Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 213

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All of the reasons Wikipedia uses straight instead of curly quotes are no longer relevant in 2019

For reasons I don’t completely understand people are very strongly opposed to this. Closing. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 21:10, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

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

Yes, I know this has been proposed a lot. MOS:CQ lists three reasons that Wikipedia uses straight quotes:

Consistency keeps searches predictable. Though most browsers do not distinguish between curly and straight marks, Internet Explorer still does (as of 2016). Internet Explorer’s current market share is 2.56% and shrinking fast as Microsoft actively discourages its use in favor of its new Chrome clone (Chrome and Firefox both find curly quotes correctly).^[1]
Straight quotation marks are easier to type reliably on most platforms. On Mac, Windows, and Ubuntu, they are no more difficult to type than dashes. On Android and old versions of iOS, they can easily be accessed by holding down the apostrophe or quotation mark key as appropriate. On new versions of iOS, they’re even easier to type, because “Smart Punctuation” is automatically enabled in Settings, automatically replacing ' with its curly equivalent. Desktop version users can also insert them via the character insertion menu (currently under Symbols but this can be changed).
MediaWiki's use of series of single quotes to create italics and boldface makes using these features complicated and error-prone for content that begins or ends with apostrophes. When editing pages using default settings (i.e. monospaced font), the two types of quotation marks are easier to tell apart than you might expect when reading. Click the edit button and see for yourself: '’ It’s actually less complicated than say, distinguishing en and em dashes in the source editor. What’s more, curly apostrophes actually fix a problem with MediaWiki surrounding formatting. Currently, if someone tries to write something like ''The Signpost'''s, the result is an improperly italicized apostrophe (The Signpost's), or worse if the italicized texts anywhere near bold text. As such, we need to currently use ''The Signpost''{{'}}s (The Signpost's). With curly quotes, this problem is removed, just type ''The Signpost''’s (The Signpost’s).

This is not a formal proposal; just something to consider. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 22:40, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

I wonder if curly quotes could reliably be substituted for straight ones automatically when clicking "Publish changes", if there's already Smart Punctuation software out there. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:08, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Single quotes may be paired or not, due to contractions and possessives. Double quotes may be paired or unpaired, because when using quotes to mark text that contains more than one paragraph from one source, or by a single speaker, there is a double quote at the beginning of each paragraph and at the end of the last paragraph. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:32, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree that automatic quotation mark conversion is not a feasible solution. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 01:54, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

No. 2, Straight quotation marks are easier to type reliably on most platforms. This is still true. Since Windows is quite popular, proving it's true for Windows proves the statement is true. Easily typing characters that are not not on the keyboard requires a separate numeric keyboard, and requires memorizing the appropriate numeric codes. If one has a compact keyboard with no separate numeric keypad, entering characters not on the keyboard becomes excruciatingly slow. As for the buttons one could click on some Wikipedia editing interfaces, they are a horrible mess; one can't even figure out which one one is using without an hour or more of reading and testing. Jc3s5h (talk) 00:50, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Again, the above comments about typing difficulty are also true for dashes and accented characters, both of which Wikipedia uses. Same goes for multiplication signs on the Mac. (You need to enable the “Unicode Hex Input” keyboard, whose character codes are almost the same as the Windows codes, but in hexadecimal form.) —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 01:52, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

While em and en dashes might be as difficult as curly quotations to insert, quotation marks are used way more often than dashes (when people actually use the right dash) and accented characters. I would be very peeved to have to reach for a special combination of keys to make something possessive or to insert quotes for quotations or glosses. Also curly quotes often indicate a copy and paste job that lead copy editors to check for copyvios. I've been trying to figure out how to do this on Fedora for a few minutes and finally figured it out and it's ridiculous ... Compose+Shift+, then let go of , and press " for left double. Substitute period for right double. Single quotes are even more confusing because you have let go of shift and , then press the '. Getting the keys pressed in the right sequence is difficult while an em dash is just Compose+--- and an en dash is just Compose+--. In this case, Unicode would be easier to use but then you'd have to remember four codes. (There is probably an input source that simplifies this somewhat. US international with dead keys simplifies the doubles to Compose+Shift+[ or ].) I would not welcome curly quotes. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 04:15, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I would also argue that while difficulty in typing is a reason not to make something mandatory, it’s no reason to deprecate it. I’m skeptical about bots or other automation being able to get quotes right reliably in edge cases or where complicated by typos, but I’ve never understood why we insist on straight quote-marks while encouraging usage of all manner of other non-ASCII characters, even providing buttons for many of them in the editing window. I also have long thought there’d be many technical benefits from using ‘proper’ quotes, not having to escape the ‘dumb’ ones to distinguish them from markup or code delimiters in templates &c., as mentioned above. (To get characters that aren’t accessible from my Mac’s keyboard I just use the menu-bar accessory—if the application I’m using doesn’t provide something similar. But all the common diacritics & printer’s punctuation marks are second nature to me by now, despite the illogicality of some of their locations.)—Odysseus 1479 02:57, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Details on implementation would have to be settled later, but I would be leaning toward making them optional, but allowing users to change straight quotes to curly quotes if they choose. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 12:06, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Please, dear God in Heaven, NO! All other things being equal, I'd rather see us use curly quotes because they look better, but there are many little issues to be solved (as discussed on this page) and I doubt it's worth it given all the other real problems (which this is not) on which time could be better spent. But the idea of allowing users to change straight quotes to curly quotes if they choose is completely insane. It will create just one more ENGVAR/DATEFORMAT/RETAIN minefield for possibly the tiniest gain (of ... what?) imaginable. E Eng 20:46, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

References

^ http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share

All this queer militancy has gone too far. Now even straight quotation marks are under attack. E Eng 01:01, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I hear that. Ultimately, the parentheses are to blame! cygnis insignis 02:57, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm a curly quote supporter. (No comment on if this is related to me being a queer effete Mac user.) WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 02:32, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Curly quotes is an affectation that holds over from a particular style of handwriting. Straight quotes does not impede understanding, and we need a strong justification for any style that prefers using characters unavailable on the standard QWERTY keyboard. It does, sometimes, become unavoidable; but for normal running prose, in the vast majority of our writing (which is what our style guide should cover), we should continue to advise to use straight quotes across the board. --Jayron 32 12:13, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
I certainly prefer straight quotes and support WP's use of them in the interest of simplicity, but are there "reliable sources" that use the straight variety? Jmar67 (talk) 13:25, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
Yes. If you were looking for a style manual for a reliable source, I would suggest that is not applicable, because
- such sources often provide post-submission copy-editing support to authors
- the text was probably typed in an environment that provides much better quote mark support than the wikitext editors
- authors can be expected to devote more attention to publications that contribute to the success or failure of their career than to Wikipedia edits.
Jc3s5h (talk) 14:13, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
I was thinking more in terms of a media source. Just curious. Jmar67 (talk) 14:28, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
To a point, the distinction between "straight" and "curly" quotes is a style decision left to the printer and is not a grammatical choice. It's like the difference between choosing a serif or sans-serif font: it imparts no real distinction in meaning, and the difference is mostly aesthetic. As such, there's no real reason to encourage their use since you don't find them on a QWERTY keyboard. --Jayron 32 14:41, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
Same goes for using double hyphens instead of dashes—it’s a stylistic and not grammatical choice. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 19:36, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

For reliable sources: almost every printed source everywhere, including books, newspapers, and magazines (except some self published ones in any of those categories, but those are more likely to be unreliable) uses curly quotes. They’re common in online RSs too: see NYT, WaPo, AP. —pythoncoder (talk | contribs) 19:36, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

The present situation is that quotation mark style is mostly consistently "straight", and that when you see "curly" it's a pretty good indication that the text was copied and pasted from some online source and not much edited. If we change the guidance, we'll move toward much more inconsistency. I have a hard time seeing how this would be good. Dicklyon (talk) 19:55, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

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

GENDERID -- specifically edits that change "he" into "their"

We REALLY need a MOS decision on Singular they#Contemporary usage in Wiki articles.

I don't want to revert something like this [1]. If you can't be bothered to follow the link, here's an example:

If a player possesses all the cards of one type, he effectively corners the market and gains the most value for his cards.

→ → →

If a player possesses all the cards of one type, they effectively corner the market and gain the most value for their cards.

Why? Not only is there no policy it goes against (except, possibly a parallel to how we don't change UK English to US English once it's established?), I don't want to get drawn into fighting the exact same fight over and over. I want to point to the MoS and a done deal.

On the other hand, I don't want "their" to creep into Wikipedia without a consensus! Having a myriad of solutions "he", "he and she", "their", rewritten phrases, etc etc makes Wikipedia look butt ugly. This is not a matter of "Australian-related material is written in Aussie English". There is no connection between a board game and gender identity.

Full disclosure: I personally think Wikipedia isn't yet ready for "their" on a site-wide basis. The risk of confusion ("their cards? Is the article talking about the cards of all players?!?") is simply too great. Compare the "kibibyte" debacle. But I would accept the ruling of MOS as long as it does rule something!

WE NEED A MOS RULING NOW.

Either we should let changes like the one I linked to through... with the express goal of never using "he or she" and always "their"... or we should revert such attempts, with the MOS backing us up.

This needs an urgent en-wiki-wide decision. Letting the editors of each individual article decide locally is NOT acceptable (since it will mean fighting the same edit war on a thousand fronts)!

Thank you for reading CapnZapp (talk) 14:35, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

PS. Please note - I couldn't care less about the procedural aspect: where and how this is discussed (see the above attempt to generate an gender idenity subpage which immediately devolved into arguing about form rather than content). I simply need the MOS to no longer be silent on this issue, or we will have a giant fracking mess on our hands.

We need no ruling now. There's nothing wrong with using the singular they. --Jayron 32 14:41, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry but you are not even trying to address the issue here. CapnZapp (talk) 20:07, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

MOS tries not to "rule" on things, and especially not until there's evidence of repeated, widespread inability of editors to agree in the context of individual articles, or of large amounts of time being wasted on debates that keep coming out the same way. E Eng 14:45, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

I am aware the MOS is still trying to pretend there's no need to intervene. That is why I'm here - to increase pressure so that the point where resistance finally breaks comes earlier than later. There is repeated, widespread inability of editors to agree in the context of individual articles. My linked article is just one such example.

The main reason at least I don't waste large amounts of time debating GENDERID is that I consider it futile to enter debates while MOS doesn't say either way. If I did I would sure do - since this is an issue where positions are very locked and very hostile. In the meanwhile the consistency of the project is eroding. CapnZapp (talk) 20:07, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Your linked article shows no evidence of disagreement about this in the article history, and nothing I can see on the talk page. No one expects you to "waste large amounts of time", but if there's as much trouble on this as you say, you ought to be able to give us at least, say, three diffs showing that. As for consistency, not everything has to be consistent article to article. See my Nobel Prize–winning essay WP:If MOS doesn't need a rule on something, then it needs to not have a rule on that thing. E Eng 20:51, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@CapnZapp: Do I understand correctly that you want the MOS to take a position on singular "they", i.e., either prescribe or forbid it? It seems unlikely that there would be consensus either way. Some sort of a compromise would be needed, one that basically leaves the decision to the editor in each case. Unfortunately, two editors can disagree on the best approach to using gender-neutral language. I think this simply has to be accepted in the WP environment. Jmar67 (talk) 23:10, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

No, that editors may disagree on the best approach doesn't simply have to be accepted. But we should accept it for now, absent evidence that of a need for the project to standardize the approach. See, I modestly urge again, my essay linked just a bit up from here. E Eng 23:36, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

I really didn't think my section header was unclear... This is not about "gee, let's start a new article but the MOS tells me to use / not use singular they". This is about going into perfectly acceptable articles and changing the pronoun used for no better reason than "I don't like it", and whether to revert those changes. I might consider reverting since I don't feel one is better than another, but I can't bother to enter futile edit wars based on arbitrary and personal opinion since those are a forking waste of time. This is what Wikipedia needs to offer guidance on. Do we back up reverting random changes to singular they per my example edit linked? The very idea to "stem the tide" with no backing from MOS makes me ... so very tired. Alternatively, if MOS says it's alright, that's at least clarity and guidance.

Again, my best suggestion is to make it analogous to LANGVAR, to say something like:

The English Wikipedia prefers no variety of GENDERID over any other.

An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one variety of GENDERID to another.

Okay? CapnZapp (talk) 09:49, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The edit you cited was an attempt to implement gender-neutral language, not a change from one gender-neutral form to another. If the article had used the "he/she" approach, then a change to "they" would indeed be cause for concern and vice versa. You have a valid point there, and I agree that MOS should address it. However, your suggestion should read "The English Wikipedia prefers no variety of gender-neutral language over any other." Jmar67 (talk) 11:00, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I think it is reasonable; we should use 1) for a single person of known gender, we should use that person's self-identified gender, and use the pronouns that and 2) For a single indeterminate person, or for a single determined person of unknown gender, we should only require consistency in gender-neutral language. Equivalent gender-neutral language (he/she ... he or she ... they ... etc, but not "he" alone) should not be swapped for other equivalent gender-neutral language. However, it should be fine to swap out gendered language ("he" alone) for one of the more acceptable gender neutral terms. --Jayron 32 12:07, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

for a single determined person of unknown gender: Sorry, I think it's incorrect to use "they" in that case. I'm pained by sentences like In 2012, a sasaeng reportedly slapped Yoochun, of the boy group JYJ, in the face and justified themselves by saying that the idol would surely remember them from then on. (from Sasaeng fan) or ...the artist's approach to the subject is markedly different. They create a sense of foreboding using a vast horizon and an ominous hanging branch. (from Meditation by the Sea) Cheers, gnu 57 15:35, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Agree with User:Jayron32. And ... singular they was perfectly fine for Shakespeare; and for Jane Austen. I hope I'm not neutering any males here by saying that. Tony (talk) 10:36, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

I am specifically talking about editors that dislike the very common usage of "he" to mean a user, player etc of indeterminate (and unimportant) gender. What should MOS say? Either "don't change one established approach for another" or "the old usage of he is discouraged, use xxx yyy zzz instead."

What I don't agree with is the notion that "he" is somehow a special case. When a board game is referring to a player's tokens as "his tokens" there is clearly no notion that this player is male. It is the current wild west of an open season on this older usage that I object to. Either we actively take a stand against it, or we discourage editors from changing away from it. CapnZapp (talk) 14:38, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

So, User:Jayron32: no it is not fine to "swap out gendered language ("he" alone) for one of the more acceptable gender neutral terms" without the MOS saying so. That's like skipping the entire debate I came here to find! When and where did "he" become unacceptable or discouraged?! The important bit here is for the MOS to not be silent. If y'all prefer Wikipedia to be cleansed of the established practice of using he to mean he or she, that's fine - as long as this isn't snuck into the project without MOS guidance. In other words, I don't care where you point me (for the answer to the question When and where did "he" become unacceptable or discouraged?!) as long as you point me somewhere. CapnZapp (talk) 14:38, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Regarding "...without the MOS saying so..." I'm not saying the MOS shouldn't say so, and saying that I am not saying it should. What I am saying is that you don't need written rules to make a Wikipedia article better. If an article is using a gendered pronoun incorrectly (like "he" when the subject is not unambiguously male), WP:SOFIXIT is all the rules you need. If Wikipedia is wrong, make it better. I don't know why you feel paralyzed by the lack of guidance in the MOS. The MOS is useful, but it certainly doesn't need to (and cannot) presuppose every wrong thing a person might write, and then have a "rule" for it. Some differences in style are equivalent and not wrong, as well not every wrong thing can always be anticitpated. That's why guidance like WP:SOFIXIT exists: Don't look for a rule to give you permission to make Wikipedia better. Make it better. Again, I am not saying that the MOS must be silent on the matter; if we do decide to change the MOS as I suggested above (and you'll note that I suggested a change to the MOS, indeed you quoted the changes I suggested!!!), but I also don't believe that we can't edit Wikipedia articles without rules. Guidance is nice, but not strictly necessary. This may be a place where it is nice, because I can see some disagreements, but what I find problematic is the insistence that the MOS must address an issue. There are no musts. We can if we choose and feel it would be helpful to add some guidance to the MOS, and I suggested as much in the passage you quoted, but must goes too far. --Jayron 32 15:02, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

MOS:GNL is clear about avoiding "he" in the interest of gender neutrality. It justifies the type of edit originally cited. Jmar67 (talk) 15:33, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

My 2¢: singular they is fine. It's been around since at least early modern English and has billions of attestations in use; pedantry against it is a classic WP:SNODGRASS. It is so natural in use that the average pedant probably doesn't even realize that they've read it most of the time. Just like that last sentence.
The generic "he", on the other hand, is definitely outdated and needlessly gendered. Unlike "man", which was originally gender neutral, "he" has always been a gendered pronoun. The only reason "he" was ever used in such a fashion was an assumption of males as the default. Using it in 2019 is just piss poor laziness or obstinance. It should not be used.
Now, what should the main MOS say about it? What it already says. Nothing needs to be added; switching to gender-neutral language is already the guideline. The edits that prompted this question were already within guidance. Singular "they" is gender-neutral, generic "he" is not. oknazevad (talk) 16:42, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

The singular "they" may have been around for ages, but in a context like this it will be unfamiliar and confusing to millions of our ESL readers, who will look for a team/partnership. Work arounds like "the player" should be used where possible. Johnbod (talk) 14:20, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Let me point out that references to non-specific people, like the "If a player possesses all the cards of one type, he..." example, aren't (and shouldn't be) governed by MOS:GENDERID/WP:GENDERID, which is only about references to specific individuals (like Emma Sulkowicz). Like EEng, I'm not sure "player, he/they..." sentences have been disputed often or broadly enough to be worth trying to issue guidance on in the MOS (and I am sceptical there would be consensus for either totally banning or exclusively mandating "they"). In the case at hand, just reword to avoid pronouns altogether: "If a player possesses all the cards of one type, that player effectively corners the market and gains the most value for the cards." In other cases, pluralize: "If a player is dealt an ace, he loses his turn"→"Any players who are dealt an ace lose their turns" (I thought we already had guidance to that effect somewhere, but I may be thinking of some other organization's manual of style). -sche (talk) 21:49, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:ERA addresses what I think is a similar situation (crusaders changing BCE to BC or vice versa), and I think its language could be adapted, if and only if there is a demonstrable problem. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 00:23, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

MOS:GENDERID Suggested change

In MOS:GENDERID, the sentence "The MoS does not specify when and how to present former names, or whether to use the former or present name first." is potentially confusing because "present" is being used as both a verb and an adjective. I suggest changing to "use former names". Thanks. Jmar67 (talk) 23:59, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Suggest changing the second, adjectival, use to "current". - Ryk72 ^'c.s.n.s.' 03:27, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Well, let's get present out of it entirely: The MoS does not specify when and how to use former names, or whether to use the former or current name first. E Eng 03:50, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

I think this is a use-mention distinction question: just as we present non-standard pronouns (e.g., "Mac uses "judy" (lowercase) as a gender pronoun" in Taylor Mac) but don't use them, so too we present former names (e.g., "Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986)" in Cary Grant) but use the best-known name (or, I guess, following MOS:GENDERID, the latest for transgender people). I suggest The MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first. Cheers, gnu 57 11:22, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

This is a subtle but important distinction, thank you. WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 00:42, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I think that this sentence should note that MOS:MULTIPLENAMES does prescribe the mention of a former name if a transgender person was notable under that name. Jmar67 (talk) 02:24, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

I'd support Genericusername57's wording there. Maybe I'm the only one who read it this way, but "use former names" leaves the impression that MOS:GENDERID requires us to use a person's preferred pronouns but allows us to continue to use the person's previous name, which would be a weird policy. Maybe that sentence should include a link to MOS:MULTIPLENAMES as well? That policy offers a lot more clarity. Nblund^talk 16:03, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

How about MOS:MULTIPLENAMES calls for mentioning the former name of a transgender person if they were notable under that name. Otherwise, the MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first. Jmar67 (talk) 00:22, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I'd support that wording. Cheers, gnu 57 02:22, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I took out the word "otherwise" because it was confusing me. After I made the edit I figured out the issue: "otherwise" has multiple meanings. I was interpreting it to mean "if not" but the intended meaning was "in other respects". I will leave it to others to determine if the sentence genuinely lacked clarity or if I was just being dumb. :) WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 04:30, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

WanderingWanda If you misread it, others will too. Something is needed at this point because the following sentence says that MOS does not take a position on former names, which contradicts the first sentence referring to MOS:MULTIPLENAMES. I will change to "In other respects". Jmar67 (talk) 04:42, 22 March 2019 (UTC)

I think broader changes to MOS:GENDERID are needed. The strange distinction it draws between main biographical articles and other articles is wishy-washy and confusing. There should be one simple, consistent guideline for all of Wikipedia. Also, I think this unified policy should draw on the use-mention distinction that gnu brought up.

Here is a draft (changes in bold):

For any person whose gender might be questioned:
Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources. Use the name, pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. Avoid confusing constructions (Jane Doe fathered a child) by rewriting (e.g., Jane Doe became a parent). Direct quotations may need to be handled as exceptions (in some cases adjusting the portion used may reduce apparent contradictions, and "[sic]" may be used where necessary).
Do not mention a former name if the person was not notable under it. If they were notable under a former name, MOS:MULTIPLENAMES calls for it to be mentioned in their main biographical article. In other articles, use context to determine if and how to mention it. While former names may be judiciously mentioned, they should never be used, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. (See: use-mention distinction.) Use italics to indicate that you are mentioning but not using a name. For example, if Jane Doe won a gold medal under the name John Doe, do not write John Doe won a gold medal. Instead, you can write Jane Doe won a gold medal with a note saying she was competing as John Doe. Generally, do not go into detail over changes in name or gender presentation unless they are relevant to the passage in which the person is mentioned.

In addition to updating the MOS, I would also update any other guidelines that might contradict or supersede the MOS's guidance on gender identity. A sentence like this could be added to places like WP:TITLE, MOS:MULTIPLENAMES, Template:Infobox_film, etc:

In the case of transgender and non-binary people, always give precedence to their latest self-designation (see MOS:IDENTITY.)

WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 05:28, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm opposed to this proposal as written: I think it goes too far in prescribing what should be left to editor discretion on a case-by-case basis. If, for instance, Mikhail Gorbachev were to quietly change to a female identification and name, then of course Gorbachev's biography should be updated to reflect that, but I don't think every other page that references his role in the cold war should be changed—he's in the history books for what he did under his current name. Similarly, who knows what names or identities the children in the list of Scripps National Spelling Bee champions adopted in later life? The most practical approach is to give the names they were using when they won. Cheers, gnu 57 15:26, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I mean, obviously there would be no obligation for editors to go all private detective on a list of mostly non-notable spelling bee competitors. We'd still be constrained by the need to use reliable sources and by guidelines on respecting non-notable people's privacy. :)

As for the Gorbachev example, let's avoid hypotheticals and talk about real world examples instead. Take the case of transgender filmmakers Lana and Lilly Wachowski. For years, reliable mainstream sources have respected their gender identity by exclusively crediting them as women named Lana and Lilly, even when discussing old work they made before they came out (like The Matrix.) But for all that time, Wikipedia editors went against the mainstream and continued to refer to their old movies as if they were directed by a pair of Brothers. A recent contentious and drawn-out RfC finally brought articles about their films up-to-date, but this could have happened sooner and with less fuss if the MOS offered clearer, more consistent guidance about gender identity. WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 17:35, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

I think that, because that RfC was so complex and as you call it contentious, its clear that we actually can't make these proposed changes to the MOS. In fact, I think an alternate proposal should be to suggest that, when gender is in question, avoiding use of any gendered language is preferable, replacing any pronouns with usage of a last name, etc. and using the names as they appear in the related sources per WP:V when discussing specific points in time prior to the name change. Frankly a change in name due to gender expression should be handled in the exact same way and via the same recommendations as we handle any other name change (MOS:MULTIPLENAMES) - and the the MOS should not carve out some special set of circumstances, limitations, or rationale. Take for example Victoria Beckham, who became famous under her maiden name of Victoria Adams. In sections of her article, and in Spice Girls, that cover the pre-1999 time clearly make use of "Adams" - everything after that and everything in more general sections not related to the timeline use her current name. In fact, in most cases, gender-based name changes are far less substantial an impact to an article, since they mostly involve first name changes only, and we rarely in prose use a first name by itself. -- Netoholic @ 19:15, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

The Wachowski RfC was contentious in part because the MOS has been failing to provide clear and consistent guidance on this subject. However, the RfC was ultimately able to come to a clear consensus, and it's a consensus that does not contradict anything in my proposed version of MOS:GENDERID.

...I say it's "my" version but it's really just an attempt to codify the mainstream stance. Ultimately, Wikipedia is supposed to follow the conversation and not lead it, and mainstream sources just don't misgender people any more. Here's a link to the first retrospective about Chelsea Manning I could find, and it conforms almost exactly to my version of MOS:GENDERID: In 2010, the Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, then known as Bradley Manning, sent nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand classified military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks. Note that even though it's talking about a period before Chelsea was out as a woman, it uses the name Chelsea, saying that Chelsea Manning did such-and-such. Also note that while it mentions her old name in an aside, it does not use it. (In other words, it does not say Bradley Manning did such-and-such.)

As for the idea that we should treat everyone the same! That idea is tempting but, well, everyone is not the same. Someone coming out as transgender is a very different thing from a cisgender person changing their name. I do not get the impression that mainstream sources or style guides treat trans former names and cis former names in the same way. (But, with that said, perhaps we should re-consider how we treat cisgender name changes, too. A policy that says preferred/latest names should always be used for everyone may not be a bad idea.) WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 02:07, 25 March 2019 (UTC)

Support the simple change to "The MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first."
Oppose the "I think broader changes to MOS:GENDERID are needed ..." massive change. Every clause of that would have to be hashed out, with great care. No section of MoS is harder to get consensus to change than this one. Every proposal about it generates massive tsunamis of drama.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:43, 2 April 2019 (UTC)
Hmm, sounds like I may need to invest in a good raincoat. WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 04:53, 2 April 2019 (UTC)

 SMcCandlish, the page already states "The MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first." Are you stating that you want to drop the recently added "In other respects"? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 10:15, 9 April 2019 (UTC)
What I see above was that "in other respects" was proposed as an alternative to "otherwise', but I don't see either term in "The MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first." So, I'm not sure what to tell you. Maybe this needs to be re-opened with a list of numbered proposed re-wordings? I dunno. I'm happy with the version I said I support, and remain opposed to expanding this with new or substantively different rules without something like an RfC at VPPOL, given the extremely contentious history of this section and even small changes to it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:41, 10 April 2019 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, MOS:GENDERID currently states, "In other respects, the MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first." That's why I asked if you wanted to drop the recently added "In other respects". Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:36, 11 April 2019 (UTC)
Ah, ok. The complete passage now is: "MOS:MULTIPLENAMES calls for mentioning the former name of a transgender person if they were notable under that name. In other respects, the MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first." And "In other respects" certainly makes sense there. And it seems to have already integrated the "MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first" tweak. I think that removing "In other respects" would not be an improvement, and would lead to back-to-back sentences that appear to contradict each other. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:38, 14 April 2019 (UTC)
Support the "broader changes" proposed above, which I believe reflect the current consensus of the project as it has emerged in many, many separate conversations and as a clarification of (not a change to) the current MOS guidance. I do think the tone of the "broader changes" will require tweaking, as it does not seem especially MOSsy to me as presented above. Newimpartial (talk) 21:41, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

MOS:PUNCT does not apply to URLs

I have seen in some revision histories where an ambitious editor changed the curly apostrophe in a URL to straight. In so doing, a link rot was created that returns a "Page Not Found 404". For example, Line 33 in the difference between revisions: aren’t in the URL was changed to aren't -- which resulted in "Page Not Found | Sorry, but we can't find the page you're looking for.". Restore the original punctuation in the URL and ... voilà!
I think the MOS punctuation guidelines should include an advisory about it being a guideline for punctuation in text, and not to be used to edit the punctuation in a URL. (I can only imagine how many external links have been screwed up by now that we won't discover until we try to access the affected source.) Pyxis Solitary yak 12:17, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

There's a limit to how stupid are the things we should tell people not to do. I doubt this person doesn't know URLs shouldn't be changed, but simply isn't reviewing his scripted changes before saving – if they did they'd realize. Should we also warn against changing & to and and # to number and 10 to ten? I will say, however, that we have way too many script kiddies running around using AWB to do marginally useful things without really understanding what they're doing. E Eng 13:23, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

This is strictly about copyediting URLs. I don't see a burden in adding an advisory that the text editing guidelines do not apply to URLs. Pyxis Solitary yak 14:13, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

@Pyxis Solitary file an AWB bug report at Phabricator. Complaints there are, I think, more likely to result in improvement than complaints registered here because here, nothing can be done to improve how the general fixes part of AWB works.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 13:32, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

But it's not a "bug" problem. It's a human-created problem. Misuse of AWB cannot be resolved with a bug report. Pyxis Solitary yak 14:13, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

You're right that editor inattention can't be fixed with a bug report. But, AWB should be fixed so that its general fixes option does not [convert] curly quotes to straight quotes per MOS:PUNCT and MOS:QUOTE in urls. Fixing that in AWB will prevent recurrence of this problem; not fixing it allows inattentive editors to continue to bugger up urls because of this flaw in AWB and their own inattention.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 14:29, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

I wish I could say I'm surprised that the amateurs in charge of AWB don't know enough to exclude URLs from AWB's gentle ministrations. E Eng 16:19, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Does anybody know, should we be percent-encoding URLs which have reserved characters? 文法楽しい (talk) 07:10, 14 April 2019 (UTC)

Requested move: Chairman to Chairperson

In case anyone is interested, see Talk:Chairman#Requested move 8 May 2019. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:51, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: This is covered above under "Style discussions elsewhere". It doesn't need to be mentioned again. Jmar67 (talk) 03:50, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Conflict in MOS:JOBTITLES?

A recent WP:ERRORS entry addressed an ITN blurb that stated "The former President of Peru Alan García commits suicide after a warrant is issued for his arrest." The word "President" was dropped to lowercase based on the argument that it denotes an office rather than a title. I agree with the change, but I do not think the office/title question is clear in this case. To me it illustrates a potential conflict in the rules at MOS:JOBTITLES, which prescribes capitals when used directly with the name but also calls for lowercase if a definite or indefinite article, or a modifier, is used. (I would have suggested recasting as "Alan Garcia, the former president of Peru, commits..." to avoid this conflict.) Jmar67 (talk) 04:39, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, but "President" wasn't being "used directly with the name" simply because of its proximity to it. "Used with the name" means directly directly with nothing intervening, i.e. "President Alan García". "President of Peru" is indeed an office not a title, we all apparently agree that the change was in order, I don't see that there's a problem with the style manual on this, and if it ain't broke don't fix it. –Roy McCoy (talk) 04:59, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Agreed with Roy. Capitalize it when it is effectively part of the name ("Queen Elizabeth II"), otherwise not ("Elizabeth II is the British queen"). If you're modifying it with qualifiers, it's no longer part of a proper name ("The aging British queen, Elizabeth II, remains more popular than her heir, Prince Charles"; this is basically the same sentence structure as the Garcia bit in ITN: article additional_modifier[s] title/position/role personal_name verb predicate_material). We presently have a codicil that a formal title referred to as such without modifiers can also be capitalized ("Donald Trump is President of the United States"), but I don't think this will last; it causes more confusion than it's worth, and off-site publishers capitalize in this kind of case less and less frequently. Also, I agree with Jmar67's recasting of the ITN sentence. One of the most important parts of MoS is right in its lead: try to write around problems. Anyway, the JOBTITLES rules aren't in conflict, they're just not mega-easy for every person to absorb, because it's a complicated thing to explain.

Some meta-commentary on this kind of matter: MoS, including that section, slowly changes over time to mirror provable shifts in real-world practice; as more publishers go lower-case when they can, and we can show it's a statistical supermajority in reliable sources, regardless of genre and country, then MoS generally goes along with it, all other things being equal (i.e., if there's not a special internal reason for WP to care one way or another). That section itself was overhauled about a year or so ago to better reflect a lower-casing trend, and again more recently to add that corporate job titles (especially minor ones like "assistant shift manager", etc.) need not be capitalized even when joined to a name, because real-world publishers often lower-case it. Similarly, MOS:JR changed a couple of years ago to stop calling for "Sammy Davis, Jr." with the comma. Even most US publishers have dropped it, across all genres. This kind of analysis is also why we have not adopted the sometimes-British practice of dropping all stops/periods from all abbreviations (even in British-English articles); it turns out to be demonstrably just a news-style thing (cf. WP:NOT#NEWS), and British style guides for mainstream writing, including New Hart's Rules and Fowler's, continue to recommend doing this only for contractions that begin and end with the same letters as the full word (thus "Post St", "St John", but "Prof. Smith" (not that WP would normally use honorifics like that anyway). The point being, it doesn't matter that The Guardian uses "Prof Smith", or that The New Yorker would use "comma-Jr." format. We're going to go with a consensus combination of: A) Is there a really good reason to change it? B) Are there any WP-specific reasons to not do so (technical, or clarity/accuracy-based, or a MOS:COMMONALITY matter, or grounded in some other principle like "WP defaults to lower case when sources are inconsistent")? C) Will a change increase consistency or sow more confusion/dispute? D) What do current off-site style guides advise, in the aggregate? E) What are most present-day RS publishers doing, in the aggregate? (E usually matches D, but there have been discrepancies before, e.g. many style guides were out of step with gender neutrality, transgender pronoun preferences, and singular they, until just the last couple of years, due to conservative editorial boards and slow publication cycles; it's one of the few areas for which the annually published news-style guides like AP Stylebook were actually useful for us.)
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:46, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Question

When writing articles about people that live outside their country of birth, for example if someone lives in the UK, but was born in the US, which variety of English should be used? The country they were born in or the country of residence. I would like to seek a consensus on which is better. Mstrojny (talk) 17:51, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Best to use the one for where they first became notable, or did their most notable stuff. Also, whether they ever changed citizenship (if you know) might be an issue. In many cases either may be acceptable. But if a style has been established, that should be continued. Johnbod (talk) 18:09, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Or at least open a discussion on the article's talk page, which is what MOS:TIES actually advises. It's sometimes mistaken for some kind of "that which was set in 2005 can never be changed" rule, but it is not one. Rather, we shouldn't go around randomly changing stuff, but present a case for why it should change in a particular case, to avoid people getting "you're trying to suppress [insert my personal dialect here] English!" squabbles. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:08, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:GNL practice

It appears that the most commonly followed rule when it comes to GNL is:

In general, try to use gender-neutral language. However, in situations where generic male language remains standard in reliable sources, Wikipedia should follow the sources and use generic male language.

How close is this to being accurate?? Georgia guy (talk) 00:41, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean by "generic male language"? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:43, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Language that gives more visibility to males, such as generic he or fireman as opposed to firefighter. Georgia guy (talk) 10:23, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

No, in general practice is to avoid the generic male default (i.e. use singular they or a compound "he/she" or other similar constructions). Instead, we should use terminology which is gender neutral, where possible. --Jayron 32 16:28, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Not according to the recent discussion at Talk:Chairman. Georgia guy (talk) 16:42, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't see anything there which disagrees with me. I see some people disagreeing with each other, and sometimes getting rude over such disagreements. That happens. --Jayron 32 16:46, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

"in situations where generic male language remains standard in reliable sources"—this can't refer to generic he, which has always been a prescription. The practice is to avoid "generic male language" unless the alternatives don't have wide currency. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:40, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

...but that it's okay if they don't, which means that the MOS needs to emphasize the statement that sometimes they don't. Georgia guy (talk) 22:56, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Why would it need to emphasize that? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:39, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

To make it clear that there's no complete consensus for the absoluteness of gender-neutral language. Georgia guy (talk) 11:55, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

What is unclear? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:14, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

It appears to be saying that GNL is always better than non-GNL. But many Wikipedians prefer non-GNL for some purposes. Georgia guy (talk) 10:18, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

I think the discussions at Talk:Chairman make it clear that there is substantial support for the view that WP:AT (in particular WP:COMMONNAME) takes precedence over WP:GNL. Personally, I regret this, but it might avoid time wasting discussions if this were made clear. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:05, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

The difficulty lies in how to determine what the WP:COMMONNAME is. Language around gender is changing rapidly. People were trying to use Google ngrams during the chairman discussion, but they only cover until 2008, which is a universe away when it comes to thinking about gender. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:28, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:AT is missing a GNL section, IMO. Leviv ich 21:41, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Language around gender may seem to be changing rapidly in areas which you are participating, but that is not reflected in evidence... and Ngrams is evidence. Wikipedia is not designed to reflect the whims of language (see WP:NEOLOGISM), but rather takes the long view, which a tool like Ngrams is very useful to determine. People experiment with language all the time, but society tends to move very gradually overall. For example, the brief flirtation with the term "chairperson" backfired because whenever it was used in practice, it was interpreted as referring only to women. In essence, the "gender neutral" term became itself gendered. -- Netoholic @ 00:31, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

One of the other proposals was for "Chair", which is both common and ungendered. Regardless, exceptions are to be expected for any guideline—we can't expect the guidelines to capture every edge case. We certainly don't want to grant editors licence to use gendered language simply because it's their "preference". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:04, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Exceptions to guidelines happen, but we do not knowingly make exceptions to WP:Core content policies... So its best to think of chairman as an exception to MOS:GNL, not petition that it should be an exception to WP:V policy. -- Netoholic @ 02:02, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Old sourcing doesn't provide evidence of what the common term is now, and that's what we want to know. The question is what will our readers expect to see in 2019. I don't for one second believe that it's "chairman". SarahSV ^(talk) 02:07, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

If you develop a tool that can scan reliable sources and deliver such evidence as of the CURRENTYEAR, let us know. Until then, please keep your "beliefs" separate from Wikipedia discussions per WP:VERIFYOR policy. -- Netoholic @ 02:16, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I think that something has gone wrong with the way this has been evaluated. I simply don't believe that in 2019 the common name is still "chairman", so I'm questioning your claims about that, which I think must be based on old sources or perhaps sources stemming from one country. See the latest edition of Chicago Manual of Style, an influential style guide, 2017, 5.250, p. 318: "chair; chairman; chairwoman; chairperson. Chair is widely regarded as the best gender-neutral choice. Since the mid-seventeenth century, chair has referred to an office of authority." SarahSV ^(talk) 02:31, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

What part of WP:COMMONNAME says anything about what something is called "right now"? Nothing there says to give extra weight to sources from 2019, and reliable sources do not have an expiration date. I suspect that, even if you could somehow prove that 2019 is the Year of the Chairperson, that it would still not be COMMONNAME for quite some time due to historic usage prevalent in reliable sources. -- Netoholic @ 04:15, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

So should our articles on African Americans and Native Americans continue to use the current common name, or should we go back to the labels that were historically prevalent? Leviv ich 04:28, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

What's the equivalent of Godwin's law, but for race-baiting? -- Netoholic @ 05:33, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Netoholic, are you here to discuss, or to duke it out? Your unique interpretation of WP:COMMONNAME doesn't appear to be winning anyone over. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:42, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

"not petition that it should be an exception to WP:V policy"—this is a non sequitur. "Chair" and "chairperson" are well-attested, established terms, easily and copiously verifiable. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:26, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

But apparently not WP:COMMONNAME. I'm not going to re-litigate what's already been covered in Talk:Chairman#Requested move 22 March 2019. -- Netoholic @ 04:02, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

That's exactly the point—none of them (including "Chairman") qualify as WP:COMMONNAME. You don't seem to undertand the point of WP:COMMONNAME. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:40, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

(I think OP meant to refer to MOS:GNL, which is the guideline in question, and not WP:GNL, which is an essay.)

What should be recognized is that WP:MOS (and its many sub-guidelines) govern what Wikipedia writers have a choice over - the original text we create in order to present topics in the form of an encyclopedic entry - but not what by our WP:Core content policies, like WP:Verifiability, demand of us. We can't title something an obscure name, when it is verifiably called something else more commonly, for example. Titles which reflect the WP:COMMONNAME in reliable sources are automatically neutral. We cannot name things how we would want them to be - that is not the Wikipedia way. We have to describe them as the world does and wait for there to be evidence of a change. -- Netoholic @ 00:13, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

"Titles which reflect the WP:COMMONNAME in reliable sources are automatically neutral"—this isn't always the case. The WP:COMMONNAME of 2011 Canadian federal election voter suppression scandal is indisputably the "Robocall scandal". the article was moved to its current name because (a) the scandal it refers to wasn't over "robocalls" per se and (b) there were other "robocall" scandals in Canada in 2011 that didn't involve voter suppression. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:04, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

That's a matter of WP:Disambiguation - an unfortunate technical limitation of wiki-based articles that require unique names. -- Netoholic @ 02:02, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

It's not a matter of disambiguation—the other "Robocall scandal"s have not had articles created (yet), and you missed (a). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:20, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

That's because (a) has no bearing on the title. If the COMMONNAME for it was "unicorn sparklepoop scandal", then that's what it should be named - even if no defecating monoceros was involved. -- Netoholic @ 04:07, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

GRACIOUS! <clutches pearls> E Eng 04:17, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Your argument is divorced from the issue raised. The article title is where it is because of various issues including that it was not neutral, let alone "automatically neutral"—an assertion that was silly to begin with. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:40, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't see that the article you mentioned has been through a formal RM discussion, so it doesn't seem like strong evidence of anything. That you admit it's COMMONNAME is indisputably the "Robocall scandal" seems to me that title should be formally considered. -- Netoholic @ 08:49, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

I foresee a pointlessly disruptive RM from Netoholic in the article's future. You never have bothered to try justifying the tautology "Titles which reflect the WP:COMMONNAME in reliable sources are automatically neutral". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:19, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

"Titles which reflect the WP:COMMONNAME in reliable sources are automatically WP:NPOVNAMEs" is not a tautology because it's simply false – as indeed WP:NPOVNAME clearly says, e.g. in the case of "Boston Massacre". Peter coxhead (talk) 08:53, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm. I guess a clearer way to say it is that COMMONNAMES are not violations of WP:NPOV. Whether that makes them truly neutral, I suppose, is a matter of individual opinion... but they are considered neutral for the purposes of the encyclopedia. -- Netoholic @ 10:00, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

"Whether that makes them truly neutral, I suppose, is a matter of individual opinion"—you realize what you're saying here? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:16, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I generally have to concur with Curly Turkey and Jayron and Peter Coxhead on this stuff. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:10, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

"...instead supports the pseudoscientific creation science" or ""...instead supports pseudoscientific creation science"

The sentence in dispute, in full, is: "Out of belief in biblical inerrancy, it rejects the results of those scientific investigations that contradict their view of the Genesis creation narrative and instead supports the pseudoscientific creation science". The 'the' in bold was removed by ජපස on the grounds that keeping it "is a word choice that is incredibly awkward and probably not correct usage wise". Furthermore, he adds that "using a definite article implies that there are two forms of creation science, "the pseudoscientific one and the one that it not pseudoscientific"". I disagree with this, citing the example, "I asked Tom to give me an apple, but the lazy Tom said it was too much of a bother for him", where the article "the" makes the latter clause equivalent to "but Tom, who is lazy, said it was too much of a bother for him". Furthermore, I argue that removing the 'the' from both the example and the sentence in question results in confusion, creating the impression that "lazy Tom" is distinct from the Tom that has been asked to give an apple in the example, and that "pseudoscientific creation science" is a separate term in the sentence in question. Which version would be the most appropriate in this situation and, if neither, is there a workaround?^Ol^Ja 18:37, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

How about "Out of belief in biblical inerrancy, they support pseudoscientific creation science, rejecting the results of those scientific investigations that contradict their view of the Genesis creation narrative. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 18:43, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, the issue is about the 'the' (or absence thereof) before "pseudoscientific creation science", so simply switching the clauses around doesn't really solve that issue. I was thinking something along the lines of "the pseudoscience creation science" but perhaps something less tautological? Also note that "creation science" itself is a pseudoscience.^Ol^Ja 18:48, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

In your example, I certainly read "the lazy Tom said" as implying that there are other, non-lazy Toms. When it comes to making it clear that the Tom in the second clause is the same person as the Tom in the first clause, the version without "the" is much clearer, in my view. Similarly, including "the" before "pseudoscientific creation science" creates the implication that there are other, non-pseudoscientific, creation sciences. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 19:17, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I would prefer Out of belief in biblical inerrancy, they support pseudoscientific "creation science", rejecting the results of those scientific investigations that contradict their view of the Genesis creation narrative.

MOS:SCAREQUOTES does not say that we cannot use scare quotes. It says that they should be considered carefully because scare quotes can imply that a given point is inaccurate. Which is exactly what we want to imply; we would write 'the thieves "liberated" several barrels of whisky' with scare quotes to signify that, while the thieves call it liberation, nobody else does. Likewise, nobody else considers "creation science" to be science. Creation science is to science what fool's gold is to gold or tofuky is to turkey. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:04, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Awful as tofurkey is, that's an insult to tofurkey. E Eng 20:33, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

No one claims it to be science, but almost everyone, including opponents, calls it 'creation science' without quotation marks. There are numerous examples of terms with names that do not convey their meaning well: e.g. computer bug, deceleration parameter, etc. I think just saying that it is a pseudoscience will suffice.^Ol^Ja 20:42, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

This is taken from Answers in Genesis. It could also be phrased unambiguously as "...supports creation science, which is pseudoscientific." Or "pseudoscientific" could simply be omitted since there is a link to the Creation science article. Jmar67 (talk) 19:53, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I agree that we could use "...supports creation science, which is pseudoscientific." but have no problem with "...instead supports pseudoscientific creation science" either the addition of the word "the" is awkward. Theroadislong (talk) 20:16, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I definitely support this version. Simple and unambiguous.^Ol^Ja 20:42, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Ambiguity not detected; remedy not needed. The primary effect of "...supports creation science, which is pseudoscientific." is to add clutter. It also distances "pseudoscience" from "creation science" both visually, and syntactically. It is not the clearest way to write that snippet of text.

Regarding the original issue posted here, it would be difficult to defend adding "the" to the phrase in question. It impresses me as awkward and tone-deaf. Does anyone here other than OJ think it is a good idea?

This discussion really belongs back at Talk:Answers in Genesis. Just plain Bill (talk) 22:10, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Or Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language. It is not an MOS issue that I can see. Jmar67 (talk) 04:23, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

...instead supports creation pseudoscience. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 00:54, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I was thinking about this wording, and I must say I don't mind it, either. Apologise for my obsession with the article 'the', but I think it might also be appropriate here. As it is, your half-sentence is similar in meaning to "...instead supports pseudoscience to with creation science", leaving the possibility that legitimate 'creation science' science may also exist. While not a big deal, I think that adding a 'the' to the statement makes it more definitive, making it equivalent in meaning to "and instead supports the pseudoscience of creation science", which straight-up in the face says that creation science is a pseudoscience.^Ol^Ja 11:46, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

There is ambiguity (though not very pronounced) in either form, with or without "the". Both can be interpreted as (1) "creation science that is pseudoscientific" (a pseudoscientific variety of creation science) or (2) "creation science, which is pseudoscientific" (creation science is fundamentally pseudoscientific). I think most readers will infer (2) in either case, however, and I think either form is OK. Recasting as (2) is one way to eliminate any doubt. The criticism of "the" as awkward might indicate this an ENGVAR issue. Jmar67 (talk) 03:37, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I think ENGVAR may be relevant, as I seem to be the only user (?) of British English in this thread.^Ol^Ja 11:46, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I am a bit of a mix. I was raised speaking and writing the King's English, later purposely started using southern California spelling and phrasing, and often work with a bunch of strines and kiwis and pick up things from them without realizing it. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:30, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Nobody seems yet to have raised what seems to me to be the key usage question, which is whether the article is referring to some specific creation science or to creation science in general. In the former case, "the" should be used, as in "the creation science developed in response to modern evolutionary theory", but "pseudoscientific creation science" on its own would not taken a definite article. Newimpartial (talk) 16:44, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that it's neither: it is creation science in general, but creation science itself is always pseudoscientific. Thus, saying "pseudoscientific creation science" (without an article) is a bit like saying "British John Lennon". People here still appear confused as to what role the 'the' plays in my proposed version, so I thought I'd provide some more examples, but, this time, these are actual quotes of football commentators in some recent matches that I've watched: "...who lays it off to the brilliant Lionel Messi", "...fantastic feet there by the young Joao Militao". Hopefully, that clears things up.^Ol^Ja 17:49, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

I finally understand what you are getting at. You are trying to use the adjective as a proper epithet. This is fairly unusual in American English. jps (talk) 18:11, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Not necessarily an epithet, but I guess there could be a connection. I now see that such usage of the article 'the' is perhaps not as common in the US as it is in Britain, which is, as pointed out by Jmar, one potential source of confusion.^Ol^Ja 22:08, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

To me, "the" in these examples is a sort of particle, inserted to make the phrase easier to say and emphasize the person when an adjective is involved. And I think it also has a similar function in the sentence being discussed. Very subjective I admit. Jmar67 (talk) 18:16, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

James, I believe what you are trying to do is something like a "substantive" usage. The problem is that, except for epithets, that usage has largely dropped out of all varieties of English. Newimpartial (talk) 18:25, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps there is an element of substantiveness in there, too, now that I read over it again. Although, addressing your last sentence, I must say that such usage is pretty common where I am from. ^Ol^Ja 22:08, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

While that may be true in your speech community, the usages to which you refer haven't been evident in written English since before 1945, and probably longer ago than that. Newimpartial (talk) 22:38, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

It is pseudoscientific, and we have ample RS for that, so this isn't a MOS:WTW or WP:FRINGE failure. However "pseudoscientific creation science" is confusingly repetitive. For one thing "creation science" is a just a PR euphemism for "creationism", so just use word. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:12, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Abbreviations: Saint

For arguments such as WP:NOTPAPER and the never ending variation of "St" and "St.", I have interpretated a general preference for "Saint" if sources largely permit it, meaning that WP:COMMONNAME doesn't always get its way. Is that correct? PPEMES (talk) 12:29, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

WP:COMMONNAME doesn't apply to formatting issues. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:33, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, we should use "Saint Peter's Cathedral", etc. An exception would be surnames and titles of works. Jill St. John isn't "Jill Saint John", and The Night Before St. Patrick's Day is a children's novel that doesn't have "Saint" in its title (and presumably isn't about drinking). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:15, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

given MOS:GNL, why do we still continue to distinguish between "actor" and "actress"?

I've always wondered this... why do we use the feminized version of actor, i.e. actress, to refer to women who are actors, in light of MOS:GNL? Except when we're discussing gender-segregated awards (Best Actor, Best Actress, etc.), I don't see why we couldn't just default to "actor". I've seen some women disambiguated initially as "Jane Chen (actor)" who have subsequently been moved to "Jane Chen (actress)", which seems particularly regressive. —Joeyconnick (talk) 00:08, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

This one has come up a few times but the problem seems to be the industry itself is divided on this and this runs well beyond awards. This piece in The Stage covers the ground on this and shows no real consensus as to which should be used, with some very strongly held opinions in both directions as to what "actress" means and implies. Timrollpickering (Talk) 00:36, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

MOS:GNL is a guideline which does not apply to WP:TITLES policy. -- Netoholic @ 00:41, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm confused by the notion, that I've heard a couple of times now, that MoS guidelines "don't apply" to titles. Is this the commonly held understanding? I know that the title policy has more weight than anything in the MoS guidelines (because of the "guideline" vs. "policy" distinction) but surely that doesn't mean that the MoS has no weight whatsoever. WanderingWanda (they/them) (t/c) 01:16, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Simply because the vast majority of "female actors" are still referred to and refer to themselves as actresses. It is still by far the commonest term for a woman working in the field. It is not our job to change English usage. It is our job to reflect common English usage. What right do we have to essentially tell a woman who calls herself an actress, "sorry, you're wrong, you're actually a female actor and that's how we're going to refer to you"? The term "actor" should only be used if it can be established beyond all reasonable doubt that that is the commonest way of referring to an individual and that's what they prefer (e.g. Helen Mirren, who does, I believe, refer to herself as an actor); otherwise the default should be actress. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:35, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I disagree: you could just as easily say "actor" should be the default unless a female actor prefers "actress" (sources would be required if challenged by an editor). Tony (talk) 12:06, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

That would be going against common English usage, as I said. You cannot possibly with a straight face deny that most people in the English-speaking world (including them) still refer to a female actor as an actress! It would even more certainly go against common English usage for an actress who was active in the past. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:14, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

What they were called in the past is irrelevant—we don't call Amelia Earhart and "aviatrix". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:39, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Of course it's relevant. We're not in the business of historical revisionism. In any case, "aviatrix" is no longer commonly used, so could be said to be archaic, but "actress" most certainly is and could not. Surely you're not going to argue in all seriousness that it's archaic English?! -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:36, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

On would imagine "actor" for some is a bit like using "he", as "gender neutral" language. In general, it's probably good though, not to be really prescriptive or proscriptive with a common word. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:16, 16 April 2019 (UTC) Now, thespian seems gender neutral, these days. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:34, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
I suspect it has something to do with the fact that acting is one of the few remaining spheres of endeavor (along with modeling, prostitution, surrogacy, and so on) in which gender is a routine prerequisite for a given position – with exceptions now and then, of course. EEng 12:45, 16 April 2019 (UTC)
- EEng, I sort of agree, but because (in its own sexist way) female equivalents are embellishments of the male term, we're stuck with reducing them to remove undesirable gender-specific language: plain English is favoured, naturally. So we no longer say "conductress". And readers would trip over "aviatrix", which markedly draws attention to femaleness. BTW, in many other languages it's much harder to iron out gender-specific language; I believe in Portuguese, an agent's gender has to be chosen, and the effect sprawls through the grammar of the clause. Tony (talk) 04:24, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
  - Ironic that, after many years, French women have finally persuaded the Académie française to agree to female versions of job titles because they were fed up with being referred to using the male ones! A complete reverse of the mania in English. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:18, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
Because no commonly used gender-neutral term exists. Given the prevalence of "actress", "actor" cannot be broadly accepted as being gender-neutral unless the "reliable sources" declare that to be the case by consistently employing the term for women as well. "Male actor" is redundant and "female actor" a contradiction in terms. Jmar67 (talk) 16:15, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
Please note that the MOS already directly deals with this, about 4 paragraphs below the section cited above. MOS:IDENTITY says, in clear and unambiguous terms "When there is a discrepancy between the term most commonly used by reliable sources for a person or group and the term that person or group uses for themselves, use the term that is most commonly used by reliable sources. If it isn't clear which is most used, use the term that the person or group uses." (bold mine). That is, if a person calls themselves "actress", then use that. If a person calls themselves "actor", then use that. Couldn't be clearer. --Jayron 32 16:40, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
"That is, if a person calls themselves "actress", then use that. If a person calls themselves "actor", then use that. Couldn't be clearer." This only applies if the terms in RS sources are mixed. If the RS consistently use a term for a person, that's the term that should be used per MOS:IDENTITY, regardless of how that person refers to themselves. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 18:38, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

That is not my interpretation. If reliable sources overwhelmingly call A an actress, but A prefers actor, then we nevertheless use actress. But if the sources reflect mixed usage, we use actor. Jmar67 (talk) 17:15, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
If reliable sources are using the wrong term, they aren't reliable for this purpose, n'est ce pas? If a source is demonstrably wrong, why are we calling it reliable? If some article called a person by the wrong first name, or misattributed their ethnic affiliations, or had the wrong birthdate, we wouldn't cite it because it isn't correct. --Jayron 32 17:38, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
Disagree here. If Tom Cruise started insisting that he was the King of Denmark, then that wouldn't mean that all the articles that don't refer to him as the King of Denmark were somehow wrong. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 18:38, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
That's a strawman argument. Tom Cruise doesn't refer to himself as the King of Denmark. He calls himself an actor. So we do too. That sort of fake controversy is why we mislabel all sorts of people (gender, nationality, sexual orientation) because we invent some hypothetical, snide, or bullshit reason why someone else's earnest self-identification is invalid. That's now how this works. --Jayron 32 18:48, 17 April 2019 (UTC)
I'd be entirely fine with changing MOS:IDENTITY to make self-description take precedence over consistent RS, but that's not how it stands today, so I'm puzzled why you're citing it this way. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 19:26, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

The problem is that there are two “correct” terms for a female performer. Some prefer to use “actor”, while others prefer “actress”. Which to use is not a matter of right vs wrong... but one of preference. Blueboar (talk) 18:01, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

No, it's a matter of self-identity. We don't deliberately mis-identify someone against their own professed self identity. You would not use a term for someone they themselves reject for just about anything else. Why this one? --Jayron 32 18:46, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Except this is a case where one term (actress) is explicitly gendered, while the other one is much less so. While there may be performers who identify as men but prefer to be referred to as actresses, I'm not aware of any. BubbaJoe123456 (talk) 19:26, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Why does that matter? There are women who prefer actor and there are also some women who prefer actress. In each of those cases, use the term the person uses to describe themselves. --Jayron 32 16:26, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

This is more of a WP:CFD matter, and has been raised there multiple times. I've long been of the opinion that gendered categories are a bad idea, but their defenders have gone to lengths to keep them, like inventing non-diffusing categories, and so on, in an attempt to deal with the "wiki-ghettoization" effect. I'm not buying it, but enough of the editorial community has that we're stuck with it until enough WP:CCC time as passed to re-raise the issue with clearer arguments. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:17, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

RfC regarding italicization of the names of websites in citations and references

There is a request for comment about the italicization of the names of websites in citations and references at Help talk:Citation Style 1/Archive 72#Italics of websites in citations and references – request for comment. Please contribute. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 04:54, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

Added above to "Style discussions elsewhere". This entry can be deleted. Jmar67 (talk) 09:15, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

National spellings of parts of titles

What's the style guide's take on how to handle the first sentence of an article that includes a word spelled differently in the US and UK, where that spelling difference is trivial? Color photography opens with "Color (or colour) photography is ...", while color television says "Color television is ...". Which is preferred? --Lord Belbury (talk) 07:55, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

See MOS:ENGVAR. In the case of TV and photography there is no MOS:TIES, so MOS:RETAIN applies. Although "color" jars somewhat, it is pretty obvious so possibly "or colour" is superfluous. It becomes more of an issue when the word itself changes such as "A railroad switch (AE), turnout, or [set of] points (BE) ...". Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:11, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Personally I'd remove "(or colour)" as disrupting the readability of the lead (and insulting the intelligence), and if someone restored it, leave it alone—it's too trivial to fight over with someone who would actually fight over it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:11, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

source substantiating latter part of sentence

Hi, this is probably another FAQ: I have a question regarding WP:REFPUNC. I have a sentence like “Incredibly interesting topic, so <claim A> and <claim B>.” I have two sources, one supporting <claim A>, the other <claim B>, but neither of them support the whole sentence, so naturally I haven't placed my <ref> supporting <claim B> after the period. Yet WP:WPCHECK reports a bug: A <ref> may not appear directly prior a punctuation mark. Am I wrong? Or should I just insert a <nowiki/> to avoid reporting? Of course I can split everything into two separate sentences, but then I had to re-reference the topic. -- K (T | C) 01:26, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

In this situation, by convention, the reference supports the nearest clauses to that reference, even if after the full stop. --Izno (talk) 01:47, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Right, placing it after the period does not imply it supports the whole sentence—only whatever comes beffore the ref but after the preceding cite (or {{cn}} or whatever). So: Curly Turkey is an editor at Wikipedia. He is ever-present^[1] and ever-annoying.^[2] Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:46, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Alright, I just assumed references occurring after the final period support the whole sentence, or at least the general notion conveyed in it. -- K (T | C) 10:12, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

Agreed in this case with CT, but there are cases where "<ref> may not appear directly prior a punctuation mark" and "placing it after the [punctuation] does not imply it supports the whole [passage]" are not true, as covered at MOS:REFPUNCT. Virtually all cases of this are going to be brackets or dashes of one kind or another: Curly Turkey is an editor at Wikipedia (where he is frequently hunted^[1] despite being human and not actually a plump and juicy turkey^[2]); he self-declares as a Canadian expatriate in Japan.^[3] — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:17, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Station names in ALLCAPS (redux)

Hi all

We had a discussion last year as to whether it is legitimate for infoboxes in station articles to (a) style the top of the infobox with a mock version of the sign used by the rail company running the station, with colours, patterns etc. and (b) render the station name in the infobox in ALLCAPS if that's the style used by the rail company on its signage. The discussion seemed to lean towards depracating the practice, at least for ALLCAPS, for readability reasons. But the matter was never formally concluded and there are still lots of examples like Riverdale station (MARC) where it's happening. Do we need a formal RFC or other mechanism to depracate this? Thanks — Amakuru (talk) 12:04, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

I think someone just needs to implement that already-existing guidance at WP:ALLCAPS? --Izno (talk) 14:43, 1 May 2019 (UTC)

What is happening here is that the infobox template for MARC stations automatically formats the text “header” to match the signage... so it isn’t the article text that needs to be amended to bring this into sync with ALLCAPS, but the template. Alternatively (for those who prefer that the template follow the signage)... consider amending the template so it replaces the text header with an identical looking image of the signage. Our MOS rules do not apply to images. Blueboar (talk) 19:54, 3 May 2019 (UTC)

That's a lame idea that we already flushed, isn't it? Dicklyon (talk) 05:08, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Already deprecated by MOS:ALLCAPS (we don't use all-uppercase except for acronyms, and a few really geeky technical things specified in detail there); and by MOS:ICONS (don't use CSS and Unicode tricks to simulate graphical effects in an attempt to WP:GAME around rules against misuse of decorative little images); and by MOS:TM (WP doesn't mimic logos and other stylization). This fails three guidelines at once and should just be reverted.

See also Talk:Mueller Report#Reference formats for essentially the same debate but in a different subject area (except worse, because it's happening inline in article text, not in an infobox).
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:58, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Scope of accessibility guidance

One of the issues we regularly encounter is the unwarranted assumption that MOS only applies to articles, but that's simply not true. The MOS covers three broad areas: documenting conventions; guidance on functionality; and guidance on accessibility. It is reasonable to assume that the first, and probably the second, have their greatest applicability in mainspace, but there can be no doubt that the guidance the MOS gives to help make our encyclopedia accessible to all must apply to every page.

I've added a short paragraph to the lead to make that clearer, as this page takes precedence over its sub-pages. Please feel free to improve it. --RexxS (talk) 10:10, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

This has now been reverted with the edit summary "(a) If this belongs anywhere, it belongs at MOS/Accessibility; (b) but there's a more serious problem: it's one thing to say that accessibility considerations apply everywhere (which is fine), but it's quite different to say that those are the RIGHT considerations for application outside of article space"

(a) It certainly does belong here. This page delineates the scope of the Manual of Style and this page claims to be authoritative. The scope of accessibility is universal, as disadvantaged and disabled readers and editors participate throughout the encyclopedia. The statement of scope is not something that can conveniently be ghettoised into a subsection of the MoS, and merely paying lip-service to accessibility is not an option in this day-and-age.

(b) If any of the guidance contained within MOS:ACCESS is considered unsuitable for outside article space, then I'm unaware of it. Specific exceptions, if they exist, can be catered for in the appropriate sub-section, but in the absence of real examples of this purported "more serious problem", there is no good reason not to have a statement of scope in the lead of MoS. The paragraph should be restored. --RexxS (talk) 16:22, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the underlying point, though it would probably be better added as a footnote about MoS's scope. And the suggestion that much of MoS only applies to mainspace isn't true, as it applies to any reader-facing content, which also includes portals, templates transcluded into mainspace, category names and explanatory content atop category pages, etc., etc. In practice almost all of it is applied site-wide except in userspace and on talk pages. E.g., it's entirely normal to edit policy pages, template documentation, etc., to comply with MoS, but not to change other people's posts, or drive-by change a userspace essay. We used to have a footnote covering this, too, but someone keeps slow-editwarring it out. Need to restore that, since its presence reduces a lot of disputation. That said, the idea that MOS:ACCESS should apply to every single page "no matter what" is bound to be controversial. Such a decision is outside MoS's own scope. I would think that it would need to appear in some policy or more general editing guideline, perhaps as a recommendation that what is said at MOS:ACCESS about encyclopedia content should also generally be applied to internal content as a courtesy to editors with accessibility needs, and leave it at that. But I'm not certain what the best page is for that. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:48, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Deleted sentence at Punctuation inside or outside / Proposed reordering at Names and titles

Greetings.

I almost boldly changed

"Life", Anaïs Nin wrote, "shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

to

"Life," Anaïs Nin wrote, "shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage."

at Quotation Marks > Punctuation before quotations, in accordance with the style I had always seen, I thought even in British publications. I don't remember what stopped me from making this change, but whatever it was I was very surprised – and very pleasantly – to see that what I now see is termed "logical quotation" is now standard in Wikipedia. Despite the change I was about to make, I have for decades been an active proponent of what I would normally call British style on this, which is both more logical and more attractive. Hooray Wikipedia.

The topics I am here raising, however, are not that but rather (1) my deletion – I hope not too bold – of a sentence in the subchapter Punctuation inside or outside, and (2) a proposed reordering in the subchapter Names and titles.

(1) When I noticed there was no sample given for the sentence "A question should always end with a question mark", I first added one:

Marlin asked Dory, "Can you read?"

I immediately had doubts about this, however. It wasn't really a question, but a declarative sentence quoting a question – and if I changed it to a question I wouldn't be sure how to punctuate it in approved Wikipedia style. Would that be

Did Marlin ask Dory, "Can you read?"

or

Did Marlin ask Dory, "Can you read?"?

Someone please tell me, thanks – though it seems fairly clear that the question needs two question marks in order to conform to the sentence it's supposed to illustrate.

What finally made me desist with trying to provide another sample, however, was not so much this problem but rather that there was no clause following the quote and I didn't know how to provide one, or even if the sentence without a sample necessarily referred to a quote with a following clause or not. So I deleted both my previously placed sample and the sentence, noting:

"Deleted previously added sample, plus the sentence "A question should always end with a question mark." pending provision of an appropriate sample, or perhaps new paragraph with same. Otherwise others than myself will be confused.

What I think I've done, then, is to prompt an improvement without having made or specified it myself. It may, however, be unnecessary to do anything more here at all, since "A question should always end with a question mark" may be taken as something rather obvious that neither belongs at this particular place nor merits a separate paragraph elsewhere.

(2) Continuing to check out the MoS, I noticed that the list item "and the section you are reading now." under Names and titles seemed out of place and should appear at the end rather than in the middle of the list. I tried to change this but couldn't, so I'm now suggesting that someone here who's able to do that make the change (assuming it can be changed by someone, as I suppose it can).

Thanks.

Roy McCoy (talk) 23:56, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

@Roy McCoy: This is all old news and covered many times before. WP has used LQ since the early 2000s. Briefly: Don't double-up punctuation except in unusual circumstances. Thus Did Marlin ask Dory, "Can you read?" [Aside: we really need to replace these Finding Nemo examples, since they bear little resemblance to encyclopedic writing.] An example of a special circumstance is literal string quotation: The newspaper misquoted Smith as stating "I am to resign.", but Smith's actual announcement phrased this as a question, "I am to resign?". Thus, when quoting a question in a non-question sentence, the quoted and quoting sentence have separate terminal punctuation. There's no need to do this when quoting a question inside another question and they both end on the same word. Similarly, if you quote someone saying "I'm tired, and sore, and upset, etc.", and your sentence ends there, do: He said, "I'm tired, and sore, and upset, etc.", not "I'm tired, and sore, and upset, etc.". PS: Some British news publications also use typesetters' punctuation (commas and periods/stops inside, no matter what). This is not recommended by British style guides (other than the house styles of some newspapers of course). I did an analysis of this stuff a few years ago, and it turns out there are at least 12 different British quotation punctuation styles among major publishers in the UK. They shake out to very similar to LQ, and very similar to TQ, with various intergrading based on special "rules" made up by particular publishers, and they're generally not compatible with each other. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:21, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Thank you SMcCandlish for your interesting and enlightening comments in response to my questions. My MoS revisions have apparently been left alone, and there doesn't seem to be anything that needs to be done further in regard to them on my account. I would say the deletion of "A question should always end with a question mark" is the less dubious in light of the sample given by you ("Did Marlin ask Dory, "Can you read?"), which is a question but ends with a quote mark rather than a question mark. (I deleted your opening single quote there, by the way.) There has however been no reply as yet to my second concern, which was the incorrect ordering of "and the section you are reading now" under Quotation marks > Names and titles. Can this be corrected? Thanks again. –Roy McCoy (talk) 05:01, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm sure it'll get ironed out. People making undiscussed substantive changes to MoS usually does get reverted, just not always immediately. What the actual "rules" are should not change without being certain it's what the community supports, since any such change has the potential to affect innumerable articles, especially the more general the point is. PS: the "and the section you are reading now" thing is not an error. Look at the list more closely. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:05, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

I took another look at my MoS edits (mostly minor – I didn't change any rules), and I think they're okay. EEng reverted one of them, so I suppose he reviewed the others as well. I was going to re-add the "Principal Skinner" text I deleted on April 20, though as a separate item and reworked:

If matter is added or modified editorially at the beginning of a sentence for clarity, it is usually placed in square brackets:
"[Principal Skinner] already told me that", he objected.
This is preferable to the following, which is likely to be unclear:
"He already told me that", he objected.
Consider, however, an addition rather than a replacement of text:
"He [Principal Skinner] already told me that", he objected.

This is better than what was there before, but I finally didn't add it because it seemed to have noticeably too little to do with the sentences subtopic.

As for the list, I have looked at it again and it still looks wrong, whether you say it's not an error or not. The line with "and" announces the last item of the series in which it appears, and it ends with a period that furthers this announcement. The following two lines thus appear to be out of order. I call this incorrect. Even if it's somehow technically correct, it's still inelegant, unclear and confusing, and I continue to think it should be emended somehow. –Roy McCoy (talk) 01:55, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't disagree with the advice, but it's very partial, and it's a lot of verbiage stating the obvious. This doesn't have anything to do with beginnings of sentences in particular, nor even sentences at all, but any quoted material and editorial change to it. And the case of moving the change out of the quotation is missing. And these examples do not pertain to encyclopedic writing (it's more of the "Dory and Nemo" type of stuff we need to replace). Maybe:

If matter is editorially added to or modified in quoted material for clarity, it should be in square brackets or moved outside the quotation:
"[Laura Chinchilla] has pledged to continue the probusiness policies of her predecessor".
"She [Laura Chinchilla] has pledged to continue the probusiness policies of her predecessor".
Laura Chinchilla "has pledged to continue the probusiness policies of her predecessor".

As for the list we've been talking about, here's a hint: It's about the pages, about / versus the displayed § (or # in the actual section links). The error you think you see is illusory. The "and" is the end of a sub-list of WP:MOS sections, in a larger, containing list of MoS pages and subpages. I.e., it's the same structure as "I like donkeys; elephants; snakes, turtles, and lizards; and ferrets."
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:12, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

What do you mean, "very partial"? You informed me that "People making undiscussed substantive changes to MoS usually does get reverted [sic ]". This was the only such change I made, so I felt I needed to take another look at it in light of your comment. I don't think I was "very partial" at all, particularly given that I was trying to re-add what I had – apparently correctly, if it was so obvious – deleted before. (And if it was so obvious, why hadn't you or someone else already deleted or moved it?) Moreover, I wrote only two sentences on this aside from the revised samples, which is hardly verbose. My original suggestion was that the deleted text, if restored, should be moved to a different location. You apparently concur with that, so why don't you go ahead and do it (though preferably with "pro-business" rather than "probusiness", the latter not reflecting the word's pronunciation).

I'm also wondering why you found it necessary to change to in the sample text, when the former apparently does the same thing and is even approved by Wikipedia ("The or tags are used for a single forced line break." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Line-break_handling). I see that only and {{Break}} are mentioned at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Line_breaks_usage, but if "The MediaWiki software converts valid forms [note] like , , and to ", then why not let it do that? Perhaps your penchant for unnecessary commas extends to word spaces and slashes as well.

Finally, your technical justification of the apparent disorder in the list does not detract from the validity of what I've been saying about it. "Even if it's somehow technically correct, it's still inelegant, unclear and confusing, and I continue to think it should be emended somehow." And apparently it has been: someone's gone in and fixed it so that the period previously in the middle (which wasn't a semicolon as in your "I like donkeys" sentence) has disappeared. That's an improvement, whether I'm credited with having suggested it or not. –Roy McCoy (talk) 17:09, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

I think this has run its course; you seem to be coming up with disagreements just to have them, predicated on a completely unrelated discussion below. Quickly: What I meant by "very partial" is immediately apparent from everything I wrote after that, especially the scope-expanded revised text I supplied, and explained in detail. I changed to   because the lack of the / screws up the wikitext syntax highlighter; the fix is well within WP:REFACTOR. The fact that you still think there's "apparent disorder" in the list, even after the reason for the order has been made clear to you, and no one in the entire history of WP but you has had this "issue" with it, and I even edited it to get rid of "and" for you so this circular back-and-forth would stop, isn't something I care to deal with any further. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 08:39, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

Two improvements have been made at my suggestion, which is all I was interested in and so there is nothing essential to discuss further. You did not, however, explain what you meant by "very partial", which in fact was not immediately apparent from everything you wrote after that. It still doesn't seem apparent, however many times I read it. I also didn't understand how the lack of the slash screws up the wikitext syntax highlighter, though I now find your recent explanation of this at WP:LINEBREAK. This means I've suggested yet a third improvement, so it's not clear why you should be haughty or disrespectful.
As for the punctuation itself, the one thing that stayed in my mind following this discussion (which otherwise I'd forgotten, having been reminded of it now only by its appearance somehow in my screen) was the sample question Did Marlin ask Dory, "Can you read?". While I fully agreed and still agree that a second question mark there looks bad and isn't needed, I still had the nagging feeling that logic – which is what logical quotation is about, right? – nonetheless demanded the second punctuation mark, i.e. one for the main question and one for the quoted question. "Don't double up punctuation except in unusual circumstances" seems like a pretty good rule that covers this fairly well, though it's not clear to me that this shouldn't also extend to The newspaper misquoted Smith as stating "I am to resign.", but Smith's actual announcement phrased this as a question, "I am to resign?"., (triple punctuation!) as I don't immediately see why the quote-ending period is necessary (unless solely for the purpose of illustration here and it actually isn't). Admittedly it doesn't look as bad as two question marks, but it still looks a bit odd, and unnecessarily. I'm honestly not looking for disagreement here, by the way, and I'm sure you can understand the point. Doubled punctuation marks look odd and can be skipped, but it still doesn't seem to me that this is perfectly logical. –Roy McCoy (talk) 00:34, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Ligatures

The (short) section on Ligatures in the MoS is much too hardline. While I respect/tolerate the 'house style' to avoid using ligatures when they are optional, it seems to leave no room even to mention alternative forms.

For example, in the formula article we have the ridiculous situation of claiming

"The plural of formula is spelt formulae (from the original Latin).^[1]"

Whereas actually the OED states (verbatim):

"Forms: Plural formulæ, formulas."

in which the ligature is specifically and deliberately used. The OED distinguishes three distinct spellings: "ae", "æ", and "e". (Compare with "haematology". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.), which is listed with the "ae" spelling, and the "e" spelling is given as an alternative form — but not the "æ" spelling. Yet within the definitions the ligature is carefully used to cite quotations from the publication Hæmatology.) So the WP article on formula is misquoting the OED article, possibly due to the excessively constrictive guidance in the MoS.

The MoS entry should be extended to state something like:
"Additionally, if a spelling of the article's subject sometimes includes (or historically included) a ligature, then ligatures can be used in lead sections (or in expositions on etymology/spelling) for the purpose of mentioning that fact."

—DIV (137.111.13.17 (talk) 02:20, 11 May 2019 (UTC))

References

^ "formula". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)

Opposed to any change to this section. First off, no rules in MoS about how to write ever preclude mentioning and illustrating something when it is itself the topic. Basic common sense. Literally no one on Wikipedia is confused into thinking otherwise (I don't even think you are; I think you're using hyperbole to try to make your point, and it is backfiring). Second, the fact that the OED prefers to write with ligatures (and much of its text dates to the mid-20th century, when they were in much more common use) has nothing at all to do with whether WP's house style is to avoid them and should remain that way (it is, and it should). OED's house style is not WP house style. You say you respect that we have a house style, and then want to impose someone else's. So, nope. This also has no effect whatsoever on titles of works; cf. Ænima, "Ænema", Encyclopædia Britannica, etc., etc. If something quoted from OED is in fact being misquoted, then fix the quote, like we would with any other quote. While MOS:CONFORM permits some trivial alterations for normalized text presentation, this isn't one of them (if OED's dictionarian position is in favor of the formulæ spelling, then that should be reported accurately). There is nothing wrong with the guideline; there's something wrong with a quote in one article. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:14, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

"Let us consider" statements

There are about 300 articles containing "Let us consider" statements, such as Color mixing ("To explain the mechanism, let us consider mixing red paint with yellow paint") and Polyandry in Tibet ("To elucidate, let us consider a family with two or more sons"; "Let us consider a family in which the mother died before the son was married"). I find this phrasing to be overly formal and unnecessarily wordy. I would like to go through these articles and, except for instances where the phrase is part of a quote, either remove the "let us" part and have sentences like the above merely read "To explain the mechanism, consider mixing red paint with yellow paint" or "Consider a family in which the mother died before the son was married", or remove the entire phrase and use a different construction, "To explain the mechanism, when mixing red paint with yellow paint..." or "In a family in which the mother died before the son was married..." to lead into the next concept. Since this would affect hundreds of articles, I would like to see if there is any disagreement with this plan of action. bd2412 T 13:36, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Some thoughts. It’s a style of writing. I think it is a little bit familiar to Japanese formal writing. I have seen argument that first person writing lends itself to easier clarity, and more natural active versus passive writing. “Let us consider” is first person plural active tense. It is not popular is modern western culture. Is it desirable to force the popular writing style on all articles? What if the sources use that style? This style is probably best avoided as it strongly implies a WP:Voice of Wikipedia, which should be avoided or minimised. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 13:49, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
- It appears that the most prevalent use of this phrase is in articles relating to the hard sciences and complex mathematics, where publications often use certain phrases to introduce topics (for example, it is common in mathematical writing to introduce parameters by saying, "It is common knowledge that...", even if the thing being introduced is not exactly "common" knowledge). I think that is where these "let us consider" phrases tend to come from. bd2412 T 14:35, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

In terms of succinct and direct writing which is part of concisely conveying information as an encyclopedia, I can’t think of a time when you’d want those phrases in an article, especially since you can cut it down to just “consider X” if you really want to introduce something in that manner. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 15:10, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

This seems to relate to MOS:NOTED. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 15:15, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Good point. Perhaps MOS:NOTED should be amended to specify avoiding constructions like "let us consider" (or even just "consider" statements). bd2412 T 16:55, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Apart from being wordy, first person writing and writing that speaks directly to the reader like that doesn't fit the encyclopaedic tone. Nor does it seem appropriate for a collaboratively-written work. Speaking of which, when Wikipedia becomes self-aware enough to start speaking in "we" terms, I think it'll be time to find another hobby. :) Guettarda (talk) 16:05, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

We should replace all of the "let us consider" constructions with "for example" or similar replacement. All writing should avoid 1st and 2nd person constructions like these. --Jayron32 17:06, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
- I prefer "Consider" to "Let us consider", but it is not generally possible to replace them by "For example". The typical use for me of "Consider" is to set up the preconditions for a math problem, like "Consider two points in the Euclidean plane, with integer coordinates. Then their distance is the square root of a sum of two squares." In this example, it could be rewritten as a single sentence, "When two points in the Euclidean plane have integer coordinates, then their distance is the square root of a sum of two squares." But that single sentence is long and grammatically complex. And this was only a short example; other uses of the same phrasing can be considerably longer. The use of "Consider" allows it to be broken into two shorter sentences, which are individually less technical and therefore easier to read. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:04, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

It's already against MOS:NOTED, as I understand it, though I wouldn't object to adding the example. I've found phrasing like that to be a good indicator of potential WP:COPYVIOs. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 01:24, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Update: I have gone through the list and replaced every instance I could find of "let us consider" or "let's consider" that was not part of a quote with "consider", which is at least an improvement. That leaves about 250 articles containing "consider" statements, which might be looked at more carefully. bd2412 T 04:34, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Those should just get removed or replaced, per MOS:NOTED. Some WP:MATHS people have argued for an exception for maths material because it's use is common in maths textbooks, but that's not really a rationale, per WP:NOT#MANUAL; we don't write in that style to begin with. Any case of something like "Consider two points in the Euclidean plane, with integer coordinates. Then their distance is ..." can be replaced with "Given two points in the Euclidean plane, with integer coordinates, their distance is ..." which is less pedantic and more concise, as well as no longer a fourth-wall problem. Same with David Eppstein's other-way-around rewrite above; which to prefer would depend on what the material needs to emphasize in the context. Even in long cases that won't work as a single sentence, the instructional "Consider" can be written around some other way. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:27, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
Writing simple understandable sentences for technical subjects is more important than your pedantic adherence to certain overspecific grammatical rules. And if you are not a regular editor of mathematics articles, and don't have experience trying to write these things both non-technically and accurately, please stop making blanket statements that this construct is easily avoided. It is not. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:09, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
For the most part, these are not examples of MOS:NOTED – it is not instructing the reader that they must take note. Rather, they are examples of the "author's we", marking a logical progression in an explanation, which is an acceptable encyclopaedic form, as stated at MOS:PERSON, althugh it can usually be reworded if desired. I agree that "consider" is preferable to "let us consider" in most cases. SpinningSpark 23:22, 7 May 2019 (UTC)
- For our purposes, they're not distinguished; see also MOS:WE. Given that there are unlikely to be any cases that cannot be rewritten, just rewrite them. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:02, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
  - @SMcCandlish: MOS:WE is exactly the same guideline section as I linked at MOS:PERSON above and it very much does not say it is the same as MOS:NOTED. MOS:WE explicitly states that the author's we is an exception to the injunction not to use personal pronouns and that this is an acceptable form. That is why the example text is in green, not in red. For our purposes, they are distinguished as far as the guidelines are concerned. SpinningSpark 10:17, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
    - They are the same for our intent here in that they're undesirable. The section does not say it's an exception, it says it's best rewritten. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:21, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
      - You are clearly reading what you want hear, not what is actually written. But some such forms are acceptable in certain figurative uses. For example:...The author's we found in scientific writing. Does that passage, or does it not, contain the word "acceptable"? Often rephrasing using the passive voice is preferable says neither that the author's we is undesirable, nor that it must be removed. You are reinterpreting what it actually says to comply with your own opinion. SpinningSpark 23:27, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
        And you're cherry-picking to selective quote what you like and ignore what argues against you. "Acceptable" (i.e. not against rules, not something you'll get in trouble for) doesn't mean "advisable", especially when what you elided says "Often rephrasing using the passive voice is preferable". The actual advice is in the opposite of your preferred direction. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:45, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
It's maths language, to start with. Should be used judiciously, but there's a place for it. Under no circumstances should someone unilaterally sift through expunging every instance without careful judgement. Tony (talk) 03:10, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
Yes, there is a place for it - in a maths textbook or lecture notes. I have used plenty of these myself in my time and very useful they are too, for a student if mathematics. Where it doesn't belong, though, is an encyclopedia. We should be describing the topics we have articles on, not attempting to teach them to our readers. The fact that large numbers of articles do it does not make it right. — Amakuru (talk) 18:34, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
One other concern - I have found that “let us consider” (and similar language) is often a red flag that the text is a copyright violation. Not always... but often enough that we should avoid it. Blueboar (talk) 12:00, 8 May 2019 (UTC)
'Let us consider' is very math textbooky, but it's just a more formal way of saying things are conditional on the assumptions. "Let us consider n pairs of numbers" is just a more formal way of saying "Imagine you have n pairs of numbers" or "When you have n pairs of numbers" or "The following results assume you have n pairs of numbers". I don't really see the inherent problem with it, save for a bit of stuffiness that will be lost on the general population. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:16, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
Since there are other ways to do that (most commonly and succinctly, "Given n pairs of numbers, ....") which are not presumption/instructional language aimed at the reader, I'm suggesting we should use those other ways. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:52, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
Your proposed replacement, besides leading to longer and more complex sentence structure, is problematic grammatically. A sentence that begins "Given X," can really only be followed by a noun phrase that is modified by "given" and describes to whom X was given. That whom is the reader, again in first person. So you can properly say something like that "Given n pairs of numbers forming the coordinates of points in the plane, consider their convex hull" and we're back where we started with "Consider". Or you can say "Given n pairs of numbers forming the coordinates of points in the plane, their convex hull is ..." and be wrong and confusing because it is incorrect that anybody is giving the pairs to the convex hull. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:21, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
^{[citation needed]}. I'm unaware of any dictionary or other source that defines the "Given X, then Y" construction that narrowly. You're obviously aware that words have multiple meanings and uses, and thus that "given" need not refer to something literally handed from one person to another like a gift or a payment. Regardless, the point is there that are ways to write about this stuff that do not use instructional language like "Consider ...". Another obvious one is "If [scenario], then [result]", and another is "When [circumstance], then [what to expect]". Give a minute or two, anyone could probably come up with ten more. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:43, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Page header not displaying in mobile view

I use the mobile view almost exclusively. After a recent edit to this talk page's header by another user, I realized that the desktop view displays a header that I do not see in the mobile view. Does anyone using mobile remember seeing a header displayed here? It does seem like there used to be one. Jmar67 (talk) 00:14, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

I use desktop, iPad, iPhone landscape and iPhone portrait. There have been a lot of silent changes in display by Wikipedia software over the last year, with some crazy things briefly oblong the way. Problems seem to get fixed faster than I can understand the problem I experienced. I think things are quite good at the moment. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 04:21, 28 April 2019 (UTC)
And what do you mean by "header"? Are you talking about section headings? Templates at the top of the page? If the latter, various <div>...</div> CSS classes have suppressed display in the mobile view. E.g., if you go to WP:ANI in mobile, you'll find a heading for the noticeboard archives but no actual archive links available, until you switch to the desktop view. This isn't really ideal, but it's also not really an MoS matter. More a MediaWiki developers + "MediaWiki:"-namespace regulars matter. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:53, 29 April 2019 (UTC)
Yes, I mean the set of templates shown at the top of the talk page. This is not related to the style-related content of the MOS but rather to the talk page itself. The Help Desk referred me to VPT, but I wanted to get feedback here first. Jmar67 (talk) 01:23, 30 April 2019 (UTC)
Right then. Definitely a VPT matter, since this is all about how the mobile version is coded, and how our CSS is coded to work with it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 18:02, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Change to the "Style discussions elsewhere" section

Per WP:Canvassing, notifications must be neutrally worded, so I've taken the BOLD measure of removing the open commentary from all #Current listed items (viewable in this version) and changed the instructions slightly. Pinging those who had signed comments there: @Dicklyon, Randy Kryn, and WanderingWanda:. I considered trying to word descriptions for them neutrally, but the issues were most often obvious just from the section link itself, so taking inspiration from Template:CENT, I just dropped the descriptions entirely. -- Netoholic @ 22:01, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

That works. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:07, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Agree. Maybe a note in the header to say what sort of additional information should not appear in an entry and why. Jmar67 (talk) 06:07, 15 May 2019 (UTC)

Numbers from 0 to 9

I know we learned in school to write out single-digit numbers in prose (confirmed by MOS:NUMERAL), but why does that rule exist? Jmar67 (talk) 02:24, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

One or two thoughts about that: It's not a rule, it's a style; pretty much based on tradition and readability, as most styles are; something for school teachers to teach. OK, three thoughts. Dicklyon (talk) 02:34, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

MOS:GEOCOMMA, most common punctuation error in WP?

It seems we have a ton of articles missing a matching comma after state, in lead sentences even, in constructs like "X in City, State was a ...". MOS:GEOCOMMA and every style and grammar guide that I've looked at says this is an error, but lots of editors don't know, and a distressing number even argue that it's not an error (esp. in discussions of titles such as City, State thing. Is there something we should be doing to make this more clear? Does anyone know why some people don't experience any pain on encountering such imbalances? Dicklyon (talk) 15:40, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

As usual, it's because some news-style manuals like to drop this comma, and people see that style if they read more news than other nonfiction, so they absorb it. I think the MoS material is plenty clear, but most editors never read it. MoS is primarily a post hoc cleanup tool, and a means of settling disputes, not a "Now that you want to become an WP editor for the first time, please learn all of this" document. The average editor just writes in whatever way feels comfortable to them, and someone else cleans it up later. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:33, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

I get that, and I don't mind doing the cleanup work. What seems odd, though, is the opposition that such work sometimes encounters, as in some recent RM discussions where nearly half the people argue that it's not wrong so don't fix it – when it's obviously wrong. Dicklyon (talk) 17:45, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

I can only speak for myself, but I suppose that the absence of a comma simply isn't regarded as an imbalance. I seem to recall having read somewhere recently that the state is treated as an appositive and hence the comma following, but it's possible to see the state as not an appositive at all, but rather as simply part of the address, the address constituting a whole. Such a missing comma may be seen as obviously wrong, but I think this is basically simply in regard to the accepted rule that it should be followed by a comma. I don't feel that the state is an appositive myself, and when I encounter phrases such as "He moved to Columbus, Ohio, in 1948", I find the suggested pause after "Ohio" unnecessary and rather irksome (as with short introductory prepositional phrases). What I would say would be more like "He moved to Columbus, Ohio in 1948", and if I don't pause it I don't see why I should punctuate it either. (Actually, to be truthful, what I would say would probably be even more like "He moved to Columbus Ohio in 1948", but I would never for a single second consider omitting the comma between the city and the state – though I would unhesitatingly in "Columbus OH" or "Columbus OH, USA.) Could we perhaps agree that however de rigueur the comma following the state may be, the comma between the city and the state is nonetheless more essential? If so, that might say something about perceived balance or imbalance. I've now tried to answer Dicklyon's question about how someone could regard this comma as unnecessary, and now I'm wondering if he regards its absence as obviously wrong for some reason other than the rule itself, and if so what that reason is. If he sees the state as an appositive, I don't. If he sees it as something else, I'm interested in what that is. –Roy McCoy (talk) 00:37, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

I suspect that the form "city, state" derives from early postal conventions that called for separation in the interest of clarity and to avoid ambiguity. The commas involved have no "pause" function, in my opinion. I would not pause in speaking before or after the state. The state is normally included as a disambiguator, since identically named cities can exist in multiple states, or to clarify the location of a city that is not well known. For major cities (New York, Chicago) the state can be omitted. The idea of placing a comma after the state is to set off (enclose) it as a defining element (which Columbus?) and as such is an appositive form. It could just as well be enclosed in parentheses in normal prose, thus avoiding the comma question. Jmar67 (talk) 01:27, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

The comma is no problem whether you pause a little or not at all. I'd be happy if we moved to no comma, as we've done with "Jr." (and as the post office now prefers for addresses on envelopes), but with just one when the text continues, it's really hard to see what the role of that comma is supposed to be. "He moved to Columbus, Ohio in 1948" just looks like a broken comma splice of some sort, with a pause between "He moved to Columbus" and "Ohio in 1948". All grammar guides say to not do that. Same with years in American style dates; I'd be happy to go to no comma, but with mismatched comma it's a glaring error, just like a mismatched open paren, as in "He move to Columbus (Ohio in 1948." Dicklyon (talk) 01:31, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn’t put much stock in what the post office says (for our purposes): Canada Post, for example, deprecates all punctuation in addresses. I agree with Jmar67 that the function of these commas is essentially parenthetical, so they should be paired. (BTW some Europeans, and French-Canadians as well, do normally use parenthesis symbols for the purpose.)—Odysseus 1479 21:31, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Yep. Commas that serve a bracketing function always come in pairs (or the second is replaced by some other punctuation). I don't think we'll be dropping these commas, because the real world isn't (as it has been with the commas in "Sammy Davis, Jr., was born in 1925."). So, the thing to do is just fix them when they're not paired. If you keep running into confused pushback, I would suggest putting together an information page that lays out all the style guide quotations; if you've already done the looking up, might as well just save it and give it a shortcut, to curtail both the amount of time spent rehashing it, and the frequency with which people want to. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:22, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

One of the most common fixes I make, and I never had someone revert it ... until today. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:43, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

First time for everything I guess. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 16:24, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Use of ∞ (infinity) symbol for marriage in genealogy

At Morgan family#Genealogy, ∞ (infinity; U+221E) is used many times. I worked out that it means "marriage". This seems analogous to using * for "born" and † for "died" (disallowed at MOS:DATETOPRES). Should these be replaced with "m." (and a note about it added to MoS, since there are many more articles in which it appears)? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 11:02, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

The ∞ is an improper substitute for the character ⚭ (U+26AD, "Marriage Symbol"). I agree with replacing it with m. (parallel with b. and d.). Doremo (talk) 11:42, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

I'd be in favor of converting all of these to "m." or "married". Non-keyboard symbols should be used sparingly, and in cases where a perfectly acceptable letter exists, I'd go with that. --Jayron 32 12:08, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

The "Marriage Symbol" is two interlocking circles, for those who use a small text or an old screen! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:16, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

The marriage symbol is too small for me to make it out at my preferred text size and is anyway unfamiliar, so I would be quite happy to see it deprecated. Use of the infinity symbol as a substitute is even worse. "m." or "married" is clearer to me, and possibly to the majority of readers, which should be the main concern. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 14:58, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

This edit changed "m." to the infinity symbol. So it was that way at one time. Jmar67 (talk) 22:36, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

There's also a line that is followed by "<Mass Town Birth Records></Virginia Marriage Records>", which also seems like a bad idea. Should they be turned into a reference, assuming it means those are sources. Any idea what the "/" is for? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 11:02, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Reads as bad closing tags and just a misunderstanding of markup. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 18:49, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Appears to be a remnant of XML tagging in one of the sources. I see no reason to retain it. Jmar67 (talk) 20:52, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

It looks like it was added by @DACC23:. Maybe they have a good reason for why it's there? Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:47, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

I use the ∞ symbol often because I've seen it used in many other family trees and think its cleaner (and shorter) than the other options, but am happy to use m. or m. if that is what is preferred overall. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DACC23 (talk • contribs) 13:30, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

@DACC23: The question here was the tags. I have commented these out. Jmar67 (talk) 13:56, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

I think all of these should be spelled out per WP:NOTPAPER. Certainly the symbols are right out. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:36, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

I also support removing these symbols, and further suggest making use of Template:Abbr for a result of m. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw) │ 04:20, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

Definitely replace it. Even genealogists don't use that symbol (they typically use m. in running text or = in a pedigree chart, since ⚭ is obscure and not found on anyone's keyboard). If we're going to use any abbreviation or symbol, it should be within MOS:ABBR guidelines (don't abbreviate without a good reason, like a cramped table in which horizontal space is at a premium, and either link to the meaning or use {{abbr}}, at first occurrence of any abbreviation). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:05, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

I did the replace. Hopefully got it right. And hopefully anyone there who might care was already aware of this discussion and saw the error. Dicklyon (talk) 02:29, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

In this modern age it's amusing to see the symbol for "never-ending" being used to represent marriage; perhaps someone's idea of a joke. E Eng 05:02, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Sometimes it can seem that way. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 19:14, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

I do prefer the infinity symbol over the letter "(m.)" to reflect marriage because the "(m.)" by itself, to me, if I am reading in English, may mean "male" as opposed to the "(f.)" for "female" or, in my native language, Spanish, it would be the abbreviation for "muerto/a" much like you put a "d." to represent "dead", so I have no objections to it. --Fandelasketchup (talk) 15:43, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Except this isn't Spanish Wikipedia, every abbreviation can be amibigous with other abbreviations in different contexts (there are only 26 possible one-letter abbreviations in English, or double that counting lower/upper-case variants). And the infinity symbol doesn't mean anything in particular to anyone when used this way. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:46, 18 May 2019 (UTC)

[1] ttp://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share

[oxford-2] "formula". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)

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