will be mayor as of 2014" indicates an expected future occurrence.

There may be better ways to phrase such sentences, but they are not "wrong". No need for the MOS to dictate a "rule" here. Blueboar (talk) 18:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Refine? You mean get deeper into the untenable? If that is the specific way you interpret "as of 2011", then let us try some mathematical temporal terminology: how would you interpret "he has been appointed the ambassador, taking office as of midnight 2014, 14th February"? The rather inelegant neologism has been defined in terms such as "at or from that time", and in fact one dictionary gives it as primarily British!  :-) However, you would have a hard time finding an example where "as from" would not be better. Anyway, what BB says is correct. The fewer rules we can get away with, the better. JonRichfield (talk) 18:30, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

As a UK English user, and someone with great apathy for neologisms and little patience for informal tone in encyclopaedic text, I really don't see the problem. It would be a breach of MoS to state, writing in 2011, He is currently ambassador to Fooland; instead, in 2011, we write He is (as of 2011) ambassador to Fooland. I would suggest that it would be more helpful to give more detail within the year, and the beginning of the appointment, and we have a template so that editors who are interested might check whether it is still the case from time to time, so He became ambassador to Fooland in July 2009, and {{As of|2011|1|lc=y}} is still in that role. (Displaying as He became ambassador to Fooland in July 2009, and as of January 2011 is still in that role.) See Template:As of and Wikipedia:As of. Kevin McE (talk) 19:07, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

As of when everyone agrees that there is no need for cluttering the MOS with Yet Another Needless Rule, there is no problem. Is that a problem? JonRichfield (talk) 20:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

As Kevin McE points out, we need to be able to say that something is the case at the time of writing, while making that time clear. There are many such "cases", not just a person holding an office. I write about plants, often listing the species of a particular genus using a secondary source. I need to write sentences like "As of January 2013, the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families accept[s/ed] 35 species." What alternative to "as of" is there, other than the ugly "At the time of writing (April 2013), ..."? "In January 2013" here implies to me that the writer knows that the situation has changed because you would write "In January 2013, ..., but in March 2013, ..." Peter coxhead (talk) 20:23, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Peter, we diverge here on a few simultaneous points. Firstly the principle of de gustibus non est disputandum: Personally I find "At the time of writing ..." completely inoffensive and more importantly, unambiguous; I find "as of" both mildly distasteful (not enough to make a fuss about, but still distasteful) and not always unambiguous. You ask for another alternative? "As at" is more specific and equally concise; "at" is less vague than "of", having fewer specific and colloquial meanings. Actually, in your example I would be inclined to say neither, but instead something like: "The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families accepted (or if you prefer, "recognised") 35 species in (the edition of) January 2013." (Parenthesised text optional according to meaning or preference). That was true when stated, and if a reader of 2031 cannot guess that there might have been room for editing since then, that is beyond our scope.

"In January 2013..." as it stands does not at all imply that the writer knows that the situation has changed; all it says is (as indeed we would want in a statement for the ages -- or for WP) that that was the situation or the state of events in January 2013, without implication or commitment to whether it changed in February or will change in January 2313, or remained or will remain unchanged. There might be additional text or even subtext (such as indeed: "...but in March 2013...") or circumstances that introduce such implications, but that is another matter and applies to most other wording as well. JonRichfield (talk) 08:42, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• In the context of Wikipedia, "at the time of writing" is totally inappropriate, since articles are constantly edited by different people. In a printed text, it makes sense; here it just doesn't.
• A similar issue arises with the WCSP: it's an online database, constantly updated (I've seen an error I pointed out corrected that day). If it were a printed source with different editions, then of course you would write something like "WCSP (2013) accepted ..." But it isn't.
• So the only real choice you offer me is between "In January 2013, the WCSP accepted..." and "As of January 2013, the WCSP accepted..." I can only say that I prefer the latter, because it conveys more clearly to me the meaning "at that time and until it is next changed". It may be a neologism used in this way, but it's well documented at WP:ASOF and if used consistently will be clear and helpful to readers. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:33, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• I would interpret those as far from equivalent. The former means that the WCSP made a decision in January 2013 to accept something: the latter means that the WCSP had made a decision some time prior to January 2013 that was not necessarily their final word on the matter, but remained their thinking in January 2013. Kevin McE (talk) 20:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• Since 2011 and As of 2011 mean quite different things. Tony (talk) 00:34, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Now now, Tony! Other people have done their homework here; you do yours or you will place us in an embarrassing position. There are things called dictionaries, but they are not automated; you have to consult them. Of course "since" and "as of" mean quite different things -- sometimes. And at other times they mean exactly the same thing. And that is the core of the problem; "As of..." means more things than "since" and is open to more interpretations; the fact that you fail to see how many more does not suggest that they cannot mean the same thing, only that there is homework to be done. This is an example of ambiguity, scope for everything from garden path sentences to outright misinterpretation. We wouldn't want that would we? JonRichfield (talk) 08:42, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

• As at [precise date] 2011 means quite something else. And if you want to say that something was factual at a point in time, this would be my preferred construction. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 01:34, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Confucius, you lost me there; would you care to particularise? Did you mean that "as at" means something quite other than "as of"? If so then that is where you are wrong. It means exactly the same when exactly the same is meant. Wherever I say "as at", I could say "as of" instead. The contrary however, would not be true; there are all sorts of constructions where "as of" would be completely acceptable, but "as at" would not. "Ahah!!" (I hear you cry) "That proves that 'as of' is better; it is more versatile! Out of your own babes and sucklings!" But Confucius, my babes and sucklings also recognise that flexibility is a snare and a pitfall when ambiguity and confusion are unwelcome. They prefer words that can mean only one of the things applicable in the circumstances. Did you see the movie "Snatch"? Not as good as "Lock, Stock, & Two smoking Barrels", but it certainly showed the US movie makers how to do things. Geek falls in with thugs. Needs looking after. Boss says to henchman: "Take care of him." "Huuuh???" "Take care of him!" Later: "What's that?" "Geek." "What happened to him?" "You said 'Take care of him'!" "I didn't mean 'Take care of him'; I meant...!" If "as of" can mean more things than "as at" including everything that "as at" can mean, that makes life risky for geeks like me, so we are cautious of it. JonRichfield (talk) 08:42, 3 April 2013 (UTC)