Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 160

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Formatting for lists

I recently came across an editor who was formatting lists like this:

The Minnesota Wild's second-round pick will go to the Montreal Canadiens as the result of a trade on July 1, 2014 that sent Josh Gorges to Buffalo in exchange for this pick.
Buffalo previously acquired this pick as the result of a trade on March 5, 2014 that sent Matt Moulson and Cody McCormick to Minnesota in exchange for Torrey Mitchell, Winnipeg's second-round pick in 2014 and this pick.

I instinctively corrected it as I'm used to seeing lists formatted like this:

The Minnesota Wild's second-round pick will go to the Montreal Canadiens as the result of a trade on July 1, 2014 that sent Josh Gorges to Buffalo in exchange for this pick.

Buffalo previously acquired this pick as the result of a trade on March 5, 2014 that sent Matt Moulson and Cody McCormick to Minnesota in exchange for Torrey Mitchell, Winnipeg's second-round pick in 2014 and this pick.

I've read through the Manual of Style for lists and all of the examples give it as how I do it, but nothing is said (I may have missed it) on the preferred way to go. The thing is the NHL draft articles from 2010-2012 do it the 2nd way and the last couple years the first way. So which way should be used in wikipedia articles for lists.-- Everyone Dies In the End (talk) 21:27, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

I like the way you did it in the second version-- the indent in the first version is confusing generally, as we don't indent paragraphs on Wikipedia and I don't see why we should look like one is being used here other than as an example of an outmoded form of presenting a paragraph (which is not a reason here, of course). A clean, left edge makes more sense to me, and for consistency it seems that this should be used as the preferred format for all years of a type of article such as the NHL drafts from the past which you mentioned. KDS4444^Talk 20:40, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
How are you keeping the list from restarting after each indent? -- Gadget850^talk 22:13, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
- There was only one entering and I didn't know it was going to restart my way.-- Everyone Dies In the End (talk) 20:23, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

The first example above includes <br/>      - that's idiocy of the highest order, and should be removed on sight. But your second example, which has item one with # and item two with :::, is also broken, and is also not acceptable. Again, please supply a link to a real example, so that we can show how list markup should be used. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:29, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

It's 2016 NHL Entry Draft, 2015_NHL Entry Draft, 2014 NHL_Entry Draft, 2013 NHL Entry Draft and take a look at 2012 NHL Entry Draft, 2011 NHL Entry Draft and 2010 NHL Entry Draft to see how it was done before hand (They are minor differences between them that are mostly : vs *). 2009 NHL Entry Draft and 2008 NHL Entry Draft have no 'indentation' and is the most confusing and whatever is the proper way to do should be used for that. In the years before a table was used, so nothing needs to be changed.-- Everyone Dies In the End (talk) 19:05, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

This is how such indents should be done (by 'cascading' list markup), which also prevents the lists from restarting:

The Minnesota Wild's second-round pick will go to the Montreal Canadiens as the result of a trade on July 1, 2014 that sent Josh Gorges to Buffalo in exchange for this pick.
Buffalo previously acquired this pick as the result of a trade on March 5, 2014 that sent Matt Moulson and Cody McCormick to Minnesota in exchange for Torrey Mitchell, Winnipeg's second-round pick in 2014 and this pick.

-- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 20:11, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for input. Looks like that's the way to go.-- Everyone Dies In the End (talk) 20:23, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Discrepancy with template documentation on formatting block quotations

Please see the discussion at Template talk:Centered pull quote#Outdated MOS guidelines in documentation? regarding an apparent discrepancy between the documentation for that template and current MOS guidelines on formatting block quotations. —sroc 💬 04:04, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

serial commas

In the section Wp:MOS#Serial commas (sorry, I don't know how to do this properly yet) we are told that "this is Clearer: The author thanked President Obama, Sinéad O'Connor, and her mother; or The author thanked President Mary McAleese, Sinéad O'Connor, and her mother."

Is this really clearer? It seems to refer to Sinéad O'Connor's mother, or it could be Mary MacAleese's mother, so how is it clearer? Who writes this stuff anyway, I'm sure I'll do better myself. This document is very badly written, presumably by people who "know all about it" and never read their own prose. "Compound predicates"? give.us.a.break. Most people can write very good prose without knowing all the technical terms relating to grammar. In recent years we seem to have been inundated with new phrases to "explain" English grammar, the object being, presumably, to analyse every paragraph, sentence, clause, phrase, word, syllable, phoneme and letter so thoroughly that by the time we're finished we don't know where we started from. Jodosma (talk) 19:35, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I've fixed your link. Hope you don't mind. Just needed a capital S.

If the author doesn't want people to mistakenly assume she's thanking Sinead's mom, she should mention her mom first. Not sure what serial commas have to do with it. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:51, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Without the gender distinction, the second is bad, yes. Jodosma, I don't know what "compound predicates" are, but I do use a different grammatical system. The use of less well-known terminology should be kept to a minimum in the MOS itself. Tony (talk) 23:07, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

If this is truly confounding, the word "own" could be added, to read The author thanked President Mary McAleese, Sinéad O'Connor, and her own mother. AgnosticAphid talk 23:13, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Disability guide has been added to the MOS

Please see MOS:DISABILITY. Interested editors are invited to review and improve the page as it was created by only a few editors and might not yet fully comply with the requirements of being part of the MOS. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 05:36, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

In principle no one could object to the notion of a style guide WRT disability. But this is just so weird—long and discursive, it takes risks and makes a lot of assumptions that I fear might meet disagreement with many people with disabilities. Where exactly is the stylistic advice for editors in relation to this topic? Shouldn't it be an essay and subject to review before it's suddenly launched as part of the style guide? Tony (talk) 09:23, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Tony; there should have been wide community input on whether or not to make that page a guideline; otherwise, an editor can create any essay and then label it a guideline or a policy. The guideline tag should be removed from that page until, if ever, it has achieved wide WP:Consensus to be labeled a guideline. Demote it to an essay pronto. Flyer22 (talk) 09:37, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Me too. It's a well-intentioned and informative essay about the use and styling of language, but it's not a clear and practical style guide. Some of the suggestions built into it look to me to be contentious as well, eg re capitalisation of Deaf. Even if it were more focused and more prescriptive/proscriptive, I'm not sure we should be declaring whole new pages, which may have been worked on only a small group, to suddenly be part of the MoS in this way and their directives as a result supposedly enforceable across WP out of the blue. N-HH talk/edits 15:11, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

This feels like it would be better as part of a Wikiproject guideline (which technically would be have more strength than a random WP-space essay). It's not stuff that can be MOS-enforcable but it can be things that as part of a Wikiproject we would know where to get advice for additional disputes. --MASEM (t) 15:19, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Agree with declaring the guideline an essay (as this edit has already done) until consensus is established. The first comment in this talk section is specifically asking for more input, acknowledging the small number of editors who originally wrote it (full disclosure: I'm one of them). I've just put an RFC tag on this discussion to help facilitate the "community-wide" part. I don't agree with the prospect of moving the page back to the WikiProject namespace, as it is about a very general topic that may be relevant to many Wikipedians, only a fraction of which are involved with the relevant WikiProject. There are already numerous "X-related articles" pages within the MOS, the full list of which can be seen at Template:Style wide. The current namespace is the most logical one, with a possible argument for adding an "...(essay)" suffix. It's highly unlikely that any other page would want to use the same namespace. Muffinator (talk) 18:44, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Oppose this becoming official in any way Why is there a special need for this? Creating a special MOS for each potential "protected class" leads to far too many rules and to much potential for conflict. The obvious argument that I believe is relevant is where does it stop? How many words do I have to knock off "Gay Transgender Republican Buddhist Smokers from Uzbekistan" before they deserve their own special protections in the MOS?

Some, and I do mean "... a small amount or number of people or things." with an emphasis on "small" could be incorporated into the MOS or other policies like NPOV (so they apply to all, not just these special articles), but creating a special set of rules just for one class of people is by its very nature, discriminatory. CombatWombat42 (talk) 19:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

We have a special MOS page for Islam and Mormonism. In what way is disability less deserving than religion? Muffinator (talk) 21:44, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Its not, and we shouldn't. What are the arguments for having them? CombatWombat42 (talk) 22:15, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

I am going to ask everyone to STOP... I feel strongly that this isn't the right place to discuss whether an essay should be promoted to guideline or not. That discussion should occur on the talk page of the essay itself. Blueboar (talk) 22:48, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

Blueboar makes an excellent point, especially the other comment Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Disability-related_articles#Making this page into a guideline without community-wide input?. I'm going to remove the RFC tag from this section and add it to that one. Muffinator (talk) 00:21, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

(Tweaked the link so it points to the relevant section as mentioned, not just the talk page). --Mirokado (talk) 20:46, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Italics re. toy lines

Could I ask for some clarification re. Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Titles#Neither on media franchises? The use of italics in the titles and text of Transformers: Beast Wars, Transformers: Generation 1 and the like is currently fairly inconsistent IMO, and I don't understand from the MOS page which way the articles should be edited. It Is Me Here ^{t / c} 13:09, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Titles of major published works (books, comic book series, TV shows, movies) in italics, minor works (episodes, story-lines, short stories) within them in quotation marks, toys no markup. We've been handling franchises as a whole in a very inconsistent manner, yes. I regularly encounter no markup, quotation marks, and italics, with no rhyme or reason but sometimes very hot tempers about the matter.

I would suggest we deal with this in an RFC proposing that it be no markup for franchises, even where they contain all or part of the name of work. It's far too easy to confuse italicized or quoted franchise names for names of specific works within them that share the same name. So, use: In the Firefly/Serenity franchise, "Serenity" was the original pilot episode of the Firefly TV series, and is not to be confused with Serenity the follow-up film, Serenity the novelization of that film, Serenity the comic book and graphic novel series extending the story after the film, or Serenity the 2005 role-playing game set in the same fictional universe. Major works in italics, minor in quotation marks, no markup for franchise. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:06, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Ordering of sections on original wording and attribution.

The last edit to the project page added the words "Quotations must be verifiably attributed and " to the section Original wording. In my opinion, this duplicates (or, if not, should be added to) the section Attribution. However, rather than simply reverting, I thought it might be better to first move the Attribution section in front of the Original wording section, so that related content is closer together. Thoughts? --Boson (talk) 10:27, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Some small duplications are useful, I think. Not everyone reads every section of the MOS! I don't have strong feelings on the ordering issue, but I would be against reverting the addition. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Hey, Peter. Don't you think a cross-reference to the main section on point would be better than duplicate instructions that have the potential to introduce conflict as the two sections are modified over time? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Not sure about better, but this would be fine as an alternative. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

I should have perhaps written "sub-section" rather than "section". I understand the general point about occasional repetition (when a point addresses two sub-topics) but it seems odd to repeat a point which is dealt with a few inches further down the page in a very short sub-section of the same section, especially since the new point exactly addresses the topic named by the other heading and does not address the topic of the sub-section where it was added.

As regards re-ordering but not reverting, that would make the duplication (and any conflicts) more obvious and yield:

Attribution
The author of a quote of a full sentence or more should be named; this is done in the main text and not in a footnote. However, attribution is unnecessary with quotations that are clearly from the person discussed in the article or section. When preceding a quotation with its attribution, avoid characterizing it in a biased manner.

Original wording
Quotations must be verifiably attributed and the wording of the quoted text should be faithfully reproduced. Where there is good reason to change the wording, enclose changes within square brackets (for example, [her father] replacing him, where the context identifying "him" is not included in the quotation: "Ocyrhoe told [her father] his fate"). If there is a significant error in the original statement, use [sic] or the template {{sic}} to show that the error was not made by Wikipedia. However, trivial spelling and typographic errors should simply be corrected without comment (for example, correct basicly to basically and harasssment to harassment), unless the slip is textually important.

Another alternative would be to merge the two sub-sections, for example:

Attribution and original wording
The author of a quote of a full sentence or more should be named; this is done in the main text and not in a footnote. However, attribution is unnecessary with quotations that are clearly from the person discussed in the article or section. When preceding a quotation with its attribution, avoid characterizing it in a biased manner.

The wording of the quoted text should be faithfully reproduced. Where there is good reason to change the wording, enclose changes within square brackets (for example, [her father] replacing him, where the context identifying "him" is not included in the quotation: "Ocyrhoe told [her father] his fate"). If there is a significant error in the original statement, use [sic] or the template {{sic}} to show that the error was not made by Wikipedia. However, trivial spelling and typographic errors should simply be corrected without comment (for example, correct basicly to basically and harasssment to harassment), unless the slip is textually important.

In any case, I think it would be sensible for the text about attribution to be mentioned earlier.--Boson (talk) 18:29, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

British quotes

I think my editing output would drop drastically if i endeavored to read all the stylistic standards, let alone stay up to date on them. For the first time in my 11 years, i just noticed "Reasons to prefer ... double quotation marks" which seems to me an exception to the principle of sticking to the original editor's choice of British and American usage, and IIRC at least recommending (to article creators or in general)

British quotes for Commonwealth topics and

American quotes for US ones.

Perhaps what i recall has been enhanced with what may be a newer insight (but do i recall where it was enunciated??), and if not perhaps it should be.
--Jerzy•t 06:04 & 06:09, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Punctuation is not regarded as part of ENGVAR here. For example, logical quotation must be used even in American English (see MOS:LQ) and, as you've noticed, double quote marks must be used even in British English. Some of us have disagreed from time to time, but the consensus has been to uphold the separation of punctuation and ENGVAR. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:46, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Note... the guidance in favor of using logical quotation is very contentious here on Wikipedia. It has been the subject of endless debates. Some editors love it... some hate it. Most of us don't care one way or the other.

Here's my personal advice... consider WP:LQ (and anything else in the MOS you disagree with) as being irrelevant to your editing. Use what ever punctuation style comes naturally to you (it will probably be whatever you were taught to do back in school). Most of the time, no one will even notice or care what style you used. However... should someone come along and "correct" your usage to a style they prefer, remember the advice given in Star Wars... just "let the wookie win". Ask yourself whether it is really worth all the time and energy that would be required to argue about it. Most of the time, it isn't. Blueboar (talk) 16:05, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Fair warning: If you go around using American punctuation, you might get brought up on ANI. It happened to me when I was gnoming (which is why I don't gnome any more). But in general, Blueboar is right. If you go around adding factual content, it's okay if you mess up on the punctuation. Someone else will come along and render it MOS-compliant. No Wikieditor is expected to be a master of all things.

And yes, our punctuation rules should follow ENGVAR. Right now, though, they don't. As for the single-vs-double rule, I heard somewhere that single quotes mess up search functions, so there might be a non-arbitrary reason to prefer double. I'm not sure that current web browsers still have this problem, though. The rule was laid down a long time ago. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:47, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd prefer singles as default normally, but since we're wedded to straight glyphs, I have to say that singles look pretty bad (at least in WP's font). I know American WPians who prefer singles, and when I tell them that doubles are more usual in US English, they disagree. So ... take your pick: usage and variety are not as simple as is being portrayed here.

A sitewide approach is desirable in whatever ways we can manage it. Now you two should resist the temptation to encourage editors to "mess up". It's fine to go against the house style through not knowing (anyone can edit, and we're nice to people), but wilfully and persistently adopting home-grown preferences that make more work for gnomes is not productive. Tony (talk) 09:10, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

There is a difference between intentionally "messing up"... and not worrying about messing up... The first is being pointy and disruptive... the second is not. The concern expressed by Jerzy was that following the MOS would make it more difficult and time consuming for him/her to edit. My advice to Jerzy was essentially... so don't worry about it... just go ahead and edit. Don't worry about whether you are conforming to the MOS or not (it's what most editors do). Let someone else conform it to the MOS. And when someone does... Don't waste time in arguments. Just move on and continue editing. Blueboar (talk) 12:33, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

On the specific point re quotation marks, I'm not sure there is an agreed "British" style or "American" style, whether in respect of straight vs curly or single vs double. There's no way this could be made an ENGVAR issue or style variations agreed on that basis even if we wanted to. N-HH talk/edits 15:04, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

This is super-mega-perennial. We cover this seemingly every other week, again and again. Various British (etc.) publications use the quotation mark style, typographer's quotation, that most American publications prefer, so it's not "American style". Meanwhile, logical quotation, as WP uses, is used by plenty of American publications when they prefer accuracy over traditionalism, and even the heavily American Chicago Manual of Style recognizes this. Meanwhile, logical quotation is not even actually identical to the majority British/Commonwealth usage, just mostly coincides with it, so it isn't "British style", either. The curly vs. straight debate is even older, and not related to ENGVAR matters at all. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:14, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

For curly vs straight, no there's no British/American split that I know of. For single vs. double, American English requires double in almost all cases, but British can go either way.[1] So the doubles-only rule does not require anyone to punctuate any variety of English incorrectly; it just walls off one correct option.

SMC, neither of these styles is more traditional than the other, and neither is more or less accurate. It's a matter of personal preference and of correctness with respect to regional ties. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:05, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

Subsidiary manual of style contradicts "Citing sources"

User:Ohconfucius has made a change to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers which contradicts the freedom stated at the "Citation style" section of "Citing sources" to choose any citation style for an article (including but not limited to external citation styles such as Chicago Manual of Style or APA style). Not only is the contradiction itself troubling, the fact that the contradiction was made in a subsidiary manual of style rather than in the main Manual of Style is also concerning. Please discuss this change at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Date format consistency between body and reference sections. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:03, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Re OC's edit: it's about time. Tony (talk) 02:00, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Formatting sentences with multilingual terms

Greetings!

Does anybody know if there is a guideline for formatting sentences with multilingual terms? Let me take a quite confusing example. So, there is a sentence:

Shinnyo-en followers must accept sesshin and undertake three forms of activity (the “Three Activities,” mittsu no ayumi 三つの歩み): joyful giving (kangu 歓喜, financial contribution to the organization), recruitment of new members (otasuke お救け), and service (gohōshi ご奉仕).

So far, we have here:

(1) The English translation: joyful giving
(2) Japanese romantization: kangu
(3) Kanji: 歓喜
(4) An English definition for the term: financial contribution to the organization

Therefore, what is the proper formatting for such a case? Is there a WP:MOS already for that? Actually, I couldn't even find any HELP for using the ({{CJKV}} templates.

Up to this point, I was considering a formatting such as: "kangu ({Japanese: 歓喜; English: joyful giving, financial contribution to the organization)"
Ps. I have no idea what is the corresponding {{CJKV}} language template for English.

So, what do you think? =P

Cheers! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 20:16, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Jayaguru-Shishya, did you look at MOS:JAPAN? It looks like they have a suggested order of terms here: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Japan-related_articles#Japanese_terms. They also have advice for other scenarios in the other parts of that page. __ E L A Q U E A T E 16:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the link, __ E L A Q U E A T E! That's exactly what I was looking for! Jayaguru-Shishya (talk) 10:13, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Suggested section "9.2.4. Linguistic use"

The section on quotation marks would benefit from adding the standard use of single quotes for glosses in linguistic usage. The text of the section can be copied from Quotation mark#Use–mention distinction, along with the accompanying example from the Language style sheet of the Linguistic Society of America:

Writing about language often uses italics for the word itself and single quotation marks for a gloss, with the two not separated by a comma or other punctuation, and with strictly logical quotation around the gloss – extraneous terminal punctuation outside the quotation marks – even in North American publications, which might otherwise prefer them inside:

Latin ovis 'sheep', canis 'dog', and equus 'horse' are nouns.

Doremo (talk) 20:21, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

What about § Words as words? Is the guidance there inappropriate for a gloss? Edit: Yeah, that wouldn’t work in the example you quote. Don’t we typically use quotes in parentheses for that, though? Latin ovis ("sheep"), canis ("dog"), and equus ("horse") are nouns. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 01:54, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The LSA style sheet is here (see section 6e). § Words as words is consistent with LSA guidelines: italics for a word as a word, and single quotes for a gloss. Parentheses with double quotes is an atypical format in linguistics. More examples: rengas 'ring', kurbağa 'frog', ku:- 'head', Hund 'dog', etc. Doremo (talk) 03:38, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for the confusion—I was talking about Wikipedia practice, not LSA. “Words as words” doesn’t mention single quotes, but it’s my understanding that the typical practice for glosses on Wikipedia is to use parentheses and double quotes. Please correct me if I’m wrong. As for the proposed addition: If we already have a format for it in our house style, I would oppose introducing contradictory MOS guidance. If not, it seems reasonable to me. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 04:06, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I think some people have been using double quotes because it isn't explicitly covered in MOS, and so they don't know how to handle glosses. For the same reason, some use parentheses (and others don't), and some separate words and glosses with a comma (and others don't). Standard linguistic format would be clearest because (in addition to being standard) double quotes are already used for so many other purposes: quoted speech, scare quotes, gestures in American Sign Language, etc. Doremo (talk) 04:24, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

The issue is where to draw the line. I would prefer to use single quotes for glosses, but I would also prefer to do so for words-as-words where italics is confusing or already present for a different reason, e.g. foreign words, scientific names. The simplest rule is the present one: always use double quotes except for a very few special cases (e.g. cultivar names). Peter coxhead (talk) 08:13, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

I think glosses would count as one of the special cases; comments on the issue by additional linguists would be welcome. Doremo (talk) 08:49, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Parentheses might be atypical in linguistics, but they are typical in almost all other contexts. This is a general-English publication and we should use general-English rules and formatting. We should not prefer the LSA style sheet to sources that address Wikipedia's needs more directly. Explaining what a word means, because of language or for any other reason, is a very common activity and there are plenty of ordinary ways to do it, as Anon174 has pointed out. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:36, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely support this. We're already using it all over the place anyway. Come to think of it, I have previously proposed this addition here (within the last 2.5 years) and I think it was unopposed and I just forgot to add it. Anyone with any linguistics or foreign-language learning experience already knows that glosses go in single quotes. We don't necessarily need an entire section about this, just one sentence and an example, distinguished from general words-as-words usage, e.g. casa, 'house'. The format 174.141.182.82 proposes – casa ("house") isn't some kind of mega-disaster, but anyone who knows the proper convention won't do it that way but the proper way. 174.141.182.82's style isn't "the typical practces for glosses on Wikipedia"; rather (as Doremo pointed out) it's what those who don't know proper gloss-formatting do, by default because MOS seems to require double quotation marks for them. (It doesn't anywhere require parentheses/brackets, and using them for this is often visual clutter, or a problematic for other reasons like nested bracketing.

Anwyay, single quotes for glosses is not a WP:Specialist style fallacy case, because it doesn't conflict with real-world mainstream use (is IS such use) and it doesn't cause any confusions or reader-revolt responses, of the "Why the @#$* is this capitalized?!" sort that over-capitalization does, or difficulty even understanding what is meant when hyphens are dropped from compound adjectives. It's also no the subject of any bitter off-WP disputes like many capitalization issues are. No one's head asplode upon contact with a conventional use of single quotation marks where double could have been used; different quote glyphs don't signify anything terribly significant like the difference between proper and common nouns. MOS routinely follows specialist conventions when they do not cause such conflicts and problems (e.g. we obey ISO, etc., on exactly how to write and even space-apart units of measure, even when they are not the most common in mainstream sourcess , as just one of innumerable examples). When italics are already used for another reason in the same context, use double quotes for words-as-words examples that aren't translation glosses; it's a linguistic convention for one specific thing, not a general words-as-words convention.

PS: It's more important to get the single quotes right for glosses; whether to use parentheses/brackets or not, or even put a common between the foreign term and the English gloss, is a style matter best addressed at the article in question. I agree with DarkFrog that our goal is not apeing (aping, however you like to spell that) every single aspect of an external style guide like LSA's. That said, it's not correct to say that bracketing glosses is "typical in almost all other contexts"; that's wishful thinking. It's not even typical on WP, just somewhat common. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:15, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

A small correction: I wasn’t proposing that style, I thought it was already in place. But since you seem to know what you’re talking about here and I admittedly don’t (I think I’ve only seen such glosses in the first lines of some articles with non-English titles), I have no objection to LSA-style glosses. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 12:15, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I should also point out that it's not just LSA with the single quotes for glosses (although it is a major authority). The same style is used by the British Journal of Linguistics (item 12, page 7), the Lepizig Glossing Rules (passim, interlinear), De Gruyter Mouton (item 6, page 5), etc. Doremo (talk) 13:49, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, SmC, the glossing system does contradict standard U.S. English rules, which say to use double quotes for things like this. This is a specialist system. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:09, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Can you provide a source for standard U.S. English rules requiring double quotes for glosses of foreign words? Doremo (talk) 16:11, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

Of course. Most of them don't call it "glossing." It's usually referred to as "words-as-words." Here's what I found in five minutes: Purdue example: Sic is from the Latin, and translates to "thus," "so," or "just as that." / The English word nuance comes from a Middle French word meaning "shades of color." (italics mine) [2] Also note the standard British punctuation under "Origin" in their OED's definition of "gloss": [3] In my brief web search, I did notice a preference for italics over punctuation. I'll have access to my paper style guides when I get home. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:43, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Single quotation marks look pretty bad (and are sometimes unclear to the eye) in straight glyphs and the font WP uses. This is why it's best to use the only slightly more American usage of doubles with singles (much less often, of course) inside; doubles for words-as-words are much easier to read in this environment. Tony (talk) 02:58, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Darkfrog24's first example (Purdue writing lab) is fair enough; however, linguists at Purdue (e.g., [4]) are using standard single-quote glosses in linguistic contexts and the Purdue Linguistics Association also lists LSA first under its resources. The Oxford example uses single-quote glosses in both its British & World English dictionary and its US English dictionary, so from this example it's not possible to claim that the first is un-American punctuation. Dictionaries have their own internal style anyhow; for example, Merriam-Webster uses no punctuation at all on glosses ("... akin to Middle High German glosen to glow, shine ..."), nor does Collins ("... compare Icelandic glossi flame ..."). Doremo (talk) 03:31, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

The problem with using italics for glosses is that we also use italics for foreign words, so it might end up looking like: casa (house), or: Sic is from the Latin, and translates to thus, so, or just as that. This is just my opinion, but I’d prefer quotes, whether single or double. And I note that our article Sic for example quotes the gloss in parentheses: The Latin adverb sic ("thus"; in full: sic erat scriptum, "thus was it written") …. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 22:35, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I wasn't claiming any kind of national split on this. I said "American" to restrict my answer to U.S. English because I'm more familiar with U.S. English than with British English. If there is a national split on this, it wouldn't be the first, but I don't specifically know of one.

Purdue Linguistics is a specialist guide. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Nesting or omitting quotation marks

Any editors knowledgeable about punctuation, please comment at Talk:"Heroes" (David Bowie song) about our representation of that name. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 19:39, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

...the famous David Bowie song, needs you input on how to handle quotation marks when those marks are actually part of the title. Are they subject to standard rules for quotations, or do they need special handling because they are an artistic part of the title? Have your say at Talk:"Heroes" (David Bowie song)#Quotes in article. Thank you. -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 21:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

The more relevant question here, I think, is what ought to be done if the quote marks are semantically meaningful. But of course guidance for all possible cases would be helpful. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 01:42, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Question about quotation marks

Moved from lower in page and made a subtopic here, since it's a duplicate thread.

If we were to quote a work title which contains a word in quotation marks, such as Foo "Bar", would we change the double quotes to singles as in "Foo 'Bar'", or would that be considered unacceptably changing the title? —174.141.182.82 (talk) 02:17, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Change the inner quotes. From WP:MOSQUOTE (and the section it links to), wikitext might look like:

Chris said "Shakespeare wrote Foo 'Bar{{' "}}.

which appears as:

Chris said "Shakespeare wrote Foo 'Bar'".

Johnuniq (talk) 06:52, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the inner quotes become single quotes. This is currently under heated discussion at Talk:"Heroes" (David Bowie song)#RFC: Quoting "Heroes", including patent original research about "artistic intent". I've posted what I think is an clear explication of the grammatical and policy/guideline rationales (under WP:OFFICIALNAME, MOS:TM, and MOS generally.) The opener of the RfC cited style authorities agreeing, but some of the push-back is not appearing to grasp the issue in these terms. Light rather than more heat is needed there; fans get very emotional and protective of what they're fans of. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:28, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the double quotes are converted to single. The fact that they were placed by the artist does not change this. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:35, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Non Wikipedia question

Moved to WP:REFDESK

This question is not related to a Wikipedia article, but I thought I would ask here as being the best place to get a quick answer. When writing a list of names, with last name first (as in "Blow, Joseph T.")... do you put a comma before Jr., Sr., III, IV, etc.
in other words is it:

Blow, Joseph T. Sr.
Blow, Joseph T. Jr.
Blow, Joseph T. III

or is it"

Blow, Joseph T., Sr.
Blow, Joseph T., Jr.
Blow, Joseph T., III

Please don't start a debate... if different style guides say different things, just tell me which ones say what. Thanks. 74.64.17.9 (talk) 15:42, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language.—Wavelength (talk) 16:01, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I will ask there. 74.64.17.9 (talk) 16:19, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Wording on articles about suicide in line with recommended best practice based on research

As per a conversation that I just had with User:Coolcaesar and on Talk:Robin Williams, I had changed the wording "commit suicide" to "died by suicide" which was reverted on the grounds of following normative writing conventions.

However, there are prominent guides for media writing from a well-known national suicide prevention body that recommend against using this wording. These recommendations are based on research by the World Health Organisation and others, and that have been adopted, at least nominally, by at least one national press standards body (UK Press Association). I would, therefore, recommend that Wikipedia MOS avoid this wording even if others do continue to use "commit", which implies criminalisation from its etymology.

I hope this is the right place, but I would suggest that the MOS adopt a set of conventions that are in line with research on responsible writing about suicide. I appreciate that there have been previous discussion on Talk:suicide about adding a helpline but that this was rejected for fear of WP:NPOV violation. I cannot see that this change would engender a similar problem given that the removal of "commit" actually makes the term more neutral and less pejorative.

Thoughts welcome. MartinPaulEve (talk) 18:49, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that needs to follow its sources. As happened with the Chelsea Manning naming debate, we cannot contradict our sources for political correct, social justice or psychological reasons. When the sources start using your language, you can start using it. WP:NOT#JOURNALISM, WP:NOTTHERAPY, and WP:NOTCENSOR CombatWombat42 (talk) 19:01, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't see how WP:NOTTHERAPY or WP:NOTCENSOR are remotely relevant here. We're not talking about Wikipedians nor about restricting access to information. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 12:54, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

"Commit suicide" and "die by suicide" both seem like reasonable ways to say it to me. Suggest and defend your position on the article's talk page. But at this time I don't believe that Wikipedia policy should prefer one of these expressions to the other. Like CombatWombat says, when general English shifts to exclude "commit," so should we, but that's not the case right now.

As for neutrality, because "commit" is the common English expression, replacing it could be considered advocating a position that current mainstream views of suicide are too harsh. In this way, doing so is not neutral. In this case, I wouldn't call it a big deal, but it's there. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:16, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Comment, I suggested Martin bring this to here only because I would think to adopt this language would need wide acceptance, instead of trying to fight for it on one page. I've seen enough of the types of edit wars that break out over political correctness that without MOS backing some type of statement, its one of those things that will draw the attention of edit warriors. --MASEM (t) 19:18, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

As a matter of style and good writing, I always prefer writing in the active, and not the passive voice whenever possible. Suicide is an affirmative act, and the most common expression in English, e.g., "Robin Williams committed suicide by asphyxiation," conveys that it was an act committed by the decedent. Conversely, "Robin Williams died by suicide" is written in the passive voice, and does not clarify that suicide was an affirmative act of the decedent. Either way, I would not spend a great deal of time fighting over it. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 19:50, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Digression — strictly speaking, Robin Williams died... is phrased in the active voice, not the passive voice. The distinction you're looking for is not active–passive, but rather ergative–absolutive. --Trovatore (talk) 19:54, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Second digression: There is nothing wrong with appropriate uses of the passive voice. It is the correct choice when the focus is on what was done, rather than who did it. It is especially useful in scientific and technical articles. I am certainly not saying this in support of Martin's position; actually I deeply dislike attempts to dictate language in order to conform more closely to what some PC group thinks about an issue, and that is my gut reaction to the "died by suicide" proposal, though on the other hand I certainly don't want the result of anything we do to be more suicides. --Trovatore (talk) 20:04, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

If we're going to be prescriptive about it, "committed suicide" and "died by suicide" are both sterilized soft descriptions. The guideline-supported construction is likely "killed himself on purpose." --erachima talk 20:13, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll alert WP:Med to this discussion. Flyer22 (talk) 03:35, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Alerted. Flyer22 (talk) 03:56, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Why not follow whatever conventions the mainstream uses? Once English-language news outlets make the change, then so should we; if this hasn't happened yet, we shouldn't be the forerunners, no matter how noble the cause. --benlisquare_T•C•E 05:47, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Just to add that I'm not sure that "political correctness" or "policing of language" is quite the phrasing I'd choose to describe this. I've posted a link to respected medical resources showing that the way in which suicide is written about can contribute towards the decision of a suicidal person to kill him- or her- self. Among the secondary literature, particularly in news sources, there is discrepancy in the way in which suicide is reported, with some sources (BBC, Guardian) adhering to the practices laid out in medical/suicide prevention guidelines and others not. In the current guidelines on MOS:IDENTITY, "if it isn't clear which [term] is most used, use the term the person or group uses". Because there is no self-designating consensus, but there is discrepancy in which term is used, there might be a case for the appropriate medical recommentations to arbitrate here. Alternatively, there is already an exception for gender identity, which is construed in terms of self-designation "even when source usage would indicate otherwise". Why should authoritative guidelines on responsible writing about suicide, backed by peer-reviewed research, not constitute another exception? MartinPaulEve (talk) 07:25, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

So I'm not saying whether I think it would matter or not. However, as it happens, your external link is broken. I found the Samaritans' recommended "best practices" for reporting on suicides, but I didn't find anything suggesting that the word "commit" is likely to encourage suicide.

It seems to me that this would be a very difficult thing to establish, particularly the causal aspect of it. I did a cursory search and didn't find any claimed connection. I did find reports about how it made those who had attempted suicide, and survived, feel.

Now, I have nothing against people who have attempted suicide and survived, and I certainly have no active desire to make them feel bad. So if you want to reframe your argument in those terms, obviously it's weaker than if the terminology actually encourages suicide, but still, you could make the argument. Is that the argument you want to make? If you really want to make the causal argument, then you have a higher burden, I think. --Trovatore (talk) 07:58, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I've seen several of these discussions; they are usually not conclusive (oddly, they don't ever seem to happen at WP:WTW, which would be the obvious place for guidance). If "commit suicide" bothers some people, and "died by suicide" feels awkward to other people, then there are lots of other ways to get around it. For example, you can say, "He died on 23 Octember 1391. The cause of death was suicide" without introducing either unwanted or unusual language. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:14, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I do not see either wording as an issue. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 16:21, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Both seem fine to me, but suicide is one of those cases where we shouldn't just throw around WP:NOTCENSORED, because unlike profanity or "obscene" imagery, the effects of suicide are very real, damaging, and well... you're a dick if you don't want to strive towards discouraging the act amongst the emotionally vulnerable. We should make every attempt to avoid anything remotely suggestive, and that can be very small for someone on the fence of committing the act. For that reason, I'm especially happy that the main page simply states that "Robin Williams dies at the age of 63." without the "by apparent suicide" part. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 16:37, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I applaud your dedication to the destruction of arguments nobody is making, Floydian, and especially your associated insinuation that anyone who questions your stance is callously endangering the "emotionally vulnerable". This is a truly clever and appropriate argument to make, and especially classy given its agency-stripping nature in a discussion of a group whose self-perceived lack of agency is considered to widely be a causative factor in their actions. Please give us more of your compelling insights about how we need to discuss this sensitive topic. --erachima talk 16:57, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Hey it was mentioned above, so I just added my two cents, but feel free to continue the superiority charade. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 17:02, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

"Died by suicide" sounds awkwardly passive to me. Suicide is killing yourself, not being killed by yourself. Well, it's that, too, but that means it's also the first thing, which is a common phrase and doesn't make the reader wonder about the intentions behind the unusual phrasing. InedibleHulk (talk) 16:48, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Suicide involves killing yourself, but killing yourself isn't always suicide. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:14, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Sure, but you can extend that to any accident. Everyone who dies in a crash made at least one contributing stupid or short-sighted mistake. It's just a matter of taste where we draw the line between the idiots who "didn't know any better" and the idiots who "should have known better". InedibleHulk (talk) 19:51, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that's the line we're drawing; I think we're drawing the line between those who took action with the specific intent to kill themselves and those who did not intend to kill themselves. By the current understanding, both Robin Williams and Vaughn Bode died of asphyxiation, both intentionally asphyxiated themselves, but only one of them did it with the intent to die, and that is a vital difference when discussing the situation. The term "suicide" is understood to be the intentional killing of one's self. --Nat Gertler (talk) 20:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

No, I get that. The line I'm talking about is the one between saying someone died accidentally and "removed themselves from the gene pool" through foolishness. It's not relevant to the pure "suicide" question, just the Darwin side note. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:28, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

This is a political correctness debate. WP (and MOS) are not bound by the language-reconstruction WP:ADVOCACY of external organizations, no matter what their goals. Sometimes they are right, from an objective WP:NPOV point of view, and we may do what they do, but we're doing it because of NPOV policy, not because they advocated the change. "Committed suicide" has not been shown to raise any genuine NPOV issues; it's an amazingly this stretch to suggest that everyone magically knows there's an etymological origin suggesting criminality. In reality, we use the word "commit" in English in various ways (e.g. committing changes, after testing, to a software source code repository, committing to a long-term relationship, committing an error, etc.). All that the word implies in modern English, consistently, is that the decision/action is non-trivial and is likely to have long-term consequences. "Died by suicide" is farcically passive, and would be rewritten by almost anyone upon contact with it; even if we (wrongly) decided to make it some kind of "WP standard" it would be the least enforced of all time. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:22, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

OK, sorry to be a broken record here, but I would really like people to stop saying "passive" here. It's not passive, at least not grammatically. It's unaccusative, if you like. I get your point; you didn't mean "grammatically passive" but rather "a choice of phrasing that connotes passivity" or some such, but there are enough people who could get confused on the point that I would prefer commentators found different wording. --Trovatore (talk) 19:33, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Just speaking for myself, I find it's short for "Johnny was killed by Johnny", and the other is short for "Johnny killed Johnny". So it connotes a grammatically passive sentence to me, rather than general passivity. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:00, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

I was not aware that anyone infers criminality by the use of the word "commit" in the phrase "commit suicide". The link provided by MartinPaulEve gives a "Page Not Found" response. The phrase "commit suicide" is widely used in sources. I don't see any convincing reason why we should not follow the sources. Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:26, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

I found this page on the Samaritans website. It states "Avoid labelling a death as someone having 'committed suicide'. The word 'commit' in the context of suicide is factually incorrect because it is no longer illegal." However the Samaritans does not acknowledge the fact that the word "commit" has more than one meaning. Nor does the website describe any "research" as implied by MartinPaulEve. Axl ¤ [Talk] 19:59, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

One of the BBC's Editorial Guidelines says, 'Suicide was decriminalised in 1961 and since then the use of the term "commit" is considered offensive by some people. "Take one's life" or "kill oneself" are preferable alternatives.' I think "Plath killed herself" will at least not be considered too politically correct. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 20:51, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

May be stupid question...

I've got an article that should clearly and is in UK english dialect. One quote used in the article is from an American source which includes a word that would be spelled differently in UK english but is using the US version. To add, the quote is coming from a person that is clearly British. What would be the right spelling to use for this quoted word? Should we change the dialect from the quote or leave the quote untouched? --MASEM (t) 23:20, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

MOS:QUOTE says: ...national varieties should not be changed, as these may involve changes in vocabulary, and because articles are prone to flipping back and forth. For example, a quotation from a British source should retain British spelling, even in an article that otherwise uses American spelling. Have you searched to see if you can find the same quote with UK spelling in another source? Also, is the quote from something the subject wrote or spoke? If the former, I'd be particularly reluctant to risk changing it. Pburka (talk) 23:27, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

Using the original spelling when quoting a source is normal practice in all publications, not just Wikipedia. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:33, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

It is an interview specific to the US source and cant easily find a similar quote in other works. It is also a response cited directly to the UK person, so I'd interpret it as the US source making their assessment on the UK person's words. --MASEM (t) 23:36, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the US spelling needs to be retained (despite the unfortunate dissonance within an article that this can cause). We are permitted to silently harmonise typography, font, font-size, etc, and to correct awfuls -- like double hyphens masquerading as dashes; but not spelling varieties. That's as I understand it, anyway. Tony (talk) 23:56, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

I think I agree but, for the sake of being sure, what's the wording in question? Formerip (talk) 00:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Specific example is here [5] ("savoir" vs "savoiur") the external source is [6]. --MASEM (t) 00:08, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I take it you mean "savior" and "saviour"? Nothing to do with French? Formerip (talk) 00:16, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Errr, yes. That's the distinction. --MASEM (t) 00:31, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

OK... I gather that the situation is this: an American publication has conducted an oral interview with a Brit. Now, the Brit, in speaking, may have said "saviour", but the American author wrote it down as "savior". My understanding of the guideline is that we should leave the quote as it was originally written, not as it night have been spoken. Blueboar (talk) 00:23, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Our guidance on this seems a little weird, since it incorporates the rationale "...national varieties should not be changed, as these may involve changes in vocabulary." But what if someone just changes the spelling? The basis the guidance gives for itself wouldn't apply in that case. I think that's what any other publication would do, whether a British publication quoting a British person in an American source or vice versa. I'm not suggesting we should just ignore the guidance, but maybe we should just not fastidiously pay attention to it. Formerip (talk) 13:22, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

We already go beyond what some of us think is acceptable (and indeed have taught to be beyond acceptable) in changing what the MOS regards as "style" in the source to fit that preferred in the English Wikipedia. Changing spelling as well is a step too far, at least for me. If the spelling in the original written source jars, then quote it indirectly, ie. not X wrote "Jones was my savior" but X wrote that Jones was his saviour. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:32, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Concurring with Pburka, Jc3s5h et al., but I think Peter Coxhead has it best: Yes retain the original spelling in a direct quotation even if the surrounding article is written in another variety of English, even if we can confidently guess that the speaker would spell his own words differently. While it is often possible to find more than one transcript of an interview that was given out loud, it looks like this is the official transcript from the interviewer's own organization. Don't switch to a lesser source for the sake of a sense of neatness. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:06, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

I also concur with Peter. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:05, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Organisms: common (vernacular) name vs. WP:COMMONNAME

FYI

– Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere

Please see Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Clarifying that common (vernacular) name doesn't mean COMMONNAME. It invokes MOS:LIFE as well as WP:NCFAUNA and WP:NCFLORA. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:01, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Frequently disputed move request at Wolverine (character) with potentially wide repercussions

Wrong venue. Please move to Wikipedia talk:Article titles

– This has nothing to do with the Manual of Style.

There is a discussion at Talk:Wolverine (character)#Page move back discussion, again concerning whether the page in question should be named Wolverine (character) or Wolverine (comics). This has long been a contentious issue—the page has been moved back and forth several times, and has had several discussions at both Talk:Wolverine (character) and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (comics). The outcome will likely have repercussions throughout WikiProject Comics, especially in light of the result of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Comics#RfC: Proposed rewording for instructions for disambiguation.

There are also concerns regarding WP:CANVASSing for the discussion. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 02:23, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

A MOS talk page is not he palace to address article tile problems. The title of an article is covered by the Article tile policy and it naming conventions (see also disambiguation guideline). -- PBS (talk) 03:08, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

PBS: The discussion is not on any MOS talk page. It is at Talk:Wolverine (character). Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 03:11, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

So why advertise it here? -- PBS (talk) 03:21, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

How is it inappropriate to advertise it here? What are you accusing me of? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 03:25, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

While this is near the top of the page I will copy it here so you can read it "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Manual of Style page. The thread that you have started has nothing to do with improving the MoS. This should be closed and collapsed. MarnetteD|Talk 04:02, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Unproductive venting:

Since this is verbatim from the Wikiproject Comics talk page, the clear and concise thing would have been a Wikilink. But even that might be too much. The further you (all of you) canvas, the more frequently you dispute. The more frequently you dispute, the more back-and-forth it goes. The only final outcomes to back-and-forth are back and forth. If either side wants to be happy, they can't be totally happy.

If you can't compromise, I propose each side choose a representative for an all-or-nothing game of skill (recorded for posterity). Preferably one neither has played before. InedibleHulk (talk) 04:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Since this is verbatim from the Wikiproject Comics talk page: it's the same verbatim message I've put on each talk page I thought was relevant—the discussion's not at Wikiproject Comics. It's supposed to invite people to the discussion, not start a discussion here. "Canvassing"? Under what definition of canvassing? Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 05:19, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

It's not quite canvassing (this time). Thank you for bringing it to this page without an overt bias. But you're copy-pasting it in an irrelevant place. Or you haven't personalized the message in a way that lets us know of the relevance. What repercussions? Why? When? Without that sort of info, it kind of feels like indiscriminate spam.

I know the discussion isn't at the Comic talk. What I meant was brief invitations to longer summaries of the longer discussions are simply shorter and sweeter than form letters. Though I can see how a little exposition can be helpful.

For what it's worth (you can copy-paste this if you'd like), I Support "(character)". As the article's currently written, Wolverine comics don't appear in other media (a link would suffice there, too) and have other powers (enthralment, I guess). The name isn't italicized, either. It's about the guy. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:42, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

I wouldn't have imagined this was the wrong place to bring this until PBS brought up the poor separation of concerns at MOS:COMICS and WP:NCC. MOS:COMICS includes titling instructions, thus I was led to believe it was a MOS issue. As the result of the move ultimately will likely affect many articles, I thought it was inappropriate simply to announce the one RfC sans context.

The message is supposed to be short, but give enough context as to what's going on. I could give more context at the risk of having a longer message and open to accusations of bias. I could have a shorter message that doesn't give enough context to let people decide if they're interested enough to click through. I could avoid copy & pasting, and then risk being accused of tailoring the message to influence different groups. You're right, everyone can't be totally happy. Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 05:59, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

It was fairly concise. Better than some. I can be a bit too into brevity sometimes (though in Talk I use parentheticals and sometimes speak in riddles). Maybe you're right on that part. Thanks for explaining. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:28, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

ENGVAR and articles relating to Commonwealth and European countries

I'm unsure whether this question has been raised here before, so forgive my ignorance.

In articles relating to countries which are not primarily English-speaking, or would not usually be considered part of the Anglophone world, but which use English as an official language (or are part of the Commonwealth) would it make more sense to standardise on Commonwealth English spelling conventions? For example, some of my edits on articles relating to Sierra Leone and Malaysia were recently reverted by an American editor because he considered that they constituted an attempt to change the variety of English used in them. However, both of those countries were part of the British Empire and both are still in the Commonwealth (English is actually the only official language of Sierra Leone), so if anything it would make more sense to use Commonwealth spellings ("colour" vs "color", "metre" vs "meter" etc – the latter spellings are not standard outside the USA). The articles in question had not previously used consistent spellings, and I had tried to make them consistent.

Likewise, English is also widely used throughout Europe, and it is an official language (and major working language) of the EU. English used in Europe generally follows British spelling conventions. Would the same argument apply here? I don't really see why articles about Europe should be written in US English. Archon 2488 (talk) 21:50, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I can maybe buy this for countries that have English as an official language. I disagree for Europe. I see no reason that articles on German topics, for example, should prefer British English. I believe I have heard, for example, that the German educational system deliberately teaches both. There is really no such thing as "German English"; a lot of Germans speak English, but very few speak it as a first language, so it does not develop organically. --Trovatore (talk) 22:19, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

It's been raised dozens if not hundreds of times over. The "first major contributor" rule applies. --erachima talk 22:22, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Only where "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the English of that nation." does not apply. In African Commonwealth countries it would apply. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 09:50, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

OK, but in the case of say, Kenya or Sierra Leone, where English is an official language and widely used by media from those countries? I mean like this sort of thing [7]. The EU is a bit more complex, although there are EU style guides for English use, and hence a kind of "EU English". Archon 2488 (talk) 22:58, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

So if people wanted to specify British English for specifically EU topics — that is, about the union itself rather than its member countries — I personally wouldn't raise too big a stink about that. Provided that it were made completely clear that "specifically EU" means, for example, articles about the European Parliament, but not articles about France or a French chess player. --Trovatore (talk) 23:01, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

In cases like that, the process would simply be to establish editorial consensus that it was a topic of sufficient connection to Britain to change the spellings. Doesn't need a new rule. --erachima talk 23:11, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

It's not always just a case of political/historical ties to Britain or America, though. In the Sierra Leone and Kenyan examples, we should use British English because that is the variety of (written) English used in those countries. Formerip (talk) 23:51, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much it helps us think about these issues clearly, but would Wikipedia have an analogous preference for US English in formerly American-occupied countries where English is not now an official language, such as Cuba and Japan? —— Shakescene (talk) 06:59, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

No, it only applies where English is used as a local rather than a foreign language in some context, whether on the street, in education etc. Wiki CRUK John (talk) 09:53, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

That could get you tied into knots quite easily. Both Germany and Austria had British and American occupation zones after WWII, so which would be the correct choice? In any case, those occupations didn't have any lasting effect on the use of English in those countries, so it doesn't really matter. In the case of Commonwealth countries like India, Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria etc., English has official status and is widely used by government, education, media and as a lingua franca, even if not many of the people are native speakers. So while one cannot speak of "German English", it's by no means a stretch to speak of "Kenyan English" or "Pakistani English". Archon 2488 (talk) 13:47, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, best not to get tied in knots, as someone said above. Aside from articles related to majority anglophone countries, we should be a little relaxed about the choice, I think. Tony (talk) 14:27, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Something else to consider... English usage outside of the UK and US themselves is actually shifting... and is somewhat generational... with older people using UK and younger people using US. You can often tell how old someone from Europe is (without seeing them) by which usages he/she uses in writing (and which pronunciations he/she uses when speaking). The same phenomenon is happening (but to a lesser extent) in the former British colonies. Older Indians, Pakistanis, Nigerians, Singaporeans, etc. tend to use UK usages... while the younger ones tend to use US usages (probably due to the dominance of US usage on the internet).

I don't think the shift is far enough along to amend ENGVAR... but in say 20 or so years we should probably take a good look at our assumptions. Blueboar (talk) 15:42, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

That is a large part of why I'm resisting the attempt to take a prescriptive, flag-planting mindset towards the matter. Articles on subjects of nation X are much more likely to be accurately weighted towards common usage in X by being left to their organic development than by theorycrafted declarations. --erachima talk 16:18, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

If I may plant a flag anyway, I always favour the use of Canadian English to solve the US vs. UK debate as our variant tends to be a mixture of both. ;) Reso lute 16:46, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

I met several Canadians last weekend. I mistook some of them for Americans, and vice versa. We managed just fine without a MoS when speaking to each other. But a true Brit I can pick out easily when speaking: it's difficult for a non-Brit to manage any of the various British accents - except Jodie Foster in Anna and the King where she made only one mistake. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:26, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

@Blueboar: Now I’m curious, do you know why this is? My first thought is to blame American TV shows and movies. —174.141.182.82 (talk) 12:20, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd say go with first major contributor unless the country has an official tie to a specific variety of English. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:53, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

"Official" isn't part of the guideline, though. In any case where a country (or the majority of what is now the country) was part of the British Empire, and is or has been in the Commonwealth of Nations, and/or has English as an official language, that's obviously a "strong national tie" to British English, unless it's developed it's own clearly recognized variety, as in Canada (for many others, e.g. .au, .nz, .sa, the written differences are not significant enough to worry about here). I.e., I think it's entirely normal to use (and change articles to use) British English for geographical topics like Sierra Leone. And we all know it doesn't mean temporary occupation zones. Extensive ones, different story. E.g. Okinawa should use US English; even several generations after WWII, the US still maintains a strong and influential presence there, and no other English variety has any foothold there. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:14, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

A curious thing is that English is not the official language of England - we don't have any official languages. You can speak Latin in a courtroom if you like, and they can't stop you. Sure, most of us speak English, but we don't have to (but it's difficult getting a half-decent job if you don't). However, the next-door country to the left, where the majority of people speak English, has Welsh as its only official language for everyday life, although the National Assembly for Wales is legally obliged to recognise both English and Welsh as official languages, as are other public bodies (including the law courts). --Redrose64 (talk) 23:50, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

The United States also has no official language, though some individual states do (~~always English, so far~~ oops, forgot about Hawaii; the just-around-the-corner-and-always-will-be issue of Puerto Rico statehood could shake things up). --Trovatore (talk) 23:54, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

Neither of those comments are relevant, really; we already know that Britain has close national ties to British English and the US close national ties to US English, without any question of official languages or political ties to the British Commonwealth; this thread isn't about cases as obvious as those two. A point to clarify is that there is no important difference between Kenyan or Pakistani English, on the one hand, and British on the other, for the purposes of writing Wikipedia articles (regardless of local speech patterns and colloquialisms), but both are clearly distinguishable from US English and because of close national ties in those countries to British culture, we shouldn't use American English in their articles. It would be "Ugly American" dickishness. The inverse goes for using British English to write about Guam. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 00:32, 22 August 2014 (UTC) PS: @Trovatore and Redrose64: That phrasing sounded snottier than intended. I mean that, while it's interesting as a side conversation, the official languages questions of the UK and US aren't very germane to resolution of the ENGVAR issue at hand. I meant it as "let's not get distracted" observation, not a "shut up, you" observation. :-) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:44, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Guam, of course, is part of the US, albeit not a state. Maybe the Philippines would be a corresponding example. --Trovatore (talk) 01:06, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Sure, that is a better case. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:32, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I think we have answered the question Blueboar (talk) 00:07, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Majority native anglophone countries aside, a lesson for us all is the unholy, arrogant colonial mess at en.Wikivoyage, which divides the whole of humanity up into those who shall use BrEng and those who shall use AmEng. So Indonesian articles use one, and across the Strait Malaysian articles must use the other. And Thai articles use the first. China had no instruction when I last looked, so god knows. I objected on cultural and logistical grounds and was howled down by the old guard. Tony (talk) 01:24, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

The language ghetto is of our own making, and I for one would be in favour of removing WP:ENGVAR and of unification towards one single code. We just need to agree to what that code should be, or agree to disagree (as at present). -- Ohc ^¡digame! 04:28, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Who mentioned a ghetto? No one. Uniformity is overvalued; ENGVAR isn't perfect but it's better than the alternatives. --Trovatore (talk) 04:45, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Choosing a single variant of English has a big problem. Realistically it will be either American English (upsetting the non-Americans) or British English (upsetting the Americans). Either way we will upset half of our editors. Stepho talk 05:58, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

It's splintered beyond BritEng and AmEng, with there now being more that a dozen codes represented in articles now being tagged. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 06:36, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

So what? --Trovatore (talk) 07:33, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

TfD and CfD pre-proposal

I'm thinking that {{Use British English}} and its siblings, and the categories they populate, should be deleted. Thoughts? This is not a !vote poll to delete them (that's what TfD and CfD processes are for). Just trying to gauge whether I'm along in thinking these badly misconstrue WP:ENGVAR, are moving woard an us-vs-them, anti-collaborative environment, and are pretty bollocksy/bullshitty to begin with, since in encyclopedic writing there's essentially no difference between most of them. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:36, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I suppose there will always be people who will make a confrontation out of anything, but I don't see that as an issue with these templates as such. Perhaps the usage and wording should be re-visited but it seems like a good idea to document for future editors what variety of English to use, to avoid a mixture of -ise and -ize, colour and color, etc. Collaborative editors can just follow what the template says for the sake of consistency, and confrontational editors are reminded in a non-confrontational manner to establish a consensus before trying to change the spelling. It also means gnomes or bots know what the existing consensus is when an article becomes inconsistent because of later editors being unaware of the issue. Personally I would prefer a change to WP:COMMONALITY to include spelling, for instance using the common spelling when various spellings are allowed in British English (possibly including a recommendation to use OUP spelling instead of non-OUP British spelling). I think it is right to get a consensus here (or somewhere similar) before going to TfD and Cfd. --Boson (talk) 14:11, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

These templates can't have the wording revisited, because there isn't any. All they do is add the page to cats like Category:Use British English from August 2014 and Category:Use dmy dates from August 2014 - they display nothing. --Redrose64 (talk) 15:22, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Ah, so this is not meant to apply to {{British English}}, {{American English}}, etc. Ideally, I would like a very visible edit notice, but you could replace my "revisiting the wording" with "adding appropriate wording to tell the reader what version of English is being used". It's not a big deal, but I do (not extremely often) come across well-intentioned editors mis-correcting perceived spelling mistakes, resulting in inconsistent usage, which doesn't look very professional. Adding a hatnote to indicate the variety of English might not only help prevent this but avoid users going away with the impression that we can't spell. If the templates referred to here merely set a category, that still means that bots know which version to use when inconsistencies are detected. It would also help is the talk page and the article page coud be automatically synchronized. --Boson (talk) 16:30, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "and its siblings". If you did mean templates like {{British English}} then I would be strongly opposed. Like Boson (but it seems more often) I come across well-intentioned editors mis-correcting spellings much of which could be avoided if more articles were marked with the ENGVAR they use. The best approach in my view is to use the "page notice" – then any editor immediately sees the ENGVAR notice. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:11, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I think a big issue with using the page notice is that only admins can create/edit this. If the consensus here is to move this to a page notice, then it should also include the use mdy and dmy templates also. Vegaswikian (talk) 17:52, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: By "and its siblings", SMcCandlish means the templates in Category:Use English templates, none of which display text. {{British English}} is not in that category, and it does display text. It's part of a different group, often used as editnotices. It's pointless to put {{Use British English}} and its siblings into an editnotice, because editnotices don't categorise the pages that they're associated with.

@Vegaswikian: Page notices are more properly called editnotices, and it's not just an admin-only action. Account creators and template editors also have the ability to create and edit editnotices. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:00, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd like to be clear that this is what SMcCandlish means and not just your and my interpretation. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:04, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

And I'll add that the text a template generates on the talk page is of no value. How many editors check there to see what version of English is used in the article? In fact, I'll ask what purpose to those templates serve of the ones in the article? Should those be deleted? Vegaswikian (talk) 20:06, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

(Outdent) Yes, I'm talking about the templates in Category:Use English templates. Of the English dialects listed there, most are essentially identical to British English in formal, written form and can simply be redirected to the British one. Most of the remainders are close enough to pidgins/creoles (in the linguistic sense) to present intelligibility issues if articles were actually written in them. Canadian English is an outlier. Aside from the lack of practical utility for these things, the commanding tone of "Use whatever English" is very unwiki. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:23, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Bots and script tools need a way to see which way a page goes in some cases to let them do their work (particularly in achieving date format confortity in an article), which these templates provide. --MASEM (t) 13:31, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Sure, but what is the point of the duplication of, say, both {{Use British (Oxford) English}} and {{British English Oxford spelling}} that put articles into different categories? I've only ever used the second kind and was actually quite unaware of the first. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

They shouldn't both be used on the same page: {{Use British (Oxford) English}} is for use on the article itself; and {{British English Oxford spelling}} is for use on the article's talk page or (with |form=editnotice) in an editnotice for the article. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:12, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

When more than one reference is used, must the numbers be in order?

Does MOS:REFPUNC mandate that when more than one reference is used, the numbers must be in order?

Example: Flightless birds have a reduced keel^[10] and smaller wing bones than flying birds of similar size.^[11]^[12]

Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:43, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Note that the relevant guideline is "Punctuation and footnotes". It does not cover in-text reference order, and there is no way to guarantee that order using the Footnotes system. -- Gadget850^talk 21:52, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Is question about adjacent references? That is, ...similar size.^[11]^[12] vs. ...similar size.^[12]^[11] Doremo (talk) 05:26, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:48, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

There are editors who go around reordering adjacent references in the text so they are sequential. I find this annoying when I've ordered them by importance or date, but I know of no "rule" either way. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:36, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Are there any guidelines on this in other style guides? I also prefer to have the refs ordered by importance and relevance, or simply in order of addition. In this context, sorting the numbers into order does not help searching (unlike sorting in other more useful contexts), and seems as unuseful as sorting books on a shelf by the color of their spines. Reify-tech (talk) 13:22, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

When using the Footnotes system, references are numbered in the order they are defined. Reused references keep the initial number when invoked. This is not a guideline or policy, it is technically how Cite works. -- Gadget850^talk 13:48, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I could have sworn this was a MOS or citation recommendation at one point, but I also see is logically making sense. All this usually requires to get right is reorder named references in a few places. Nearly every outside MOS that I've seen myself where numbered citations are used always have the numbering of multiple citations in numerical order. --MASEM (t) 13:58, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

If it's not in the MOS, we should be following the professional standard used by nearly every single publication ever, which is to have them in numerical order. Readers do not impart any information from the order of the refs, but they certainly see a poor looking setup when they are out of order. - Floydian ^τ _¢ 14:10, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The AMA Manual of Style is an example of a MOS with numbered citations that uses numerical order. I am also unaware of examples of MOS that order numbered citations by perceived relevance or date. Doremo (talk) 14:13, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I feel that it's a bit jarring to see numbers out of order. However this also feels like something that could easily have a technical solution. When there is a sequence of consecutive references, it should be simple enough to sort them automatically before rendering. Pburka (talk) 14:26, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Are there any manuals of style which allow reused reference numbers which require references numbers to be in order?. For example:
Fact 1.^[10]

...

Fact 2.^[12]

...

Further analysis.^[12]^[19]^[10].

I don't see anything wrong with that. Most MoSs suggest that references be order in order of relevance, but the numbering system is that of consecutive numbers in order. I think it's a very bad idea to reorder references to make the numbers in order, since they will not generally be consecutive. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 16:12, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Keep in mind that most "professional" MOSs are written for paper publications or "static" electronic equivalents - not dynamic constantly changing website content such as a wiki. When compiling such static documents the superscript numbers are inserted (semi)manually unlike here where they are automagically generated by the software. The effort required to perform this "fix" would be a waste of editorial resources - frankly we have far bigger fish to fry. -- Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 18:58, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

To answer Arthur Rubin's question, the AMA Manual of Style is a MOS that reuses reference numbers and requires numerical order. I do not know of any such MOS that do not require reused referenced numbers to be in numerical order. Doremo (talk) 19:11, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I agree with Dodger67. Further we should assume that editors who put immediately following refs in a particular order did so for a reason and not reorder them, automatically or manually. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:15, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

A question that is begged is what is a situation where you need to have multiple references in a specific order to support a single statement? I understand that when it comes to sourcing that some references are higher quality than others but nearly every thing I've had the case like that, I can work the inlines around so that instead of grouping all the references at the back end of the sentence, I can sprinkle them around the sentence such that there's no grouped references. --MASEM (t) 19:20, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

These are very common:

Howard C. Bush was in charge of the base camp.^[9]^[10]

where the first reference supports the fact that H. C. Bush was in charge of the base camp, and the second source is a list of the expedition members, that gives his full name as Howard C. Bush. Hawkeye7 (talk) 19:48, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Both would seem to be of equal weight in that sentence, to me, and thus the exact ordering unnecessary. Alternatively, without context, I would guess that one of those references would be better in a previous sentence (eg if you're discussing the makeup of the expedition, ref 10 there would go on the previous statement). --MASEM (t) 20:49, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

The question reflects a confusion of references and notes. You all are saying "reference", but references do not have numbers. The numbered links being referred to derive from the <ref>...</ref> tags used to create notes. Once it is understood that a note can contain multiple references — or preferably, citations to references — then it is clear that only a single note is necessary at any point in the text. And the question goes away. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:40, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Say there is one grouped cite that uses references A, B, and C, and another grouped cite with B and D. There's no clean way to do this without repeating the citation of B. --MASEM (t) 20:49, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

If the order of cites is really that important, you could use WP:BUNDLING and never have to worry about someone coming around and reordering your citations (and have a nicer-looking page to boot). Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 20:55, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Officially the in-text element is "footnote marker" per Footnotes. I gave up trying to change the term years ago. -- Gadget850^talk 21:20, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Something to remember... when a citation is used multiple times through out an article, we recommend using the <refname=> format. This will keep the citation number of the first appearance of the citation, no matter how many times it is subsequently used. So even if you try to manually order the sequence, some citation numbers are going to end up "out of order" (as in: Statement of fact^[5][8][13]). no matter what you do.
As to whether we should add something to the MOS about this... I wouldn't... I think trying to put the citation numbers sequentially would be a colossal waste of time, and would not be worth the effort it takes to do it... if we did institute a rule about it, I would just ignore the rule. Blueboar (talk) 21:13, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

They're not talking about skipping numbers as in "Statement of fact^[5][8][13]", they're talking about those numbers themselves being out of order, as in "Statement of fact^[5][13][8]". Curly Turkey ⚞¡gobble!⚟ 21:21, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

This is a total WP:DGAF issue. I would be strongly opposed to adding a "rule" that they have to be in order. No one cares enough, it's impossible to enforce (people move content and citations with it all the time), no one cares, it would discourage editing and sourcing, and, oh yeah, no one cares. >;-) To those who actually do care (yes, I lied), there are already bots and AWB scripts that make precisely this correction. I don't know how frequently they run, but they turn up in watchlist regularly. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 14:42, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Let's get back to fundamentals. The reason to bother with any sort order at all is to allow indexing and searching of large numbers of entities. It is highly doubtful that any single point in the text of a Wikipedia article will accumulate enough references that searching will be needed at that location (also, there is no need to visually search by this arbitrary numerical ref). The potentially-longer "References" section is automatically sorted into numerical order, as it should be to facilitate visual searching. But obsessively sorting references in the text itself is unnecessary, and an example of artificially constrained writing that detracts from rather than adds useful content. It is akin to building a ship in a bottle, and would be a complete waste of editors' time and mental focus.

If anything, the MOS should advise against sorting references within a text into numerical order, whether manually or by computer. It would be better to order multiple references so that the most useful (readable, understandable, accessible) references are listed before those references that are more there for completeness. By default, references should just be sequenced in the order they are added, which is what happens now, for the most part. Don't let a fetishistic fascination with the infrastructure of writing an encyclopedia overshadow the fundamental reasons for building said infrastructure. If it doesn't advance the goals of Wikipedia, leave it out. Reify-tech (talk) 20:14, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more with these points. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:19, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Crimes and the use of "allege"

Can we get some folks to join this conversation? The question boils down to when someone stands suspect of a crime, do we allege they committed the crime and also have to allege the crime happend in the first place. There is also an overreaching question that the elements of the crime need to be established, and are the RS permitted to do that, or does that have to be determined in a legal setting. Thanks, Two kinds of pork (talk) 05:37, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

An RfC and an RM involving imaginary "conflict" between WP:MOS and WP:AT

FYI

– Pointer to relevant discussions elsewhere.

Please see Talk:Artpop#RfC: Should a song title be listed with non-standard capitalization?, which raises WP:COMMONNAME, WP:OFFICIALNAME, and MOS:TRADEMARK issues. While the song in question is at this moment only treated inside the article on the album on which it was released (and thus in a formal sense involves no WP:AT issues like COMMONNAME and OFFICIALNAME, it's likely, as with so many Lady Gaga songs, that it will soon enough have its own article, and the RfC ongoing might as well get the title correct now rather than later. The RfC is being "advertised" because it was noted that the discussion was circular between two or three participants, and even after RfCization, it's still mostly the same parties, and so needs broader input. See also Talk:Ultra high definition television#Requested move 4 (ongoing), which involves much of the same sort of question. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:26, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

SmC, I plan to check out this RfC because of your long history of spotting relevant issues, but I feel obliged to mention that I do not believe this message is suitably neutral in its current form. Publicizing RfCs is right and proper but you're not supposed to prime your audience before they get there. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:34, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

In what way? I've been careful not to identify a position, only to specify why it's relevant to both MOS and AT, and that input has been too spotty to gauge consensus. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:41, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Can we make it more clear that WP:RETAIN does not apply to WP:CRITERIA-based moves?

A discussion is currently underway at Talk:Mikhaylovsky (last name)‎#Requested move where an editor is invoking WP:RETAIN as a reason not to move that page to Mikhaylovsky (surname). Notably, Wikipedia has literally thousands of articles on surnames from all cultures at titles using "(surname)" as a disambiguator (e.g. Bukowski (surname), Ghatak (surname), Jaramillo (surname), Smith (surname), Surtees (surname), Zhuang (surname)), and other than the page under review, none using the disambiguator "(last name)".

It is well understood that the entire purpose of WP:RETAIN is to avoid changing titles like Centre (geometry) to Center (geometry) merely because one editor or another has an WP:ENGVAR preference. It should be clearly stated that:

WP:RETAIN does not apply where a page move brings a title into conformance with WP:CRITERIA, for example by moving the title from an uncommon name to a more recognizable name, moving from an unnecessarily long title to a more concise title, moving from an ambiguous title to a precise or making the title consistent with a title preference that is otherwise uniformly applied.

Would there be any objection to the addition of this clarification? Cheers! bd2412 T 15:50, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

I think it's unnecessary to expand the current guidance. The objection at Talk:Mikhaylovsky is a misunderstanding, and the page looks pretty certain to be moved. DrKiernan (talk) 20:14, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I think there is a slight, unintended ambiguity in the WP:RETAIN guideline:

An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one valid use of English to another.

This should read "variety" rather than "valid use." As it is written it could be interpreted to forbid copyediting completely. For example, replacing slang with more formal language could fall afoul of the guideline, as both are valid uses of English. I believe it is intended only to refer to national variations. This also solves the specific issue, as "last name" and "surname" are both valid, but neither is characteristic of any national variation of English. Pburka (talk) 21:49, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, that makes sense. DrKiernan (talk) 08:26, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Done Pburka (talk) 12:59, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I can't put my finger on it, but I've seen the same objection in a move discussion before. So, although it is understood by those in the know, I do think it would help to make it clear that, no, the language does not apply to moves made for conciseness or consistency, where there is no real English variation issue. Otherwise, like Pburka says, any less sophisticated editor could point to this language to say that no change should be made. - WPGA2345 - ☛ 04:25, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
Hopefully, the DrKiernan/Pburka change just made, above, to clarify will resolve this problem. I don't see any cause for a change as WP:Instruction creeping as the big insertion proposed above. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 14:35, 25 August 2014 (UTC)
- It's not really instruction creep if we are clarifying an instruction to state when it does not apply, to clear up confusion by editors mistakenly believing that it does apply. To the contrary, I think it would be instruction creep if we have wording that is ambiguous enough that an editor can point to this and say that we are prohibited from changing a word in the English language to another word in the English language, even in the same variety of English. I think Pburka's fix does help there, but is that enough to prevent misuses of the rule like the one raised in the move request that prompted my concern? bd2412 T 14:51, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Time will surely tell us that. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:42, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Cannot / can not

Change "can not" to "cannot"? Change "cannot" to "can not"? Leave as first written? Barring any ambiguity of course. Thanks! - Richfife (talk) 16:53, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

But seriously, folks
Let's split the baby and make them all "cain't". bd2412 T 18:10, 26 August 2014 (UTC) Works for me. Let me just write up a bot real quick. - Richfife (talk) 18:23, 26 August 2014 (UTC) Cain't do it fast enough. bd2412 T 18:39, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

Perfectly good faith question, but hopeless as a standards proposal. When the rest of society settles on one or the other, so should we then. We're not likely to do it sooner. It would probably be easier to either standardize or eliminate all uses of can't.__ E L A Q U E A T E 20:32, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

That's what I thought. For the record, this is in relation to this exchange. - Richfife (talk) 20:41, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

No problem, it's a fun usage to speculate about, the lack of "can not" in dictionaries means nothing (two distinct words are not as often represented in dictionaries as actual compound uses), but ultimately its almost entirely harmless either way, despite individual preference, and neither side has proven which use is better at preventing the spread of scurvy and dysentery. It could probably be considered a WP:BIKE endeavour to be avoided on those grounds alone.__ E L A Q U E A T E 20:55, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

My schoolteacher said that there's no such word as "can't". Mind you, that was 40 years ago, it's probably been invented since. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:39, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

"Can't" is a perfectly acceptable contraction (although it's also perfectly acceptable for Wikipedia not to use contractions). Do you mean "ain't"? Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:45, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

IIRC it was in the context of "I can't do this, miss" in response to some task. --Redrose64 (talk) 16:51, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

That is better suited for the Idiomatic Manual of Style along with; there is no try, never say never, say "au revoir" but not "goodbye", etc. __ E L A Q U E A T E 17:02, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

I'd say use only "cannot". Logically "I can not do it." should (or at least could) mean that it's possible for me not to do it but if that's the intended meaning, it would be better rephrased. At least that's my take on things at a glance. Jimp 17:58, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

It's my understanding that it is always "cannot" and never "can not" as two words. But you don't have to take my word for it: [8] ...but it seems this position is not universal. A list of sources here says that "cannot" is merely the "more common" spelling, though some of them refer to "can not" as non-modern. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:05, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

We shouldn't over-worry about what editors can do, or what they can not do, when the use is interchangeable. It cannot be denied that "cannot" is more common, but they're both acceptable and non-errors. __ E L A Q U E A T E 11:59, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

First search result: [Cannot or can not?] Modal Jig (talk) 13:24, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

They're not equivalent. I cannot eat a boulder, i.e. I [physically] cannot eat a boulder. I can not eat fatty foods (i.e. I can [choose, prefer, be medically ordered to] not eat fatty foods. The latter usage, "can not", is ambiguous and confusing, and should be avoided. Use cannot when you mean "am not able to", use can <something> not, including whatever the <something> is, when you mean "am able/willing to refrain from doing [because of <reason>]". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:51, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Image borders

Is there a MOS section that deals with how images may be formatted (specifically, may images have hardcoded borders)? For example, see Large denominations of United States currency, which has a number of currency images. I'm fine with the quality level of the images, however, the author/uploader has opted to include large black borders around the images (as well as between them, as there are actually two images per individual file). I think including hard-coded borders within images is a bad idea, as it hurts the image reuse possibilities (especially in cases where the images are free to use). For example, while those borders may be acceptable on a PC when viewed through a conventional web browser, they may be quite large when viewed on a mobile device or a low resolution device. They also prove problematic for printed forms as well (wasting ink/toner, etc).

Thoughts? Or is this covered somewhere in MOS already? =) —Locke Cole • t • c 15:36, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Note that the borders are no barrier to reuse, apart from presenting a bit of extra work. All images on Wikipedia (with the exception of fair-use images) may be freely modified for any use. Pburka (talk) 19:01, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

With all respect, "a bit of extra work" is indeed a barrier to reuse when the alternative is "no extra work at all". MediaWiki already generates borders for images when the correct settings are used, so the hardcoded borders seem superfluous. —Locke Cole • t • c 05:15, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Borderless images should be the preferred format. Borders are easy to add if and as needed, but there is no "universal" border that will fit into all contexts worldwide. At the least, image uploaders should be informed of the preference for borderless images. Can somebody identify the appropriate place(s) to notify uploaders? Reify-tech (talk) 13:13, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Preparing images for upload, probably the upload wizard (which I never use) as well. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:50, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

These are not really borders per se. The original bills have either been photographed on a black background or placed there with graphic software to give definition to the bills and their edges. Note the rough edges on the bills and the variable spacing of the "borders" – for example, the first bill (Albert Gallatin). The rationale is understandable; perhaps another method is more appropriate. Modal Jig (talk) 15:33, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

I heard a rumour that in the recent changes to font, etc, they almost decided to remove default borders around images. Tony (talk) 01:37, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Agreed with Modal Jaig that this isn't reallyh a case of borders, but of real-world background, but the point is valid. It should really also be brought up at Commons; stuff uploaded here usually ends up over there, and most of what's uploaded there, other than people's damned genital pics, is mostly used here. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 14:39, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies, I will bring the issue up on Commons (perhaps they already have guidance on this somewhere, I'm a lot less familiar with Commons than I am with en-wiki). =) —Locke Cole • t • c 05:11, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

En dashes in compound modifiers

For years, I have been using an en dash instead of a hyphen in compound modifiers where one element (at least) is open (contains a space), e.g. "a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist". This agrees with the Dash article, which says that is the usual treatment in English, per the Chicago Manual of style. As User:Good Olfactory pointed out at WP:CFD, Wikipedia's MoS is different, and specifies an en dash only when the second element contains a space. I haven't managed to find any relevant discussion on this talk page, but regardless of the reason this MoS has for not following "usual" English usage, would it be a good idea to put a note in the Dash article to prevent other editors from trying to use en dashes in these cases within Wikipedia? Chris the speller ^yack 14:19, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, either that or start a new proposal to change our MoS. Chicago isn't the only manual of style which recommends this usage; I had assumed it was more or less universal and have been employing it here on Wikipedia for years. I'll stop now though I would probably support a move to change our own style guide. —Psychonaut (talk) 14:25, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

It's not helpful that the MOS condemns credit card–sized without being absolutely clear as to the alternative, e.g "credit-card-sized" is plausible. Google ngrams don't distinguish hyphens from endashes, but "credit card - sized" and "credit - card - sized" are similar in occurrence. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:45, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

En dash vs. hyphen: Specific application question

I have a specific question about the en dash vs. hyphen issue for anyone particularly fluent in the difference: In the article name Adam–God doctrine, should it be an en dash (as it is now) or a hyphen (as it used to be)?

My initial sense was en dash, but bearing in mind that the gist of the doctrine is that Adam and God are the same person or being, is this akin to the "wrong" example given in § 9.9.2.2 of "singer-songwriter", which uses a hyphen, not a dash, because it's "not separate persons" that are being referred to? According to the doctrine, saying "Adam" and saying "God" is referring to one being—not separate persons—so should it not be a hyphen? (In a literal sense, it's the "Adam=God doctrine"). Any insights or opinions on this? Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 02:00, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

So what you're saying is you'd like to resurrect one of the most passionate (to the writers) and boring (to the readers) debates in Wikipedia history, but with a religious twist about a longer, similar debate this time? Fair enough.

I'm always for using whichever one -this- is, because that's the one I have on my keyboard. And everything is God. But you should use whichever thing you're supposed to use, according to the result of the last war. That's why they're held. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:17, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

If the doctrine is about the relationship between Adam and God, it should be an endash. On the other hand, if adherents of the doctrine use "Adam-God" as a single name, it should be a hyphen. (Some aspects of the MOS endash vs. hyphen "guidance" seem to be of theological complexity. Let's not start discussing it again!) Peter coxhead (talk) 08:42, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

@InedibleHulk: The one on your keyboard is hyphen-minus, U+002D. See also Wikipedia:How to make dashes. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:35, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! InedibleHulk (talk) 21:49, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

But ONLY on a keypad that has numbers locked. The numbers on the main keyboard won't work and since I keep my keypad set without numbers locked, and I use ndash a lot, I had to create a macro so alt+F12 would create an ndash. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:23, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I use the 'Edit page "Insert"' method described at Wikipedia:How to make dashes#Long explanation - you need to expand the "Are you sure you want the long explanation?" box to see it. --Redrose64 (talk) 23:28, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

No, I didn't want to open the underlying issue for debate again—I was just wondering how the guideline as currently written would apply to this situation. I appreciate the humor, though. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:04, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Peter coxhead had this one right. In this case it looks to be en dash, because the doctrine is about the relationship between two entities. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:04, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Another reason that I think an en dash is called for, although I don't care enough to actually look at the rules again, is the possibility that Adam~God could be someone's last name if a hyphen was used. AgnosticAphid talk 14:53, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

"courtesy of" in photo captions?

I noticed in the article South_American_dreadnought_race that all of the photos have the source in the caption. This did not make sense to me for a number of reasons: 1. It is an indirect form of advertising that seems to violate WP:NOTAD, 2. It is a duplication of information, all of the information is included on the photo page itself. 3. It makes the captions unreadable long especially for mobile devices, in violation of WP:ACCESSIBILITY 4. It is inconsistent with the rest of Wikipedia.

My question is two fold, in this specific case as addressed by this revert of my changes [9], is there precedent for "having constancy" and following TCMOS?, and in general, do we have/need a wikipedia wide policy for "courtesy of" style citations in captions? CombatWombat42 (talk) 17:26, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, per WP:CREDITS we do not give photographic/courtesy byline credit in captions but use the file description page for that. --MASEM (t) 17:38, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

Rid us of this rubbish, Wombat, per all your reasons stated. Jimp 17:51, 27 August 2014 (UTC)

This is ridiculous, and Jimp, thanks for denigrating my work as "rubbish". Greatly appreciate it. Do we still wonder why article writers get discouraged and leave the site? Now, CombatWombat:

You're going to call it advertising? Are you joking? Please tell me that you are. They're nearly all GLAMs or academic sources.
Duplication is not necessarily a bad thing, and in this case, I'm purposely doing it. See this list's subsequent paragraph.
There is absolutely no prohibition against lengthy captions, and most of the captions are only extended by a few words. The João Cândido Felisberto image was an unfortunate exception, but I've compromised; see the end of this message.
If consistency were an issue, we'd have a standard system of citations with a rigid system of determining image sizes and infoboxes on every article. But we don't have any of that, so you're advancing an extremely weak argument. Article writers are given wide leeway, within wide parameters, to choose how to present their content.

Many of these images were uploaded or sent to me by outside parties specifically for use in this article (before anyone jumps, I'm not speaking in the copyright sense), and these credits have helped me attain additional imagery. In fact, I have more to upload once I find enough time to clean them up and ensure that they are out of copyright—although sadly, I wasn't been able to do so before ARA Rivadavia went on the main page. Given all this, I've been invoking a limited form of IAR in several of my articles to acknowledge institutions that have donated material—including several recent featured articles. The remaining captions are there to be consistency, a goal we as a project have only ever championed on an article-by-article basis. What here is actively hurting the encyclopedia?

As a compromise, I've shortened the lengthy captions with short cites. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 00:04 and 00:08, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

You can have a citation in a caption to identify the source, but our MOS disallows the use of bylines simply to be consistent across the board. In this article it is clearly not advertizing but someone would see that and say "well, I need to have my photos with bylines". Better not to do it at all on article pages than partial. --MASEM (t) 00:13, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Your argument doesn't carry through to its logical conclusion. They could also look at the citations and say "well, I need to format my short cites like that." They could look at the images and say "well, some of these are larger, so let me increase all of mine." They could look at the historiography section and say "well, I must be required to have one." To venture into hyperbolic territory, your argument implies that if our hypothetical editor watched a person jump off a bridge, they would follow, because they must blindly follow what came before without investigating why. It's pretty apparent that many of Wikipedia's articles have significant differences, and I'd be surprised if most editors have not long since recognized that. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

However, this is in our MOS, which is a standard all articles are expected to follow. There are some things we do blindly follow as to prevent edit warring over trivial differences like the inclusion of bylines. --MASEM (t) 04:33, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The credits page is meant to prevent the use of bylines to fulfill GFDL/CC licenses, and it has exceptions built in. Anyway, again, there's IAR. These bylines, which are actively helping the Wikimedia world obtain media files, are a great use of IAR, one of Wikipedia's core principles (in full: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." Pretty applicable here.). Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:52 and 04:57, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

And we have decided that if a reader needs to find a photo credit, they should look there so that we don't run into the issue of people simply looking for free advertising because they see other photos using that credit. IAR doesn't apply here, unless you want to argue for a full out change in the MOS. --MASEM (t) 05:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

And again, IAR tells us that "if a rule [such as the manual of style!] prevents your from improving or maintaining Wikipedia [I've demonstrated above that these credits are helping me obtain additional media files], ignore it." Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 15:22, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

But IAR still has to work by consensus, and judging by the discussion, you don't have that. IAR is not evoked on the whim of one person's opinion. --MASEM (t) 15:25, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia policy is not to place photo credits into captions, but to make credits accessible one click away. Wikipedia is actually more careful than many other websites to make credits conveniently available to any interested reader, without cluttering up articles with source information not usually of general interest. An occasional exception may be made when the originator of the image is WP:NOTABLE as the creator of a particular iconic image, but this mention must satisfy the usual criteria for notability. Reify-tech (talk) 15:57, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

The ed17, you seem to be making an argument based on your personal appraisal of the sources you want to credit in the article, i.e. that WP:CREDITS magically doesn't apply just because the sources (or as you said, just most of them) are WP:GLAMs. I think that's the "argument [that] doesn't carry through to its logical conclusion": WP:CREDITS makes no such exception. There are potential cases in which a credit could be valid, but it would be unusual. One type of case would hinge on the fact that images are the one area where people can effectively get away with original research and unverifiable claims if they're sneaky. So, if in a particular article's context, the average reader might believe a picture to be questionable, but the source would indicate that it's legit, then it might make sense to include the source in the caption, to forestall readers' "mental revolt". Another possible case might be illustration of the difference between image quality of astronomical pictures from the Hubble space telescope vs. a ground-based observatory's pictures, in which case labeling which one is which is necessary to make the point clearly. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:01, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

What's bad about the captions/footnotes, which should urgently be removed, is that they are misleading as to copyright. They say that some of the images are "courtesy of" a source. "Courtesy of" means that the copyright owner has allowed that particular use of the image. But there's no "courtesy" involved: the image is not in copyright or it wouldn't be in Commons. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:26, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Are "(stylized as...)" inserts in article leads in line with MOS:TM MOS:CAPS?

The insert (stylized as COVER LETTERING) is a formula which is used in a number of leads of entertainment product articles (albums, singles, video games, comics, anime, films):

Channel Orange (stylized as channel ORANGE) is the debut studio album of American recording artist Frank Ocean, released on July 10, 2012, by Def Jam Recordings.

In this case what that is saying appears to be

Channel Orange (shown as "channel ORANGE" on the CD cover) is the debut studio album of American recording artist Frank Ocean, released on July 10, 2012, by Def Jam Recordings.

This typically occurs in agreement with, or restatement of, the infobox .jpg so three questions:

(1) what is the purpose/benefit of stating what casing is used on the cover of the CD/game/DVD/anime/manga in the lead like this.
(2) is this in line with MOS:TM / MOS:CAPS as they apply to the leads of articles?
(3) why is the term used "stylized" rather than just "shown as on cover"? Wouldn't (shown as "channel ORANGE" on the CD cover) be a better reflection of what is happening? In ictu oculi (talk) 23:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

I speculate that it's connected with the (common) name versus (common) style issue in the MOS. If "channel ORANGE" is a stylized version of "Channel Orange" then it can be restyled in accordance with the MOS. If it were accepted as it is as the name of the work, which "shown on the cover" might imply, then it would be argued by some editors that it should not be altered. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:58, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

The two alternative wordings you give are functionally equivalent, and can even by hybridized as 'stylized as "channel ORANGE" on the CD cover'. There's no standard wording, and mentioning the styling isn't required, it's just sometimes thought to be encyclopedically relevant.

The purpose for readers (the more important purpose) is to be informative/accurate. The subordinate purpose (for editors) is to forestall more annoying rehash, like repeated attempts to move articles to WP article names that violate MOS:TM (and WP:COMMONNAME by over-focusing on WP:OFFICIALNAME) just to conform to usually fannish insistence on what the name of something "really is" <insert eye-rolling and hollow-fisted stroking motion here>.
So, yes. This usage evolved because of MOS:TM and other MOS rules, e.g. MOS:CAPS, as well as WP:COMMONNAME. Reliable sources almost always show that stylization of such names is routinely abandoned, even in the music press (or other relevant reporting - this isn't always about musical releases), and often even in promotional materials for the work in question.
Because that's how someone wrote that sentence in the article. I would actually keep the "stylized" wording, and use a hybrid sentence as I outlined. It's important to some to separate content from presentation, i.e. to emphasize that trademark and other stylistic shenanigans are in fact only stylistic (with rare exceptions, e.g. iPod, Deadmau5 and Numb3rs – cases where the stylized name is "accepted as it is as the name of the work", as Peter put it). However, it's usually wrong to imply that the title/name is always styled that way (if it were, then it would be one of those rare exceptions and the article would be at that title), so either being explicit that the stylizing isn't universal, or being specific about when it is so stylized, is relevant. I think many articles don't do this yet, e.g. at Client (band), which I just fixed by adding "frequently". Adding something like "on the CD cover" is usually too specific (since it make turn out that it's also done in the label's print advertising for the album, and on the tour T-shirt, etc.). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:45, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Quotations cleanup

I've been trying to do a bit of cleanup in the area of block quotations. I would appreciate it if someone would pick that up, since I won't be able to spend more time on it. I have moved my status page and made it a subpage of this corner of the wiki. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:27, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Allow en dash in a compound modifier where the first element contains spaces

The MoS currently allows an en dash "Instead of a hyphen, when applying a prefix (but not a suffix) to a compound that includes a space". This proscribes the use of an en dash in "a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist". The background for the current state of the MoS is an edit war that began in late 2010 and wound down in February 2011. The last significant skirmish was in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 119#en dash in compounds... and centered around the typography of "credit card-sized". I think "credit card-sized" was a poor choice of poster child for the general debate about hyphens vs. dashes. In cases like "Pulitzer Prize–winning", the capital letters change the situation. The WP article Dash recommends an en dash in this case, per Chicago Manual of Style. WP:MoS should at least allow, if not require, the en dash. Chris the speller ^yack 18:04, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

The capital letters actually make it less necessary to use an endash, since they clarify the parse as (Pulitzer Prize)-winning. The MOS rationale for using endash is that it alters the binding compared to a hyphen. So is there an example where "X Y-A" could be parsed wrongly as "X (Y-A)" instead of "(X Y)-A"? If so, this would be a case for differentiating between endash and hyphen. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:32, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

There is "Spanish guitar–player" ("Spanish guitar–player").

—Wavelength (talk) 19:44, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

Comment. Often users dismiss such issues with the idea that we should simply rephrase the idea. While this is true, it doesn't always work for category names, which often are intended to conform to some sort of consistent standard in phrasing. So it's worthwhile to discuss, at least. Personally, I've never understood why the endash is recommended for the prefix situation but not the suffix situation. Good Ol’factory ^(talk) 22:13, 2 September 2014 (UTC)
I'm with Peter coxhead on this. There's no reason to use an en dash as a "giant hyphen" just because something's capitalized. Chicago Manual of Style is just one American university press's prescriptive work, and its advice sometimes reverses itself on various points from one edition to another, and we're not bound to do what it does, most especially when it proposes something that other style guides do not. In short, I wouldn't use an en dash as a hyphen replacement even for prefixes.
"Spanish guitar-player" is wrong unless it's a compound adjective ("her Spanish guitar-player approach to arpeggios"), in which case a) I would hyphenate the entire compound as "Spanish-guitar-player", since "Spanish guitar-player" is ambiguous, and b) it should be linked as "Spanish-guitar-player, and it should be reworked anyway to be less clumsy to begin with ("her approach to arpeggios, reminiscent of Spanish guitar style)".
The phrase would not be hyphenated at all otherwise: "She is a Spanish guitar player", but this also ambiguous, and our standard fix for this situation is to use "guitar player from Spain" or "player of the Spanish guitar", depending on what is meant. See, e.g., Category:Australian players of English billiards.
PS: Same goes for "credit-card-sized"; that refers to something about the size of a credit card. "Credit card-sized", though a style once common, is naturally ambiguous and seems to imply card-sized credit. It's a construction I avoid like the plague on Wikipedia, as this half-way-hyphenated style quite often leads to sentences that are very difficult to understand on first reading, especially for non-native speakers of English. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:08, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

 SMcCandlish ☺, if those workarounds can be used for "suffixes" in compounds, then other workarounds can be used for "prefixes" in compounds. Why "prefixes" and "suffixes" are treated differently remains to be explained.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:06, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I agree. I'm opposed to using en dashes as "giant hyphens" at start or end. It seems to me that, as often happens, Chicago is recommending something stupid, and some who's a bigger fan than they should be of Chicago has imported their rule into Wikipedia, without much discussion as to whether that makes sense or not. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:48, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

No consensus seems imminent, so can we come up with a sensible change to the Dash article to avoid pushing the use of en dashes in this situation, or at least explain that their use is common, but discouraged or forbidden within Wikipedia? I would make a change, but it would likely be viewed as too sarcastic by some editors. Chris the speller ^yack 01:41, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Our actual article at Dash should document what Chicago and other major style guides recommend, but need not ever mention MOS (we avoid WP:SELFREFs in mainspace unless we have good reason to make them), unless our own style guide has been deemed by external reliable sources to be so influential that it's notably affecting off-WP usage. That actually strikes me as quite likely by this point; MOS is the most broadly consultative and egalitarian style guide in the world, being written by everyone with the patience and knowledge to debate its minutiae and their practical effects on the largest-scale writing project in history, instead of being controlled by a handful of paid pontificators who rarely acknowledge that anyone can have a differing opinion for valid reasons. I can't speak for anyone else, but the fact that MOS is going to slowly change how mainstream literature and non-fiction are written in the English language generally, because of WP's huge public mindshare, is one of the reasons I care about it so much. Anyway, our article at Dash shouldn't be "pushing" anything at all, per WP:NPOV and WP:SOAPBOX/WP:ADVOCACY. We must just observe what different sources say about dashes, without editorializing ourselves. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:48, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Arab exception?

What is the reason for the existence of the relatively bizarre specification on Arabs? It reads "the adjective Arab (never to be confused with Muslim or Islamic) refers to people and things of ethnic Arab origin. The term Arabic refers to the Arabic language or writing system, and related concepts (Not all Arab people write or converse in Arabic)". Honestly, I cannot believe that the MoS needs to address this matter in such a specific matter. There are many other ethnicities with similar problems, and furthermore, the "never to be confused" is just odd. Do we assume the lowest common denominator editor, who would make such a stupid mistake? Is it really the MoS's business to deal with such things? RGloucester — ☎ 02:05, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it is odd for the main Manual of Style page to so specifically regulate one word. Also, our own article on Arab suggests that the line in the MOS may be oversimplifying the distinction between the various terms it mentions. -sche (talk) 20:30, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Because it's necessary for reader clarity and to avoid POV pushing and confused correlations that amount to original research. The paragraph needs to be expanded with more problematic entries (start with "Jew", which has at least 3 distinguishable meanings), not eliminated. The clumsiness of the wording is a matter of copyediting cleanup, and has nothing to do with the purpose of the section. I would generalize it and use Arab and Jew and something not Middle-Eastern as examples. Then it would be both more useful and less oddly focused on Arab/Arabic. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:12, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Concur with SmC. This is a real problem. If other ethnic groups also have real problems, then they should also be listed or linked to. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:17, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Generally concur with SmC. This is a problem, and clarification is needed, because in the current world political context "Arab" is often a hot-button term. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:25, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Hyphenated compound words

I was trying to find a clear guideline for hyphenated compound words with numbers - and found that the article English compound does a great job of explaining compound words. Perhaps it could be a "See also" or wikilink within the Hyphens section of the MOS?

Thanks!--CaroleHenson (talk) 22:17, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

I assume that there's a community of folks that are responsible for the updates to the MOS - but if can/should made the edit myself, that's fine, too.--CaroleHenson (talk) 00:50, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

See WP:HYPHEN, sub-subsection 3, point 8, for compound words with cardinal numbers. See WP:CENTURY for compound words with ordinal numbers.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:37, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Yep, that was the general area where I wondered if the English compound link could be added. It seems to be much better than what is in the MOS. (When looking for a guideline to post for a review, I didn't think the MOS was clear enough - and found the English compound when I did a Google search to find a good write-up with more examples/written words.) I'm just wondering if English compound could be added as a wikilink. That's all.--CaroleHenson (talk) 01:47, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

The introduction to sub-section 3 already has a link to "Compound modifier", which has in its section "See also" a link to "English compound". I believe that the article "English compound" has sufficient prominence. (I could nominate very many things for increased prominence, but limits are necessary.)

—Wavelength (talk) 02:30, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Fine. Yes, I went to the Compound modifier article from the MOS hyphens section and when it and it's links within the body of the article didn't look helpful, I didn't think to check see alsos. I spent 20 minutes or more in Help and Wikipedia looking through search results, archive discussions, etc. to try to find a good explanation for a non-native writer. But, it's entirely likely that it's me.--CaroleHenson (talk) 02:46, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

Possessives in article titles

Hey everyone, apologies if there's a better place for this question.

I stumbled across the page Spain's reaction to the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence and thought that the possessive in the title sounded strange, and made a proposal to move the page to Spanish reaction to the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence. However, I closed the request when I noticed that there are 13 other pages with the same issue on the same topic.

I assumed that, since we pretty much always avoid possessive apostrophe's in titles (List of New York state parks instead of List of New York's state parks, German reunification vs Germany's reunification, Judiciary of Russia vs. Russia's judiciary, or Spanish colonization of the Americas vs Spain's colonization of the Americas, and so on and so forth) there may have been some sort of written policy on the subject, but I haven't found any. Any help pointing me in the right direction would be much appreciated. Thanks!--Yaksar (let's chat) 21:12, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

This sounds case-by-case. The reason Music of Spain is titled that way instead of "Spanish music" is because it might be confused with "Music in the Spanish language".__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:32, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The reason it refers to Spain, and not Spanish, is because it is about the reaction of the Spanish government (of which Spain is a synonym), not of the Spanish people in general. If you really want to remove the posessive, then Reaction of Spain to the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence might be better, but personally I don't see the need to change it. Bazonka (talk) 21:33, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

See WP:TSC.—Wavelength (talk) 21:34, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

How is TSC relevant? Apostrophes are not mentioned, as they are not special characters. (Other than curly typographic apostrophes which aren't the issue here.) Bazonka (talk) 21:48, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

After a little looking, I don't see a good way to choose one over the other beyond case-by-case editorial discretion. Moons of Jupiter looks fine compared to "Jupiter's moons" and might be the term most people would search for first, but Earth's orbit is more natural and concise than "Orbit of Earth". WP:TSC makes it clear that possessives aren't specifically discouraged in policy. It seems to depend more on the nuance of the individual title.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:54, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Bazonka, I hurriedly interpreted "typographic apostrophes" incorrectly as "straight apostrophes".

—Wavelength (talk) 22:06, 9 September 2014 (UTC) and 22:09, 9 September 2014 (UTC) and 22:14, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Footnote list

I do not understand the following:

"When ref tags are used, a footnote list must be added, and is usually placed in the Notes and References section near the end of the article in the standard appendices and footers."

Indeed, when references are used, they automatically come at the end of the article, and therefore, in a list, don't they? Michel Hervé Bertaux-Navoiseau (talk) 10:06, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Only if the {{Reflist}} code is added too. Theroadislong (talk) 11:54, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

We now have Automatically generated reference lists, but there are issues. -- Gadget850^talk 12:03, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

What the sentence is saying is this... (until recently?) in order to make the coding format:

"<ref> text of reference </ref>"

work, you also needed to add the coding command:

"{{Reflist}}"

at the location in the article where you wanted the references to actually show up (usually in a section at the end of the article entitled "Notes" or "References"). Blueboar (talk) 19:47, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer, which I'm afraid I do not understand since all I know is that a reference begins with a "ref" sign and ends with another one, so that references automatically appear in a list down at the end of articles, don't they? So that there is no need to add anything, even a mysterious to me "Reflist code". Michel Hervé Bertaux-Navoiseau (talk) 15:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

If you edit any article with references, you'll see the "ref list" code near the bottom of the page. The "ref list" code creates the section where the refs are listed. It only has to be added once per article. The only reason it seems "automatic" to you is probably because an earlier editor had already added it to any article you've ever worked on.__ E L A Q U E A T E 15:36, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, even if you neglect to add ""{{Reflist}}" (or "<references />" which is essentially equivalent although the style is slightly different) the list of footnotes will appear at the bottom of the article. This is a new feature; until a few months ago the list wouldn't appear unless one of these codes was added. However, it is is better to have a heading for the footnote list. Also, we often don't want the footnotes at the very bottom of the article. So adding ""{{Reflist}}" (or "<references />" allows us to put the list exactly where it belongs. This is explained at WP:ORDER. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:19, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Quoting different dialects of English to the one the article is written in

In this case Al Sharpton was being quoted and he was using (as far as I can tell, I'm not a native speaker) perfectly normal AAVE:

Sharpton was quoted as saying to an audience at Kean College in 1994 that, "White folks was [sic] in caves while we was building empires [...]".

I thought [sic] seemed incorrect because I couldn't see any mistakes or unusual word choices and so I removed it. User:Knight of Truth disagreed and we had a brief discussion (here, and here).

I couldn't see any official policy on this so I thought I'd ask everybody's opinion. --holizz (talk) 00:38, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

The "sic" should just be removed if the quote is accurate. It's distracting and can come across as calling undue attention for the purposes of editorialising in a bit of a snobbish way. It's not about vernacular, if a direct quote had some UK slang or less formal english, it also shouldn't be shame-tagged with a "sic" unless there was a more honest chance of serious reader confusion.__ E L A Q U E A T E 01:05, 1 September 2014 (UTC),

Is AAVE a formal, official dialect of English (like British English or American English) or just a variation of slang (like rhyming slang)? If it is an official dialect then the sic marks are not neccessary. If it is just slang then sic marks should stay. Stepho talk 05:38, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Elderly farm workers in Somerset also say "folks wuz [sic] slower in the ol' days". Mistakes in grammar made in Somerset are not considered a different language. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:44, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

If it were in Zomerzet, 'twould be "zlower". --Redrose64 (talk) 23:47, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

'Tis true :). However I think if were quoting a farm worker saying "folks was" we probably wouldn't include a sic sticker in the quote, sic can be used for grammar and spelling, Dan Quayle's potatoe, and the MOS of some publications - The Spectator magazine's MOS I was told is an example - but (sic) is only important for errors of incidental fact, where someone reports a statement "the company has been serving Malaysia's farmers since Malaysia achieved its independence in 1957 [sic] the company was nationalized" [footnote: only part of Malaysia achieved independence in 1957, officially independence is dated as 1963] for example. The "was" in Sharpton's statement is an error but not one greatly adding to any material error of content, so unless it's applied to every grammatical error in quotes consistently across en.wp can't see the point. In ictu oculi (talk) 00:04, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

To me, the basic question is this... is it likely that people reading the quote will think Wikipedia made an "error" and try correct it. If so, then the sic is helpful (informing the editor that the "error" is part of the quote, and thus intentional). If not likely, then the sic is not needed. Blueboar (talk) 12:56, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

It's actually quite likely that someone will mistake that for a typo and "fix" it, but the debate here is presenting a false dichotomy. Use {{sic|was|hide=y}} to wrap the variance from mainstream English in an invisible sic template, without "shaming" it with a visible one. PS: There is no such thing as "official" in English, so "official" vs. "just slang" is another false dichotomy. This same technique can be used for any other variances from mainstream English or from MOS in quoted printed material; e.g. use {{sic|37ft.}} rather than change a quotation to read 37 ft to conform to MOS. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:24, 5 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks everybody. I took User:SMcCandlish's advice and used the hidden sic as a compromise. --holizz (talk) 02:16, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

MOS:MED

FYI

– Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Few MOS regulars watchlist MOS:MED, but more need to do so, perhaps. Without advocating a position pro or con the proposed changes, I have to note that changes are being proposed at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#References in the lead that conflict with the main MOS in multiple ways, yet virtually no one knows the discussion exists but participants in wikiproject WP:MED. If [some of] the proposals are seen as having merit, they need to be made outside of that talk page backwater, and in a venue people actually notice, and should probably be advertised via WP:RFC and WP:VPP, especially since they would affect more than the topic areas within WP:MED and MOS:MED's scope. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:34, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

Your assertion of "yet virtually no one knows the discussion exists" is false. A WP:Med editor clearly brought the WP:Lead discussion to the WP:Lead talk page, a talk page that currently has 360 watchers; I've seen many editors at that talk page, as recently as the big four-paragraphs lead debate; I'm certain that a significant number of editors who took part in that debate still have the WP:Lead page on their WP:Watchlist. It's simply that hardly anyone cares that WP:Med wants to include something in MOS:MED about preferring to include citations in the lead. WP:Med advises on other things when it comes to designing a medical article, and I don't see why the WP:Lead should be an exception. Flyer22 (talk) 23:49, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

<Rolling eyes> WT:LEAD is almost as unwatched as MOS:MED's talk page. A paltry 360 watchers is practically nothing, especially given that many of them are not even active users any longer, and many who are only watching for changes to the guideline, not to the talk page. You're the one making questionable assumptions, like "hardly anyone cares". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:27, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Are all assumptions by default wrong? One would surmise that those who actually do care about MEDMOS are going to watch it. -- CFCF 🍌 (email) 12:32, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, I care not that you've "rolled your eyes." What I do care about is that your need to seemingly keep WikiProjects, especially WP:Med, in line does not disrupt those WikiProjects. Yes, some WikiProjects have power, regardless of any assertion you might make to the contrary. And WP:Med is one such WikiProject. They have the power to say, "Medical articles are best organized this way," and to enforce that standard; they've done that for years...with the help of editors outside of WP:Med; MOS:MED is not simply a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS matter. I am well aware that, for a Wikipedia page with a lot of watchers, a significant number of those watchers are inactive, which is why I emphasized my WP:Lead point by stating, "I've seen many editors at that talk page, as recently as the big four-paragraphs lead debate; I'm certain that a significant number of editors who took part in that debate still have the WP:Lead page on their WP:Watchlist." It's not much of a questionable assumption to state that more editors who watch that page would have weighed in on the MOS:MED matter if they were interested in it. Flyer22 (talk) 17:51, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Sounds like more of us may need to keep an eye on this page here... As this is simply a clarification of what is already implicitly allowed all this extra effort is not really needed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:50, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Full points and footnotes

Full points end sentences. It looks weird that references would come after them but, at first, this is mere aesthetics.

However, two rationales must be considered:

1/ References are normally attached to the words (notably persons) they qualify and this often happens in the middle of sentences. They should not be discriminated should the word be inside or at the end of the sentence but indeed, this is not yet a universal rule.

Some persons go up to put footnotes after comas.

2/ When a reference comes after the full point or coma, it may be difficult to know whether it qualifies the last word or the whole sentence of part of sentence, and even hasty users may think it qualifies the next sentence.

Examples:

- LOGICAL EXAMPLE

"At the neck of the penis, it is folded upon itself to form the prepuce or foreskin, which covers the glans for a variable distance' [10]. The current tendency to eliminate the prepuce from anatomy textbooks [1]..." Discussion (first paragraph), in Taylor JR, Lockwood AP, Taylor AJ. The prepuce: specialized mucosa of the penis and its loss to circumcision. Br J Urol 1996;77:291-295.

- COMMON EXAMPLE

"Janet75 thought..." Article, first paragraph, in van der Kolk BA. The compulsion to repeat the trauma: re-enactment, revictimization, and masochism. Psychiatr Clin North Am 1989;12(2):389-411.

- ILLOGICAL EXAMPLE

"However, this interpretation of the US constitution is in contradiction to important court rulings to the effect that parents may not martyr their children based on parental beliefs [2] and that children cannot be denied essential health care. [3,4]" Committee on Bioethics. Religious exemptions from child abuse statutes. chapter "Ethical and Legal Issues", last paragraph, in Pediatrics 1988; 81(1):169-71. Michel Hervé Bertaux-Navoiseau (talk) 09:46, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

See MOS:REFPUNC. -- Gadget850^talk 16:29, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

As Gadget says, see MOS:REFPUNC, where the reference clarifies a specific point in a sentence then it immediately follows the words or phrase it references. If the reference supports an entire sentence then it goes at the end of the sentence. However in all cases it goes after any punctuation at the point of insertion. Depending on what you are used to the insertion after the punctuation may seem nonsensical but it is the style that has emerged over the years and is unlikely to change now. Nthep (talk) 19:29, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

The rule is the rule and I will respect it but editing rules are not an encyclopaedic matter but an issue of pure form, taste and aesthetics; they do not need to be verified. We are editors and free to chose our own editing rules, as all editors do, each one with its small differences. Consequently, as for editing rules, one source is enough to put down a thousand agreeing ones if that one is simple and regular, and therefore reasonable and elegant, rather than complicated and variable, and therefore overruling and snobish-like. This is the case for a rule that sticks the footnote to one word and puts a coma or full point in between for the next one. All the more since footnotes rarely qualify a whole sentence but far more often a specific word or expression. The BJU International rule is simple, regular and elegant. Considering the immmense population that reads us, it's likely that other editors will imitate us. Michel Hervé Bertaux-Navoiseau (talk) 06:28, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps WP:Citing_sources#Parenthetical_referencing is closer to what you want ("...parenthetical references are placed before adjacent punctuation such as commas and full stops"). BalCoder (talk) 10:51, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Mass RM of animal breed articles

FYI

– Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Talk:Teeswater sheep#Requested move 25 August 2014, a mass request of a large number of moves, consisting of the commingling of about 7 different (even contradictory) types of renaming proposal, many of which raise various MOS issues. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 16:09, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Comma splice absence

The Manual of Style was revised at 18:20, 14 September 2014, with the edit summary "fixed comma splice". This is the passage before the revision.

Periods (also called "full stops"), question marks, and exclamation marks are terminal punctuation, the only punctuation marks used to end sentences in English.

This is the passage after the revision.

Periods (also called "full stops"), question marks, and exclamation marks are terminal punctuation. These are the only punctuation marks used to end sentences in English.

Both versions are grammatically correct, and the first version did not have a comma splice. In both versions, the word "used" is a past participial adjective modifying the noun phrase "punctuation marks", which (in the first version) is in apposition to the noun phrase "terminal punctuation".
—Wavelength (talk) 18:45, 14 September 2014 (UTC) and 18:47, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Both versions are grammatically correct. That means it's all good at the moment, full stop. __ E L A Q U E A T E 18:50, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

No Hyphen required

Greetings, from an active editor attached to WP:WPAA. I would like to bring up something regarding WP:HYPHEN. I have come across a couple instances of hyphenating the word Asian American. May I point towards CMOS answer to this issue:

I don’t see any logic in requiring the hyphenation of compound proper nouns when they are used as adjectives. In fact, because they are capitalized, there is no need for additional bells and whistles to signal that they belong together: Rocky Mountain trails, New Hampshire maple syrup, SpongeBob SquarePants lunchbox.

This is also discussed here, referring to the issue of Hyphenated American, as one reason why it (the hyphen) is dropped. In addition it appears that ASA, as cited by Purdue Univesity, has weighed in on this subject.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:50, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Contractions

Rationalobserver, the longstanding sentence is simple: Sometimes rewriting the sentence as a whole is preferable. It is not an improvement to expand it to Alternatively, sometimes it may be preferable to rewrite a sentence so as to avoid the uncontracted form altogether. This is overwriting.

Also, the examples you're trying to include are very weak. The first ones you added didn't contain a single contraction. In your second attempt, there is nothing obviously wrong with the sentence you're telling people to avoid. It doesn't illustrate a problem. There's no stylistic reason to advise people that John was unsupportive is somehow better than John was not supportive based on avoidance of contractions.

And finally, some of your edits are good, but not all of them have been considered helpful. When people disagree, bring it here to the talk page, instead of tying to work it out in guideline-space. Really, at this point, if you're making more than a trivial change, you should bring it here to discuss with your fellow editors. __ E L A Q U E A T E 19:10, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough, but before I attempted to improve the language it read: "But contractions should not be expanded mechanically. Sometimes rewriting the sentence as a whole is preferable", which I think is empty and nebulous without an example of when and why it might be preferable to avoid the uncontracted form. John wasn't supportive of his pupils could be written as, John was not supportive of his pupils, but John was unsupportive of his pupils is arguably even better. I'm not sure why you see this as a bad example in terms of content or syntax. Can you give an example of when it's better to avoid the uncontracted form, because without an example this is hollow and meaningless? Rationalobserver (talk) 19:25, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I really don't think that I'm going out on a limb to say that was not supportive or wasn't supportive is best rendered as unsupportive versus not supportive. Same with incomplete versus not complete, unhelpful versus not helpful, etcetera. Rationalobserver (talk) 19:49, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

That example doesn't illustrate a problem to me. "Unsupportive" and "not supportive" are functionally and stylistically identical. Anybody reading the MOS will be more confused about what they should do after reading that.

(There could be a small quibble in certain contexts that there is a difference in tone regarding active agency between "he was unhelpful that day" and "he did not help that day". But in that case, you're actually suggesting the one that is more open to misinterpretation from an original "didn't help").

The main point of the section is to prefer uncontracted words, but to not mechanically reverse all instances on Wikipedia. Giving complicated examples of exceptional cases seems to take the attention away from "Avoid contractions as the default. If you change one, be thoughtful. Sometimes rewrite the sentence if it bothers you". __ E L A Q U E A T E 20:16, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Right, but if neither one of us can think of an explicit example whereby the uncontracted form is displeasing, then why should the MoS suggest that not all uncontracted forms are preferable to avoidance. Maybe it's too prescriptive to suggest that sometimes writers rewrite sentences, which is stating the painfully obvious. Rationalobserver (talk) 20:22, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

The MOS does not say there aren't situations where uncontracted forms are preferable...The original text you changed was

Uncontracted forms such as do not or it is are the default in encyclopedic style; don't and it's are too informal. But contractions should not be expanded mechanically. Sometimes rewriting the sentence as a whole is preferable.

All that means is that contractions should usually be spelled out, and if it looks awkward to the editor in context, then the sentence can be re-written at editorial discretion. You're overcomplicating this, I think. __ E L A Q U E A T E 20:37, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Maybe, but to state that "rewriting the sentence" is sometimes "preferable to ... mechanically expanding contractions" is the same thing, IMO, and you might be indulging in semantics. You still haven't provided an example where an uncontracted form should be rewritten. How about, "If expanding a contraction creates an awkward construction, rewrite the sentence to avoid the uncontracted form"? Rationalobserver (talk) 20:44, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

"Mechanically" just means "without thought" here. The MOS isn't demanding people re-write sentences in any situation instead of simply uncontracting the words; it's offering it as a theoretical option at editor discretion. It's so that people don't feel stuck in a prescriptive rule in case there's an oddball situation in context. If you want an example of one of those oddball examples, I would suggest that It's Isis's fault would be better re-written as It is the fault of Isis than to force people to read It is Isis's fault. Having said that, I think an example like that is not need in the section, because it's a distraction. Better to just tell people that Sometimes rewriting the sentence as a whole is preferable. in plain language. __ E L A Q U E A T E 21:09, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay, I guess I've come around to your thinking, but I made this slight adjustment to the prose, which I think we can agree on. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:21, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

That looks good to me. Nice work.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:28, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! I hope I wasn't too difficult to work with. Rationalobserver (talk) 21:36, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikimedia product development and en.WP style

Dear friends,

I believe it's proper that you, as developers and maintainers of language style and formatting on this site, be aware that product development is soon going to be an increasing part of our editing landscape. This is intrinsically a good thing: in many respects Wikimedia has been desperately slow to adapt technically to rapid changes in the internet (the extraordinary shift to mobile devices is creating something of an emergency for our platform, right now—if you take a look at the stats).

So, as you might imagine, there's something of a disconnect between tech developers and the stylistic rules and guidance in the MOS (indeed any rules and guidance in the English language). The message is that we need to make sure we keep abreast of the stylistic patterns in WMF products under development; if we don't, we're likely to experience roll-outs that cause massive dissonance—and no one wants that.

An example: my alarm bells started ringing when I viewed the video of the July 31 WMF monthly metrics meeting yesterday. A demonstration of an automated device for creating references for Visual Editor produced this date format for URL access dates:

Thu Jul 31 2014

I've corresponded with Sherry Snyder, Community Liaison (Products) on the matter, so that the WMF is aware of the need for stylistic liaison. She informed me that in any case that glitch has been fixed by changing the output to ISO (which will eventually need our consideration, I guess).

My purpose in writing this thread is to flag that during the next six to 12 months we might need to extend ourselves to a new arm of negotiation—among ourselves, with the en.WP community, and with WMF CL(P), which is the bridge between the communities and engineering. Your opinions and reactions to this general issue would be helpful, even at this early stage.

Thanks

Tony (talk) 10:42, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the date issue, I've long argued that we should store dates in templates in ISO format, and code the template to display them in house- (or user-preferred-) style. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:06, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Andy: interesting. Perhaps we can explore this suggestion more widely when the time comes. Tony (talk) 12:14, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I know that dates formatted per user preferences have been discussed and rejected here at English WP in the past,⁽¹⁾ but I wonder if people's views would be different if there were a global setting in all Wikimedia wikis to display ISO dates (i.e. dates stored in the ISO format) according to a reader's preference. From a technical standpoint, that may be more workable/acceptable than implementing date display preferences on en.WP via templates or JavaScript of whatever we would otherwise have to resort to. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:04, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I think getting readers to start clicking preferences before they view WP (even just the first time on a device) has not been on the table for a number of reasons. And it's not trivial, given that date formats within quotations and some other items have to be untouched. I suspect some people on the tech side would propose the imposition of unitary systems where the en.WP community has painstakingly worked out solutions based on article-consistent binaries: engvar, weights and measures, and date formats. This would induce a permanent state of riot, I think, among editors and not least many readers! Tony (talk) 00:07, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia or Wikipedia

I noticed that the guide's first sentence, The Wikipedia Manual of Style (often abbreviated within Wikipedia as MoS or MOS) is a style manual for all Wikipedia articles., has the term Wikipedia three times, but only italicized at the first mention. I assume this is intentional, but can anyone explain why it's italicized on the first mention only? Rationalobserver (talk) 18:51, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Arguably it should be bold as it's (sort of) part of the page title, but I don't think it should be italic. Bazonka (talk) 19:12, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

You can ask the editor (User:Jodosma) who inserted it at 19:27, 24 July 2014.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:34, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I italicized Wikipedia just to emphasize that there are many "Manuals of Style" in this world which have been produced for and by all kinds of organizations for all sorts of reasons and this is just one of a multitude. I didn't feel the need to continue the emphasis after the first mention. Jodosma (talk) 19:59, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

IMO, it appears as an error. The use of italics at the second word fails to convey emphasis, as it's not at all clear what we are differentiating. Also, the sentence accomplishes the act of establishing what this MoS applies to, e.g., "is a style manual for all Wikipedia articles". Would you object to my removal of these italics? Rationalobserver (talk) 20:11, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

Removing the italics on Wikipedia as you suggest would be the best choice. I could see how some might have an argument for bolding Wikipedia, but this isn't an article, we're describing our manual of style internally. On other pages it's described as "the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style" so it doesn't seem like "Wikipedia" is necessarily part of our formal title for it.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:41, 18 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm happy to go along with your decision. Jodosma (talk) 12:33, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

Request for opinions

I've requested opinions regarding the appropriate usage of categories when the verifiable information appears at a "sub-article". Discussion here. Thank you for your feedback! DonIago (talk) 14:13, 19 September 2014 (UTC)