Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 220

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WP:WAS and defunct magazines

See Talk:Famous Fantastic Mysteries; I was surprised to see that WP:WAS was being used to say that a magazine that has ceased publication takes "is" not "was". C. A. Russell (who made the change) pinged Thumperward when I asked about it, which led me to this MoS discussion. I reverted the edit, and was re-reverted, so I'm coming here to raise a discussion -- the archive link above doesn't discuss magazines, or anything sufficiently close to them to seem like a precedent.

The issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries dated August 1942 is a magazine issue, but I think the magazine, considered as a publishing enterprise, has concluded, so the rule of thumb in WP:WAS seems to apply: "A good rule of thumb is that unless a subject has a specific expiration date (such as a person's death, a company's closure, or an event's end) then the present tense is appropriate." Defunct magazines have a specific expiration date -- often the company's closure. I should add that the sources invariably use the past tense. A quick look in Frank Luther Mott's five volume History of American Magazines shows that he uses the past tense for defunct magazines and the present tense for ones still active at the time he was writing. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:12, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree with your analysis. A magazine is a periodical publication, meaning it produces a new issue on a regular basis. Once that publication has ended, then the publication was a magazine. I think it comes down to how you conceptualize the thing described. For something like "x is a television series", I tend to understand that as referring to all of the episodes collectively, and so would use present tense. On the other hand, I don't interpret magazine or newspaper as referring collectively to all of the issues, but as describing an ongoing publication enterprise, which has an end date.--Trystan (talk) 13:43, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

I also agree. Moby Dick is a novel from 1851, but Famous Fantastic Mysteries was a magazine published from 1939 to 1953. The current phrasing ("is a discontinued .... magazine") is just a less direct way of saying "was a magazine". Doremo (talk) 14:14, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree. Popcornfud (talk) 15:20, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree. Johnbod (talk) 15:38, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

This fits pretty well with both the spirit of the original text and the examples I provided. Given that there seems to be support for that position, it might be worth expanding the examples in the relevant MoS entry. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 22:28, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

I really don't see how magazines are different than TV series. MOS:TENSE says, in part, By default, write articles in the present tense, including those covering works of fiction and products or works that have been discontinued. Generally, do not use past tense except for past events and subjects that are dead or no longer meaningfully exist. Production of a magazine or TV series may have concluded, but installments (issues/episodes) still exist. Gimbels no longer exists in any form, just as Abraham Lincoln and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon no longer exist. MOS:TENSE is clear that present tense is the default and there are limited exceptions. Trystan's above interpretation of the conceptual difference between a magazine and a TV series is a stretch, and obviously subjective.

That said, I just looked at 10 random articles about defunct magazines and I'm shocked to discover that all of them use "was". I'm not sure what the overall percentage is, natch. I didn't see an MOS guideline at the semi-active WikiProject Magazines, but it seems like there must be a specific discussion or guideline somewhere for so many articles to violate what I would argue is the basic intent of MOS:TENSE. Or is it that the very active and very stringent WikiProject Television has embraced MOS:TENSE in its own WP:TVNOW guideline and just enforces it more vigorously (which they do)?— TAnthony^Talk 23:39, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Many TV shows get syndicated which effectively means they're still available, or could become available at any time, unlike magazine issues. So I can see why WP:TV might chose to use "is" rather than "was".--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 00:11, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I agree that present tense is the default, but you can only stretch the English language so far. Whatever the reason, "... is a magazine published from 1939 to 1953" and "... is a daily newspaper published from 1872 to 1930" are just clangers in English, in a way that "... is a television series that aired from 1957 to 1963" is not. Without going too far down the existential rabbit hole, the reason is likely, as Sturmvogel says, that TV shows tend to continue to be consumed in a regular way, while newspapers and magazines tend to be relegated to archival status. In determining whether something meaningfully continues to exist, there are naturally going to be some subjective edge cases. Drawing a line between periodicals and TV shows is one of those cases.--Trystan (talk) 00:43, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Disagree that your examples are awkward constructions. More importantly, I think, they describe the subjects excellently. Surely your example magazine, in 1942, wasn't "a magazine published from 1939 to 1953". Primergrey (talk) 03:33, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Your argument is based on availability, or how TV shows are viewed more than magazines in perpetuity? Even if those were valid criteria (and I don't think they are), it's personal opinion to say that an old TV series would be easier or harder to find than paper magazines. The shows exist somewhere, but may or may not be re-released; magazines might never be reprinted, but hard copies exist in various places, including libraries and eBay. As with reliable sources, these media should be reasonably available, they need not be easily available. Past tense is for things that are literally existent. And I don't hear the clang at all regarding "... is a magazine published from 1939 to 1953" sounding somehow worse than "... is a television series that aired from 1957 to 1963. I haven't seen a valid reason given for treating TV series and magazines differently.— TAnthony^Talk 04:25, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I think the usage in sources should be given some weight. Mott, mentioned above, is an authoritative source. I also was quickly able to find uses of “X was a magazine” by searching the archives of the NY Times and the London Times, as well as Google and Google Books. Those searches also bring up a lot of false positives such as “I was a magazine editor” but looking through the results I couldn’t find any uses of “is a magazine” for defunct titles. Or try searching for “was a magazine published”; there are many examples from multiple sources. Looking through the few magazine articles listed at WP:FA that I didn’t write there’s a mixture of “is” and “was” so the “was” usage is not just my preference and has repeatedly made it through prose reviews unchanged. I have plenty of references about magazines (I wouldn’t mind betting I’m the most prolific editor on Wikipedia of magazine articles) and can go through them to check their usage if that would be useful. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 06:43, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

I think I have to agree with Mike Christie's analysis above, and the logic in keeping it as "was" for defunct magazines. (Mind you, I don't like "is" for defunct TV series either, fwiw). - SchroCat (talk) 07:35, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Agreeing with the above regarding TV series; I would also prefer "Happy Days was an American sitcom ..." as more natural. The rest of that article uses the past tense: "the series was one of the most successful ... and starred"; "Happy Days became one of ...", etc. Doremo (talk) 10:17, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

The subject of the article is a magazine—a creative work. The "publication enterprise", or any other detail that led to the work's creation, is highly relevant to the article, but it is not the subject of the article.
- "Lingua Franca is under copyright"
Mott is an authority—specifically, he is an authority on the subject matter. But not an authority wrt this discussion.
- He's also 50 years dead. And yet Mike Christie twice wrote that "[he] is an authoritative source" and that "[Mott] uses the past tense for defunct magazines and the present tense for ones still active" (emphasis mine). The reason for present tense there is the same reason why present tense is correct here—even when the creative work in question is a defunct magazine.
- Additionally I have attempted to substantiate the claim that Mott uses past tense, but have been unable to do so. This is made difficult by said five volume series not being widely available.
"I don't interpret magazine [...] as referring collectively to all of the issues" is simply perplexing. The notion of magazines being collections is baked in to etymology and the very definition of the word.

-- C. A. Russell (talk) 00:52, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

If a magazine is a collection of issues and not a publication enterprise, how can it be defunct ("no longer existing or operating")?--Trystan (talk) 01:26, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Some quotes from Mott (you'll have to take my word for it that I did not omit uses of "is"):

"The Publications of the Southern Historical Association (1897–1907), of Atlanta, was at first a quarterly and later a bimonthly..." vol. 4, p. 139.
"Several magazines were published for traveling salesmen, most important of which was the Commercial Travelers' Home Magazine (1893–1902)..." vol. 4. p. 186.
"The Blue Grass Blade was a freethinking weekly consisting of four pages in newspaper form..." vol. 4. p. 277.
"Cassier's Magazine: An Engineering Monthly was published in London..." vol. 4. p. 320.
"The Universalist Magazine of 1819 was a four-page paper." vol. 1. p. 7.
"The Royal American Magazine, or Universal Repository of Instruction and Amusement was an illustrated miscellany of forty octavo pages..." vol. 1 p. 82.

I see some uses of "is" in volume 5, which is naturally about magazines that were still extant when Mott was writing. Yes, I used the present tense for talking about Mott -- he was an author, but he is an authority; he wrote books, but he says authoritative things about magazines. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:39, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Trystan is right: "defunct" is incorrect. If these comments were a wiki article, we'd be obligated to correct it to not use that term. But "defunct" only originated within this discussion; it is not actually the descriptor I chose.

Several of the quotes provided by Mike Christie just now do not support the argument that out-of-print publications are categorically properly referred to using "was", nor are they contradictions of the argument in favor of "is". "X is a magazine that was published from [...]" in fact fits squarely with explanation offered by all who have pointed out that "is" is correct. The occurrences of "was" in examples provided don't differ from the "was" in "X [...] was published"—because *that* use of "was" is actually correct!

And I repeat myself—it wouldn't matter if Mott outright used "was" on every page of his five volume set, for the reason I mentioned before: he's a subject matter expert in magazines. That doesn't mean his perspective is authoritative on the subject of this discussion. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 03:50, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

To further demonstrate the principle in play here: just as Mike Christie writes, "[Mott] was an author, but he is an authority", "Mag-X (say) was being published in the 1960s, it is still a magazine and as such is a work of creative expression (whether it's still in publication or not)". And if not, then we say "it is no longer in publication". (Bonus points for extra credit: how do you even say that last sentence unless you use "is"?) -- C. A. Russell (talk) 03:59, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

You're right that the list of quotes from Mott includes some that don't apply to the question at hand; that was careless of me (I'm going to blame the wine I was drinking last night). But some of them do apply, and I found no counter-examples. To that you say that Mott is not an authority on the issue we're discussing; again you're right, but unless one is willing to argue that all reliable sources on magazines always get this wrong, one would expect to be able to find reliable sources that do use "is" for the simple statement of existence. Here are a couple more sources and quotes.

From Mike Ashley's The Time Machines (2000):

"There were two major publications in 1946...The second such anthology was Adventures in Time and Space..." (p. 197) This is about a book, not a magazine, but what's interesting is that Ashley even uses past tense here, and I think it's because the prior sentence makes it clearly we're narrating past events. That's implicitly the case for lead sentences about defunct magazines too. There are more straightforward uses of "was" too:
"Stirring was in fact two magazines in one." (p. 163)
"Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader was a good magazine with some sharp stories..." (p. 224)
"Mexico's leading pulp magazine of the period was Los Cuentos Fantasticos." (p. 234)

From Eric Leif Davin, Partners in Wonder (2006)

"In March, 1937, the Gaines and Mayer team began publishing yet a third comic book for Dell, also with a simple title: The Comics. It was a mixed bag of newspaper reprints and original comics..." (p. 170)

From the online SF Encyclopedia:

"The new magazine was more garish and more juvenile than its predecessor." ([1]) (Mike Ashley is listed as one of the authors of this article, but this text is due to Malcolm Edwards; it appears in the 1978 print edition.)

If someone finds multiple examples of "is" being used in simple declarative sentences to describe a historical magazine, I'd still argue that "was" is correct, for some of the other reasons given above, but I'd be forced to concede that it's an acceptable usage in edited prose. As it stands I've looked through half a dozen references and can't find a single example that uses "is". Re your extra credit question: as with the Mott quotes I shouldn't have included, I think it's a red herring. It's not the specific usage we're discussing, and of course "is" is correct. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:46, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Can you clarify your last comment? Can't parse.

Someone at the University of Rochester is doing good work to correct mistaken use of colloquial "was" that would be common from students into the correct form for formal writing. See the current intro for Vanity Fair (U.S. magazine 1913–1936), for example. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 14:12, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I meant that "it is no longer in publication" is clearly right, but isn't an example of the usage we're debating. I'd say "Captain Future never won a Hugo Award because when the awards were first given out the magazine was no longer in publication" since that refers to the state of the magazine at a time in the past, but I'd say "as of today, Captain Future is no longer in publication" because that's a statement about the state of affairs today. I don't think it's that useful to think about how a given usage implies the speaker must be conceptualizing the magazine, but if pressed I'd say that "Captain Future was a magazine published in the 1940s" implies that I'm thinking about it as a past event, and Captain Future is a magazine that was published in the 1940s" implies I'm thinking about it as a collection of physical objects; a set of works that still exist. The reason I don't think that's helpful is because even if everyone in a MoS discussion agrees on what's logical, we don't regard ourselves as able to overrule the frequent illogicalities of standard English usage. To put it another way, I feel I have a conception of magazines that makes "was" logical, and I have usage citations to support that; counterexamples to the second point seem much more useful to me in this debate, because our internal justifications for English usage are very difficult to assign weights to.

Re Vanity Fair: I see that, but I assume we'd agree that the editor in question is no more a reliable source for usage than you and I are.

It's been a couple of days since this discussion started, and most editors commenting have agreed that "was" is OK for the usage under discussion. Would you be OK with me reverting to "was" at Famous Fantastic Mysteries? And I'd like to add an example to the MoS, perhaps of that exact article, as Thumperward suggested above, to forestall future iterations of this debate. We can leave it a few more days if you feel others may have more to say. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:35, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Captain Future is a magazine that was published in the 1940s" implies I'm thinking about it as a collection of physical objects; a set of works that still exist

I think this is the disconnect. A "collection of physical objects" is very much not the conceptualization that makes "is" correct. (If that were the rule, and every issue were destroyed, then that would mean we would start using "was". But we wouldn't, because that's not the basis for "is".) In fact, it's the opposite conceptualization that leads to "is"—once again, it's because is a creator's work (whether that be a single person, or in the case of most magazines, multiple persons). It comes into being, and then it simply exists. And it is that work that is the subject of the article, and not auxiliary details about its drafting and editing process, business structures, or the manufacture of ink-on-paper and its distribution. Corporeal embodiment in a physical artifact has nothing to do with why it is "is".

Re Vanity Fair: [...] the editor in question is no more a reliable source[...]

Only relevant if my comment is an appeal to authority. But it's not.

most editors commenting have agreed that "was" is OK for the usage under discussion. Would you be OK with me reverting to "was"

No I wouldn't, and I'd especially be against the more extreme action of promoting "was" to a de jure change.

Majority is not consensus. From Wikipedia:Consensus: The quality of an argument is more important than whether it represents a minority or a majority view. And furthermore: The arguments "I just don't like it" and "I just like it" usually carry no weight whatsoever. Most of the "most editors commenting" are in the latter camp. And two of those editors "agreeing" with "was" aren't even agreeing with the argument—they're agreeing with the outcome. They're saying "was" should be used for TV shows, too.

I've just pointed to an editor who's clearly got a perspective on this, but you're calling for an end, because if we call the game now and use your preferred scoring method, too, then we can say that it puts things in your favor? I'm referring to the IP from University of Rochester—who I stumbled upon through almost no effort at all after a cursory search trying to substantiate the claim that most sources are not using "is". You've since admitted that argument to appeal is one that you yourself don't find convincing, because a dispositive finding against that claim would have you discount it—i.e., as soon as it became inconvenient to your effort to carve out a special case to MOS:TENSE for out-of-print magazines.

Meanwhile, we haven't even established a rubric. Framing this as "most editors" being in agreement is premature and maybe even disingenuous. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 16:13, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, we can wait and see if we get more substantive comments — two days isn’t a long time for a discussion. I don’t think it’s worth me responding in detail to your points except to say that I’m not convinced. I agree that if you can find others interested in commenting that would be useful; I posted a note at WT:FAC asking for commenters and if you know of other relevant talk pages please post notes there too. I suspect from your tone that you’re not going to believe me, but I don’t think I’m trying to carve out a special case; I just think you’re wrong. I asked you if you felt we were done here and you said no; that’s fine. Let’s see where this conversation is in another week. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:31, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I have followed your train of thought up until this point, where you say "I don’t think I’m trying to carve out a special case". I have thought this entire discussion, from your first message here, to be about asserting that magazines should be recognized as a special type of publication so that they can be considered to end when e.g. the company itself closes, or chooses to stop creating new issues, etc. If that's not the point of this discussion, then what is? (FWIW, I still think that's the point of this discussion, but that you misunderstood the comment or took exception with the general thrust of it or...)

This is why I mentioned the lack of a rubric so far. What are we actually discussing? For a successful, fact-based discussion, we need to (a) distill things down to a set of questions for which we are tasked with deciding the answers, and (b) in doing so, rely as much as possible on claims that can be falsified or not, in service of the arguments they are meant to support. So far, that's not been the case, and it's one big, unstructured exchange. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 17:22, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I think I misunderstood you; I thought you meant I was using some form of special pleading. Yes, we're talking about a specific ruling for declarative statements about the existence of magazines no longer in print. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:26, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I think the easiest way to see this is to understand the difference between the "container" and the "work" when it comes to describing things likes magazines and other media. For an example like Moby Dick, we're focused on the "work" which continued to exist well beyond its first printing so it gets an "is". A magazine for most people on first pass is seen as a "container" that is either currently in publication or not. When it ceases publication, it ceases to be a container and thus "was" is appropriate to describe elements related to the "container" part. But as mentioned, when it comes to the content or work within it, that content still exists (or at least should) so there are other facets that still can be presented in present tense if it specifically related to its work and content. The same would apply to TV shows - considering the difference between content-laden shows verses simple news-format type shows, for example. --Masem (t) 17:02, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

This. Very much this. --Khajidha (talk) 21:11, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I still have a problem with "I Love Lucy is...". Whatever you want to argue about it logically, it just doesn't sound natural in the English language. I don't think it's how people talk. On the other hand, "Vertigo is..." is just fine. That's my intuition, and I think a lot of people will agree.

Now, if I wanted to justify my intuition, I would argue that I Love Lucy was an open-ended series rather than a complete work of art, and when it finished it finished, therefore past tense is appropriate. That is, I Love Lucy was a "container" in Masem's terminology. But the justification is sort of beside the point. The point is that we're using a tense that I think is just not going to sound natural to our readers, and I think that's a problem. --Trovatore (talk) 23:13, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

The TV show may make sense to use "was" under the "content vs container" logic I'm suggesting, especially if we consider the episode of a TV show to be the content, and the show to be the container. "The Man Trap" will always taken an "is", the episode exists, it is content, it is not a container; while Star Trek is that container for a bunch of episodes so we could argue that Star Trek was a show (as the container for those episodes) that ran from 1966 to 1969, since nearly every article on a TV show starts on the broadcasting factors touching only briefly on the content. The more and more I think about it as that approach, this feels really comfortable that way, though it requires a lot of reworking articles but it remains consistent with the magazine/journal idea we're talking about here (and probably would also apply to comic books and anything else of a periodical approach). Ongoing shows of course still retain "is". I'm trying to think of anything that might be odd against that, but I'm not coming up with any immediate examples that do not fit into this content vs container metaphor idea easily.

Or to restate that, we need to this how the work of media type X is broadly written about in WP and outside. If it is content focused first, then we should presume these works are persistent forever and they should be spoke to in the present tense. If the work is spoken about in how it was published or presented first, then we should consider the container as the leading part and use when the container exists or existed as guidance. I can't find a case this doesn't feel wrong, once you can designate the content from the container. --Masem (t) 21:07, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I spent about half an hour doing an inexhaustive poke around looking for folks whose edits indicated they probably have some perspective on this and indicate they would be impacted by this decision. Here are some, whether still active on Wikipedia or not:

-- C. A. Russell (talk) 19:14, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

It sort of looks like you looked for "perspective" in just one direction; would you agree that's accurate? I don't see edits above that change present tense to past tense, and I think it's hardly credible that there aren't any. Ultimately I hope you agree that, while "impact" on editors is a consideration, impact on readers is much more so. --Trovatore (talk) 19:22, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I wondered about that, but if these editors are implementing the common interpretation of WP:WAS then that would be more common in the edit history. C. A. Russell, how did you find these? Is there a way to filter edit histories or recent changes to spot this sort of thing? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:33, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not going to respond to Trovatore's comment—*any* facet of it—given that it comes out of the gate strawmanning the shit out of me.

These is some cursory checking I did in response to folks above complaining that "X is a magazine that was published from [...]" is an awkward/incorrect/abuse of English. I did some quick Googling that could uncover some instances of similar phrasing in existing Wikipedia articles and of the results I looked at that weren't false hits, asking, "How did the article get that way?" then I checked articles' histories. The handful of editors listed above come from the subset of those I looked at where editors were correcting existing articles to move from "was" to "is"—some of them providing edit summaries, some of them not, some of them explicitly referencing the manual of style, others (e.g. edits I saw by User:Keeper76) elaborating on the reasoning for "is" in their own words. As I said, this was just the result of basic checking and was not exhaustive. It is not all editors, it's not meant to be, and the example edits are not even all relevant edits found by that editor (cf the Rochester IP I brought up before, vs the single example provided above). It's just enough where, after we have a evidence of a handful or so, we can say, "look, these people and these types of opinions exist". -- C. A. Russell (talk) 23:29, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I strongly support the use of "was" in the lede for defunct magazines. If a magazine has ceased publication, it's no different than a factory which has ceased its fabrication. It's a company which has ceased trading, which is clearly covered by WP:WAS (this would also be true if someone tries to argue a technicality if a magazine was never incorporated.) If we have articles on issues of the magazine that are still extant, that's probably but not necessarily an "is": for instance, if a particular magazine article had a major historical impact but has been superseded, that may support a "was" (event's end.) I'd also support "was" for television shows which have been cancelled, or have no longer aired, though it's a little trickier in the age of streaming. SportingFlyer T·C 20:45, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
- With streaming it depends, but I would still say that if we are talking original shows intended to follow a television season type format, simply just not broadcasted on a typical weekly schedule, the same ideas of the "content-vs-container" apply, and in general once "cancelled" or concluded, are "was". For example, "A Series of Unfortunate Events was an American black comedy-drama[3] web television series from Netflix. The show consisted of 25 episodes over three seasons which were first broadcast from 2017 to 2019." This is not what it says now, obviously but its an example in this field. --Masem (t) 21:13, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
  - A not entirely silly position to take would be that it depends on how much the series was a single connected narrative. At the extremes, if Saturday Night Live ever stopped filming new shows, it would surely be was, but Roots, which was presumably completely filmed before a single frame was ever broadcast to the public, must be is. Somewhere in between would be the series that are plotted out in advance with a fixed ending; Babylon 5 was the pioneer of this form, but it has since become extremely popular.
    That said, I don't think slicing and dicing the logic of language is really our proper role as Wikipedia editors. The question is what is going to be useful to our readers. My take is that using the present tense for discontinued series (with the possible exception of genuine single-story ones like Roots) is such an unusual choice that it is jarring for our readers, for no sufficient countervailing benefit. --Trovatore (talk) 23:36, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
- SportingFlyer, You're conflating the magazine with the group behind it. The subject of the New York Times article is the New York Times, not the The New York Times Company. The latter dying or otherwise choosing to end future publication of the former means that future issues are off the table, certainly. It doesn't mean that the subject of the New York Times article—a work—has expired. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 23:41, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
  - Hmm, interesting comparison. Wikipedia has a list of defunct newspapers of the United States. I spot-checked a good number of them and all the ones I checked used was in the first sentence. Presumably if the NYT were to fold (ha ha) we'd do the same for it. --Trovatore (talk) 23:52, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
    I checked some more, and I have found an exception, which let me report here for completeness: The list includes the Evansville Press, which is a redirect to Evansville Courier & Press, which uses is, but that's because the paper is still being published. Whether that means that Evansville Press should be removed from the list is a question I don't care enough about to express an opinion, but clearly the use of the present tense in this case is for the currently published paper, not for the defunct one, if it is in fact defunct. --Trovatore (talk) 00:07, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
    - I'm not actually conflating the two. You've introduced a third, irrelevant, layer: the owner of the newspaper (sometimes people, sometimes another corporation.) If a newspaper or magazine stops publishing, they're clearly former entities. It does not mean individual issues of the papers or magazines should be referred to in the past tense, especially if they're notable, but those are rarely the actual subject of the article. SportingFlyer T·C 06:20, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
    - Evansville Press is not the primary subject of that article. If it is spun out - which should not happen IMO - the lede should read "the Evansville Press was a newspaper in..." By saying "The Evansville Press is a former newspaper only serves to confuse readers, because the tense implies the newspaper is still publishing and is immediately contradicted by the next word. SportingFlyer T·C 06:22, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
      - Please lay out the three things you're seeing. One of them needs to jibe with this edit, which says If a magazine has ceased publication, it's no different than a factory which has ceased its fabrication. It's a company which has ceased trading, which is clearly covered by WP:WAS (this would also be true if someone tries to argue a technicality if a magazine was never incorporated.), and the other two need to not be that thing. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 12:42, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
        Sure. For this example, there are three layers. Layer 1 are the owners/publishers of magazine. Layer 2 is the magazine itself. Layer 3 are the issues of the magazine. For this example, assume you, C. A. Russell, a person, publish the Wiki Magazine. My corporation, SportingFlyer Ltd., makes an offer to buy Wiki Magazine from you, and you accept. At some point in time, SportingFlyer Ltd. continues to trade, but Wiki Magazine becomes unprofitable and cannot be sold, so SportingFlyer Ltd. ceases publishing Wiki Magazine. There are three separate potential fictional articles here: C. A. Russell, SportingFlyer Ltd., and Wiki Magazine. C. A. Russell is a living person, SportingFlyer Ltd. is an active company, but Wiki Magazine has become defunct and would become eligible for defunct magazine categories, disestablished entity categories, et cetera, which lends itself to "was." Now, for level 3, which I haven't discussed yet: if Wiki Magazine produces an issue or content which is notable above and beyond that of the magazine, that would likely to be classified as "is." If Wiki Magazine published, say, Radioactive Man #1, the article for Radioactive Man #1 would likely not be referred to in the past tense. SportingFlyer T·C 02:28, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
        I'm pretty sure I agree with this, except that I think that any specific issue of whatever magazine or comic book etc. ought to be referred to in the present tense regardless of the article it was mentioned in. Primergrey (talk) 03:00, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
        
        Before, you said of a magazine that "It's a company which has ceased trading", but now you draw a distinction between the company and the magazine... but then go on to ignore that distinction... Stick to one or the other.
        
        Let's stipulate that there exists a magazine, let's say Foo Magazine. That's 1. The magazine if it's in publication surely has a staff of writers and editors and an entire business apparatus behind it (a "publishing enterprise" from before). That's 2. If there is a third thing, it's not clear from your messages what that is, and I'm not sure there is a third, or whether it's even important. What is important is that if we have an article Foo Magazine, the subject of the article is (1) and not (2). There's a reason why the article would say "Foo Magazine is a magazine that was published from 1923 to 1974", and not "Foo Magazine was a company that published a magazine of the same name from 1923 to 1974." (If (2) is especially notable, then it may have an article of its own, but probably not.) If (2) shuts down, then that's fine—now (2) is dead—but the subject of the Foo Magazine article remains the collective work (1), and present tense is still correct when referring it. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 22:02, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
        One and two of which you described are exactly the same in my mind. The magazine is not a "permanent" creation. (The issues of the magazine might be "permanent".) Using "is" to describe a magazine strongly implies that the magazine is currently publishing. SportingFlyer T·C 04:18, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Responding to C. A. Russell's list of users who have edited "was" to "is", here's a list of users who have made the reverse edit, which turned out to be easy to find. I searched Wikipedia for "was a magazine published" and looked for the editor that introduced that language in each case. These editors have all been active in the last few days. I am not pinging them but if we decide more editors should be involved they could be pinged.

Signal (magazine): diff, editor: Lockley
Our Women and Children: diff, editor: SusunW
The Black Flame (magazine): diff, editor: Egeymi
FDA Consumer: diff, editor MastCell
The Green Book Magazine: diff, editor RL0919

I tried using the same method to find articles which have "is" for a magazine that is no longer published, and was unable to, since the search results mostly consist of active magazines, so it's much harder to find relevant edits. If we want to involve more editors who have edited "was" to "is" then C. A. Russell's method may have to be used. I don't think it's necessary to ping more editors; I think most editors interested in the MoS already watch this page, and notices to related pages are a better way to go, but here are a few names if others disagree. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:32, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

In response to I think most editors interested in the MoS already watch this page, that seems like a bad inference. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 21:26, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Listen, can you guys remember to turn out lights and lock the doors when you're done? E Eng 04:53, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Based on the above discussion, I've reverted the original edition to Famous Fantastic Mysteries, and have added an example to WP:WAS, per the suggestion to do so earlier in this thread. If we can spend this much time debating this it makes sense to have an example given to avoid having to go through this again. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:43, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not going to respond to your revert to Famous Fantastic Mysteries, but I am going revert the newest change to the MOS that backdoors the MOS:PRESENT guideline with a new de jure mandate to use past tense instead. I don't know why you thought that would be okay.

I'm also going to back out User:Thumperward's January "rule of thumb" edit for the reasons already given, which I'll resummarize here: (a) it originally went in against opposition [not mine]; (b) the original stated intent was to prevent people from using "was" instead of "is"; (c) when I noticed [two months later], I foresaw that folks would instead point to it as an excuse to do the exact opposite thing—to use "was" where "is" should be [and that is now happening]; (d) on that basis I approached Chris about backing it out and optionally reworking the wording, but I dropped that conversation when Chris more or less told me he'd take care of any issues that it causes (saying to come "[c]hew me out"), except he's had very little involvement here, and that little bit has only undermined/contradicted (b) and (d). -- C. A. Russell (talk) 15:11, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I think the consensus from the above discussion is fairly clear, but we can always move to a formal RFC if necessary. It is worth providing some guidance in the MOS regarding defunct newspapers and magazines to quell future disputes.--Trystan (talk) 16:40, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Honestly I think we should expand the scope to TV series as well. It's really jarring to refer to I Love Lucy in the present tense. It wouldn't even contradict the current text to put it in the past tense; as I Love Lucy is/was not a single work of art. It was rather a "container" in Masem's terminology, which contained episodes, the actual works in question. --Trovatore (talk) 17:20, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I would ping the WP:TV project before doing that, just to make sure. I mean, I edit in the TV space but I don't know if my thoughts necessarily represent their consensus. But the "content vs. container" approach across multiple media would resolve a lot of the verb tense problems we have, but TV shows would be one area that would be directly affected. (Best to my knowledge we don't have a project like "Wikiproject Magazines" that would have a similar interest to worry about here). I will go ahead and make that ping there to this discussion to keep it centralized to here. --Masem (t) 17:26, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

If you've read through the mess above and are saying things like I think the consensus from the above discussion is fairly clear, then, yeah, I guess we're going to need to make a formal RFC. I mentioned multiple times establishing a rubric against which we can evaluate the claims/arguments people are throwing out (and then abandoning), and... nothing. Just folks heaping more (often not even self-consistent) comments into the pile. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 17:28, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I think the consensus is clear on magazines, but not for anything beyond that, though enough opinions were expressed that an RfC might be useful on the TV shows issue. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:32, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, but I'm going to insist on an RFC, for the reasons I just said. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 17:49, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

And if we are going to do an RFC, let's try to do it for any type of "periodical" work - magazines, TV shows, journals... not sure what else immediately, but to distinguish from one-off "publication" works. --Masem (t) 17:56, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. The only consensus that this discussion made obvious is that of those who have weighed in, whether those in favor of "was" or those in favor of "is", overwhelmingly there is a agreement that magazines are not a special case to be considered any different from TV series, etc. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 18:31, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't see the need for an RfC on magazines, but if you do, go ahead. If it includes other forms of periodicals it should allow for the possibility that the answer will be different for magazines and TV shows -- just because we might like to have a principle that governs the usage doesn't mean that good English usage is actually consistent. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:45, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

That is very true in general, but in the particular case Wikipedia has chosen a style for TV shows that is radically at variance with normal usage. That will not be difficult to show. The obvious inference is that the editors who established this style are trying to follow some sort of "principle" rather than standard "good English usage". --Trovatore (talk) 18:51, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

C. A. Russell, are you putting together an RfC or are you expecting me or someone else to do it? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:33, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

I suppose it will happen whenever the first person to do so does it. -- C. A. Russell (talk) 16:25, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

OK, just didn't want to duplicate effort. My suggested wording is below.

IMO: When referring to a newspaper or magazine as an overall entity (vs. talking about a single copy of it) in common speech it refers to an ongoing enterprise and past tense is overwhelming used when it is defunct. You would clearly be fighting common speech to argue otherwise. The term also refers to single copy of it, a completely different meaning of the term which should not confuse the discussion. "TV series" is different; common speech often treats the set of episodes produced as an entity and calls that entity "TV series". Common speech probably follow this probably because (unlike magazines and newspapers) a series can be highly succescsful, widely watched a big moneymaker and an ongoing business enterprise after production has ceased. A talk page of a Wikipedia guideline can't override common speech.North8000 (talk) 20:17, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

@North8000: Does it really strike you as natural "common speech" to start an article with I Love Lucy is...? To me it very much does not. I think if you look through the corpus you'll find that the past tense is overwhelming in this case as well. --Trovatore (talk) 20:31, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

If I said that TV series is always current tense then your example would be an argument against what I said. But I didn't say "always", I said "often". Either way, "TV show" is a different case. I only mentioned it to say that arguing that magazine/newspaper should be treated the same as "TV show" is not valid. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:30, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

The franchise around a TV series can go on indefinitely, though the TV series may be long dead, this is a way to account for this stance as well. "Charlie's Angels (franchise) is a franchise..." while "Charlie's Angels was a television show..." (as a first example I could come up with). --Masem (t) 20:50, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

I think the type of show is also relevant. I could go either way on how to refer to I Love Lucy or Charlie's Angels, but referring to something like The Huntley–Brinkley Report in the present tense would be truly astonishing.--Trystan (talk) 21:16, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the don't show reruns of news reports so in that case it's more like magazine/newspaper. North8000 (talk) 21:34, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Suggested wording for the RfC

I'd make the section heading "RfC: Should "is" or "was" be used to describe magazines no longer being published and TV series no longer in production?"

WP:WAS says By default, write articles in the present tense, including those covering works of fiction...and products or works that have been discontinued. Generally, do not use past tense except for past events and subjects that are dead or no longer meaningfully exist. Should we describe magazines that are no longer being published, and TV series that are no longer in production, with "is" or "was"?

For example:

"Gourmet is a magazine that was published from 1941 to 2009" vs. "Gourmet was a magazine published from 1941 to 2009"
"I Love Lucy is a TV show that ran from 1951 to 1957" vs. "I Love Lucy was a TV show that ran from 1951 to 1957".

If you believe one should be "was" and the other should be "is", please make that clear in your response.

[Then a responses section heading and a discussion section heading.]

If there are no objections to the wording, I'll post this in a new section in a day or so. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:45, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Notwithstanding the clarification at the end, I would prefer to avoid the presumption that the answer, or even the relevant considerations, are the same for both. How about running two parallel RFCs, one for magazines and newspapers, and one for TV shows?--Trystan (talk) 19:03, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

I think much of the discussion would overlap, so two RfCs might be overkill. How about two response sections, one for each? That would make it pretty clear that the choice could vary. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:31, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

If you want the result to have credibility, the RFC needs to be neutral. There will be guidelines and essays that support either side. Locating a quoting one that appears to support one side of the RFC and including it in the RFC is biased. North8000 (talk) 19:48, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Seems to me that sometimes you need to separate the (usual) corporation from the collective lore of printed paper. That would have to be based on context, in a way that isn't easy to explain. A magazine (corporation) will (usually) have a building, printing presses, and editors. I can imagine statements that might begin with The New York Times believes ... or, more satirically, The Onion says ..., which would stay present tense, even if the corporation behind them shuts down. I believe that Shakespeare plays are described in the present tense, collectively as well as individually. They have a life of their own, separate from the author. I suspect that magazines and newspapers, in some sense, also have a life of their own, separate from the corporation producing them. You have to figure out from usage, which one is meant. Gah4 (talk) 20:47, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

(ec) Gah4, I'm just trying to get the wording neutral at this point so we can ask the question; if you do want to contribute to the discussion I'd suggest either waiting for the RfC or posting in the section above.

@North8000, I included the quote because (a) it's in the MoS now, and (b) there was no debate above about changing it -- it was all about interpreting it. Some argued that defunct magazines fall under "dead or no longer meaningfully exist"; others argued that they do not, because they are completed works that still exist. As a result I can't even tell which side you think it supports, so I don't think it's biased. I think it's going to be necessary to refer to it in the RfC, so I'd prefer to keep it, but if others agree with you we can cut it. It'll show right up again at the top of the discussion section, though. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:54, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Regardless of whether one comes down on one side, the other, or in the middle, I think WP:WAS is clearly the central guideline that applies, so should be quoted in the RFC. One RFC with two response sections sounds like a good approach.--Trystan (talk) 21:04, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

A "past tense" finding would require at least an improvement in clarity in WP:WAS so IMO you should not state the status quo as a foregone conclusion. I was advising leaving it out only as advice so that your RFC resolves this rather than ending in a cloud; I won't be unhappy if you still choose to include it. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:47, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

I know we've only spoken of magazines and TV shows, but I would be as broad as possible for anything that fits the format: any periodical or routinely published work that is no longer published, including newspapers, magazines, journals, comic books, radio programs, televisions shows, podcasts, and web series. (throwing out the net to avoid an RFC in the future). I know that might end up with with "I agree with all but for X and Y" responses but at least a closer can line out the ones that don't have if the others have overwhelming. But I would hope editors see the logic why to handle these all together.
The other factor here is related to the neutrality question and that's basically you're not explaning why this RFC is happening, and I can understand how that's hard to present without staying neutral. So I'm wondering if you present the question is "How do we present the tenses for works no longer in publishing in the scope of WAS?" and that may lead to several "options" that appear in the response section, rather than what may have started as a simple "yes/no/discussion" breakdown, but this, for example, would give me to be able to explain the "content/container" rationale that I think justifies these out nicely and cleanly, but without that entering into the RFC rationale. --Masem (t) 21:17, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Huh? -- C. A. Russell (talk) 01:17, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

If the RfC asks about "newspapers, magazines, journals, comic books, radio programs, televisions shows, podcasts, and web series" in order to settle the question for as broad a range of items as possible, it wouldn't make sense to have separate response sections. The original question I asked was about magazines, and the majority of the discussion in the section above was about magazines, with only a little broader discussion. I thought about having one response section for magazines, and another for "other periodical works that are no longer published, such as...", but it would seem odd to separate magazines that way just because that's where the question started. I think if we want the RfC to be about no more than TV shows and magazines then two response sections is fine; if it's about more than that we'd have to use a single response section. I'm also inclined to leave in the quote from WP:WAS, but change the order: state the question first, then say 'the MoS guideline that applies is "...". Should this be interpreted to support the use of "is" or "was"?'. One more point: I don't want to mention adding an example to WAS as part of the RfC, but I think anything that generates this much debate should be memorialized in the MoS so we don't have to go through this again, whether this goes the way I hope it does or not.

With the above in mind, here's a revised wording.

When describing periodical works such as newspapers, magazines, journals, comic books, radio programs, televisions shows, podcasts, and web series that are no longer published, should we use "is" or "was"?

For example:

"Gourmet is a magazine that was published from 1941 to 2009" vs. "Gourmet was a magazine published from 1941 to 2009"
"I Love Lucy is a TV show that ran from 1951 to 1957" vs. "I Love Lucy was a TV show that ran from 1951 to 1957".

Note that the MoS guideline that covers this question is WP:WAS, which says By default, write articles in the present tense, including those covering works of fiction...and products or works that have been discontinued. Generally, do not use past tense except for past events and subjects that are dead or no longer meaningfully exist. However, attempts to resolve the question this RfC is asking by referring to this have not agreed on whether defunct periodicals should be considered to be "dead...and no longer meaningfully exist". [With a link to this talk page discussion].

If you believe some types of periodical should use "was" and the others should use "is", please make that clear in your response.

[Then a single responses section heading and a discussion section heading.]

How does that look? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:56, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

No objections, so done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:44, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Pinging everyone who contributed to the above discussion to let them know of the RfC: Trystan, Doremo, Popcornfud, Johnbod, Thumperward, TAnthony, Sturmvogel 66, Primergrey, SchroCat, C. A. Russell, Masem, Khajidha, Trovatore, SportingFlyer, North8000, Gah4. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:07, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

We're seriously taking this to an RfC? I thought the consensus was clear to use "was" for defunct periodicals, though I get the "big net" rationale. SportingFlyer T·C 16:18, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

If you look at the RfC, the responses show this is not so clear cut and bigger than a talk page discussion, if only because TV series have been looped in. A wider net is definitely required.— TAnthony^Talk 16:23, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

(ec) I thought it was clear for magazines, though there was not enough discussion of TV shows to make that a clear cut decision, but C. A. Russell said he wanted an RfC. I went ahead and edited the MoS page to include a magazine-related example of "was", but he reverted, and since nobody reverted him I figured the best way to settle it was to go ahead with an RfC. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:26, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

When this thread began the cumulative total of COVID cases, worldwide, was 150,000; it's now 10,000,000. What remains to be seen is whether this issue will have been resolved by the time either the human race is wiped out or a vaccine becomes available. Just in case, the WMF has made provision for this page to be archived in a form such that, with luck, aliens coming to earth eons from now will be able to pick up where you guys left off. E Eng 17:10, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Verb tense in embedded stories

MOS:FICTENSE says that one should write about fiction using the historical present tense rather than the past. I recently ran across this paragraph in the Volsunga saga article, relating a story told by one of the characters in the saga:

Then Regin tells Sigurd a story: His father Hreidmar had three sons: himself, Otr, and Fafnir. Otr was an otter-like fisherman, Fafnir large and fierce, and Regin himself was skilled with ironwork. One day Odin, Loki and Hœnir are fishing and kill Otr in his otter shape, skin and eat him.

The plot of the saga itself is written in the historical present ("Regin tells"), but then the start of Regin's story is given in the past ("Hreidmar had", "Otr was", etc.). However after the first two sentences, the remainder of Regin's story reverts to the historical present ("Odin, Loki and Hœnir are fishing").

To me, the past tense reads better for a story-within-a-story like this. But I can't find any guidance in the MOS about whether this is acceptable, or whether the embedded story should also be in the historical present. I think in either case, the tense should be consistent within the embedded story. But which tense should be used? CodeTalker (talk) 17:23, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

MOS:PLOT, and you are correct: an "historical story" in the content of a fictional work should be written in past tense. --Masem (t) 17:37, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

MOS:INFOBOXREF

This policy says to avoid referencing items in infoboxes when they are cited in the article body. On many political party pages, the ideology and political position are cited in the infobox. In my experience, removing the citations from the infobox makes the information much more prone to edit warring, even when the references are in the article body. Would it be acceptable to put these references in the infobox so that editors can accept the ideologies or political position, or should the manual of style still be followed? Thanks, Ezhao02 (talk) 05:23, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Methinks that this is something like LEADCITE; such citations are suboptimal if the facts are not in significant dispute (and, of course, cited in the body), but if there are verifiability/BLP concerns then that takes priority. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 06:57, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
Luckily this isn't a policy, merely a guideline, so WP:IAR. Add a WP:HIDDEN note saying "Experience shows that without this cite there's edit warring over XXXX". E Eng 12:22, 27 June 2020 (UTC)
Given that infoboxes are increasingly using Wikidata (which has different reliability standards) to automatically generate information.. I think we should amend our guidance... and require citations in the infobox. Blueboar (talk) 13:13, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your responses. Ezhao02 (talk) 21:13, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

MOS:NUMERO

Thought I ought to let people know her that this is under discussion at WP:VPP#MOS:NUMERO. WT79 ^{(speak to me | editing patterns | what I been doing)} 12:30, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at village pump has come to nothing, and is now archived here. Guess it'll stay as it is. WT79 ^{(speak to me | editing patterns | what I been doing)} 20:02, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

"He or she" as gender-neutral language

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Gender-neutral language#Time to revisit "he or she"?. A permalink for it is here. It was noted there that, according to reliable sources, "he or she" is gender-neutral language, but also that it's not considered gender-neutral language to many these days with the rise of non-binary gender identities. Among other things, an editor there feels that "he or she" violates MOS:GNL. Thoughts? Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:31, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

He is gender neutral in English, regardless of what the PC police say.
There is documentation for old use of they as a singular gender neutral pronoun.
IMHO, Wiki should pick a rule and stick to it. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 08:16, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

To claim the he is still gender neutral is nothing more than a tip of the hat to the Emperor's latest summer fashions. Primergrey (talk) 16:08, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

~~Well if common gender is the Emperor's old clothes, denying such usage must be his new clothes. Chilly?~~ Oops, misread "latest" as "last". Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:34, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Please dear God, not this shit again. EEng 20:15, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
- I'm so fed up of these discussions; There always seem to be some spiteful comments thrown at people who don't use the pronoun 'he', insisting that they must be okay with 'he' as default gender neutral. It's such aggressive, naked exclusion of people who aren't men, and there seems to be fucking consensus for it! -- a ^{they/them | argue | contribs} 15:47, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Request for comments

Greetings to all,

A Request for comment has been initiated regarding RfC about whether to allow use of honorofic 'Allama' with the names or not?

Requesting your comments to formalize the relevant policy @ Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles

Thanks

Bookku (talk) 17:51, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Redundancy Words

Hi, I remember seeing in the MOS a few years ago something about redundancy words (pleonasms) like "in order", words that aren't needed. Is there a guideline somewhere that says what to do regarding these, if not in the MOS? — Yours, Bᴇʀʀᴇʟʏ • ^Talk∕_Contribs 17:49, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Not sure what you're referring to, but MOS isn't supposed to try to teach points of general good English writing, unless a particular point has been a special problem for our editors. I'll take this opportunity, however, to direct you to WP:ASTONISHME. E Eng 19:17, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Are you referring to wordy and pretentious phrases like "would go on to" as a synonym for "did"? If so, I agree they should be chopped out entirely or replaced with a shorter alternative. Reyk _YO! 19:13, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

God, I hate that would shit. There's a very, very narrow appropriate use case for it, but in the main it sounds stupid in the extreme [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]. For that I could be convinced a rule might be needed. I feel an essay coming on. ("EEng would later go on to write an essay on the subject...") If someone wants to contribute especially awful examples, WT:Queen_Elizabeth_slipped_majestically_into_the_water would be a good place. E Eng 19:25, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Surely it would be "... later go on to write down an essay ..."? --RexxS (talk) 19:37, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

RexxS, don't call me Shirley]. E Eng 00:39, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

No, that's just what they're expecting us to do. --RexxS (talk) 00:57, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Here is an astonishing example that still makes my eyelid twitch to think about. There are a few cases where "would" might be acceptable:

Describing past habitual behaviour. For instance, "The elders of this tribe would often tell children stories of demons and evil spirits."
Temporarily skipping to the relative future during a narrative. For instance, "Until the age of 12 Dave Gablorsky lived next door to Derpina McBean, who would later be the first person on Mars. At sixteen, Gablorsky enrolled in the military" or some such.

But where I see all the time is in awful sports articles, where editors seem to think they're writing for a sports broadsheet and are being paid by the word. It's cringe-inducing. Reyk _YO! 19:58, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

I cannot say that the example you linked is parody; I can only hope it's parody. I'm still toying with the idea of an essay, maybe Into the Woulds? E Eng 01:21, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Count me as another editor who finds themselves regularly removing "woulds"... it's just one of those things people do when they've absorbed too much bad journalism. Popcornfud (talk) 12:04, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Your idea of an essay has me wondering if someone else might make a more appropriate author. Were he not dead, Edwould Wouldwould would, wouldn't he? Captainllama (talk) 12:45, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Or maybe Wouldward and Bernstein? E Eng 16:45, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Give all that deadwould the wouldsman's axe!! Primergrey (talk) 21:00, 13 July 2020 (UTC) 03:31, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I've started WP:INTOTHEWOULDS -- soon to be split off as its own page. Contributions invited. E Eng 20:43, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Re-stating the scope

User:Izno reverted this small change. I agree that it should normally be considered an unnecessary bit of redundancy. But outside the theoretical realm, I've seen a couple of demands recently that various pages in the Wikipedia: namespace comply with WP:ANDOR.

Although I don't use this form much myself, I don't necessarily think that it is a bad choice outside the article space. Wikilawyers sometimes claim confusion over whether the word or should be interpreted as exclusive or or inclusive or.

I believe that Wikipedia:Nobody reads the directions, and it is especially true that nobody reads the whole page. Being told that the MoS generally doesn't apply to policies and guidelines doesn't seem to be working. Maybe being told that the specific convention that the user wants to push explicitly says "in articles" would encourage him to give up. To put it another way, adding a redundant two words here might stop pointless edits elsewhere and prevent avoidable disputes. Please add those words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:53, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

Support. The slippery slope argument is that it would open the door for "in articles" to be added to every section. I don't think that will happen, because the guidelines in MoS are variously either common sense suggestions that should be followed in Wikipedia space anyways, or so obviously article-specific that no one would think to apply them outside mainspace. This is one where there is genuine confusion for people who don't read the whole page. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:05, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, I'm against this. Why exactly ANDOR is especially troublesome, or especially troublesome recently, I don't know, but I'm going to make a different slippery-slope argument: mentioning, in one particular bullet, that that bullet doesn't apply outside of articles risks implying to some people that the rest of MOS does apply outside of articles. E Eng 20:14, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
I mean, if I write "don't do A and/or B" on a non-article page, and someone comes along and changes it to "don't do A, or B, or both", I don't much care? I mean in most cases you can just use "or". Anyway I think most people understand "don't to A or B" to intend an exception if you do A and B, unless that's specified... so, the text was fine before, it was fine after, but a change is just roiling the text, so OK to revert. Herostratus (talk) 23:24, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
- It usually gets re-written as "Don't A or B", and then someone says "But it said not to do A exclusive-or B, and I did both, so it's not prohibited!" "Don't do A, or B, or both" is a more long-winded way of saying "Don't do A and/or B", with no discernible benefit. (In articles, the benefit is in maintaining a proper encyclopedic tone, which doesn't apply elsewhere.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't support this proposal. Mentioning it in one place implies there is a specific reason for highlighting this guidance does not apply outside of mainspace. The Wikipedia namespace includes policies and guidelines but also project pages, which have different purposes and thus different guidance would apply to each category, should it ever be codified. And on this specific item, avoiding "and/or" remains pretty good advice for many sentences outside of mainspace. isaacl (talk) 00:53, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Oppose for the same reason as EEng above: if we highlight some small piece of the MOS as applying only to articles, people reading it are going to inappropriately assume that it means that everything else does apply to non-article content. We don't want to have to put this qualifier on all bullet points in all pages of the MOS, so better not to put it on any of them. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:10, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Oppose. In point of fact, the community generally does apply MoS site-wide to almost everything, outside of userspace and talk pages (sometimes formally – categories, for example, can be speedily moved to fix MoS-defined writing errors, and MoS generally also pertains to all reader-facing content, including in portals and in templates with visible output in mainspace). MoS's broad de facto applicability is not a rule, and we don't need to state that is one, or that it is not one. It's simply what usually happens. And sometimes it doesn't happen, usually for a good reason (and that's sometimes even true in mainspace, per the WP:IAR principle and the "some exceptions may apply" principle in WP:POLICY). It is not MoS's job to declare that its scope explicitly covers policypages. Nor is it's MoS's job, contrariwise, to dictate to the community that the generally good sense in MoS cannot be applied outside of articles. Nor is it MoS's job to try change what the community does (guidelines reflect best practices, they do not try to impose new ones by fiat). None of those things are intrinsically MoS concerns or within MoS's own scope, so MoS has no business adding a codicil to some line-item in it that it doesn't apply to a particular namespace or namespaces, or outside a particular namespace or namespaces. Also, I agree with EEng and David Eppstein and Isaacl, above; I'm just adding my own additional opposition rationale. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:11, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
- WP:POLICY itself says that all policies and guidelines are exempt from the MoS, and the MoS agrees. Editors who are trying to apply the MoS to policies (actually trying for conformity, not just writing in standard written English and formatting pages correctly) are screwing up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:08, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
  - Except none of those claims are accurate. 1) WP:POLICY says nothing about MoS other than "For example, proposed style guidelines should be announced at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, which is the main guideline for style issues." And that's not a qualified statement. Obviously various policies and guidelines cannot logically apply to policies and guidelines (e.g. WP:RS – there is no external reliable source for our own policies, which come from internal consensus). 2) MoS says nothing about its applicability beyond article content; it states its central intent/purpose thus: "The Manual of Style (MoS or MOS) is the style manual for all English Wikipedia articles." This does not, however, preclude the community applying it more broadly, and we know for a fact that this is done (e.g. at WP:CFD for category names, in portal content, in templates that are reader-facing, at WP:RM for article titles, etc.). 3) The community is not "screwing up" in making a collective decision to generally write consistently; it's simply doing what it does, and an individual isn't in a position to tell consensus that it is in error on a subjective matter like which parts of MoS to follow in writing WP:POLICY materials (which isn't everything; e.g., MOS:CONTRACTION is generally not applied very strongly to policy and guideline materials, because instructions to editors sometimes actually read better with a contraction). It comes down to a WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY / WP:IAR matter, really: WP is not so regimented and hidebound that writing practices laid out in MoS cannot be applied to a policypage simply because MoS was mainly intended for articles.
    To also address Jacob Gotts's comment below at the same time: Clearly, there should not be a rule that MoS has to be followed for talk, project, and other non-reader-facing namespaces. We just tend to do it to a varied extent anyway, and that's not "wrong", it's just what we do. Honestly, its too much work to write in one style (e.g. "3 cm") and then intentionally switch to another (e.g. "3cm") in talk comments just for the hell of it. Most of us have better things to do than carefully craft sotto voce objections to MoS line-items we wish were different by writing contrary to them at every opportunity. That's certainly not why I'm here, anyway.
    — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:27, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
    - @SMcCandlish, I'm guessing that you used your web browser's find tool at WP:POLICY, because you missed the very explicit exemption in the WP:NOTPART section: "The policies, guidelines, and process pages themselves are not part of the encyclopedia proper. Consequently, they do not generally need to conform to the same content standards or style conventions as articles." That link behind the words 'style conventions' points straight at the main MOS page. I think that counts as "saying something" about the MOS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
      - I'm well aware of that material, and it doesn't contradict me at all. To summarize: It is not required to apply MoS principles to policypages and other material that is not reader-facing. But we generally do it anyway, simply for consistency. You seem to be commingling the ideas "an editor may apply MoS to a non-article page" and "an editor must apply MoS to a non-article page". They're very different. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:55, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
Oppose. I think that reading MoS and thinking it applies to talk pages is kind of an outrageous conclusion to reach, and if someone is jumping to it for this section, they are probably going to jump to it for every section. I actually can't find any policy documents that concern applicability of MoS to project pages (not that I looked very hard); I'm sure that consensus has been reached on this, so would it not be better to have that consensus noted somewhere in MoS rather than piecemeal in individual sections? { $\mathbb {JPG}$ } 04:53, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
- It's WP:NOTPART WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:35, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
  - I'll add also that the issue raised wasn't about talk pages anyway; it was about project pages. No one (that I'm aware of) believes MoS applies to talk pages, and we have talk-page guidelines telling people clearly not to do things like edit other people's posts for grammars and speling. That said, the broader point I was making above is still applicable: people often do apply some baseline MoS compliance to aspects of talk pages (e.g., we usually write talk section headings in sentence case, etc.). And there is nothing wrong with that. It's a natural habit of contextual consistency, not a rule. Everyone knows it's not a rule, so we don't need to say it's not a rule (or nearly everyone knows, and newcomers who don't will be told it is not if they seem to be confused on the matter). Cf. WP:CREEP and WP:AJR: do not add rule-mongering blather to guidelines and policies without a very clear, and long-term dispute-resolving, need for the new line item in question. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 14:01, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 July 6 § Template:Char

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 July 6 § Template:Char. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 06:33, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Commas withing WP:MOS

What rules apply for commas within WP:MOS? In particular, do English or American rules apply to the comma after exempli gratia (e.g.)? The article is currently not consistent. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 08:22, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

The MOS seems to be written in American English (it uses AmE color, not BrE colour, and it uses AmE/BrE -ize forms, not BrE -ise forms), and so it seems that a comma should be used after e.g. for stylistic consistency. (Personally, I would prefer for example spelled out in running text and e.g. used in parentheses.) Doremo (talk) 10:43, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

This is not an article (fact) and therefore need not be consistent in its style (current consensus), as odd as that my seem (my opinion). Primergrey (talk) 16:03, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

MOS is an ecumenical zone in which all ENGVARs coexist side by side in peace and harmony. E Eng 20:13, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

It was written in AmEng. I hope it's not grown internally inconsistent. Tony (talk) 14:38, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Long, long ago. And there's nothing wrong with that -- it's fun in fact. It's a reminder that this is an international project. See User:EEng#A_rolling_stone_gathers_no_MOS (my userpage having grown to the point that there's no topic not somehow related to it). E Eng 16:11, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Dialectal style varies by MoS page (though I think most of the MoS is in AmEng). And -ize isn't just American, but also often Canadian, and used in Oxford spelling in British/Commonwealth English. But the idea that "e.g." versus "e.g.," is a UK/US distinction isn't anything I've ever seen good sourcing for. There's another thread about it already on this talk page anyway, so it's probably worth using one thread or the other for such investigations. I don't know why Primergrey wants to argue that MoS and other internal pages need not be written consistently or following any style best practices at all, but it's an omphaloskeptical argument to present, since we do in fact write these pages pretty consistently and following MoS on most applicable points, and they are getting better in both respects over time, not worse.

Back to i.e. and e.g.: What I've noticed is that after either of these, a comma tends to be used with long, complex material, but omitted with short, simple material. There's a tiresome old argument that they "must" have a comma because the closest idiomatic translations in English, "for example" and "that is", would require one. It's a linguistically unsound argument, because foreign loans often do not behave in their new language exactly like directly corresponding native expressions would, and their literal meaning is often completely opaque to almost everyone using them. We already know that Latinisms abbreviated in English are used by habit without perfect understanding by many, and defy various other English norms (e.g., by being preferred in parentheticals and footnotes rather than in running text; by being written e.g. instead of EG like other initialisms; by often not undergoing plurality or other adjustments that would be required of the English equivalent; by sometimes taking counterintuitive irregular plurals when they do take them, e.g. pp., qq.v.; by abbreviating for no reason – i. is the same length as id; by being irregularly punctuated and spaced – compare etc. for et cetera and q.v. or even q. v. for quod vide; and so on).

So, there really isn't any reason to expect a comma to be "mandatory" after i.e. or e.g., especially if inserting one doesn't actually improve the reading flow or comprehension. "Drupes are pitted fruit, such as plums, apricots, cherries, and many other single-seed fruits, including some produce more often thought of as vegetables (e.g. avocados)" wouldn't really be improved by adding a comma. But the same "death to commas" behavior that results in messes like "In 1900 Ireland ..." when "In 1900, Ireland ..." was meant, with a very different meaning, can also result in awkward-looking stuff when e.g. precedes, without a comma, a long list of things or an otherwise complex bit of material, and i.e. with no comma also can have an "I have to go back and re-read this sentence" effect. So, "... co-starring Buster Poindexer (i.e. David Johansen) and ..." isn't going to be helped by a comma. But one works much better in "Buster Poindexter (i.e., David Johansen of New York Dolls fame, working under an alias he first used on an eponymous album in 1987)"; it really looks like a comma is accidentally missing from a construction like that if you remove it.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:13, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 June 2020

This edit request to Wikipedia:Manual of Style has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Under the section "Contractions," change cannot to can not. Cannot is itself a contraction, so suggesting it as an alternative to "can't" is slightly ironic. 73.204.53.149 (talk) 22:05, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

What you say is completely incorrect. Can't is a contraction of cannot, but cannot cannot be called a contraction of can not, because it is not; they mean completely different things. E Eng 22:14, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

What? Google plainly defines 'cannot' as can not, and classifies it as a contraction. Merriam-Webster also defines it as meaning 'can not.' I don't know of a single alternative definition for cannot. --2601:583:4381:9B90:989C:5EC1:FFA6:1F22 (talk) 00:32, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:17, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, what? That's not right. These edit-request threads are perfectly appropriate places to start a discussion of a potential change. It's what they're for. And WP:NOTBURO. E Eng 22:21, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Declining edit requests for potentially controversial edits is pretty standard, especially when someone has expressed disagreement immediately after, especially on a PAG page with a DS notice like this one. Even with a decline, all are still welcome to discuss. If a consensus emerges, the request can be reopened (or someone participating in it can just go ahead), but closing out ones like this helps keep the queue managed. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 00:49, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Then the decline should say, "Not done at this time, but feel free to continue discussing in this thread". The idea that you should get consensus first, then make an edit request, is silly because once consensus is reached the edit request is superfluous. E Eng 04:11, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

When a non-autoconfirmed editor tries to edit a semi-protected page, we show them a big blue button that says "Submit Edit Request", which overwhelmingly get summarily closed for lacking consensus. It would probably be more constructive just to direct them to make the proposal on the talk page for discussion. (That advice is also there, but the big blue button is more prominent.)--Trystan (talk) 04:55, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

So my point is we should treat edit requests as proposals for discussion. Once the discussion's underway the edit request can be changed to Answered to get it out of the queue, since presumably editors active on the talk page will take it from there, as with any other thread. E Eng 04:37, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

"Cannot" means "not able to", "can not" means "able not to". There's a subtle difference. --Khajidha (talk) 19:47, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Or "able to not". E Eng 21:51, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Yep. I think the OP is correct a in hollow-victory way, in that the linguistic process that produced cannot was one of contraction. But this is a fallacy of equivocation, in which a very general, procedural, and mass-noun sense of contraction is being misapplied in a context that is addressing a very narrow, concrete, count-noun meaning, namely informal contractions of the apostrophe sort (can't). It could have also addressed the "eye dialect" sort (gonna), though I don't think we even need to address those; editors know better than to use them in articles. In all of WP's existence, I think this is the first time anyone has suggested the rule is confusing, yet they're making a clever enough argument that they're clearly not actually confused but trying to nit-pick. At any rate, cannot isn't "a contraction"; it's a word that was produced by contraction. "A contraction" in the sense we mean here is a short-hand for a longer expression (don't for do not) with the same meaning, while cannot and can not don't actually have quite the same meaning, since Early Modern English. By the OP's definition, probably most of English would consist of contractions, since a tremendous number of our words are borrowings directly (or via one form of French or another) from Latin or Greek but shortened. Even many native English words are squished-down versions of longer Anglo-Saxon originals. We also obviously don't mean regular abbreviations that happen to be produced via contracting out the middle letters; British formal writing (per New Hart's Rules and Fowler's) does not put stops at the ends of these (St for Saint, Dr for Doctor) but does put them, like American publishers do, at the ends of truncation abbreviations (like Prof. for Professor). I don't think I've ever seen anyone "confused" that this section means any of that stuff, either. It's pretty clear what it's addressing when the example is of the apostrophe-bearing sort, and the linked article section (Contraction (grammar)#English) also only provides apostrophe-contraction examples. Maybe the OP would be better off suggesting that the article address other forms of contraction in English? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:20, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Nobility

There's a tendency on articles about noble families to describe children as "issue" and to say that the father has children by [name of wife]. I know the aristocracy does view heritage like breeding horses, but is this appropriate for Wikipedia? Guy (help!) 15:34, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Those seem perfectly normal usages to me, for anyone. And I am far from "nobility" and disagree with the very concept of "nobility" (as a class). --Khajidha (talk) 15:43, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Peon. E Eng 15:45, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
In my view, "issue" for children is legalese (as well as antiquated and pretentious). I don't have a policy objection to "by", I just find it personally repugnant. Schazjmd (talk) 15:53, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I was going to say exactly that but was struck by a sudden attack of lazy. E Eng 15:55, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Might actually be a congenital condition from all your noble inbreeding. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:21, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
What a weird question and set of responses (excpet for Khajidha)! "Issue" is common, standard English (American usage may differ) whether for nobility or commoners. Likewise, if a man has had more than one wife you might talk about his son by his first marriage, daughter by Caroline his second wife and no issue from Anne whom he married late in life. It is neither legalese, antiquated or pretentious, just normal educated English. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:25, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Whenever I see an old friend after some period of absence I inquire about the well-being of their issue, as one does. pburka (talk) 16:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
And my mom keeps bugging me about when I'm going to give her grandissue. E Eng 16:44, 4 June 2020 (UTC) I used to give her the gay excuse, but recently she's smartened up and says I can't hide behind that anymore.
That would be colloquial usage, "issue" is formal. Oh, and Martin, I am VERY American. North Carolinian, to be exact. --Khajidha (talk) 16:45, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Well certainly "issue" and "by" are common in conversation when researching family history, but in general I agree with Khajidha about formality (nice part of the world BTW, I was there in back '74 for a visit). Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:06, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I was born in '74. --Khajidha (talk) 17:15, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I think it's common in genealogy and certain kinds of legal writing. Outside of those fields I feel like it's very uncommon, even in formal writing. pburka (talk) 17:20, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Issue, maybe. But I hear things like "he has three kids by his first wife" all the time. Also "from". See the song "Merry Christmas from the Family" ("Brother Ken brought his kids with him/The three from his first wife Lynn/And the two identical twins/From his second wife, Mary Nell"). --Khajidha (talk) 17:26, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I agree with Schazjmd that 'by' is still commonly used in formal and informal English, although I personally dislike it. pburka (talk) 18:51, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm struggling to see what seems to be upsetting y'all so much. --Khajidha (talk) 19:16, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
You mean you don't see the issue? E Eng 22:26, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Or "By which, you mean you don't see the issue?" Heh. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:21, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Martin of Sheffield, mate, I went to a thousand-year-old school and have numbered peers of the realm among my friends. This is how Brian Sewell used to speak, not real people. Guy (help!) 11:27, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Why are these peers of the realm numbered? Is it for inventory purposes? Are they difficult to distinguish because of the inbreeding? And where do they put the numbers? Have you considered adding barcodes to speed up processing and reduce errors? E Eng 21:20, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
They're so unoriginal in naming, they just add numbers. I'm Henry the VIII. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 23:38, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

As far as I know I've never met you, so "mate" is inappropriate. Your schooling has no bearing on the case. I'm curious to know why you consider that Brian Sewell is not a "real person"? Indeed, if you are criticising me as not a real person you are bordering on an ad hominum attack. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:40, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
I don't see the issue here. "Married and had issue" is a phrase I'm familiar with but I don't see its being used much in articles here. Nor its opposite: "died sine prole" (the latter words probably abbreviated s.p.). These are succinct phrases used by sources, no doubt (and that validates their use here); but I don't see their overuse, probably due to their being so non-specific. I also don't see any real tie-in to horse breeding ("Wonderboy and Chestnut mated and had issue" instead of "Dancer, foaled by Chestnut, sired by Wonderboy"). Dhtwiki (talk) 23:06, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Dhtwiki, "issue=" is a parameter in the nobility template, and the term is often used especially in articles on fake nobility ("Her Imperial and Royal Highness" the social worker) presumably prompted by that. I think we should rename the parameter from "issue" to "children". Guy (help!) 11:20, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

"Issue" has the virtue of being shorter. Would "children" be better understood? Does "issue" have any implication of "lawfully begotten" (i.e. not out of wedlock), a condition that I believe is still important in inheriting noble titles. Dhtwiki (talk) 07:19, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that "issue" is inappropriate; I have extremely rarely seen/heard it outside this set of Wikipedia pages. I also agree that "by" is unfortunate but not incorrect. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw) │ 23:28, 04 June 2020 (UTC)
"Issue" was discussed in 2018. My opinion that it is WP:JARGON remains the same. --Izno (talk) 01:19, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
"By" is somewhat offensive because it implies that the other parent was just a passive participant in the whole thing, a thing something is done to rather than a person with a stake in the matter. "With" would be much better. And "issue" is jargon and should be avoided for that reason; it's accurate and inoffensive but also pretentious and more likely to confuse casual readers. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:21, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
My understanding of the whole process is that at first one participant indeed remains relatively passive while there's a brief spurt of excited effort from the other participant, who then rapidly loses interest, after which the previously passive partner does the rest. E Eng 23:09, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Okay, that made me laugh. On a more serious note, I hear the "children by _________" formation used for both individuals in roughly equal numbers, so this perception does not occur to me. That is, phrasings like "he has children by 3 different women" and "she has children by 3 different men" are both well attested.--Khajidha (talk) 23:44, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Speaking of attestation, I've heard that testify comes from, um... E Eng 23:50, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
On the other hand, it always confuses and amuses me when I hear a British person say that someone "fell pregnant". --Khajidha (talk) 02:01, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
You are most unlikely to hear any British person actually say that - read it in Victorian novels maybe. Johnbod (talk) 02:18, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
That's how they become fallen women: they fall and don't get up quick enough. E Eng 02:27, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

Just heard it a few days ago. But I can't remember what I was watching at the time.--Khajidha (talk) 02:41, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
[8] E Eng 02:56, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
He's not dead. He's pining. Or maybe he's stunned. Perhaps we should put four million volts through him? --Khajidha (talk) 17:25, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Khajidha, that's archaic. So is "by" - except in horse breeding. Guy (help!) 11:23, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
All I can say is I'm finding lots of videos using "fell pregnant", some as recently as 3 weeks ago. As for "by", it's common usage where I'm from. --Khajidha (talk) 12:16, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
Khajidha – Not only does language change with area, but also with time. What seems "archaic" to a youngster in one area may be the normal speech pattern for someone elsewhere or a decade or two older. I suspect that both you and I learnt a more formal form of English the teaching of which which fell out of favour during the '60s and '70s. Just ignore the insults, if someone calls you archaic realise that they, in their turn, will get the same back from today's toddlers. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 13:26, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
I tend to agree that "issue" is weirdly formal/legalistic, though it is common in genealogy-speak. Using "children" would make the material more easily understood by more readers. Also agree that "by" is still commonly used this way, even in the other gender order ("her daughter by her first husband"). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:21, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
- Yes, I would agree with this too. "Issue", whilst still perfectly acceptable English, is now rather antiquated usage except by genealogists and lawyers, but "children/son/daughter by" is still common English-language usage. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:30, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
  - We could be even more old-fashioned and use "get" (noun) and "beget"/"begat" (verb). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 14:03, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
A mention above of legal suddenly makes me think: any chance issue is strictly biological while child/children can be adoptive? E Eng 23:20, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
That is exactly the distinction.--Khajidha (talk) 23:33, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
So issue are from your tissue? E Eng 12:09, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
<Not gonna make the obvious kleenex joke.... not gonna make it .... nope.......> --Khajidha (talk) 17:03, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, I don't understand. Please explain. E Eng 22:46, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
No, really, tell us. E Eng 16:54, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
@EEng: The only issue from your tissue is when your mom finds it in your bed the next day. --Khajidha (talk) 19:50, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
I still don't understand what you're getting at. You mean like if I'd been in bed with a runny nose? E Eng 19:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

@EEng, I understand that in the legal field, issue includes all successive generations, whereas children refers only to immediate offspring. A related longer phrase, issue of the body, has been used (at least in the past) to exclude adopted children. That might still be true for inheriting titles, but for everyday questions of who gets Grandma's jewelry, all known and legally recognized children (adopted/biological and legitimate/illegitimate) seem to be treated the same in most developed countries. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
Issue = all generations -- that rings a bell. E Eng 20:21, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
A small technical point. The analogy with horses is incorrect (see OP). Horses are described as "by <sire> out of <dam>", for instance "Red Rum by Quorum out of Mared". Now I would agree with you about using "out of", it's just a little too mechanical! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:51, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
As in "Charles, by Phillip out of Elizabeth"? E Eng 12:06, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
:-) Off to The Tower with you! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 15:03, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Capitalization of "Black" when used as a race

AP and The New York Times among others are starting to capitalize "Black" when used to refer to the skin color or race. Should we add this to our MOS? - Jasonbres (talk) 23:56, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Jasonbres, see Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Proposed_update_to_MOSCAPS_regarding_racial_terms. Discussion in progress. Schazjmd (talk) 00:19, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Jasonbres, This would be a very big change and we should probably have an RfC on this matter. Note also that The New York Times explicitly does not capitalize "brown" or "white" but the AP are issuing a decision on "white" soon. Other sources are explicit about capitalizing "Black" but not "white" (e.g.) but remain silent on other things capitalized by the AP such as "Indigenous". Such a big change with so many variables will require community input on a large scale. See also, e.g. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/time-to-capitalize-blackand-white/613159/ ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:22, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

This one seems to have some NYT discussion on the subject, and I think I mostly agree with the first one. It might be that Black is an abbreviation for African-American, as, for example, it fits on protest signs. Probably unrelated, but the genetic diversity across Africa is much more than the genetic diversity of all the rest of the world, htough I suspect that the slave trade only used a small part of Africa. Otherwise, is Black supposed to include Africans visiting from Africa, or otherwise not Americans? As many have noted, even in the same sentence, brown is not capitalized. Gah4 (talk) 22:09, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

If one were to capitalize Black and White as stand-ins for generalized ethno-racial categorizations, then Brown should be as well, when used in that manner. But none of them should be capitalized when not used in this way, e.g.: "People with OCA-2 albinism do not have truly white skin, but effectively translucent, producing a pale pinkish hue." "Some of the villagers of Banaka are so dark-complected they appear almost pitch black except in bright sunlight." "Her Afro-Cuban cousin Mario is a darker brown than her siblings and other cousins." However, use of "Brown" in reference to non-Caucasian peoples is a bit of an informalism (it does not have anywhere near the saturation of "Black" and "White" in mainstream writing), so WP probably should be be using it in this sense anyway. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:40, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Names of organisms that include hyphens and dashes is not mentioned in the MOS

A recent move discussion was held at Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus on whether to use a hyphen or dash in its name in the article title. The move discussion was closed improperly/prematurely/etc. as there was no consensus to move, prose across numerous articles was not updated to reflect the move, and I and another user were in the middle of a discussion. The issues I raised were unresolved in the move discussion, so I am bringing them up here since this is a MOS issue.

Currently, the usage of hyphens and dashes in biological names is not addressed in the MOS. Note that for viruses, Latin binomial nomenclature is not used, so hyphens are common in virus names but presumably rare for non-viruses. On Wikipedia, there has been a longstanding consensus among people who edit virus articles to defer issues like this to the ICTV, the organization responsible for virus taxonomy, including spelling, punctuation, etc. There are currently 191 virus species that have a hyphen in their name and none that have a dash. For these reasons, hyphens have become standard across all virus articles for virus names, regardless of the manner that the hyphen is used in the name. ~~The recent move of SARSr-CoV has broken the consistency on this matter, so I am bringing attention to it here.~~

From looking at how hyphens are used in virus names, I found the following different ways:

1. in a sequence of letters and numbers, e.g. Escherichia virus KWBSE43-6
2. as part of -associated, -related, -dependent, and -like constructions, e.g. Adeno-associated dependoparvovirus A, Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus, Mimivirus-dependent virus Sputnik, and Phasi Charoen-like phasivirus
3. as part of a proper name within a virus name, e.g. Avon-Heathcote Estuary associated kieseladnavirus
4. as part of a description within a virus name, e.g. Tomato pseudo-curly top virus, Turnip vein-clearing virus, Foot-and-mouth disease virus, and Acidianus bottle-shaped virus
5. as part of -borne constructions, e.g. Soil-borne cereal mosaic virus
6. the "T-lymphotropic" viruses, e.g. Primate T-lymphotropic virus 1
7. "type-x" viruses, e.g. Guinea pig type-C oncovirus

A resolution to this issue would be beneficial. Essentially, two things should be addressed:

1. how hyphens and dashes should be used in scientific names
2. how hyphens and dashes should be used in common names

Because of the different ways that hyphens are used in virus names, I've thought that it may be beneficial to amend the MOS to state that names of organisms should use whichever (hyphen or dash) is part of their name. In my opinion, this is preferable to having multiple approaches to dealing with these names, which would create a lot of inconsistency in virus articles. Velayinosu (talk) 04:28, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I fear this issue may be too rich for the diets of those assembled here. E Eng 03:54, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
Or gastric upset might be evidence of an infection! — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:47, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
If someone thinks that a "move discussion was closed improperly/prematurely/etc.", the appropriate action is to request a WP:Move review (although suggesting to change the MoS to support your preferred outcome is also fine, of course). —BarrelProof (talk) 02:34, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

The move has broader implications than one article so I figured that this would be a better place since it's a MOS issue. You're free to state how you think scientific and common names should be dealt with too you know, but maybe we need uninvolved people for this discussion to go anywhere. Velayinosu (talk) 03:36, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I have struck parts from the original comment that were inappropriate and want to clarify that my opinion (the last paragraph) is for scientific names and that the hyphen is standard for virus scientific names on Wikipedia, though there may not be explicit stated consensus for it even though there is a general practice of deferring topics like this to the ICTV. Velayinosu (talk) 00:19, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

It's not clear what you mean by "the hyphen is standard for virus scientific names on Wikipedia". What about places where the en dash is appropriate? Wikipedia style is to not use hyphens to stand for what en dashes mean. Dicklyon (talk) 06:13, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I mean that on nearly all virus articles the hyphen is used for scientific names, regardless of the construction used in the name, so it is in effect standardized, including for situations when one might think a dash should be used. Velayinosu (talk) 02:45, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Do you know examples of ones where WP style would be to use an en dash but we've accepted a hyphen due to the ICTV? Dicklyon (talk) 04:30, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

In particular, most of your examples are good examples of the uses of hyphens. But a few are not. For example, the Avon–Heathcote Estuary is named for two rivers, and a hyphen between those would not make sense in a style where en dashes are used for that; see for example this book where you can see the dash between them is longer than a hyphen on the same page. There's no reason to change that to a hyphen just because it's included in a virus name. Dicklyon (talk) 06:38, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: this takes us, yet again, to the endless discussions of where the boundaries are between substance and style. The scientific names used in the ICTV are identifiers: exact strings of characers. The hyphen is part of the identifier and should not be changed. If you search the ICTV taxonomy database at https://talk.ictvonline.org/taxonomy/ with the string "Avon–Heathcote Estuary associated kieseladnavirus" (i.e. containing a dash rather than a hyphen) you get "No results". You have to search with a hyphen to find the species. Its name has a hyphen not a dash. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:01, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

If you put the quote marks you also get no result. But the fact that their search is broken doesn't need to be a problem that drives our article title styling. It does find strings like avon-HEATHCOTE, so it's obviously doing some kind of text normalization or flexible matching; just needs to be fixed a bit. Dicklyon (talk) 15:26, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

All your search shows is that the search function on the ICTV's website is not case sensitive and it recognizes portions of names. It's working as intended, not broken. Velayinosu (talk) 02:45, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

If it won't allow matching of an en dash to a hyphen or hyphen-minus or nonbreaking hyphen, it's broken. Dicklyon (talk) 04:30, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Note that there is a related WP:RM discussion ongoing at Talk:Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus, citing MOS:SUFFIXDASH. Most of the examples given above in item 2 use only a single word before the "-associated, -related, -dependent, and -like" suffix. The guidance provided in MOS:SUFFIXDASH only differs when dealing with a multi-word phrase before the suffix. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:50, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Additional information: the ICTV explicitly states on its website[9] that hyphens are the only permitted form of punctuation in virus taxonomic names, i.e. dashes are prohibited. Velayinosu (talk) 04:59, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Plainly the move was in error. This is not a style question, but a question of fact. And the fact is the international standard is plainly that the names contain hyphens, not dashes. Changing it has created an erroneous, made-up name. Factual errors like this can't be allowed to persist. oknazevad (talk) 11:27, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

@Velayinosu: I would decouple this entirely from discussion of a particular move or particular case at all. The evidence-gathering so far is a good start, but this will probably be more productively (though more slowly) hashed out at WT:MOSORGANISMS. That's a long-term-stable draft guideline that gets into all the tiny nitpicks of biological nomenclature, and is surely where we would put anything about hyphens in scientific and vernacular names of organisms. Be aware also that not all the rules that apply to zoological and botanical names apply beyond them, especially in virology. So we may not be able to generalize very far from virus example to other things or vice versa. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:47, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:ERA, MOS:STYLERET, MOS:RETAIN

Dear colleagues: This discussion, which began on my talk page, regards changes to an article's "era" style i.e. the choice of AD/BC vs. CE/BCE – see WP:ERA. E Eng 21:57, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

It shouldn't be necessary but what to do about editors arguing that only those wanting a change need give arguments pertinent to the article? See Talk:Stonehenge which unfortunately is not the only place I've seen that argument. Doug Weller talk 18:49, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

OK, now I see. Hmmm. I hate to say it but I think that's the design, something like MOS:RETAIN. Now, RETAIN works pretty well in general -- do you think it might help to either import some of the RETAIN language into ERA, or maybe make ERA explicitly reference RETAIN as the way to make era decisions? (I say all this without thinking about it very much, so maybe there's a pitfall I'm not seeing.)

I'm sure you know that this probably won't be easy, no matter what. If you think this idea is a good one, why don't you do a bit of private analysis of ERA vs RETAIN, maybe tell me here what you're finding, and if it still seems like a good idea then we can talk about how to get key MOS elites quietly on board. E Eng 20:03, 28 June 2020 (UTC) P.S. Just in case you missed it, you are officially listed at WP:CONFUSED.

Does MOS:STYLERET apply here? --A D Monroe III^(talk) 21:58, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh God, it's all coming back. MOS:RETAIN is about ENGVAR, whereas MOS:STYLERET is about style stuff in general. Or the other way around. My heart is starting to palpitate even now. Pardon me while I go lie down. Doug Weller, I'm still willing to walk this path with you, if (after reviewing everything) you think there's a feasible path to change. I'm going to ping SMcCandlish for his brief (BRIEF!) preliminary (PRELIMINARY!) thoughts. E Eng 22:12, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I admit that we don't ever have said anything about arguments against a change - apparently "I don't like the change" has always been seen as sufficient. The problem I have with this is that that's got nothing in common with the way we hold discussions elsewhere - it turns what should be a discussion into something where those in favor of change have to have reasons, those against just have to shout WP:RETAIN. In other words, a poll where the close can't do much more than count the numbers - it doesn't matter if those favoring no change have reasons specific to the article or not. If we did AfDs, RfCs, etc like this it would be a mess to say the least. I'm sorry that we lost "A personal or categorical preference for one era style over the other is not justification for making a change." along the way.

The other problem is the phrase "established style", which I've discussed before. Some editors believe that "established" doesn't mean a style established by a discussion, others that it means the original style unless there was a discussion agreeing to change it, so that even if it was changed 15 years ago that change did not make it the established style. The two together make change very difficult - era styles may be the hardest thing to change on Wikipedia, I don't know. Nor do I know how to change this particular problem. It would be easy to change the guideline so that arguments on both sides have to be based on the article, although that wouldn't make every discussion easy as for many even if the wording says that arguments need to be based on the article and not general issues what's most appropriate may not be obvious. I've seen editors argue that some Old Testament books are more important to Christians than to Jews, for instance.

Ironic that I've come here after reverting an editor who insisted that all articles should use BCE/CE (although they backed down) and insisting that they start a discussion. Doug Weller talk 17:55, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not seeing in there whether you think it would be helpful to make the ERA guidelines more the RETAIN and/or STYLERET. E Eng 18:42, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Twice sorry, once for not answering your question directly, second for not answering it timely. Real life...

RETAIN's first sentence looks good, for ERA styles it would read "When an era style's consistent usage has been established in an article, maintain it in the absence of consensus to the contrary." Maybe I'm missing something, but I can't see why that's being used as an excuse to revert back to the original style just because someone changed it without discussion years ago. Do you? And I like "Sometimes the MoS provides more than one acceptable style, or gives no specific guidance. The Arbitration Committee has expressed the principle that "When either of two styles are [sic] acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change."[3] If you believe an alternative style would be more appropriate for a particular article, discuss this at the article's talk page " from STYLERET. I'd also like a simple sentence saying something like "Discussions should focus on the article in question, not personal preferences or principles." Doug Weller talk 14:42, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

OK, thanks. McCandlish hasn't edited since I pinged him above, so since there's no hurry (?) on this let's wait for his response. He'll know the secret history of how the guidelines got the way they are. E Eng 15:03, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

@Doug Weller and A D Monroe III: Sorry, I've also been busy of late, what with the world being on fire. My semi-brief and not very preliminary thoughts: RETAIN is about ENGVAR; STYLERET is more general. ERA is pretty vague/flexible. My personal habits are to switch things to BCE/CE dating any time there is no connection to the history of Christendom, and I'm rarely reverted. If I get reverted, I don't fight about it, I just move on, though I may circle around in months or years and do it again and maybe get it to stick (not as a plan – I don't have a "hit list", I just may happen across it again and do my usual). If it pertains to the history/society of Europe, the Near East, or North Africa, and involves anything to do with 1 AD or later, I leave it at BC/AD, and may even impose it if there's a clear connection to Christendom and its history/background (but would not if there is not). Equivalent dates in some other calendar systems are also valid to include (as parenthetical conversions) in some cases (especially Islamic subjects). If it's purely a science topic, I use BCE/CE, since religio-cultural baggage isn't relevant. My reasons for these changes are "substantial" in ArbCom terms, though not necessary overwhelming. In my experience, there are rarely article-talk-page discussions about this stuff; it's a lot like citation formatting and date formatting. I might engage in such a thread if one arose, but I'm not on a warpath to impose this quasi-consistency, and am not inclined to argue about it much. [Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.] — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:19, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

This sneaky approach is exactly why Doug's "oh-if-it's-been-there-for-a-few-years-its-ok" approach doesn't work. Would you also apply this to ENGVAR, Doug? And if not, why not? But thanks for being so honest about your tactics, SMcCandlish. You seem to assume that all our readers actually understand BCE, which even in America isn't true, still less elsewhere, for example India - a tough case for the "I-stand-proud-against-oppressive-Christian-ideology" crowd (see the Stonehenge discussion for some stirring rhetoric along these lines). Johnbod (talk) 14:01, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing "sneaky" about it, it just application of editorial judgement while gnoming around. If the topic has nothing to do with Christendom (or "Chistendom-embedded" topics like European and Near East history), then there is no reason to use BC/AD dating. It's not a matter of "oppression" but of cultural appropriateness, WP:Systemic bias, etc. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:52, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

It clearly gaming WP:ERA to push your own POV, and sneakily returniung to do it again if reverted. And what about India, where the locals all use BC/AD unless they are academics writing for an international audience? What is culturally appropriate for articles about obscure Indian temples that no non-Indian is ever likely to look at, and where many of the actual readership don't understand BCE/CE, not being American? Johnbod (talk) 03:37, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Is see nothing in MOS:RETAIN as vague or "flexible". If an article is (or was) all AD/BC, it should not be changed to BCE/CE without consensus, and vice versa. Editors changing this to their personal preference is explicitly what RETAIN prohibits. Right? --A D Monroe III^(talk) 19:49, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

The only people who feel strongly about this issue are those for who it is a matter of religious identity (or lack of it). The rest of us may have mild preferences which may vary by article but if we relax the guidelines, we'll have endless repetitive ill-tempered mass warfare in which reasoned debate will be about as useful as a koala trying to stop a state-wide bushfire by widdling on it. If anyone feels like making the effort to tighten up the definition of "established style", that might be useful, I'd be happy to support it. I don't have any suggestions about what that tightened definition might be. Richard Keatinge (talk) 11:09, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I disagree that the only people who feel strongly about this issue are people who consider it a matter of religious identity (or lack of it). I feel strongly about it, because it is a matter of accessibility (as I have said on the Stonehenge Talk page). But I agree that the purpose of the guidelines should be to avoid endless repetitive mass warfare. (I have no opinion on koala bears’ powers of extinguishment. ) Sweet6970 (talk) 12:48, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Me too. Johnbod (talk) 14:01, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I stand corrected! Nevertheless, I feel that the only changes to WP:ERA should be in the direction of tightening it. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:54, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

RETAIN is about ENGVAR (about "varieties of English"); it is not about trans-dialect questions like BC/AD and BCE/CE. So all this waving around of it like a law is off-base (doubly, since it is a guideline not a policy, so it doesn't really "prohibit" anything at all). It's entirely reasonable to change from one format to the other to better match the nature of the topic (which really has nothing to do with "changing to their personal preference" – if we have editors going around changing everything to BC/AD or to BCE/CE, then they need to stop doing that). The actual reasoning behind ENGVAR, however, is sensibly applicable here, and not everyone in this discussion would be happy to do: if there's a strong national/cultural tie, (e.g. to European and Christendom history) then there's a plausible reason to use BC/AD, but absent one there is not.

It's more important and relevant to look at MOS:STYLERET: "it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change". If there's such a reason, then it's not against the guideline. The same section also suggests talk-page discussion first, but (as I've noted earlier) this rarely happens, and a guideline like this does not have the force of policy. MoS's own lead basically suggests the same things as a general matter for all style issues; not changing style without a good reason is part of the entire MoS, and is not specific to this or any other particular matter. Next, MOS:ERA: "The default calendar eras are ... BC and AD, and BCE and CE .... Either convention may be appropriate for use in Wikipedia articles depending on the article context. ... An article's established era style should not be changed without reasons specific to its content". It also suggests having a discussion first, but again this is not a requirement; even just basic WP:EDITING policy trumps it. We need to stop thinking and talking about this in terms that basically boil down to "Who can I punish for changing BC to BCE in my article?" WP just doesn't work that way. More to the point, MOS as a whole and STYLERET make it clear that a change for a good reason is permissible, and ERA even specifically states that the surrounding subject-matter content is such a reason.

MOS:ERA probably does need minor updating. E.g., it still says "AD may appear before or after a year (AD 106, 106 AD)", but there was a row about this semi-recently in which the conclusion was that there's no reason to continue using old-fashioned "AD 106" style. Using it an article with "106 BC" or "2nd century AD" style is apt to confuse readers or at least look inconsistent. It's certainly incompatible with the general MoS instruction to not mix different styles for the same thing in the same article (found in STYLERET, and MOS:US, and the main WP:MOS lead, among other places). If we were going to tweak any of this language, it should be revise that ERA line-item to say to use "106 AD" order in all four BC, BCE, AD, and CE cases (except where directly quoted material uses "AD 106" order).

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:52, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I follow MOS:STYLERET and WP:ERA. That said, my personal preference is to resist language changes connected to political correctness, so I'm going to use AD/BC in any article with no established style, and I'm not going to tell you what pronouns to use when you refer to me. And if you want to know which English honorific to use when referring to me, you may refer to me as "the honorable Jc3s5h". Jc3s5h (talk) 14:30, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you think it's condemnation-worthy to bring one's socio-political viewpoint to the matter, when you are simply bringing your own equal-but-opposite one. That's not standing on principle, it's simply being on the other side the very WP:BATTLEGROUND you pretend to deplore. You're basically stating in a WP:POINT-oriented way that you'd rather push your viewpoint than do what is best for the particular article context. As far as I'm concerned, that's sufficient grounds for anyone to revert you without discussion and use BCE/CE in any context in which it's a better fit, because your rationale for using BC/AD isn't based on logic but on a desire to stick it to your ideological enemies. Meanwhile, most people are not taking this as an ideological issue to begin with. It's simply a choice between international, secular, and culturally more neutral language. Trying to make it a religious dispute is silly, anyway, because even most biblical scholars think that the historical Jesus (if there was one) was born a bit earlier. The point at which this calendar system pivots has been arbitrary all along. While BC/AD make cultural sense on Wikipedia for various topics, they're technically probably misnomers. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:52, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@Johnbod: era style is not like WP:ENGVAR in that although ENGVAR doesn't say where a variety should be used, it links to WP:TITLEVAR which is clear - "If a topic has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation, the title of its article should use that nation's variety of English". There's nothing like that for era styles, and you don't seem to think the word "established" has any meaning.

But I ran into something interesting today - well, not just me. Someone is using proxies going through articles changing BCE to BC - when reverted they return with a new IP address. Eg [10] [11] and [12] - I'm not the only Admin to notice it (fortunately the other Admin is more clued in about proxies and was able to confirm my suspicions. They seem random articles so I'm guessing whoever is doing this is using a search. Doug Weller talk 18:06, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Few ENGVAR arguments involve the "strong ties" aspect, which tends to make things much clearer. Most revolve round "first use" issues, & are similar to ERA rows. It seems to me that you are the one who doesn't believe in "established" styles. it's no surprise there are people changing to BC - personally I seem to come across more doing it the other way, typically with edit summaries like "correct date" - like the Stonehenge guy in fact. Another persistent offender has turned himself in just above - I hope you give him a good talking-to. Johnbod (talk) 20:59, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I enforce WP:ERA often. Which is clear on the matter. I don't really know if there is much else to do about it, or if there is even a need. It is a perennial problem. A centralized discussion by those who think otherwise and/or are in preference of one system versus the other, is always available. Who knows, maybe it's a discussion worth having. But probably not. El_C 18:20, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

I've just realised that there is another problem WP:ERA says "Apply Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Retaining existing styles" which says don't change existing styles without discussion. But it also says "An article's established era style should not be changed without reasons specific to the article", which is not the same thing. Does this mean that if an article had always had one style, but three months ago someone changed it without discussion, that the new style is the existing style so needs discussion before changing? "Do not change existing styles" is surely bad wording inviting editwarring. Doug Weller talk 08:21, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I would say certainly not, but I think an undiscussed change for reasons of general preference takes far longer to become "established" than you do. I don't follow your last point at all - removing "Do not change existing styles" is a sure way to vastly increase edit-warring. Johnbod (talk) 08:46, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Why? Surely ""An article's established era style should not be changed without reasons specific to the article" is sufficient? I'm not sure you're right about how long it takes to be established, but then there aren't any criteria. Doug Weller talk 18:28, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

No, it means don't change the style without reasons specific to the subject/content of the article. I'm not sure where you got the idea that has something to do with time spans. This "I was here longer" or "I was here first" confusion keeps coming up with regard to all the *VAR guidelines. People need to actually read them. The choice made in the first major contribution is only a last-resort fallback position, after all attempts to reach consensus have failed. It is not the default or preferred style, and whoever made it does not have more say. It only comes into play when someone wants to make a change and a subsequent discussion cannot come to consensus on whether to accept that change, to go with the current style (the one before that change), to go with some new third choice, to use the style that was longest used in the article, to use the first style used in the article, or any consensus at all. That would leave resolution in limbo indefinitely, so the forced resolution is to use the style in the first non-stub version (or the first non-stub version to have the applicable material). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:52, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

He's got the idea from the wording of the policy: "An article's established era style should not be changed without reasons specific to its content". And one bit you need to read is (MOS:RETAIN "Edit-warring over style, or enforcing optional style in a bot-like fashion without prior consensus, is never acceptable." I've put a query for you above. Johnbod (talk) 03:45, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing to talk about here, IMO; the "retain" policies are clear that such things are not to be enacted without a darn good reason (not to mention that BCE/CE is still based on the nominal date of Jesus's birth, but that's another thing), and nothing in the original talkpage or this discussion gives me reason to suspect otherwise. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 04:40, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Proper and improper use of monospace

Should one of the below § proposed guidelines be added to the Manual of Style?^{[note 1]} Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 17:43, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Proposed guideline No.1

Withdrawn proposal

Below Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Font family, add the following:

Monospace

Monospaced fonts should be used only when necessary to avoid unnecessary overemphasis. Monospace should generally not be used when:

The context is not technical or computing related, and extreme accuracy in the characters of the text is not needed for another reason; readers can deduce it from context. While a simple computer program is liable to confuse lol with 101 or IoI or lullaby for 1u11aby, a human is unlikely to do so.
None of the possible characters could be confused for one another. For example, Unicode notation consists of a ⟨U⟩, a ⟨+⟩, and then between one and eight hexadecimal numbers (digits between 0–0 and F–16). As in no common font can any of the characters in the set U+0123456789ABCDEF be confused for one another, monospace is unnecessary emphasis.^{[note 2]} So, write U+058D ֍ (<#salted#>), not U+058D ֍ (<#salted#>).

Notes

References

^ This is Psiĥedelisto's first RfC, so might have formatting errors. I hope it doesn't, I looked at a few examples...
^ If adopted, {{unichar}} will be changed to match consensus. See also Template talk:Unichar § Deviation of task, which is the seed of this IRC.

Proposed guideline No.2

Withdrawn proposal
Same text as § Proposed guideline No.1, just put on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Computing instead. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 17:43, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Proposed guideline No.3

After the first sentence of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Font family, add the following:

“

As regards monospace, it should not be used outside of computer and technical material for which the use of monospace is customary.

”

!votes

Support, with a preference for No.1, as nominator. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 17:43, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
I see where other editors are coming from regarding the potential for bloat, so pull my support for proposals No. 1 & 2, which had no other supporters, and back No.3 instead, which SMcCandlish supports. (Hopefully I got his intent right.) Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 12:40, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
We might need to reword it a little, so it cannot be misinterpreted as "... computer and technical material, because the use of monospace is customary for all such material." Definitely not the intended meaning. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:24, 20 July 2020 (UTC)
Oppose both variants as WP:CREEP, and not entirely correct or adequate in various ways. (In practical terms, it probably could never be adequate to try to list out permitted uses). I would support an alternative: Just say not to use monospace except for computer and other techncial material for which it is customary. Leave it to human editorial judgement instead of trying to make an OK/not-OK list. And this belongs in MOS:TEXT, if we do it. More details in the "Discussion" subsection below. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:58, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Hold, more info needed per discussion section. Alsee (talk) 22:52, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Oppose. A complicated rule for the primary purpose of prohibiting code formatting for unicode codes, with no evidence of investigation of how this might affect other unrelated parts of the encyclopedia, is too much WP:CREEP for me. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:00, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

@Psiĥedelisto: Can you provide some context please? Why is this enough of a problem that it needs to be added to the MoS? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:05, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
@King of Hearts: Sorry, I don't understand what you're getting at with this comment. Guideline No.2 was provided if you don't think it's important enough for the main MoS, but shouldn't every agreed upon style convention be in the MoS, especially if a new consensus would change a long-standing template like {{unichar}}? Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 18:16, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
We could also put in the MoS "don't use Comic Sans," but we don't do that because it's unnecessary (WP:CREEP). What are examples of people incorrectly using monospaced fonts, such that the problem is important enough to have an official guideline against? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:24, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
@King of Hearts: Well, {{unichar}} is one example :-) Apparently, before {{char}}, {{code}} was being used many places it shouldn't have been. (Per Template talk:Char/Archives/1 § I have doubts about this template). I would say this is a common mistake. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 18:42, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

We also don't need to put "don't use &numero; in MoS, either, since most editors don't do it. I do agree with the view, in an earlier discussion elsewhere, that we should not be applying monospace to characters and other strings that are being discussed as characters and other strings; MOS:WAW wants these in italics, or in double quotation marks if italics are already heavily used in the material for something else. An exception would be when a glyph is being discussed as a glyph per se (i.e., as computer output) or as a keystroke per se (i.e., as computer input). The <samp> and <kbd> elements exist for these cases and are already monospace. <Samp> is also used for various other forms of output, e.g. paths and filenames (output of a computer directory listing).
This proposed new rule is too fiddly and too prescriptivism-based. If we needed an MoS line-item to address monospace at all, it should be advice to simply not use monospace other than for computer and other technical material for which it is customary – and leave it at that. If we start listing off exactly what it's okay or not okay to use it for, the list will simply grow and grow as more use-cases come up. It is actually customary in technical writing to put the hexadecmial Unicode codepoint designations in monospace. WP didn't invent that. The fact that it might not be utterly necessary for reader comprehension is irrelevant. Same goes for putting genus and species names in italics and capitalizing the genus. No one's brain would asplode upon encountering "homo sapiens" instead of "Homo sapiens", but the real world prefers it a particular way, and reputable publishers follow that preference in the main. Our general approach to all "optional style" questions (absent some Wikipedia-specific technical consideration) is that we apply a style if the vast majority of high-quality publications do it, and we don't otherwise. There's not any reason to stop using this WP:Common sense in the case of monospace/nonproportional font usage. Especially when various HTML elements (including <code>, <samp>, <kbd>, and <pre>) are monospace by default in all visual browsers. We would have to use custom stylesheet tricks to override that, which would confuse a lot of people, and in turn require re-doing various templates that use such elements and need the monospace to reintroduce it. And this isn't really about whether OCR can easily distinguish between 1, I, and l (though that matters for WP:REUSE reasons), it's mostly about the failure of various fonts used by human readers to clearly distinguish them. And it always has been, long before WP existed.
[The only case I can think of in which WP has overridden the default behavior of an HTML element's font styling was eliminating the forced italics of <cite>, and we only did that because there's a dispute between W3C and WHATWG about what this element is. WHATWG is a mini-consortium of browser makers, and they want this element to mean the title of a work, while W3C is a macro-consortium of, basically, all the users of the Web, so W3C simply wins when they say this element is for citation information in general. It's why our template-generated citation tags are wrapped in this element and it doesn't do font crap. WHATWG's italics were wrong anyway, even if their scope limitation had been accepted by the Web development community, since minor works' titles go in quotation marks not italics.]
Anyway, if we have anything about monospace at all as a general-rule matter, it belongs is MOS:TEXT along with the other font-style stuff. And it should be cross-referenced to any other sections that address monospace for particular uses (e.g. in MOS:NUM and MOS:COMP) MOS:COMP would not be a good home for a general rule, since the entire point of that rule would be discouraging use of monospace for things it is not appropriate for (i.e., things that probably will not be addressed by MOS:COMP). In the end, this is much like use of serif font in mathematical formulas (sometimes mandatorily for certain things). The average person might not feel they need it, but it is the way it is done, and we don't need to browbeat editors about it. Those with a maths background already know about it (and might or might not want a MOS:NUM rule to always use it in the mandatory cases, but otherwise just happy that our math markup tools do the serifs they're supposed to); meanwhile, those who don't know about this are not regularly abusing serif font styling in articles, so from an MoS perspective, there's no frequently recurrent, endless-arguments issue to codify an answer to. Same with monospace. We just don't have a continual, heated, unresolving series of arguments about its use.
PS: I do not understand the footnote above that seems to be attributing this RfC to me. I didn't write it, and if I ever wrote something very similar, it is not what I would support now, on later and more detailed reflection. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:58, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Please kindly see [13]. I messed up, and it was not at all intentional. I thought that the magic word {{REVISIONUSER}} was automatically WP:SUBST'd. It's not, very sorry. I was too lazy to type/copy my ĥ. Won't happen again. Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 23:12, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Psiĥedelisto I edited the RFC to include your username instead of {{REVISIONUSER}}. It was still causing trouble even with safesubst. It's puzzling why you used such an roundabout manner to put your username in, but unimportant. I think everything is fixed now. Alsee (talk) 23:44, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
Oh, ha ha. That useless magicword has bit me in the butt before, too. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:30, 15 July 2020 (UTC)
@Psiĥedelisto: I have basically the same questions as King of Hearts above. There are many different kinds of RFC, but in in many cases it's a good idea to provide a little more background for people newly arriving. First, lets set aside {{unichar}}. (I'll get back to it.) What is the general background here, is there (A) one or more arguments over this issue that we are trying to resolve? If so, links and/or more info on previous debate please. (B) Is this a recurring issue that is regularly and uncontrovercially resolved in the way you suggest? If so, some sample diffs would be helpful. (C) Is this a new idea to change a singificant amount of existing conent? If so it would help to have some links or examples of what it is that we'd be changing. (D) Aside from {{unichar}}, are there few or no other particular cases and you merely propose this as a general good idea? We usually avoid bloating guidelines or MoS if there isn't any significant issue.
Regarding template {{unichar}}, it looks like the parameter sans=y does what you want. Do I understand that correctly? That you basically want to make sans=y into the default or only mode? And if so, could you point to some pages that make significant use of this template to make it easier to review and consider whether that is a beneficial change? Thanx. Alsee (talk) 22:48, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
@Alsee: Mojikyō was the article that made me decide that the way {{unichar}} worked was a problem. I was familiar with the Unicode standard and Unicode technical writing (I've been known to engage in it), so I knew that it's quite odd to use monospace when discussing the characters. It's less odd when discussing Unicode in a programming context. I added |sans=y while writing Mojikyō. I decided it should be default, and this was the way to get that done. I'm not aware offhand of other wrong uses of monospace. I've withdrawn my first two proposals and gone with SMcCandlish's instead. --Psiĥedelisto (talk • contribs) ^{please always ping!} 12:40, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
WHO IS USING "OUTSIDE OF"? On the outside of the tennis ball, yes. But not where "outside" is a preposition. Tony (talk) 07:52, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

@Tony1: see Merriam-Webster. Many compound prepositions seem to my ears to be growing in use compared to the single word synonym. It's possibly influenced by "out of". Peter coxhead (talk) 07:35, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

How to fix curly quotes?

As the header states, is there any quick/easy way to fix curly quotes being used in an article, or does it have to be done manually one-by-one? Asking this in regards to the episode summaries for All That (season 11). Thanks in advance. Magitroopa (talk) 18:51, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I use the "source" editing mode and when that window is open, and the Advanced button is selected, on the far right is a "search and replace" button. There are probably other ways using other editing modes, but that one works. It must be used with care because it's possible for the curly quote to be part of a URL or a file name where replacing one with the other will mess things up. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 19:04, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Yep. Always compare what changed before saving. For my part, I do such cleanup in an external editing application which I can use more quickly (and which also has regex grep search/replace, which is useful for fixing various other things). I use BBEdit for this, in macOS, though there are good Windows and *n*x text-editing apps, too. I think there's a way to make all editing be done in such an app, but I only do this for tedious stuff, so I just copy the article code over, use my external editor, then paste it back in, preview to find or correct any obvious errors, and compare versions to pore over them one last time for inadvertent things like mangling a URL. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:45, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

the Terminology section?

Hello, I was unsuccessful to find a MOS or rule about where the Terminology section should/can be placed? I ask this because there is a debate about it: Talk:Video game#Please add the section "Terminology" please add something about it, thanks.--Editor-1 (talk) 04:08, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

This is not something MOS is going to specify. It's something editors on particular articles need to work out for themselves. E Eng 04:12, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The explained problem in Talk:Video game#Please add the section "Terminology" is that the Terminology section is placed in the child/forked articles while the main article lack it, my mean about "where the Terminology section should/can be placed?" was about that situation, not where to place the Terminology section in articles.--Editor-1 (talk) 04:46, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I looked into it and commented, but it's not an MoS issue. It's really a WP:MERGE/WP:SPLIT and WP:SUMMARY issue, i.e. a content (and information-architecture and usability) not style matter. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 14:16, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Links in table headers

MOS:HEAD is ambiguous as to whether table captions and headers can contain links (and so is MOS:HEADERS). –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 15:26, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

What would lead you to believe that links are not allowed in table captions and headers? I do not see ambiguity, I simply see no comment on the matter. --Izno (talk) 16:53, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Proposed addition to MOS:TEXT or MOS:WAW to codify some actual practice

Disputes about this stuff pop up not every other day, but frequently enough that they should be addressed.

Text of proposed addition:

A monospaced (non-proportional) font should be used only for strings of technical material for which this style is conventional in reliable sources. This is preferably done with {{kbd}} or the <kbd> element for input, and {{samp}} or <samp> for output, both broadly defined. When writing about a character as a glyph or codepoint in a digital communications context, it is often appropriate to use monospace, though characters as such should otherwise be given italics. When necessary to provide extended information about a Unicode character, use {{Unichar}}. Examples of direct user input (e.g. of a strong or weak password), can be rendered with {{kbd}}. Filenames, directory paths, URLs, and similar computer strings can also be rendered with {{samp}}. For illustrating an actual keyboard or controller key, see {{key press}} and related templates. Samples of computer source code should be rendered with the block template {{code}} if multi-line, or simply with the <code> element if inline in a sentence.

I'm normally resistant to additions at this late a stage in MoS's development (see WP:MOSBLOAT), but even WP:POLICY indicates that the purpose of guidelines is documenting actual WP best practices. My first instinct, in a previous discussion, was to just use the first sentence of this and leave it at that. But we have long-established templates for most of this, and should recommend their use, instead of leaving people to willy-nilly try to make up their own approaches to these matters.

I would prefer to shunt this into MOS:TEXT, though I suppose it could live in MOS:WAW (where we also address characters as characters in the broader sense). I am just leery of adding this to the main MoS page which is already long, and which should focus on the "frequently asked questions". In MOS:TEXT, it could have a heading of something like "Monospace, computer text, and key presses". And I'm not averse to various tweaking of this text; I just wrote it one go, though I've been thinking about it for a long time.

PS: The last sentence calls for using the bare <code> element inline in the sentence because the {{code}} template applies syntax-highlighting coloration, and we should not do that in the middle of a regular-text sentence, where it is distracting, over-emphasizing, and devoid of context. Syntax highlighting only serves a useful function when it is in a block of code, clearly distinguishing different code elements from each other in a pattern.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:41, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Did you somehow miss #RfC: Proper and improper use of monospace where this issue is already being discussed on this very talk page? —David Eppstein (talk) 07:44, 25 July 2020 (UTC) (Actually from longer ago but I forgot to sign, sorry. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:44, 25 July 2020 (UTC))

I'm assuming that's the "previous discussion" he's referring to, which seems to have withered after 4 or so days of silence and not much support. Dicklyon (talk) 23:41, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

This might indeed be better-placed as a subsection of the above. --Izno (talk) 00:46, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I thought about it, but this page is getting long despite the "aggressive" archive bot, and people are more apt to jump down here and see what's latest than pore over a long list of older threads, most of which are pretty moribund. A concrete proposal didn't emerge from that older discussion, so I'm making one here. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:33, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

There is also the fairly quiet MOS:COMPUTING, which much of the above seems to target. I also would prefer this be in one of the subpages rather than the main page as the use of monospace is more esoteric than not these days. --Izno (talk) 00:46, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Addressed in subthread below. There's unresolved history. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:33, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

The fate of MOS:COMPUTING and MOS:COMPSCI

About two years ago (maybe three?), there was extensive discussion here about MOS:COMPUTING, and the consensus was that it is basically not salvageable and is not a guideline or a part of MoS, but just some essay that was controlled by two people making up whether they felt like. I proposed that "MOS:COMPSCI" (which is a WP:PROJPAGE essay, and not part of MoS either, though well-accepted and stable) should absorb any useful bits of MOS:COMPUTING before its formal deprecation with {{Failed proposal}}, but there was no consensus there to keep any of it at all. I think some bits and pieces of MOS:COMPUTING could be kept, and merged into other places, but it is long overdue to have {{Guideline}} removed from it, and probably moved to something like "Wikipedia:Manual of Style proposals (computing)" or something, so it is no longer part of the MoS tree. I'd meant to do that over a year ago myself but just forgot about it. Maybe we should just go do it, or maybe another discussion should happen, perhaps about keeping certain tidbits from it. And it would probably be worth discussing making the more sensible and consensus-based COMPSCI actually a part of MoS and not a wikiproject page. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:33, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Guideline needed

Noticing a discussion on Talk:2040s, I followed the links to Wikipedia:WikiProject Years. There is a guide to writing a year-based article, but it needs transferred and fleshed out to the MOS since a long time. Seems straightforward, requiring some inclusion and other guidance added but format is already detailed with examples. ~ R.T.G 14:32, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

A discussion about collapsible elements in mathematics articles

I am very aware of MOS:COLLAPSE. In fact, I have removed collapsible elements on many occasions.

However, I'm also aware that we receive many complaints that our mathematics articles are too challenging to follow for many of our readers. As an OTRS agent, I've seen many such concerns expressed by readers. It's also ubiquitous enough in Wikipedia that the FAQ in WikiProject mathematics has several questions along this line.

I do know that we are not a textbook, and I support the position that we should not have all of the elements of a textbook in an article.

However, I also believe there is an important distinction between many prose oriented articles and mathematically inclined articles. To pick a sentence from Julius Caesar:

Leaving his command in Gaul would mean losing his immunity to criminal prosecution by his enemies; knowing this Caesar openly defied the Senate's authority by crossing the Rubicon and marching towards Rome at the head of an army.

Any reader with a high school level knowledge of English can comprehend this sentence. Expert historians might well believe that a deep knowledge of history would provide insights about that sentence beyond that picked up by the casual reader, but this is a matter of degree. In contrast, if our article on polynomials illustrated the product of polynomials as follows:

$P=3x^{2}-2x+5xy-2$ and $Q=-3x^{2}+3x+4y^{2}+8$
then

$PQ=4x^{2}+21xy+2x^{2}y+12x+15y^{2}+3xy^{2}+28y+5.$

It would be a factual statement, one that a significant portion of the readership would not comprehend. While much of our adult readership covered this in a high school class, some weren't paying attention at the time, and some did pay attention, but have forgotten the details in the intervening years. If for some reason, they were now interested in multiplying polynomials, the short statement wouldn't provide much help.

Again, I'm not proposing changing the article into a textbook, but I think we can provide more help while falling far short of the exposition one might expect to see in a textbook. For example I'm not remotely considering a list of problems for the students intended to help them reinforce their knowledge.

In fact, the article did include a bit more; it contains one intermediate step. It's my belief that the reader is well served by adding a couple additional intermediate steps, which I have done recently. However, I recognize that I am treading closely to the line between encyclopedia and textbook, and I suspect there will be some pushback about including these intermediate steps.

We have several levels of readers of mathematical articles. At one extreme, we have people with mathematical degrees who may be using mathematics on a daily basis, and they may visit an article simply to recall exactly how something is expressed. We have other readers who may have a solid knowledge of mathematics, but haven't been actively using mathematics on a day by day basis, have reason to refresh their recollection of how something works, and want to see in Wikipedia what it has to say. Then there are some readers who may have covered this material in high school, but zoned out, or maybe even mastered it to some degree at the time, but have completely forgotten some of the basics. How do we write an article that addresses the needs of all of them?

One possibility is the use of collapsible elements (which explains why I am posting this in MOS as opposed to WikiProject mathematics.)

Imagine that we explain polynomial multiplication as follows:

If

{\begin{aligned}\color {Red}P&\color {Red}{=2x+3y+5}\\\color {Blue}Q&\color {Blue}{=2x+5y+xy+1}\end{aligned}}

then

{\begin{array}{rccrcrcrcr}{\color {Red}{P}}{\color {Blue}{Q}}&{=}&&({\color {Red}{2x}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{2x}})&+&({\color {Red}{2x}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{5y}})&+&({\color {Red}{2x}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{xy}})&+&({\color {Red}{2x}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{1}})\\&&+&({\color {Red}{3y}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{2x}})&+&({\color {Red}{3y}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{5y}})&+&({\color {Red}{3y}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{xy}})&+&({\color {Red}{3y}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{1}})\\&&+&({\color {Red}{5}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{2x}})&+&({\color {Red}{5}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{5y}})&+&({\color {Red}{5}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{xy}})&+&({\color {Red}{5}}\cdot {\color {Blue}{1}})\end{array}}

Intermediate steps

Carrying out the multiplication in each term produces

{\begin{array}{rccrcrcrcr}PQ&=&&4x^{2}&+&10xy&+&2x^{2}y&+&2x\\&&+&6xy&+&15y^{2}&+&3xy^{2}&+&3y\\&&+&10x&+&25y&+&5xy&+&5.\end{array}}

Combining similar terms yields

{\begin{array}{rcccrcrcrcr}PQ&=&&4x^{2}&+&(10xy+6xy+5xy)&+&2x^{2}y&+&(2x+10x)\\&&+&15y^{2}&+&3xy^{2}&+&(3y+25y)&+&5\end{array}}

which can be simplified to

PQ=4x^{2}+21xy+2x^{2}y+12x+15y^{2}+3xy^{2}+28y+5.

In this example, the accomplished mathematician glanced at the introductory phase, know that they know how to do polynomial multiplication, glanced at the last sentence and moved on. The second group of readers who mastered this at one time but haven't looked at it in a while, might look at it in a little more detail and may not even click on the show button. Another group of people will look at it, click on the show button, and say to themselves "oh ye,s I remember this now" then hide it again and move on. Another group of readers might click on the show button and leave it open and walk through the steps.

The obvious point being that the use of a collapsible element allows us to do an exposition of this concept that can appeal to several levels of mathematical knowledge.

I just checked the mobile view, and it appears that the mobile view automatically displays the material, and encloses it in a labeled box. If this approach became ubiquitous, readers at higher level would know to skip over the material in the box and would not be disadvantaged.

I know that the prohibition on collapsed elements is a long-standing position, but it is equally long-standing that a substantial portion of our readership finds are mathematical articles close to useless. I think the use of a collapsible box, used judiciously, could be used to improve articles without a significant cost.--S Philbrick (Talk) 16:41, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, I believe that collapsible elements are also sometimes used for proofs in mathematics articles, on the principle that most readers will not want to read a proof, but sufficiently many might that it would be a disservice to omit it entirely. --JBL (talk) 21:36, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the OP's general thrust, except the "make it collapsed" conclusion. Collapsed content is an accessibility problem. I don't buy the argument that it's okay to make it collapsed because some will not want to see it. That's robbing Peter to pay Paul. Every article on every topic has material in it that isn't of interest to some readers of the article. We include it anyway to be complete, and all readers of this site already understand this. This "be complete, no matter what" principle begins right at the lead sentence. E.g.: "Elvis Aaron Presley ..., also known simply as Elvis, was an American singer and actor." The only fragments of that which will not already be known to 99.99% of our readers are "Aaron" and "and actor". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:54, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Paging David Eppstein. E Eng 04:49, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that hidden elements (and the accessibility problems they raise) are ever really necessary. The better solution is to be more careful about the level of audience expected for an article in mathematics (or on any other technical subject): spell things out in detail when one would expect readers of this topic to need spelling out, don't spell things out in so much detail for articles that are anyway going to be hopeless for less-advanced readers. Many mathematical publications provide detailed proofs of their claims, but we should only provide those proofs when they are enlightening to readers, not as a mere verification of the truth of what we say, because Wikipedia is based on a different sourcing-based mechanism for verifiability. The same goes for steps of calculations. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:58, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Well said. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:48, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

I pinged him here so I deserve some of the credit. E Eng 03:00, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:39, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

An interesting question is what level of original calculation Wikipedia is allowed to engage in. For example, it is not WP:OR to convert units ({{convert}}), compute someone's birth year based on age attested in a dated RS ({{birth based on age as of date}}), or calculate the present value of historical currency ({{inflation}}). Where do we draw the line? When does a series of logical deductions go too far for WP:BLUE? -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 20:39, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

That is something that needs to be clarified, but it's off-topic for MoS, and is not directly involved in the formatting-and-presentation-and-access issue raised here. I would raise it at WT:NOR instead. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:48, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm also not convinced that hidden content is a good way to go. On the other hand, I also don't think it's possible in general to pick a right level of presentation for your readers. I can read a lot of technical stuff, but many math articles leave me in the dust because they're in an unfamiliar territory with unfamiliar language and don't go far enough in connecting to the basics that someone might have gotten from pretty good high-school and college level math classes. (and I just submitted by first attempt at a paper in the Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society in spite of not being a mathematician for real). Dicklyon (talk) 03:13, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Until I recently removed it, {{math proof}} allowed for collapsing. Did you know of the template? :) My general opinion of anything related to collapsing in mainspace is that either a) you think the material is not actually necessary for the article and hence you should remove it (in general spirit of how we write our articles, such as WP:SUMMARY), or b) you think the material is actually necessary in which case it has no business being hidden away from the user. (This ignores the accessibility concerns of collapsing elements.) --Izno (talk) 15:21, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

To allow collapsing is probably okay, as long as it is off by default, and the documentation says to not make it collapsed in mainspace content. If people keep doing it anyway, then the solution is to install a namespace detection switch in the code, as we did with decorative quotation templates, to just disallow the behavior in mainspace. There are project- and user-space use cases for auto-collapsing the material, so just nuking the feature probably isn't a good idea. Same with various other templates that have this feature (track listings, sports results, etc.). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:50, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

While we're on the subject: [14]. E Eng 13:48, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

IP editor correcting every inverted conditional they find

206.246.15.24 (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

They are determined to change every incidence ([15][16][17][18] etc.) of inverted conditionals they find to a phrasing starting with "if". They apparently think they are correcting a grammatical mistake. The conditional inversion actually sounds more formal and appropriate for an encyclopedia to my ear. Am I missing something? What's the best way to handle a problematic editor like this? —DIYeditor (talk) 17:53, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

This one was especially bad because not only did they "correct" something that wasn't wrong, they messed up the logic (tense) of the sentence. Maybe this is more into CIR/ANI territory. —DIYeditor (talk) 18:01, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I would leave a note on that editor's talk page. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 04:47, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Quotation marks should be inserted around block quotes attributed solely by numeric reference.

Although Wikipedia generally discourages quotations for good reasons I contend that when they are used it is a misleading practice and contrary to established common usage to omit quotation marks around block quotes. See MOS:BLOCKQUOTE. I would cite "The Kings's English" in support of my position that they are necessary for clear identification.Horatius At The Bridge (talk) 22:43, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

But the work you refer to does not use quotation marks around block quotations. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:00, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't know where the OP could get such an idea but only the sloppiest publications put quote marks around blockquotes. (The infamous pullquote is another matter.) `E Eng 02:07, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have made my objection clearer. The examples of block quotations in the cited extract all contained an attribution at the close of the quote but this is not a required component of MOS:BLOCKQUOTE as I understand it. If a named derivative source was also necessarily included it would address my concerns but a bracketed numeric reference does not. Horatius At The Bridge (talk) 09:04, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Could you please give an example of what you're talking about? E Eng 13:30, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Something like this perhaps (but in an article and without the blush)

Mgasparin's Law: As a discussion on ANI gets longer, the probability that EEng will add a sarcastic comment or image approaches 1.

[19]

and obviously without the quotation marks Horatius At The Bridge (talk) 19:50, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

While I'm flattered at your choice of material, and abashed that I can't think of an appropriately sarcastic image to place here, I still can't tell what you're talking about. Do you have an example from an actual article? E Eng 21:20, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

It was this recent edit which arrested my attention on the subject Horatius At The Bridge (talk) 21:28, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

I think they mean that a block quote should be followed with an attribution, like you get when using {{Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 220}} latest search results] that show over 4,000 hits.

However, a search on Google Ngram reveals that European American has never been a common term from 1800 until 2019 in comparison to whites, white people, white Americans, or Caucasians. Mitchumch (talk) 06:53, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree, we should tilt against the uncommon usage of "European American" to describe white people in the United States, and I will try to bring some further attention to the question. BD2412 T 04:44, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
It's misleading if the context is for whites, as there are Black Americans with European ancestry.—Bagumba (talk) 05:04, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

We should use the terminology that is widely accepted, bearing in mind that race and ethnicity are social rather than biological constructs. Currently, the general term is white AmericanTFD (talk) 05:15, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I think it depends on exactly what you're talking about. There may be some reasonable niche usages for "European-American" as a distinct notion from "white". But I agree that we shouldn't generally replace "white American" by "European American" when not making such a distinction.

On another note, we should definitely avoid "Caucasian" in the sense of "white", which is just confusing. Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians are Caucasians; Germans not so much. --Trovatore (talk) 06:28, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Agreed that this should not be used as a general term Johnbod (talk) 14:51, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I also have concerns that this term was deliberately used by proponents of white supremacy that are active on Wikipedia. I'm NOT saying that every editor that has used this term is a supporter of white supremacy. But, I am concerned. Please see European-American Unity and Rights Organization founded by David Duke. White supremacists have a history of duplicating African-American organizations. See:

What can be done to address this concern? Mitchumch (talk) 16:00, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Mitchumch, I do hope you meant I'm not saying that every editor that has used this term is a supporter of white supremacy. Schazjmd (talk) 16:14, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Schazjmd, That was a bad typo. Thanks for catching that. Mitchumch (talk) 16:17, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I would venture to say that any editor who is making a concerted effort to introduce this phrase into articles, and particularly to replace existing language with this phrase, is acting questionably. BD2412 T 16:48, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree. I think that one reason it's used by white supremacists is to exclude Jews. We should use white American. Doug Weller talk 17:26, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

This terminology plugs into two big themes of American society:

The U.S. is a settler colony, and American culture attaches great significance to ancestral origins, which are widely celebrated both in the USA and in some of the countries which exported their people. (e.g. Ireland makes a big fuss over Barry from Moneygall).
The U.S. is a racially divided nation, with a history of slavery and a type of apartheid. That racial divide is described in many ways, one of which is by ancestral origin: "African American" vs "European American", which means black vs white.

Wikipedia accepts categorisation by national origin as ethnicity. For various complex reasons, Wikipedia categorisation accepts "African American" an ethnic term, and accepts categorisation on that basis ... but categorisation practice deprecates "European American" as a racial categorisation.

This is complex stuff, as we try to find neutral terminology to describe a bitterly-fractured society, while also reflecting widely-used terminology. It's a delicate balance.

I think that at category level, we have it right. The reasons why "African American" is ethnic but "European American" is racial are subtle and complex, but broadly right.

However, usage in articles is a more complex issue than the binary choices involved in categorisation. I suggest the articles should follow the reliable sources for that article: if the sources commonly describe someone as "European AMerican" (or "Northwestern European"), then the article can use that term, but should attribute it per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:59, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, we do have an article on European American which suggests it is used somehow, so wouldn't that have to be tackled first?

Also, just FYI if it helps, African American was to be rather deliberately an ethnicity.[20] (So, perhaps it's a matter of assumptions about words, in hearing or reading European American, would you be thinking of a group of ethnicities not a race, and would you think that it could include at least some Jewish Americans, and would you think it makes sense for someone to say, I am African American and European American) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:54, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Windrose spelling

Could someone give a link to the MOS regarding spelling of compass directions? -DePiep (talk) 10:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I can't, but I think British and American usage is different. Anyway, it should be consistent. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 04:37, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Inconsistent guidelines on diacritics

Hi there! I'm a bit lost on exactly what the go is here, since there's some inconsistency here. Basically, WP:UE and MOS:DIACRITICS states to use the anglicised version of terms if it's used in the majority of sources, except for proper names which WP:PROPERNAME then says to always use diacritics, which conferred means that Wikipedia could purposefully go against the majority of reliable, English-language sources. What exactly is the low-down on using diacritics when:

they're used by the majority of reliable, English-language sources,
there is no exact majority etc

There have been previous attempts to have regional guidelines on such (Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Vietnamese)), but they've failed to get consensus become any policy or guideline. ItsPugle (please use {{reply|ItsPugle}}) 03:28, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

– Courtesy pinging possibly interested editors: In ictu oculi and Mztourist.

I don't see such inconsistency here. WP:PROPERNAME clearly says, Wikipedia normally retains these special characters, except where there is a well-established English spelling that replaces them with English standard letters. El Millo (talk) 03:41, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, just to clarify but by well-established, it means the majority of reliable, English-language sources right? That descriptor is a tad ambiguous to me as I thought it meant published articles where the subject is the use of diacritics or another MOS (like APA etc), but if it just means based off sources... ItsPugle (please use {{reply|ItsPugle}}) 03:44, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

@ItsPugle: Yes it does. El Millo (talk) 03:46, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello ItsPugle - most of these questions you are asking have already been answered in the two RMs where you tried to reopen diacritics discussions of 10 years ago which were just closed as consensus against your proposal. As above WP:PROPERNAME clearly says, Wikipedia normally retains these special characters, except where there is a well-established English spelling that replaces them with English standard letters. This "Wikipedia could purposefully go against the majority of reliable, English-language sources" is a view you have. You want to go counting English print sources to duplicate Low-MOS sources so as to make en.wikipedia take the look of the Brisbane Courier Mail, for example. And you're right, and all Wikipedia editors and all the Wikipedia article corpus is wrong, correct? In ictu oculi (talk) 07:34, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
My understanding of the sense of WP:UE is that it's supposed to be about differences of spelling or differences of naming rather than about differences of keeping or omitting the proper accents on characters. So we can use Austria instead of Österreich or Nuremberg instead of Nürnberg but we would never use *Osterreich or *Nurnberg. Some people really do have different names, or different variations of the spelling or ordering of their names, that they use in English-language sources, compared to the name they would have used in their original language; our article is titled Paul Erdős, not Erdős Pál, for instance. But when the difference really amounts to "we're too illiterate or technology-challenged to get the accents right", we should take the effort to get the accents right, even if a majority of older English-language sources really were too illiterate or technology-challenged to get the accents right. I'm not sure whether it might make sense to somehow clarify this in the linked guidelines. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:52, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

I can hardly believe this, but @Facu-el Millo: after you cited WP:PROPERNAME at 03:44, 24 August 2020 the editor above went straight to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Capital_letters#Proper_names and rewrote it: 03:49, 24 August 2020‎ ItsPugle talk contribs‎ 59,004 bytes -2‎ →‎Diacritics: clarifying what "well-established" means. I've reverted it but the editor keeps challenging to take him to ANI, so if that happens this is a diff that should be noted. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:54, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

@In ictu oculi: The only change I made was clarifying the meaning of "well-established". That's literally it. To be more specific, I changed "where there is a well-established English spelling that replaces them with English standard letters" to where the majority of reliable, English-language sources replace them with anglicized equivelants [sic] as per my discussion with Facu-el Millo. And I'm not "challenging" you to take me to the ANI, I'm calling on you to stop claiming misbehaviour then not doing anything as it comes across as you just trying to smear my character. I'm sure I've also mentioned this before, but "the editor above" has a name, and it's common courtesy and easier to write {{u|ItsPugle}}. ItsPugle (please use {{reply|ItsPugle}}) 08:11, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

That's not a clarification, that's a change from the way people have been repeatedly telling you it works to the way you would like it to work. Don't do that. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:55, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Would you be able to explain why replacing a phrase with its meaning isn't a clarification? I genuinely don't understand how it wasn't and just want to make sure I haven't missed anything. ItsPugle (please use {{reply|ItsPugle}}) 22:49, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

If you still don't understand that being well-established as a variant English spelling has a very different meaning from taking a numerical count of sources (especially in situations where those sources didn't use a variant spelling, they merely dropped the accents for technical reasons) then I think WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT may be coming into play. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:18, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

In practice, what happens is that if reliable sources indicate that the diacritic belongs there (even if they are not a majority of sources), then WP uses the diacritic. WP:ABOUTSELF overrides this. E.g., many US celebs with Spanish names that usually have acute accents in them (Rodríguez, Guzmán, etc.) eschew them in their professional names. Jingoistic organizations that are reliable for some things (lazy news publishers, lazy sports leagues, etc.) that just can't be bothered to spell the name correctly, do not override ABOUTSELF; if the subject uses the diacritic in their own material (official webpage, Twitter, etc.), then WP will also. For geographic names, the principle that a long-standing English-language name for the place should be used can override locals' use of a diacritic, but this is for places like Munich/München, not for, say, São Paulo or other places that have not had diacritic-free names in English for many centuries. In practice, then, it's not likely to apply except to Old World locations within the ambit of direct European influence. Seeming exceptions generally have other explanations. E.g. Quebec is not spelled Québec on WP because it is not spelled that way in English by the Canadian government [21] or press [22], for the most part (nor is it usually pronounced even in an approximation of the French way in English). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:00, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Heck help us, if a push towards using (example) Japanese & Chinese letters on english language Wikipedia begins. GoodDay (talk) 00:08, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Huh? This seems to be a strange non sequitur. This discussion has nothing to do with entirely different writing systems. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:37, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

@ItsPugle: Indeed it's frustrating how diacritics have taken over english language Wikipedia. But what can you do, when a majority of editors want them inserted in article content & article titles. Heck, for these last few years, an individual has been mass creating 'french' based articles & immediately moving them to diacritics-style titles. So again, what can you do about it. PS - If enough editors want red to spell b-l-u-e? then that's how it will be spelt. GoodDay (talk) 00:03, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

The notion that English doesn't have and use diacritics is a silly myth [23]. If you want to rid English of diacritics, you're going to have to lobby Merriam-Webster and the other dictionary publishers to excise them first. WP doesn't determine English, we follow it. You might also want to see what happens when editors engage in anti-diacritics "lobbying" efforts on Wikipedia [24]. The community is tired of it. At any rate, I don't think we should entertain style arguments from someone who writes "english" and "french", who doesn't use hyphens and commas properly, and who replaces the word "and" with "&". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:54, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

No, if one wants to rid English Wikipedia of diacritics or at least cut down on the usage, one needs to convince a huge majority of editors. These things are decided by the community, which is why we have diacritics across the project. GoodDay (talk) 14:55, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

You seem to be defeating your own argument. No matter how many times the idea of removing the diacritics from en.WP comes up, it never gains traction. It's become another of those "drop the stick" matters. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:41, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, it will never gain traction, on this project. GoodDay (talk) 23:04, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

"it's common courtesy and easier to write ItsPugle]". I've never seen that before, and I am obsequiously courteous. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 04:40, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Singular/plural possessive

For a magazine like Sojourners, is the possessive singular, or plural? I.e. "on Sojourners's website" or "on Sojourners' website"? Dicklyon (talk) 03:50, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

I guess I would say Soujourners's, as ugly as it looks. The website doesn't belong to multiple Sojourners, but to the singular Sojourners magazine. --Trovatore (talk) 17:33, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

I would sidestep the whole issue by writing "the Sojourners website". I think that would be cleaner anyway - regardless of plural possessive issues, I would write "the Rolling Stone website", not "Rolling Stone's website". Popcornfud (talk) 17:38, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Good idea. Did that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:23, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Removal of "UK" from location field in infoboxes

Is there a policy regarding the UK not being necessary in location field for companies, organisations etc. and that the constituent nation i.e. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is sufficient?

For example I changed the location on Deltic Group from:

| location = [[Milton Keynes]], UK to |location = [[Milton Keynes]], England, UK Edit link: [25]

Subsequently user User:IceWelder removed the UK from the location from their edit:

| location = [[Milton Keynes]], England, UK to |location = [[Milton Keynes]], England Edit link: [26]

There a few other articles where this has happened: Rockstar North, Denki. Rather than get into an edit war I instigated a discussion about it and we couldn't come to an agreement on this point. I suggested it might be best to get advice/help from the Administator noticeboards. Discussion link: [27]

Conversely, the user User:Beagel has insisted that United Kingdom be added in full for the Vattenfall UK article in their edit summaries: [28] and [29]

|| location =London, England, United Kingdom

So its all a bit confusing!

I've edited quite a number of articles in the format |location = Place, Nation, UK without any issues.

Some clarification on this would be most welcome. Angryskies (talk) 11:55, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Standard practice on articles related to association football players is for UK to be excluded from place of birth/death. Giant Snowman 11:59, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Angryskies, thanks for opening this thread. For the sake of discussion, I would like to reiterate my main point against the inclusion of "UK" in infoboxes. It has been, as far as I am aware, the status quo not to, because naming the constituent country already makes for an unambiguous location identifier, making listing the sovereign state above it unnecessary. Another example with the same status is:

[[Willemstad]], Curaçao
[[Willemstad]], Curaçao, Kingdom of the Netherlands
[[Amsterdam]], Netherlands
[[Amsterdam]], Netherlands, Kingdom of the Netherlands

Adding the United Kingdom or the Kingdom of the Netherlands as an additional identifier does not help the reader in any way.

Whatever the outcome of this discussion, it should be included somewhere in the MoS (in respect to both the UK and the K.o.t.Netherlands, as well as any other constituent country constellation) for future reference. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 12:09, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

This relates to a similar discussion I've had with EEng on countries in general within infoboxes. Perhaps a guideline for UK, or other constituent countries, in infoboxes shouldn't be made specifically as a result of this discussion. Might be better to hold off until we can make a single, clear and consistent guideline for countries in infoboxes. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:33, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Well, this discussion could be the springboard for doing that, but a single Procrustean approach won't be satisfactory. The US situation has its subtleties; the UK situation has its subtleties; Australia and Canada have their special considerations. So a comprehensive discussion of all of them is likely to end with slightly different rules for each. In recent years I've come around to believing that infoboxes should be a scrunch more at-a-glance than article text, so that (for example) an infobox should say Westport, Connecticut, US. E Eng 12:12, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

There is a general lack of consistency, at least relating to the UK. For now, it appears to come down to what editors in local articles wish to do. It is an area which needs clarification and a MOS guideline, though. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:36, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
I don't necessarily think we need a MOS policy, but omitting "UK" after England, Scotland, & Wales seems correct & usual. A better case can be made for including it for Northern Ireland. I think the Netherlands examples are different (also French overseas territories). I'm very clear "Netherlands, Kingdom of the Netherlands" should not be used - either one will do. But "Curaçao, Kingdom of the Netherlands" is necessary on en:wp - maybe not on nl:wp. Johnbod (talk) 12:38, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Johnbod, I think a worse case can be made for including it against Northern Ireland, if we're considering any constituent country of the UK. I would imagine that there's a very diverse range of opinions you'll get, especially from NI people, on including "UK" after "Northern Ireland". ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:01, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Maybe - but that's the case for pretty much anything to do with NI. But in terms of how likely readers from the rest of the world are to be confused, I think it can be justified. Obviously those in Ireland are already well aware. Johnbod (talk) 13:04, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Similar to what GiantSnowman indicates, there's a convention for individuals on some page clarifying demonyms which can probably be adapted. For specific locations, the UK should be kept in as it helps makes the infobox more immediately accessible to an international audience who may not be familiar with the situation, whereas removing it doesn't bring a benefit to the reader. CMD (talk) 13:19, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Note, there is also an issue as to whether it should be "UK" or "United Kingdom" - the two diffs at the top were changing from the first to the 2nd. Personally, I think a linked "UK" is enough. Johnbod (talk) 13:31, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
- I would think in the infobox specifically, UK should be sufficient if its needed, just as "U.S." should be sufficient for "United States", as to save space. --Masem (t) 13:36, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
  - Both U.S. and United States are used in infoboxes, I'm unsure if there's a standard. UK is probably sufficient in the format under discussion. CMD (talk) 13:40, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
    - There is - WP:NOTUSA. Giant Snowman 16:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
We only need 1 country specified in location fields, there is no ambiguity by removal of UK. It also makes it clearer and shorter. A much more problematic situation is the removal of county from the field so you end up with <place>, UK which is not very helpful. I think that <place>, <county>, <constituent country> is what should be specified as that makes clear where we are referring to without having to going through any links to determine the place. Removing the county would be like removing the state in US articles. Keith D (talk) 13:42, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree with IceWelder having location, country, sovereign state (like UK and K.o.t. Netherlands) is unnecessary and does not help readers. Stating that the location is based in England/Wales/Scotland already establishes where it is without needing "UK". Knowing that England/Wales/Scotland are in the UK is basic geography which we should not have to show readers in every infobox (if they do not know they can always look it up at their respective articles). The only possible exception would be Northern Ireland given that its status is variously described as a country, province or region. I would suggest adding a guideline on this to MoS. Regards Spy-cicle💥 ^Talk? 14:07, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
The most recent official denomination for NI is also "country", as far as I am aware, but it has the same status as Scotland and Wales nonetheless. Wales even used to be called a "principality" by the UK as recently as 2007.[30] We should treat all four constituent parts the same, IMO. IceWelder [✉] 14:18, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Legally they are all constituent countries. Northern Ireland has, historically, had more devolved power than Scotland. Currently, there are various differences still, though I wouldn't call it 'more' devolved. Both certainly have more local authority than Wales, though. But indeed, from a MOS standpoint, they should be treat the same. Though some readers may confuse Northern Ireland as being part of the Republic rather than the UK, similar confusion could be had for other constituents too (as to whether they're independent or not), for which the "if they do not know they can always look it up at their respective articles" advice applies. I can't imagine it would be proper for Northern Ireland to retain a different MOS guideline to the rest of the UK in this matter.
If we're being perfectly honest here, many readers don't really know how the UK is made up of constituent countries, or the difference between England and UK etc (many believe the two are interchangeable). So, I don't think we're adding or reducing any confusion by this guideline, for the purposes of the UK.
Editors should remember that we serve a worldwide audience, though, not just a Western one. This is the same issue with not suffixing "United States" (or U.S.) in infoboxes for some U.S. related articles. Many Americans can't even name all their states, never mind people across the world. The sovereign country should always be mentioned imo, an abbreviation may be acceptable for the US and UK. The same issue exists for UAE's emirates. Should UAE be omitted after Dubai? Maybe. How about after Umm Al Quwain?
My opinion: let's just be consistent. Where there is a strong, well-recognised devolved authority (constituent country, emirate, state, whatever) we include that as well as the name of the sovereign country. We're not really "wasting space", and it does clear up confusion. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:45, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
But the point is that there is no confusion. This is the English Wikipedia, not the Simple English Wikipedia. Nearly all educated people are aware that Wales is part of the United Kingdom, California is part of the United States, etc. We don't write for the lowest common denominator because Simple English Wikipedia was created for that purpose. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:58, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
I have no opinion on the topic of this section, but as a Brit who's lived in the US (Texas and Long Island) for over thirty years I am quite sure you're too optimistic about "nearly all educated people". (And that's a relatively easy question; ask for the difference between Great Britain and the British Isles and you'll really get blank stares.) I work in IT and would guess that most of the few dozen people I've had that conversation with over the years had degrees; less than half knew the relationship between, say, Scotland and England, or England and the UK. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:02, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

What Mike Christie said. The English Wikipedia targets a worldwide, general audience of literate people, not just "educated people". Even many "educated people" (assuming educated means passed high school, or has a degree) are unaware of the differences. The idea of constituent countries is foreign to many. Anecdotally, I've met many people across Europe with degrees who use England and UK interchangeably. They know Scotland exists, perhaps in their head they view it as a state, but they wouldn't really be able to say with confidence what the relationship is between each.

One doesn't study British history in most areas of the world. You can be totally literate and educated and not know this. Wikipedia isn't an academic journal, it's one of the largest sites on the internet and the featured result from Google on topics we discuss. Someone wants to learn about Beyoncé, Google gives them a convenient snippet of our lead plus a "Wikipedia" link. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 17:35, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
I agree. That someone who is sufficiently educated and fluent in the English language to read and contribute to the English language Wikipedia would necessarily know anything about UK geography and government is a faulty assumption. There are hundreds of millions of English speakers around the world with zero ties to the UK, and no need to ever deal with the place. The idea that all English speakers should know about Britain is, frankly, arrogant. We have no reason to make that demand and not add two bloody letters to the infobox. oknazevad (talk) 03:55, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

This just reads like WP:OR. You do not need to study British history to know that England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland are part of the United Kingdom. Moreover, think about what the parameter is being used for location. Most people know where England, Scotland, etc are located. We do not need to explain they are a part of the UK on every single infobox, that is what the country articles are for. If readers are still unsure of where they are located they can click on the link to the specific location e.g. Milton Keynes links to England and the United Kingdom or readers can use the search bar. Remember this is English Wikipedia not Simple English Wikipedia. Regards Spy-cicle💥 ^Talk? 16:23, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
The other relevant guidelines are MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE and MOS:INFOBOXGEO. These offer advice to keep information succinct and to use informal names, short forms or abbreviations where doing do would not lose any significant information. Infoboxes are, by their nature, short on space and if we don't need to write "UK", we should omit it; similarly there's no case for ever writing "United Kingdom" in an infobox or for writing "Kingdom of the Netherlands" when "Netherlands" serves the same purpose. --RexxS (talk) 17:30, 1 July 2020 (UTC)
Rexx, (maybe you know this, but) Kingdom of the Netherlands (political) and Netherlands (geographic and political) are not the same thing - from Kingdom of the Netherlands: "The four parts of the kingdom—the Netherlands, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten—are constituent countries (landen in Dutch) and participate on a basis of equality as partners in the Kingdom ...." I agree we never need to use both one after the other, but there are times when one is appropriate, and times when the other is. It's like "England, UK" etc, but even less likely to be well understood by many readers from the other side of the world. Johnbod (talk) 14:49, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Yes I knew, John, but the point of MOS:INFOBOXGEO is that it's okay to use informal names as long as we don't mislead, and that's especially pertinent in infoboxes. If there's a need to refer particularly to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, a piped link – [[Kingdom of the Netherlands|Netherlands]] would be perfectly reasonable (i.e. not an "easter egg"). --RexxS (talk) 15:04, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Personally, I think seeing just "Curaçao, Netherlands" is easter-eggy. Johnbod (talk) 15:40, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
Surely that would only be the case if someone was surprised that following the link in "Curaçao, Netherlands" took them to Kingdom of the Netherlands. I can't imagine anybody being surprised by that. --RexxS (talk) 16:58, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
It's not only about surprise per se. The principle is that information that should be in visible text should not be hidden in the choice of target for a piped link. (This is part of why piped links are generally bad; like goto statements there are reasons to use them, but only for very specific reasons.) I personally was not aware that there was a distinction between "Netherlands" and "Kingdom of the Netherlands" before reading this discussion, and I would indeed have been surprised for the link to take me somewhere other than Netherlands. In summary, in this case, "Kingdom of the Netherlands" should be spelled out in visible text, and not hidden behind a piped link. --Trovatore (talk) 17:37, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
(I looked at a little more of the context of this discussion and I want to clarify what I said. I don't mean that we necessarily need to mention the Netherlands at all, when including Curaçao in an infobox. Just saying Curaçao may well be sufficient, if the island's political status is not of great importance to the topic of the surrounding article. What I object to is the piped link [[Kingdom of the Netherlands|Netherlands]], which I think codes information into the choice of target of a piped link, something we should avoid. Either spell the information out in visible text, or leave it out.) --Trovatore (talk) 07:17, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

"'GOTO Considered Harmful' Considered Harmful". E Eng 18:13, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
- The "if we don't need to write" argument could apply to any level of location. If that was the simply applied criteria, we wouldn't need to include anything after "London" in relevant articles. CMD (talk) 06:14, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
  - @Chipmunkdavis: The "if we don't need to write" argument could apply to any level of location. Yes it could, and does. It all depends on what you think the audience is most likely to understand from the context. In the article England, the capital is given as London. That's fine, because the location of London in England can be assumed by most readers. In other contexts, it may be less obvious and we might write "London, England". I don't think anybody has yet found a context where "London, England, UK" would be needed. The point remains that we keep the location as short as possible in infoboxes, consistent with unambiguously supplying key information. --RexxS (talk) 12:38, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
    - I don't think the England infobox relates much either way to infoboxes locating very specific buildings/locations. In terms of conciseness, "London, UK" is even shorter and as unambiguous. "London" alone again more so. CMD (talk) 12:46, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
      London's probably not the best example because it's a special case. Why not stick with Milton Keynes? E Eng 12:51, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
      London is a fine example of the principle of "just enough and no more" in infoboxes. New York would have similar considerations. --RexxS (talk) 15:04, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
      But just "New York" is ambiguous, as it can also refer to the state. There's a reason the article on the city is at New York City. oknazevad (talk) 15:48, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
      
      RexxS, I personally agree, but a concern I raised with EEng on his talk was that I'm biased from a Western viewpoint, and we have an international audience of readers. "London, England, UK", "New York City, New York, US", and "Dubai, Dubai, UAE" look pretty silly. I think the state/constituent country/etc should be omitted where omitting would have no loss of meaning. But I think the country should still be kept strictly in abbreviated form (if a well known abbreviation exists), so "London, UK", "New York City, US" and "Dubai, UAE" (3rd is slightly confusing, as it's unclear if it refers to city or emirate, but meh). There are other cities a reader should be reasonably familiar of country, like Shanghai, but I would still bet many Western readers don't know it's in China, so I'd find "Shanghai, China" appropriate. We can't have one standard for popular Western cities and another for Asian ones. Adding 2 letters isn't wasting space, doesn't look silly imo, and it's consistent and most informative. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:07, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
      @Oknazevad: I know "New York" is ambiguous, and that's why I wrote [[New York City|New York]], which doesn't refer to the state.
      
      @ProcrastinatingReader: But we can use "London" and "Shanghai, China" as part of the same standard if that standard is "the shortest that readers will recognise". We think that most readers would know that London is in England, but the same wouldn't apply to Shanghai. This is still the English Wikipedia. As for writing "London, UK", it looks very strange, imho. The country that NYC belongs to is the US, but the country that London belongs to is England. We would similarly write "Glasgow, Scotland" and "Belfast, NI".
      It is indeed the English Wikipedia. English as in the language, spoken by many around the world, and our readership isn't exclusively western. I'm strongly opposed to any exceptions Western countries get to inflate some egos and act like everyone in the world should know where their cities are. It's two letters, just suffix "UK" and keep it consistent. There's no good reason to omit. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:04, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
      
      The special case was the point as I was discussing the concision argument. For Milton Keynes, "Milton Keynes, UK" would probably be the shortest well-recognised format. CMD (talk) 16:19, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
      My point was that the piping renders the link ambiguous. There's nothing incorrect or uncommon with using "New York City" unpiped.
      
      As for the use of "London, UK" vs "London, England", the former is analogous to using "New York City, US", while the latter is analogous to "New York City, New York". The idea that England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland are comparable to the overarching sovereign state and not provinces/states/other subdivisions in other countries is the issue. It's an assumption that all readers are familiar with the structure of the UK as a country (and by all objective definitions of the word it is a country, even if it's subdivisions are also known as countries for historical reasons). I don't think we can make that assumption for a worldwide audience where there's hundreds of millions of native speakers and those who have learned the language because of its status as the main international Lingua Franca of the day with zero connection to the UK. Indeed, I always find that assumption outright off-putting. oknazevad (talk) 17:34, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
      I disagree that piping renders a link ambiguous. Anyone uncertain about the meaning of a term only has to follow the link to have that uncertainty removed. All disambiguation works like that.
      
      "London, UK" simply is not analogous to "New York City, US" because the country that London belongs to is England, not the UK. A football player born in NYC can play for the USA Soccer team; a player born in London may play for the England football team, but not the UK football team because it doesn't exist. There are no "provinces/states/other subdivisions" in other countries that are comparable to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, for historical reasons. I don't accept that English has "zero connection with the UK", or with England, for that matter. The cultural background, history, legal system, monarchy and institutions belonging to the home countries has had a profound impact on the language, at least as great as that of any other English-speaking country, and it's frankly ridiculous to think that anyone learns English without becoming aware of that impact. --RexxS (talk) 21:45, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
      Links don't "remove ambiguity" because you must never ever ever assume someone is going to follow a link. Piped links for disambiguation are OK only if it's obvious where the link is going. --Trovatore (talk) 00:15, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
      
      RexxS, just so I'm not misinterpreting you here, are you saying it's ridiculous that people learn English and don't learn about the cultural background, history, legal system, monarchy and institutions of the United Kingdom? And if so, and assuming it is ridiculous, does that mean we should expect our readership to know all of these things, and to force that down their throat we should omit the UK? Do we learn about the same of China, Germany, Switzerland, Hong Kong, India, etc.? And, as you will know from teaching in schools, many UK students also don't know any of these things. The concept of 'constituent country' and the legal background of this alone is foreign, beyond elementary understanding, to the majority of people under the age of 25, never mind all the other stuff you mentioned. Also, comparison to football teams is a bit shocking, because football teams aren't governed by any international treaty standard but instead by an organisation which creates identities mostly based on patriotism. UK is the sovereign country. Infoboxes should refer to the sovereign country, not any smaller division, for 'notable cities' where subdivisions (like state, emirate, constituent country, etc) should be omitted. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:10, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
      
      There are plenty of people within England itself who don't understand all this historical interplay and impact. Plenty of people learn English without learning much at all about the UK. Probably most people. CMD (talk) 01:57, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
      Sure, I've taught thousands of kids and every one of them knew that London is in England, NYC is in the USA, Paris is in France, and so on. Are the kids I taught in the deprived areas of England somehow smarter than those in the USA, in India, in Australia? I don't think so. I have a Belgian friend married to a Swedish woman, whose common language is English and their tri-lingual four-year old lad knows I come from England when I come to visit. Simple geography isn't rocket science. Why do you think we have MOS:OVERLINK? We don't link places like "Berlin; New York City, or just New York if the city context is already clear; London, if the context rules out London, Ontario; Southeast Asia" because we assume that our readers have at least a passing familiarity with those places, and don't need to read their article to find out where they are. We have the Simple Wikipedia that's aimed at readers who need a simplified version of Wikipedia; there's no need to dumb down this version to solve a problem that doesn't exist. --RexxS (talk) 09:13, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
      Knowing London is in the UK is not the same as knowing "the cultural background, history, legal system, monarchy and institutions belonging to the home countries". Even if it was, no, kids in England are probably not smarter than those elsewhere, but yes, they will know things about England and the UK that the children in the other countries do not. Those children will in turn probably know more about New York, Mumbai, and Sydney, than students in England. I really don't see what intelligence, or English language comprehension, has to do with it at all. CMD (talk) 15:48, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
- And a what about an Olympian from London? There is no English Olympic team. Soccer is a special case, not general international definition of the term "country". oknazevad (talk) 22:48, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
  - The Olympian from London certainly couldn't be apart of the UK Olympic team: they would have to join Team GB. How about England cricket team - UK cricket team; English rugby team - UK rugby team; England Hockey team - UK hockey team; and so on. Are they all "special cases", not representing the participant's country? --RexxS (talk) 23:18, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
The special pleading about who knows what is parochial, and just depends on who is speaking. Whatever we decide to do about pinpointing Accra, Goa, or Guangzhou, we should do with every other city including in the UK. The kid reading in Mumbai about Manchester, should get directly comparable info as the kid reading in Manchester about Mumbai. (Not to mention, the kid in Birmingham, and the kid in Birmingham)-- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:14, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
My point exactly. The English language may have its roots in England, and that may have shaped the language, but the language is spoken by hundreds of millions of people that have zero ties to the country. It's those people we have to serve as well. The mentality that speaking English means one should automatically know the geography of the country is rooted in the empire mindset. The English language no longer belongs to Britain, but to the world. oknazevad (talk) 22:48, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
I have no ties to France, but I can read the French Wikipedia, and I know the geography of France well enough to know that Paris is in France, without being told. The kid in Mumbai reading about London is pretty unlikely not to know that it's located in England. --RexxS (talk) 23:18, 2 July 2020 (UTC)
And if they are not in Mumbai but in Ontario? (Also, since Wikipedia is not about you, there is no point in you talking about yourself.) Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:41, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Why not "..., England, UK, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way? Who needs both "England" and "UK"? Keep it short. Tony (talk) 05:47, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Just to be clear: We’re (or, at least, I’m) not arguing for England and UK, but simply UK. The name or common abbreviation of the sovereign state should always be used.
Tony1, You are Nigel Molesworth and I claim my five pounds. Guy (help!) 12:17, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Short? That leads to either, just, UK, or just, Eng., even if one truly but oddly thinks, England, UK, is terribly long. Besides which, whether England and UK need each other is a matter of deep politics or civil war. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:47, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I can assure you that most everyone in Canada knows than London is in England. London, Ontario, is almost universally referred to as London, Ontario, unless you're within the city boundaries, and even then qualification is common. pburka (talk) 20:27, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Adding the individual countries of the Union is completely pointless. There is only one Milton Keynes in the UK, we do not need to clarify that it's in England, though I can see why Scottish editors would want to be cleare that it's nothing to do with them. Guy (help!) 12:12, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
- Arguably there's two, a town and a borough. CMD (talk) 15:52, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
Keep it simple, the UK is the sovereign country, we don't need to bother with whether a place is also in E, NI, S or W. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:38, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
- Keeping it simple would be procrustean (word of the day, thanks Eeng). England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is sufficient. Nobody says "I'm from the UK". They compete in the Olympics as Britain. Other major international sports like rugby and football are represented by England, Wales, etc. --Cornellier (talk) 23:47, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
Of course, this will all unravel when Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the union. Tony (talk) 08:03, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
comment I didn't think this topic would snowball into the discussion that it has! I don't find myself any clearer as to whether or not removal of the sovereign state of the UK from the location field in the infobox is valid or not. I just edited the Heathrow Airport article adding England and had it reverted by another user stating in their edit summary I think having it as London, UK (as the sovereign state rather than London, England is more suitable here. by User:OcarinaOfTime [31]
Angryskies thanks for the ping - I will of course go with consensus on this issue once this emerges but my view is that for a major piece of national transport infrastructure like Heathrow, it's more relevant to the whole UK, not just England. OcarinaOfTime (talk) 11:56, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
Infoboxes should contain one of suburb or city, and country, e.g. Hounslow, England or London, England. No need for suburb and city, country / state or crown dependency. Jeraldshield (talk) 05:45, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
It does depend on circumstances, and editors should give up on the idea of trying to impose consistency over this - but there are never any circumstances in which "England, UK" is the way to go. One or the other... depending. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:52, 10 July 2020 (UTC)
The question I asked, is should it be removed, if it was already in the article or if added, it should be removed. There is no policy so this is why it is confusing. Jeraldshield has said there is no consensus for having UK in the location box, and has removed UK from the FirstGroup article, despite it being in place for over a year and is accusing me of edit warring. So it is an issue that some consensus should at least be made to avoid edit wars. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Angryskies (talk • contribs) 12:46, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
Since none of these is incorrect – Milton Keynes, England / Milton Keynes, UK / Milton Keynes, England, UK – anyone changing one to the other is simply out to cause trouble. Often for political reasons. Anyone who does it a lot, and there are editors in this discussion who do it a lot, should be blocked. Trying to impose consistency is without consensus, futile, unnecessary and almost certainly due to some ulterior motive. Nobody is that anal as to find it a problem unless they have a particular personal beef. Bretonbanquet (talk) 12:58, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
Well, a very narrow topic-ban would be more appropriate than a block, and either result would need a well-diffed showing of doing this robotically without regard to disruptive fallout, or doing it in a targeted, politicized manner guaranteed to cause disruptive fallout. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:24, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Always found it frustration, how the United Kingdom seemingly gets special treatment in this area. Very few would complain about "Portland, United States" or "Portland, Oregon, United States"; "Winnipeg, Canada" or "Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada". BUT, "Liverpool, United Kingdom" or "Liverpool, England, UK"? oh my goodness. GoodDay (talk) 15:51, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

It’s odd that you should say that, because I see the US getting treated differently. For the rest of the world it’s usually ‘place, country’ whereas for the US it is often ‘place, state, country’. ‘Place, country’ should be sufficient; most of these references are blue-linked so anyone either interested or ignorant is only one click away from the full info, anyhow. One thing to be aware of is that there is a group of IP editors systematically changing UK/Britain to English/Welsh/Scottish - particularly noticeable on biographical pages - and my unsubstantiated guess is that this is being driven by the Scottish independence campaign and a wish to establish England/Scotland as separate entities ahead of time. I don’t know whether this has been raised elsewhere in talk but my view would be that WP sticks with official nationality (whilst doubtless continuing the special treatment for the US, it obviously being critical that readers realise that Badiddlyboing is in Odawidaho rather than just the USA). — Preceding unsigned comment added by MapReader (talk • contribs) 17:12, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

"Portland, United States", "Vancouver, Canada", "Kiev, ~~Russia~~, Ukraine", "Sydney, Australia", may get some opposition. But nothing compared to the opposition in the British bios. GoodDay (talk) 17:27, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

(um... Kiev isn’t in Russia. It is the capital of Ukraine. Which makes me think we can not simply assume people know basic geography). Blueboar (talk) 20:30, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Dang, sometimes we do get Russia & USSR confused :) GoodDay (talk) 20:33, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

The US is treated specially (by always specifying City, State except in the cases of a handful of cases such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco ...) because the US has the unusual condition of place names being routinely repeated in many or even most states. So Portland, United States would be absurd and meaningless -- see Portland#United_States. Not that I'm an expert, but I'm not aware of any other country where this phenomenon is found so extensively, probably because of (a) the country's rapid development over such a wide area and (b) the fact that, during most of that development, the apparatus of public administration was very decidedly concentrated at the state level, not the national. E Eng 19:59, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

That’s a very US-centric comment, Mr Eng! It’s not unusual, at all; the UK has tons of repeated village names (try looking up Whitchurch). Indeed the link to Sandy Balls below, which I had never heard of, throws up a second Godshill to add to the one I know. The difference, if there is one, is that few of the UK’s repeated place names are settlements of any size, and where they are, they are often differentiated along the lines of Kingston-upon-Hull (routinely called just Hull) and Kingston-upon-Thames, similarly for two of our Newcastles, etc. MapReader (talk) 05:22, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, then there really isn't a problem of repeated names in the UK. But such forms aren't used in the US. E Eng 03:36, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

As I understand it, there's little resistance to having United States or US included, though. For example: Very few would object to "New Orleans, Louisiana, US", but many would object to "Edinburgh, Scotland, UK". GoodDay (talk) 20:03, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Well speaking as an American I think both the US and the UK should be included (speaking now only of infoboxes). See my post a little bit down from here. E Eng 22:32, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

This issue has come up again today in edits to the article of a fairly obscure British singer, here. I've raised the issue on the talk page of the editor concerned, here, but don't seem to be making much progress. It's tiresome and frustrating. Can we please agree, in guidance, that in infoboxes and introductory sentences, it is only necessary to include either "England" or "UK" for placenames, and not both. It may simply be a WP:BRITENG issue, but in British articles one or the other, not both, should apply. Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:38, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
We should be using UK only, in that case. But I'm a realist about this topic & have a darn good idea of how using UK only, will be received. GoodDay (talk) 18:51, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

My view is that, as the sovereign state, "UK" is essential (unless the time in question was before the UK was formed) in the international context of this encyclopaedia. England, Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales are redundant, but could be used alongside "UK" if the context warrants it, and there is a consensus to include it. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:11, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
The specific issue I am dealing with, is whether an infobox should state a birthplace as "Bermondsey, London, England, UK". I say it should not - it should be one or the other. I actually don't mind too much if it's England or UK - but not both. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:23, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Ghmyrtle, I'd prefer it with UK and not England, but - if 'England' is important for some other reason - England, UK. But never just England. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:38, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Anecdotal, but I just saw a video on YouTube where an expat Englishman (who has lived in the US for about five years) tried to put all the state names on a map of the US... I was not surprised that he could not place them correctly, but what DID surprise me was that he said that he had never heard of a state named “Rhode Island” before. This taught me that we can not assume people know things about the world that we take for granted. We can not assume that people know the constituent parts of the US, the UK, or any other nation. There are likely to be people who DON’T know that England is part of the UK. Our job is to educate them. Blueboar (talk) 20:30, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Always include "United Kingdom" or "UK" The United Kingdom is not special: it's [city], [administrative division] (if those are used), [state]. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:44, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
By state you mean sovereign state? E Eng 22:32, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Remember that this discussion is specifically about infoboxes. For article text blindly giving complete qualification (Portland, Oregon, United State) can often be awkward, so we have various (imperfect and controversial) rules for that. And for a long time I figured that infoboxes should follow those same rules. But I've come to realize (partly though discussion with ProcrastinatingReader) that infoboxes should give even the ill-informed reader information he can grasp at a glance, and that means erring a bit on the side of more rather than less. Therefore, even though guidelines call for article text to say Portland, Oregon, the infobox should say, Portland, Oregon, US or (yes) Dundee, Scotland, UK. A comma, a space, and two extra letters will help some small % of readers. E Eng 22:32, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
Past experience with this topic has made me quite skeptic, where the United Kingdom is concerned. "Cardiff, Wales, UK" or "Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK", would likely raised some hackles. If you & others can overcome the opposition? yas are a better man, then I. GoodDay (talk) 22:44, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

and two extra letters will help some small % of readers that may be a dangerous assumption. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:09, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, what's the decision? GoodDay (talk) 18:23, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
Yes, it would be nice if all this discussion got us something useful. E Eng 03:37, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

English English

Hi,

I generally stay away from MOS subjects but this seems like the place to bring up a recent discovery of an attempt to tag articles that use "English English". I looked among the wide varieties of English categories and didn't see a type of the English language called "English English". Right now there are two templates & also two empty categories I've tagged as CSD C1.

If this is a recognized variety of English, sorry for initiating this thread. My concern with this template is that editors would start tagging a lot of articles for a form of English which is already covered by British or Commonwealth English. Because I'm limited to editing on my phone, I can't copy over links but my contributions contain the 2 English English categories I tagged which include links to the templates. Thanks. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:29, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

The correct template should be English english English english english english English english. pburka (talk) 02:47, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi Liz. An interesting, but involved point. The linguistic composition of the UK is a bit more complex than people realise, and lumping all varieties of the English into one category can cause offence. The biggest problem is that in Scotland there are two Anglic languages: Scots and Scottish. The former is a distinct language with its own dialects, but the latter is a dialect of English. However Scottish English probably differs far more from Standard English than American English does. The problem therefore is if American English is spoken in America, Scottish English in Scotland, Australian English in Australia and Canadian English in Canada, what is spoken in England! Having said that, and speaking as someone with mixed Scottish and Yorkshire (and we have our own variety of English) ancestry, I don't think that WP categories need to descend to this level of detail. Preferred terms would be "Standard English" (ie standardised, as in scholastic) or SBE (Southern British English), but we are where we are. In summary; "English English" would seem to be an accurate term but one better rendered as SBE, however in the interests of harmony it should be eliminated as a category and the inaccurate but established "British English" retained. Just my 2d worth! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 06:34, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

British English will do for now. When the Scots and Northern Irish leave the union, only England and Wales will be left. Then we'll need to rethink the term. Possibly "England English", to avoid the repetition. Tony (talk) 12:18, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Do you have reference for "Scottish English probably differs far more from Standard English than American English does"? It seems highly unlikely to me, and of course the spellings are all-UK. British English is the correct term, & is likely to remain so. With media today, there are considerable pressures for convergence rather than divergence. I started visiting Tyneside in the last few years, never having been before, & was disappointed to find that hardly anyone young speaks proper Geordie any more, more a sort of generic Northern. Johnbod (talk) 12:35, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

No references, just observation. As someone who grew up in the North of England (Sheffield, Middlesbrough, Whitley Bay with a brief period "down south" in the Black Country), I'm well used to Borders. However Glaswegian may need subtitles! Consider phrases like "the bairns are greetin" and it makes the propensity of Americans to drive down the pavement quite simple. :-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 13:57, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

You're talking about informal spoken dialect, of no relevance to a written encyclopaedia. If "Scottish English" has any presence as a written language, it is in minor differences in vocabulary, stuff like "outwith", "policies" and so on. Johnbod (talk) 14:27, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

(1) I was just trying to help Liz understand why someone might want to use "English English". (2) Did you notice "in the interests of harmony it should be eliminated as a category"? (3) Have you read Scottish English which talks about the wriiten language as well? (4) SWMBO is waiting for me to take her out so I'm offline for a while! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 14:43, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Definite article at WP:SHIPS

Good morning,

I was hoping some of you people over here at the MOS could help us end one of the ongoing issues at WP:SHIPS about grammar and the use of definite articles before ship names over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ships#perpetual issue: ncships and the definite article. I'm not trying to forum shop, but this place is where all the very knowledgeable grammar people end up, so if any of you guys have anything that might help us, that would be great. Llammakey (talk) 13:08, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm on strike until you guys get over that "she" nonsense. E Eng 01:45, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Center vs. left justification for table text

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Tables § Lacking guidance on left vs. center justification. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:29, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

That

I have a question about something that's bothering me, and I know I can count on people here to care about little details. Consider these two slight variations:

"Additionally, remember that the shortcut is not the policy."
"Additionally, remember the shortcut is not the policy."

If the goal is to minimize accidental misreadings ("Remember the shortcuts – okay, I can do that..."), would it be best to include the word that? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:36, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

It sort of depends. This is I believe a content clause (see there for an unsourced crapshoot). In this case, I don't think (that) it's automatically wrong to omit "that", but it certainly feels much more natural to include it. To omit it would make me want to add another pause: Additionally, remember: the shortcut is not the policy. Just my two cents; others might feel differently. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:54, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

My take would be that the first is formally correct, and would be the expected format in written English. The second is itself a shortcut that most people would understand, and is likely to be the most common format used in verbal English. Since WP is both written and, as an encyclopaedia read across the world and hence demands a degree of formality, I would always opt for the first as best practice in articles. MapReader (talk) 02:05, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

"MOS:QUESTION" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect MOS:QUESTION. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 September 28#MOS:QUESTION until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 13:03, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Academic "publishing" versus other meanings of the English word

In academic publishing, to say that a work (other than an entire book or a chapter of a book) has been "published" usually means that a manuscript has been submitted to an academic journal, has passed through the journal's scholarly peer review process which can differ in nature and quality depending on the journal, has gone through the journal's editorial process which can again vary in rigor and prestige, and has been printed in a paper issue of the journal or otherwise been officially recorded as part of an online issue.

The word "published" has a much broader meaning in English generally. In the legal copyright sense, for example, to simply make a work available online is to publish it.

But the sense in which the word is used can have a major impact at some points in a Wikipedia article because it is one major metric of the reliability of an academic or scholarly source, and thus misapplying it can falsely convey credibility a source does not in actuality possess.

So I'm thinking of at least adding it as a bullet in the list at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles § Careful language when doing an WP:INTEXT attribution to a source or other authority, with a corrollary warning linking to WP:SPS too I suppose, but as it's an issue in scientific and scholarly sourcing generally I'm wondering if there's a good place to add something about the source-related meaning of the term here in the general guideline?

For context, what has drawn my attention to this is that I've been editing the article of Li-Meng Yan, a Chinese researcher who, although she has verifiably done virology research, appears to have a PhD in ophthalmology, and who has been saying through a Youtube channel and interviews with outlets like Fox News and the (WP:DEPRECATED) Daily Mail that SARS-CoV-2 is likely a biological weapon developed by the Chinese government. This month she uploaded a .pdf file to an online preprint archive.

The work in the .pdf file self-referentially says that due to universal worldwide censorship it cannot be peer-reviewed or published in any scientific journal, but Dr. Yan's advocates (and some other Wikipedia editors, accidentally it seems) have been writing here that she "published a paper" showing that SARS-CoV-2 was created in a lab. (The contents of the uploaded .pdf and Dr. Yan's other public scientific claims about SARS-CoV-2 have been harshly criticized by other scientists in reliable sources as well, as one might expect; see the article about her and its talk page for details.)

P.S. Or actually, am I thinking about this wrong and it's not a styling issue but something which should go in the "citing sources" guideline, maybe under WP:INTEXT? --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 19:15, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

This might better be discussed at WT:MEDMOS or WT:MEDRS, both of which have a fairly robust set of core editors. That said, WP:SOURCE already indicates the word publish as having the broader meaning. --Izno (talk) 19:27, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

WP:SOURCE uses the word publish, in a fairly broad sense, while discussing which sources are, or are not, reliable for various purposes. It is not about using the word "published" in an article. As User:Struthious_Bandersnatch indicates, in some contexts using the word "published" in an article while describing a source that does not meet the academic standards of quality journals or quality book publishers would be misleading. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:45, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm now also noticing WP:PUBLISH, which points to the information page Wikipedia:Published and describes the meaning of "published" and "accessible" as used in the Wikipedia namespace in the context of sources, and WP:PUBLISHED, which points to a section of WP:RS named "Definition of published" which defines it for that guideline. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 20:48, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me that the paper has been published (i.e. made available to the public), but not in a reliable source (pre-print archives aren't subject to editorial oversight). This is little different than a paper that's been published in a predatory or vanity journal (although without the element of deceit): published, but unreliable. pburka (talk) 22:13, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

@Pburka: Sorry, I missed your reply earlier. Yes, something uploaded to a pre-print server has been made available to the public, but do you see what I'm saying that in academics and scholarship, to say that a person or work has been published has a more specific meaning than to simply make things available to the public? Take this journal article, for example:

Guraya SY, Norman RI, Khoshhal KI, Guraya SS, Forgione A. Publish or Perish mantra in the medical field: A systematic review of the reasons, consequences and remedies. Pak J Med Sci. 2016; 32(6): 1562-1567.

When it says "to publish" it's not talking about uploading .pdfs to pre-print servers. Amazingly, the Wikipedia Library's big bundle of access to different Oxford University Press properties does not include a subscription to the OED but I'll bet its entry on the verb "publish" makes the distinction. --▸₷truthious Ⓑandersnatch◂ 06:48, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

...
2.
a. transitive. To make public or generally known; to declare or report openly or publicly; to announce; (also) to propagate or disseminate (a creed or system). In later use sometimes passing into sense 3b. Also figurative.
...
3.
a. transitive. To prepare and issue copies of (a book, newspaper, piece of music, etc.) for distribution or sale to the public. Also: to prepare and issue the work of (an author). Occasionally intransitive in the progressive with passive meaning.^[1]
b. transitive. To make generally accessible or available for acceptance or use (a work of art, information, etc.); to present to or before the public; spec. to make public (news, research findings, etc.) through the medium of print or the internet.
c. intransitive. Of an author: to cause to have a book, paper, etc., published; to appear in print.
d. intransitive. Of a work, serial, or periodical (occasionally an author): to undergo the process of publication, to be published.
e. intransitive. to publish or perish: to publish scholarly work in order to avoid a loss of academic status, respect, or position. Also in imperative, used attributively.
...

References

^ Whatever that means.

E Eng 07:09, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Section headings for standard appendicies

I've always understood MOS:APPENDIX to mean that sections such as 'Further Reading' and 'External links' should have separate level 2 headers. 58.182.176.169 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) believes that these sections should be level 3 headers, subsections grouped under a 'References' level 2 header. A good example of their style is this historical revision. Is one of these two interpretations correct? Does the MOS support both styles? Fresh opinions would be appreciated, as discussion between myself and the IP on their talk page has gotten a bit heated. - MrOllie (talk) 16:35, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

They're separate level 2 sections. DrKay (talk) 16:40, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

When appendix sections are used, they should appear at the bottom of an article, with ==level 2 headings==,[9] followed by the various footers.

Now, I have sometimes seen level 3 headers when you have inline and general references (e.g. References H2, Citations H3, and Works cited H3), but the others don't really have good reason to be level 3 headers. --Izno (talk) 16:42, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

So there izno reason for the others to use level 3? E Eng 16:50, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Not that I can see. --Izno (talk) 16:51, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Notification about an RfC on Infobox Chinese at Democratic Progressive Party

There is an RfC here about whether Democratic Progressive Party should be one of the MOS:CHINA exceptions to including both Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese in the {{Infobox Chinese}}. The participation of interested editors is appreciated. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:10, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Sfn citation

Why is this difficult to use editor unfriendly citation format still being used? When users are expected to maintain existing style, but user friendly GUI can not make it go along, things like this become a roadblock to participation. Graywalls (talk) 18:09, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Pandora's box has just been opened. E Eng 18:23, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Graywalls What alternative format are you proposing that will do the job as well or better and is more editor friendly? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 19:43, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

@Pbsouthwood:, ummm the normal citation that is easily populated using cite-auto fill. Graywalls (talk) 19:46, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

So you want to force everybody to use your preferred reference format. How about no. We have WP:CITEVAR for a reason.Nigel Ish (talk) 20:23, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Graywalls: I assume by "normal citation" you mean the horrible technique of conflating references and citations, and then embedding them in the text so as to make the source nearly unreadable. How you could ever think that {{sfn|Graywalls|2020}} is more disruptive to editors than some horrendous interruption such as <ref>{{Cite web |url= http://rooseveltinstitute.org/special-relationship-between-great-britain-and-united-states-began-fdr/ |title=The "Special Relationship" between Great Britain and the United States Began with FDR |date=22 July 2010 |publisher= Roosevelt Institute |accessdate=24 January 2018 |quote=and the joint efforts of both powers to create a new post-war strategic and economic order through the drafting of the Atlantic Charter; the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; and the creation of the United Nations.}}</ref>? Data needs to be normalised not replicated for efficient maintenance. Try investing, maybe 5 minutes, and learn the easy way to do it. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:27, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

I have no idea what Graywall's preferred ref system is, but I will point out that several systems, other than sfn, avoid the problem to which you refer (big chunks of citation text stuck in the middle of article text) by simply using list-defined references. E Eng 03:11, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Graywalls, Does your preferred format provide a method to indicate different pages or locations in the text without repeating the full details of the source each time you cite it? · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 20:43, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

My preferred style is the kind you click at the end of where you want to foot note; push "cite" on the top bar, paste into "automatic" and let it do its thing.^[1] When I want to use it again, I click cite and if I want to re-use it, I push re-use.^[1] Again and again.^[1] The SFN thing would be fine... if it could be transcluded without complicated .js installation, keying in computer codes and all those difficult things. Graywalls (talk) 20:51, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

You're not answering the question. What do you do when you're using a book source and want different footnotes to refer to different pages within the book? —David Eppstein (talk) 20:57, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

I haven't so far had to use more than a few pages in sequence out of a single book doing Wiki stuff. If I was repeatedly using multiple pages throughout a single book, I'm not really sure how I'd do it. Is there a way to do it with the visual editor? I'm not aware of it myself. Graywalls (talk) 12:50, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Graywalls: I, on the other hand, have done so more times than I can count. {{sfn}} and its variants are immensely useful, I can't fathom why you're so worked up over it. White Whirlwind 04:30, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

This is what I often face when I run into Sfn formatted pages and greatly complicates it by preventing me from being able to pull up the referenes while editing and I have to go into less intuitive source mode or read mode. "References list List of general references This reference list is generated by a template, and for now can only be edited in source mode." and "Reference This reference is defined in a template or other generated block, and for now can only be edited in source mode." Graywalls (talk) 04:39, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Not only avoiding the question, but also not making much sense. What is this about "complicated .js installation", or "keying in computer codes"? It's just text, there's no need to go anywhere near Javascript, the templates do all the hard work for you. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:12, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

I was talking about having to install widget thing. I remember having to copy and paste something into My User Page to get Twinkle features. I was asking if I had to do something like that again. Graywalls (talk) 12:50, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

It really is simple:

In the citations section put in a standard {{cite}} or {{citation}} entry, for instance * {{Citation | last = Becker | first = M. Janet | year = 1930 | title = Rochester Bridge: 1387—1856 A History of its Early Years compiled from The Warden's Accounts}}
Whenever you need to reference a page or pages, then use {{sfn}}: {{sfn|Becker|1930|p=12}}^[2] and later {{sfn|Becker|1930|p=27}}^[3]. You can refer again to page 12^[2] or handle ranges^[4] with ease.
There is no point 3, the job is done. Let the server do the hard work!

– Oops, forgot the signature (thanks Chatul) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:54, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

The question contains an assertion contrary to fact. {{sfn}} is no harder to use than other citation templates. There are use cases that are awkward for any citation style.

I don't know how others justify {{sfn}}, but it's the only template that I know of that allows citing different named locations in a single source without duplicating the details of the citation, functionality that I consider important. My only complaint about {{sfn}} applies equally to {{cite}} and {{citation}}: it is awkward to deal with hierarchical location names, e.g., Chapter foo Section baz versus Chapter bar Section baz, especially when the names contain punctuation. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 11:46, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

That's not true. {{R}} does this very handily. E Eng 00:25, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Example reference..
^ ^a ^b Becker 1930, p. 12.
^ Becker 1930, p. 27.
^ Becker 1930, pp. 12–14.

Citations

Becker, M. Janet (1930), Rochester Bridge: 1387—1856 A History of its Early Years compiled from The Warden's Accounts

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Captions § Video timestamps

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Captions § Video timestamps. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:45, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

MOS:TENSE confusion

To be clear, I am (thus far) only an occasional editor, but this part of the Manual of Style doesn't make a ton of sense to me: "Generally, do not use past tense except for past events, subjects that are dead or no longer meaningfully exist, or periodicals and similar written material that are no longer being produced." Examples include: "The Beatles were an English rock band..." and "Jumbo Comics was an adventure anthology comic book..."

I changed the opening of an article about a defunct radio show to past tense: "The Campbell Playhouse (1938–1940) was a live CBS radio drama series..." This was swiftly reverted to "is", presumably because a radio show is not a "periodical and similar written material". So why is periodic written material treated differently than episodic audio or video material? For example, X "was" a comic book series that ended in 1940, but Y "is" a radio show that ended in 1940? One may conceivably still access copies or recordings of the comics or radio show, but neither are current productions. The only difference is that one was in the print medium while the other was in the broadcast audio medium.

I'm merely an occasional editor with a can of worms and a can opener, but this makes no sense to me. Can anyone help it make sense? Vernal Bogneris (talk) 22:53, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

I guess you missed the signs: Caution! Minefield! DO NOT ENTER! E Eng 00:23, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Vernalbogneris, the use of past tense for periodicals is recent, and the result of a lengthy RFC. I don't really grok our guidance on tense; to me it seems like there is some existential philosophy underlying the insistence on "is" for things that no longer "are" that I just don't grasp. Anyway, reading through that RfC might give you an idea of how different editors view the question. Schazjmd (talk) 23:09, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks folks! Think I better just put the can opener down and walk away. *tips hat* Vernal Bogneris (talk) 01:16, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

WP:Surname and MOS:GENDERID with regard to drag queen articles

At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject RuPaul's Drag Race#Moving forward (100 list), I mentioned the fact that drag queens are not simply their personas. So when someone states that they only identify as a female/a woman when in drag, then it can be WP:Undue and confusing to refer to them with feminine pronouns throughout their Wikipedia article, especially when it comes to their early life as separate from their career. It can leave readers thinking that the person identifies as transgender when they don't. I noted that I state this regardless of the fact that transgender is an umbrella term. In Sasha Velour's case, it's stated that "Steinberg is genderqueer and does not have any preferred pronouns when not in drag. Her drag persona, Sasha Velour, is referred to as 'she'." So when the article title is the drag queen name per WP:Common name, and the drag queen has stated what Velour has stated on pronouns, which surname or pronouns are best to use? At the moment, the Sasha Velour article has one section (the one concerning RuPaul's Drag Race) that refers to Velour by their stage name while the rest of the article refers to Velour by their birth name/legal name (Steinberg). I don't think we should mismatch pronouns or names.

Thoughts? Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 22:45, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I think it's confusing that we switch surnames unpredictably throughout the article. We should either use Velour consistently, or use Steinberg except when speaking about the persona/character. Regarding pronouns, according to Nylon (2019), Velour "uses "she/her" pronouns almost always," but Culturebot (2019) says "Sasha Velour prefer “she/her” pronouns during performance and uses “they/them” pronouns in their personal life." GQ (2019) confirms the preference for they/them. Given these sources, I think it's inappropriate of us to ever use "he/him" in the page, and probably simplest to stick to "they/them" unless we're specifically speaking about Velour's persona or character. pburka (talk) 23:37, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

This seems reasonable to me. If they have expressed an informal preference for they/them, but no formal preference, then we should go with their informal preference and use they/them when referring to Steinberg and she/her when referring to the character/performance of Velour. This also helps to make the distinction between the two and seems to be the least confusing option all round. --DanielRigal (talk) 01:37, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

I would say that unless the person has expressed a gender preference for themselves outside of their drag queen persona, that we should be very clear to people that may not be familiar with drag queen culture and make sure that we use their original name and standard (expected) gender up until or after the point where bring up the drag queen person comes into play, and when discussing the person as the drag queen, be very explicit this is a persona. For example, on Velour's article, the first main section seems right, then when talking about first showin on RuPaul's DR, I'd start it as Steinberg tried out for RuPaul's Drag Race's eighth season in his Sasha Velour identity but was not selected to participate. There are several other passages in that that should be attributed to Steinberg like At the end of 2017, Steinberg's artwork of German singer-actress Marlene Dietrich was used as a Google Doodle... This is not like a complete stage name (such as Cher or Kesha), but a distinct persona separate from other aspects of their life.

Obviously if they have expressed a gender pronoun for their non-stage personality, that should clearly be respected, but we should still be using that non-stage personality.

Most of these cases seem very distinct from cases like Cher or Kesha; in Cher or Kesha, it is hard to find a distinction on the stage presence and their real person, they are Cher or Kesha whether on stage or on the street. But most of these drag queens have drastically different personalities when performing compared to when you meet them in passing, so that's why I think it's important to stress the persona as separate from the real person. --Masem (t) 23:44, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

I generally agree with what others have said above. Private life name and pronouns when discussing the subject's private life, drag name and pronouns when discussing the subject's work in drag (and pronouns for both the persona and the individual should be sourced explicitly). This is the practice we follow at WikiProject RuPaul's Drag Race. The Sasha Velour article isn't a good example, unfortunately, as it's a low-quality article that falls short of many standards; IMO it needs a complete rewrite. Higher-quality biographies like India Ferrah and Chi Chi DeVayne are structured such that each section (excluding the lead) discusses only the drag persona or the private individual, so switching between the two does not occur under the same heading. As I mentioned to Flyer in the linked discussion, the other drag sections in Sasha Velour should be rewritten to use Velour/she. And the stuff about the Google Doodle, for example, should be moved to a different section that uses Steinberg, since it doesn't belong under the Drag Race heading anyway. Armadillo pteryx 06:22, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I think as long as it is clear you are giving the reader a big hand-waving flag "Okay, we are about to start talking now about the persona, not the actual person" and then keep it about the person for a whole section, you're okay there. (Sectioning itself is good, but transitioning at the start of that section is helpful). Frequently switching back and forth is not good, and if you have to do that for some reason, then you need to frame it likely on the person, not the persona. --Masem (t) 06:36, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

I think we underestimate the reader. There is no need to keep such clear lines between sections and when switching from one set of pronouns to the other. See for example the obituary in The New York Times for Chi Chi DeVayne. The article states the fact that Devayne is "Known offstage as Zavion Davenport, he was 34." For a single instance, it acknowledges this, and for the remainder of the article freely switches back and forth, as necessary. We should use "Davenport" when referring to the subject in his life out of drag, and "DeVayne" when referring to the persona and her performance. Did you notice I just switched pronouns in the middle of a sentence? When you know why, it makes perfect sense, and it is not so jarring. The lead section requires such switches if it is ever going to be a true summary of the contents of the article. We do not have to assume the reader is stupid or waste extra breath trying to explain the use of pronouns. A single acknowledgement of pronouns and names is enough. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 10:20, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

A reader being confused by Wikipedia switching back and forth, especially without warning (by noting the name and pronoun preferences in the lead), does not mean that the reader is stupid or that we are assuming that they are stupid. Such back and forth is unnecessary and is jarring for many or most. The vast majority of people are not as knowledgeable on pronoun discourse (transgender or otherwise) regarding gender identity as some would like them to be. Similar goes for drag queen culture. I see this often when patrolling, and not all (and maybe not most) of these people can simply be described as bigots who don't refer to people by their preferred pronouns or names.

Above, Pburka stated, "I think it's confusing that we switch surnames unpredictably throughout the article." This is what I addressed at the aforementioned WikiProject. If we are going to mismatch, which I don't prefer/don't think is best for readers, we should somehow make this clear to readers in the lead. ~~This~~ Mention of pronoun preference in the lead was done in the past for the Emma Sulkowicz article. Per sources that came after the singular they mentions and agreement among editors, that article now uses feminine pronouns for Sulkowicz. But, regardless, what was done for that article is an example of stating in the lead that so and so prefers to use so and so pronouns. We can state in the lead that so and so prefers so and so name or pronouns when in drag/not in drag. Because it can and does confuse readers, I'm not keen on using singular they throughout a biography article with regard to a person's gender identity. When we do that, we should always be clear in the lead (as was done in the Emma Sulkowicz case) that the person uses singular they pronouns. Also, consistently using the surname and no pronouns, as is currently done at the Ezra Miller article, can be just as problematic. There really is not a strong consensus at Talk:Ezra Miller against using masculine pronouns for Miller, but the article currently avoids using them (in part to help combat any back and forth). I've mentioned there and here that the Associated Press states, "They/them/their is acceptable in limited cases as a singular and-or gender-neutral pronoun, when alternative wording is overly awkward or clumsy. However, rewording usually is possible and always is preferable. [...] In stories about people who identify as neither male nor female or ask not to be referred to as he/she/him/her: Use the person's name in place of a pronoun, or otherwise reword the sentence, whenever possible. If they/them/their use is essential, explain in the text that the person prefers a gender-neutral pronoun. Be sure that the phrasing does not imply more than one person."

Armadillopteryx stated "Private life name and pronouns when discussing the subject's private life, drag name and pronouns when discussing the subject's work in drag (and pronouns for both the persona and the individual should be sourced explicitly)." But like I mentioned to Armadillopteryx, we don't do this for RuPaul, for example. I stated, "RuPaul says that people can refer to him by masculine or feminine pronouns. But sources generally refer to RuPaul as male/by masculine pronouns. So that is why Wikipedia should as well. And it currently does. Not to mention his tempestuous relationship with the LGBT community and people stating that he's not trans." Yes, "RuPaul" is his birth/legal name and he is simply known as RuPaul rather than by his full name, but there is no need to refer to RuPaul by feminine pronouns when speaking of his life in drag and then by masculine pronouns when speaking of his life out of drag. And I especially don't think we should be mismatching when the person hasn't stated a preference for mismatching. Also, I don't see that WP:Surname at all supports a mismatch approach to surnames. Why should drag queen articles be an exception, listing a name a person is barely known by throughout their article? And if it's truly private, including it is questionable. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 17:58, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

The difference between RuPaul and most other drag queens is that RuPaul does not have preferred pronouns in or out of drag and has stated this publicly, as you noted. This is why it is okay to use "he" throughout the RuPaul article. Most drag queens, however, have one set of preferred pronouns in drag and a different set out of drag—both of which should be sourced explicitly when possible. Drag pronouns are usually easier to source, as most RS refer to these subjects in the capacity of their drag personas (and with the corresponding pronouns). We certainly shouldn't contradict sources and use "he" or "they" to refer to a female drag persona. And as you stated earlier, using only drag pronouns throughout the article could confuse readers and lead them to think a subject is trans, so we should not do this, either. That would contravene MOS:GENDERID, which says we should take care to respect subjects' self-designation–i.e., we shouldn't use "she" when discussing the personal life of a subject who is male or non-binary out of drag. I also don't think drag subjects' legal names should be treated as privacy concerns the way that birth names are for trans subjects. Drag queens still use their other name out of drag.

I think that stating the subject's preferred pronouns—both in and out of drag—at the very start of the article is a good idea. We should then use the correct pronouns for the persona when discussing the persona and the correct pronouns for the person when discussing the person, as virtually everyone else has said. Note that this is different from using pronouns "unpredictably", as in the comment you quoted, since the usage is actually very simple and systematic. You may have noticed that that same comment ended with, "I think it's ... probably simplest to stick to 'they/them' unless we're specifically speaking about Velour's persona or character." There is also nothing "mismatched" about this approach, since each person/persona has exactly one set of pronouns that matches it. Mismatching is what would occur if we used out-of-drag pronouns for a drag persona (or vice versa). Armadillo pteryx 20:54, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I know the difference with RuPual. I do not agree with having it so that Wikipedia articles mismatch pronouns and/or surnames. It's not standard/doesn't adhere to any of our policies or guidelines, and drag queen articles should not be the exception. I do not think that a WikiProject's local consensus should conflict with any of our policies or guidelines. I don't think that MOS:GENDERID was meant to apply to how one identifies while in drag, and it certainly doesn't state so. Anyway, I stand by all of what I have stated on this topic. If mismatching is going to happen, then whatever can be done to address and alleviate the valid concerns on this matter is a good thing. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 01:06, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

The Janae Kroc article is a mismatch case involving a person who is not a drag queen. And I also don't feel that mismatching is the best approach in that case. But at least the mismatch factor is made clear in the lead. I've commented on this case on the article's talk page. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 01:16, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the MOS does not explicitly say anything at all about people who simultaneously live as one gender but work as another. The WikiProject's convention is built in compliance with the policies saying we should respect self-identification and should not contradict sources when describing subjects. I am not aware of any policy this practice contravenes, nor has anyone shown an MOS passage that would suggest as much. As I mentioned to you on the project page, we will soon open an RfC on this matter. Hopefully, that will clear up any conflicting interpretations of existing policy and may even result in explicit treatment of this case in the MOS.

As I also said earlier, I agree with you that it would be helpful for articles using two sets of pronouns to clarify them conspicuously. Armadillo pteryx 05:10, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Are you stating that mismatching with regard to drag queens aligns with MOS:GENDERID? If so, I did note that "I don't think that MOS:GENDERID was meant to apply to how one identifies while in drag, and it certainly doesn't state so." MOS:GENDERID is about one's gender identity. Gender identity is not about how one identifies in drag. And for cases like Janae Kroc, I don't think MOS:GENDERID means we should mismatch in an article. Of course, some will interpret MOS:GENDERID to mean that we should. After, all it does state, "This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise." I wonder how many would support interpreting MOS:GENDERID to mean that mismatching should be practiced in a case like Kroc's. Also, "can" and "should" are obviously two different things. Anyway, since MOS:GENDERID also doesn't advise against mismatching, we have cases like the Kroc one. I hope that your RfC will be well-advertised. Ideally, it should take place at WP:Village pump (policy). If it doesn't, that page should at least be alerted to the RfC. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 18:21, 13 September 2020 (UTC) Tweaked post. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 18:29, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

I do happen to think MOS:GENDERID applies also to the drag identity, but my argument does not rest on that part. Let's start with what we seem to agree on: MOS:GENDERID applies to the subject's gender identity out of drag.

Since MOS:GENDERID applies to the subject's self-identification in their personal life, this policy prevents us from referring to the out-of-drag subject by drag pronouns (when they differ, obviously; we're not talking about cases like RuPaul where the self-identified name and pronouns don't change). WP:V also prevents the use of drag pronouns for the out-of-drag subject, since when sources discuss individuals' private lives and use their legal names, they also use the out-of-drag pronouns (as in the NY Times and Entertainment Weekly articles I linked on the project page).
Most RS coverage of notable drag queens focuses on their careers and so refers to them by their drag names and drag pronouns. Thus, it contravenes WP:V to use out-of-drag pronouns to describe a drag persona. (In my view, though not yours, it also contravenes MOS:GENDERID.)
Using the drag name throughout the article, including in the Early life and Personal life sections, also violates MOS:GENDERID and WP:V, because most of these subjects do not identify as their drag name/drag gender in private life, and this is reflected in sourcing. Exceptions like RuPaul get treated just like any other subject with only one name.
Using the out-of-drag name throughout the article is a glaring violation of WP:V, since the drag name is the one under which most RS coverage exists and is the one that is notable.

The only way that mismatching can occur is if we mismatch drag pronouns to the out-of-drag subject (or vice versa). The way to avoid this (and to obey present policy) is to correctly match pronouns with both the persona and the person. The suggestion to use only one of the other pronoun throughout the article would always cause violations of either WP:V or MOS:GENDERID (and in most articles, it would end up violating both).

The RfC will be well advertised. We haven't decided exactly where it will be held yet, but the following pages will, at a minimum, be notified: WP:Village pump (policy), Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography, Wikipedia talk:Gender-neutral language, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject RuPaul's Drag Race. Armadillo pteryx 20:51, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

MOS:GENDERID is a guideline, not a policy. I do not fully agree with your interpretation of it, and I don't agree with your interpretation of WP:Verifiability on this matter. We'll see how the RfC goes. Hopefully, it generates enough traction. And the best way to ensure that is to have it at WP:Village pump (policy). Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 01:17, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Fair enough. Would you like me to notify you somehow when the RfC opens? I know you don't usually like to be pinged. Armadillo pteryx 02:10, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

It's more so that I don't like to be pinged to articles or other pages I'm clearly watching. As for this topic? I barely care anymore. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 01:46, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

The audience of the NYTimes is far difference from the audience of en.wiki, the former being a subset of the latter (generally, more educated, more assured to be native English speakers, and more aware of alternate culture). We have to consider, say, that child in Africa that is an ESL student that may have no idea about drag queen culture. We don't have to explain down to the level of what drag queens are (that's what the blue link is for) but we should not expect them to follow random switching-back-and-forth. This is a comparable aspect of why we write scientific articles one level down, this is writing "culture" level articles one level down. --Masem (t) 18:12, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I do not disagree with many of your points. I am only concerned with how we treat the lead. Without switching at least once in the lead, I do not know how the article Chi Chi DeVayne could ever achieve an FA-level or even a GA-level summary in the lead. It would make no sense for example to say "DeVayne was born in ..." or "DeVayne was diagnosed with scleroderma". AFAIK, Davenport is a cisgender male and DeVanye is a stage persona. Say for example that Davenport died of prostate cancer. If I read the sentence, "She died of prostate cancer", I would logically come to the conclusion that DeVayne was either transgender or non-binary and Davenport is a dead name.

It would also not make sense to use male pronouns through out the section titled Drag. When speaking about her drag career, sources consistently use female pronouns. Some switching is unavoidable when summarizing the career and non-career sections in the lead. Sure, we can minimize it and introduce it but, in the lead, it is nearly impossible to avoid a switch. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 01:46, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Drag is a performance. Just because a male gigs as a drag queen does not in and of itself make the person genderqueer or a trans woman. In Steinberg's case, he's stated that he has no preferred pronoun for himself when out of drag. Since he hasn't specifically said "I want to be referred to as she and her" -- then it's fine to refer to Steinberg and his persona as "he and him" until he changes his masculine name to a feminine name. (P.S. for the PC: an opinion is not a battlecry.) Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 08:36, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

While I agree with the gist of your argument, Steinberg's most recent preference (as of 2019) is to use "they/them" when not in drag and "she" in drag.[32] Steinberg's statement about using either "he" or "she" is from 2017.[33] Using "they" has the added benefit of not being confusing when intermixed with "she", since "they" is gender neutral. Kaldari (talk) 18:57, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Great example of how to write about subjects with complicated gender-identity history

This is one of the best examples I've come across "in the wild" in an everyday news source:

Edgers, Geoff (August 28, 2020). "This is pioneering rocker Cidny Bullens's ninth album. But his first as a man". Washington Post.

Contrary to some whiny predictions, there is nothing actually confusing about changing from one set of pronouns to another to address different periods in the subject's history – as long as you can write better than, say, the average seventh-grader. Craft clear sentences, use names a bit more frequently, and put the material in a sensible order that obviates confusion potential. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:34, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Colons and footnotes

Today my reading of two article sections was obscured, made more difficult that is, by footnotes that followed a colon. The footnotes made me read the colon as a period, which it wasn't, and even while the colon was obviously (which I saw later) meant to open a quote, I was confused for some long seconds. I think the footnotes should follow the quotes, not the colons, so I edited [34] and [35]. I am convinced I did the right thing there, but the corrected way of placing footnotes might be quite common, so I thought it might be worthwhile to add a few words on this at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Punctuation_and_footnotes. If someone has an idea how to, please do so. Or of course just discuss the subject here. Greeting, Eissink (talk) 22:06, 16 August 2020 (UTC).

References and colons

In the Punctuation and footnotes section, Eissink has added Ref tags do not follow a colon. I didn't see any discussion of that on the talk page, so I'm starting one.

When a list is introduced by an introduction ending with a colon, and the same reference supports all of the items in the list, it's common to put the single ref on the introduction rather than repeating it for each item. The new guidance doesn't account for that, and would result in a construction such as:

The X in the Y are⁴: instead of The X in the Y are:⁴

I don't think it looks better with the footnote preceding the colon. What do others think? edit to add Eissink and I were apparently typing at the same time, oops. Thanks, Izno, for making this a subsection! Schazjmd (talk) 22:10, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Schazjmd, you are totally right on the example of a list. I probably could have better started a discussion, but my edit was in good faith (yet I had not given it enough thought). I hope you agree with the examples I have given above. It is not a major problem, of course, but in those examples I think my edits have improved the articles, and I couldn't find a guideline on this, so I thought I'd just add it, but again: you make a good point. Since I'm not a native speaker of English, it's probably better not to be the frontrunner in editing the Manual of Style, but I hope you (and others) see my point. Thanks, Eissink (talk) 22:30, 16 August 2020 (UTC).

Eissink, I do agree with your point where the colon is introducing a quote, that the ref should follow the quote itself. (Do people use colons that way? I was taught to use a comma, as in James said, "Not now, I don't." Sorry, digression.) But when I saw the addition, the first thing that came to my mind is lists because that's when I most often use one.

Also, I apologize if anything in my wording made you feel like I didn't think you were editing in good faith. That wasn't the case at all. I just thought it was a change that hadn't been discussed and thought that it should be. Schazjmd (talk) 22:44, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

My example was pretty poor, I must admit, but I think people in many written languages do use colons to introduce quotes, at least it's common in Dutch (my mother tongue, besides Tweants). And no apologies needed – lately I tend to be perhaps over-apologetic, having earlier too often been interpreted as too bold (or even blunt), even when I didn't intend to be. Eissink (talk) 23:10, 16 August 2020 (UTC).

While one can never be sure what others are seeing with all their various browsers on all the many platforms using who-knows-what zoom level and fonts, I find that if a ref tag immediately follows a quote mark then the two are just a bit too close for comfort. Maybe that's what the OP's experiencing. In such cases I add a hairspace i.e. {{hsp}}. Take a look:

"Hello."^[2] <== no hsp

"Hello." ^[2] <== using hsp

Consider the following:^[2] <== no hsp

Consider the following: ^[2] <== using hsp

To be honest, I don't think the {hsp} is needed with the colon, but maybe the OP will find it helpful nonetheless. E Eng 02:35, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Hairspace is new to me, so thanks for that, but it's beside my point. Yes, a readability problem led to distinguishing the problem, but the problem is of course the position of the ref tag, that imo should follow the quote, not the introduction to the quote. Eissink (talk) 10:07, 17 August 2020 (UTC).

In general a ref tag should come just after the last thing it verifies, but there are times when that's a bit awkward, such as in precisely the situation above i.e. a list or table. The construction The X in Y are:^[99] [bulleted list] is perfectly fine in such cases, because (when you think about it) the ref tag covers the verb are; in other words the ref tag can be seen to verify that the X in Y "are" whatever we then go on to say they are. We have to credit our readers with some intelligence. E Eng 03:54, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

@Markworthen: What does the Chicago Manual of Style say about (references and) colons? Thanks, Eissink (talk) 18:48, 18 August 2020 (UTC).

Nothing specific about colons, but this statement covers them: "Relative to other punctuation, the number follows any punctuation mark except for the dash, which it precedes." :0) - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 19:16, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

No, ref tags do not go inside the block quotation markup. They are not part of the quote, so doing that is falsifying the quoted material and is an abuse of the <blockquote>...</blockquote> element. For short, inline quotes, the citation can come after the quote, as the markup problem does not arise. PS: If you are having readability problems, change your browser font settings or use WP:USERCSS to introduce some custom kerning. The <ref> tag uses class="reference", so you could do something like .reference { padding-left: 0.2em; } in Special:MyPage/common.css to create a little bit of space:^[1]
Doing it this way will not junk up the wikicode with innumerable {{hsp}} instances which will probably get deleted by the next editor to come along away.
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:10, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, I'm confused by your comment. We're discussing whether Ref tags do not follow a colon. is appropriate. I'm not sure where blockquote comes into it. Could you clarify whether you agree with Ref tags do not follow a colon. or not? Schazjmd (talk) 21:41, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Just read the discussion. E.g., "where the colon is introducing a quote, that the ref should follow the quote itself". That's okay for an inline quote, but not for a block quote. In the latter case, the ref tag definitely does go after the colon, comma, or period at the end of the regular text introducing the quoted material. Ref tags can come before colons for other reasons; there's nothing magically different about them. This discussion was predicated on an individual's text display/legibility problem, for which I have provided a simple solution that doesn't disrupt the wikicode for others, and requires no WP:CREEP changes to the guidelines. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:53, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

The opinions given above are afaict contradictory. Let's try and settle this using two examples:

Alternative 1: Text there where stuff is claimed:^[1]

Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote.

Alternative 2: Text there where stuff is claimed:

Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote. Here is a long block quote.^[1]

Which is it? 1 or 2? @SMcCandlish, Schazjmd, Eissink, and EEng: ImTheIP (talk) 15:04, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

2. (That is: if the reference is a reference to the quote.) Eissink (talk) 15:10, 3 October 2020 (UTC).
1. No, it has to be 1, because putting the ref inside the quotation is marking it up as part of the quoted material, which is a falsification. Put the ref tag immediate after the colon that introduces the block quotation. Just follow the actual instructions in the template documentation at Template:Quote/doc; the documentation is there for a reason. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 20:39, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Should the Joey Soloway article include Soloway's birth name in the lead?

Opinions are needed on the following: Talk:Joey Soloway#MOS:GENDERID with regard to article titles. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 20:17, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Ref placement and punctuation when sources conflict

Per MOS:REFPUNCT, inline citations should nearly always be placed after adjacent punctuation, not before. However, consider the following examples, where RS contradict one another on a piece of factual information. In cases like these, the ref at the end applies to the preceding word but contradicts the earlier part of the sentence:

From Miss'd America: Sources conflict on the exact year the pageant began, with many placing the inaugural event in 1993^[2] or 1994^[3].
From Barracuda Lounge: Its current owner, Bob Pontarelli, founded the bar with his friend and former partner Stephen Heighton, who died in 2010^[4] or 2011^[5].

When the second ref applies only to the word before it and specifically does not apply to the rest of the sentence, should it nevertheless be placed outside the period? As currently written, MOS:REFPUNCT suggests it should. However, doing so would make it appear that the ref supports the statement X occurred in year1 or year2 rather than what it actually states, which is that the event occurred in year2. Should MOS:REFPUNCT include an exception for this type of situation?

References

^ ^a ^b Where the quoted text was found
^ Source for 1993
^ Source for 1994
^ Source for 2010
^ Source for 2011

Armadillo pteryx 18:53, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

There is very little harm, if any, placing both ref statements after the punctuation or by providing a note instead of a ref using e.g. {{efn}}. --Izno (talk) 19:23, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

There's no harm at all. The second ref certainly applies only back to the one preceding it, so there's no question of its having too much scope, whether it comes before or after the punct. And having it before the punct looks wretched. This reopens the festering wound at #Ref tags before closing paren. E Eng 04:22, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lists § RfC: Standardizing shortened reference column titles

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lists § RfC: Standardizing shortened reference column titles. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:51, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Proper use of SEE ALSO

Another editor mentioned "see also" is intended for listing out "tangentially related topics" in Talk:ABC_No_Rio#linkdexing relating to the content at this change. Is there a consensus on the way it should be used? Going by what they said, it would be appropriate to have see also links to every single beer that has a wikipedia article in beverage. Graywalls (talk) 08:08, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Common sense would say no. However it would be sensible to have a link to list of beers. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:20, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

It's always been my impression that listing similar businesses is not appropriate. Were the see also wikilinks I removed proper to remain or was it reasonable to remove them? Graywalls (talk) 08:25, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

I raised something similar at WT:SONGS#Inclusion of charts-related lists in "See also" sections not long ago. I was (still am) concerned about the potential for trivial links being listed in these sections in song and album articles. Hey Jude#See also was an example I cited then, but I'm sure it's far from the worst (seeing as so many more countries have official national charts than was the case when that 1968 song was released).

By contrast, I'd say Sesame Street#See also is a good example of including lists that are relevant to the subject of the article and therefore conform to correct use of See Also sections.

Since the issue has come up here now, does anyone have any thoughts on the inclusion of these lists of national number-ones, best-selling singles/albums, etc? If so, I'll post a note at the other discussion; perhaps I should've started it here anyway. Thanks, JG66 (talk) 08:44, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Since nobody has yet mentioned it, I'll point out we have MOS:ALSO. Reading it, it seemed rather more permissive than most editors are. For example it is hard to get an article to pass WP:FAC with any SA links at all. The position reviewers usually take is that it should either be mentioned in the main body, or it isn't worth mentioning at all. Johnbod (talk) 15:07, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
I've always thought that related lists are often the only things that belong in a "see also" section, simply because they are difficult/inappropriate to include in the prose itself. Primergrey (talk) 15:12, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
Nah, I disagree. I remove links from "See also" that have occurred in the main text. Tony (talk) 00:54, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm also more inclined to remove links than have them at all, especially when the link appears in the main text. But if one or two are repeated (perhaps because their significance to the subject might not be established earlier), as long as they do genuinely offer tangential information about the subject. What I've been concerned about with song and album article "See Also"s, similar to Graywalls' example, it seems, is whether the intention behind SAs is being abused – the way any old trivial list can be parked there with minimal relevance to the subject, let alone offering anything substantial in its own right. JG66 (talk) 02:01, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Is the way it is used at ABC_No_Rio a good example of improper use of it? Graywalls (talk) 18:48, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Improper. By the way, my interpretation of See Also links is that in the best case they're useful as a placeholder for content that should be properly integrated in the main article text but hasn't yet been (more or less what Johnbod says above) and in worse cases they are a way to get around WP:SYNTH (when the connection to the topic cannot be properly sourced) or promotional spam for only-vaguely-related topics (what your link to ABC No Rio looks like). —David Eppstein (talk) 19:14, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
We're straying into topics also discussed at WT:LAYOUT#...or not see also.... --Izno (talk) 19:41, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Side discussion born of a misapprehension

If an article uses Bluebook legal citation style, then the article should follow Bluebook's instructions for see also.^[1] The Bluebook rule in this regard does not conflict with basic Wikipedia policy on reliable sources. Here is part of the rule:

Rule 1.2 Introductory Signals ... See also - Cited authority constitutes additional source material that supports the proposition. ... The use of a parenthetical explanation of the source’s relevance (rule 1.5) following a citation introduced by “see also” is encouraged.

All the best - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 21:06, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is completely silly. What the Bluebook is talking about is something you might find within a specific ref cite, and has absolutely nothing to do with the see-alsos at the end of articles. E Eng 21:30, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Ooops! I misunderstood. Sorry about that. Sincerely, Sir Silly. ;^] Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 22:18, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Whew! For a minute I thought we were going to have to send for the men in the white coats. E Eng 23:34, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

References

^ "Rule 1.2 Introductory Signals". The Bluebook Online (legalbluebook.com). Retrieved 17 September 2020.

I'm just going to say that I've always thought completely crackers the rule that See Also can't repeat a link buried somewhere in the text. E Eng 21:33, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

@EEng:, WP:TALK#USE I think that talk page is the place to do it. The main space is never a place to dump sources to get around proper citation. Graywalls (talk) 07:42, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

You completely misunderstand what I said. E Eng 08:47, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

@EEng:, I just realized I was meaning to respond to @David Eppstein:'s message but incorrectly pinged you. Graywalls (talk) 02:41, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

I'll recall the killer drone. E Eng 03:16, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

I agree with that and I'd say it's one of the more ignored rules on Wikipedia. Maybe if someone's got the energy that rule should be changed. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 00:20, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

It's highly unlikely such a proposal would succeed. Aren't you always clearing out lists of 20+ SA links already mentioned above, like I am? Johnbod (talk) 03:54, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Try the 24-strong bunch of SAs at Acculturation#See_also for example. Johnbod (talk) 02:47, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi the consensus allegedly generated here (which to be honest I am not seeing) is being used to justify the complete removal of the See also section from ABC No Rio, would anyone care to offer an opinion on that? I my view, expressed already over at the talk page, it would be fine to link to articles about a few other NYC-based radical projects, since the gentle reader might be interested to go on to them next. Mujinga (talk) 12:42, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

It was way excessive. Categories do that function. It's not a matter of a "consensus allegedly generated here" if you mean this section, but the very long-standing policy found at MOS:ALSO. Johnbod (talk) 12:49, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh yes I agree it was excessive, no doubt about that. I proposed adding three links, then was reverted and told by Graywalls The consensus looks fairly clearly not in favor of using SEE ALSO for linking back and forth like this based on this discussion. I don't agree with that analysis, hence my question. Mujinga (talk) 13:08, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the 3 you restored, it wasn't clear why they were chosen, or what their relation was. Were they just especially close by? I don't know that is enough. If you think they are important it would be better to work them into the text, explaining why. Johnbod (talk)

Thanks for the reply, I put my rationale for those three on the talkpage. C-Squat at least should be pretty obvious since it is a fellow LES legalized squat from the same time period. In any case MOS:SEEALSO says "One purpose of "See also" links is to enable readers to explore tangentially related topics" and "the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense", and as you mentioned above, that's quite permissive. Does that then mean the guideline needs to be changed? I don't really see a massive issue here to be honest, it's just a seealso section. Mujinga (talk) 13:07, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

As I said above, I doubt making the guideline more permissive will get support; it might well be tightened. If left in SA, especially without explanations, these links are always likely to be vulnerable to roaming editors, whereas if added to the text they are far more likely to survive. Johnbod (talk) 13:24, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

I am saying SEEALSO is not for listing RC, Pepsi in Coke, then Coke, RC in Pepsi. I think you get the idea. That is the trend I am seeing with some articles where the redirects are simply serving as referral for one another and things shouldn't be written into the Coke article just for the sake of finding ways to introduce Pepsi and RC into it. Graywalls (talk) 13:50, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for giving examples to illustrate what you think Graywalls, but there's a notice at the top of this edit box saying ATTENTION: If you are coming to express an opinion on a topic of discussion, please include a rationale that addresses Wikipedia policy, or your opinion may be ignored. If you want to change MOS:SEEALSO maybe we should start a new discussion. Mujinga (talk) 13:02, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

My understanding is that an appropriate See also link is one that would be in the article if it were presently written at a Featured article level. Glee^anon 01:37, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Best practice for addressing multiple article topic synonyms

I'm wondering if there are better ways to start this article than rattle off three synonyms. I expect there's a guideline somewhere and I'm not finding it.

Also, while network marketing does redirect to multi-level marketing, pyramid selling redirects to Pyramid scheme and Referral marketing is a separate topic. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 16:06, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

@Hipal: Handling of synonyms is just an editorial judgement matter. If a particular term is overwhelmingly more common, it is often the only one given in the lead sentence, with other variants moved to a sentence at the end of the lead section, e.g. "MLM is also called network marketing and [whatever] ...." In this specific case, though, two of these are not proper MOS:BOLDSYNs. I would keep "also called network marketing" in lead sentence, then at end of lead say: "MLM is related to and often confused with referral marketing and pyramid schemes." — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:36, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

The only thing about Pyramid selling on Pyramid schemes is "While some people call MLMs in general 'pyramid selling', others use the term to denote an illegal pyramid scheme ...". So Pyramid selling ought to redirect instead to MLM. I'll make this change unless there is an objection. DougHill (talk) 21:11, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Done. DougHill (talk) 17:40, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Use of "education" and "alma_mater" parameters in infoboxes

Am I correct in interpreting the explanations for "education" and 'alma_mater" in Template:Infobox person#Parameters to mean that only one of the two should be used in any given infobox? (The "alma_mater" comment says, "This parameter is a more concise alternative to (not addition to) |education= ...") I ask because I have recently seen several biographies (such as Morena Baccarin) in which the infoboxes used "alma_mater" to list colleges and universities and "education" to list high schools (or lower). Eddie Blick (talk) 01:39, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Your interpretation is correct. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:11, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you,Nikkimaria. Eddie Blick (talk) 18:18, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I believe I have seen some that use |alma_mater= to list institutions and |education= to list degrees and/or field of study. MB 02:35, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

MB, That usage seems to go against the guidelines. The comments for "Education" say "... e.g., degree, institution and graduation year, ..." Eddie Blick (talk) 18:26, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Yakubu Bako is an example. I'm not sure it would be better to reformat this all into alma_mater. Perhaps the doc should be changed "allow" editor discretion/other usage for better readability. MB 17:10, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

MB, It seems more logical to me to pair a degree with the institution from which it was earned. Did Backo earn both degrees from La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison? Maybe I should assume that from the infobox. I don't see either degree mentioned in the text. Eddie Blick (talk) 02:00, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes that is logical. On the other hand, the degrees may tell more about a person than the institution from which they were granted - and separating them may be more in line with the purpose of an infobox - to provide "key" information "at a glance". I personally wouldn't change any existing infobox to make it match the documentation for these parameters. MB 02:55, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

The guidance to not use both |education= and |alma_mater= was emphasized in by SMcCandlish in Dec2017. I think it is overly prescription and we should allow more flexibility here. I propose removing "(not addition to)" and just saying alma_mater is an alternative. MB 20:14, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

The documentation is clear on this. Various articles are doing it wrong if they're using both parameter names as a means of packing the infobox with trivia in the form of listed institutions the person attended. And the parameter have nothing to do with a university/collegiate versus lower-education split. PS: Making these parameter mutually exclusive instead of used together redundantly is not an idea I came up with, but the clear trajectory of numerous repeated discussions, and an RfC that nearly resulted in removing alma_mater entirely. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:47, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

If the doc does indeed require one or the other, it should probably be enforced in the template, so both cannot show. Would seem logical to collapse them into one field like I do for manager in {{Infobox station}}. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 07:45, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, I was not suggesting to pack the infobox with trivia. The doc for |education= says it is for "degree, institution and graduation year, if relevant." There are infoboxes that just have this data, but still make use of both parameters (e.g. Gaelen Foley). I don't see anything wrong with that infobox. An editor may prefer to use both parameters to display valid non-trivial data in a cleaner, easier to read format rather than "packing" the info in one field. MB 22:08, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." We've learned the hard way that after template parameters are used inappropriately for a long time, and the community decides this is not the way to do it, but then we don't hard-fix it, that the deprecated use will continue, because people just copy, without understanding, what they see in other articles and do not read template documentation unless they have to (and even then only read the part that addresses whatever question they had). An obvious example of this was the "giant quotation marks" and other decorative quote templates. That got RfCed multiple times, always with a conclusion that WP:UNDUE attention-drawing to particular parties' statements in articles is a problem, but the practice continued unabated for years, until last year or maybe it was earlier this year, we finally did what we should have done the first time that was decided: change the templates to emit the same markup as {{quote}} when used in mainspace. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

To add to which, once the deprecated use becomes established, editors will then retrofit strange distinctions attempting to justify its continued use, like "alma mater" somehow meaning only the last or most important school while "education" should be for more complete listings. No, they should not. They should be synonyms as template parameters, both formatted identically with the more accessible header "education" rather than the Latinism, after which we can let gnomes worry about making the template parameters consistent because it won't matter to the readers any more. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:59, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, especially since non-American editors in virtually every discussion of that parameter tell us that alma mater is an Americanism that often doesn't mean anything to other readers. It should just be aliased to |education=, with the output being "Education:". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 11:27, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Usage of "on Wikipedia" versus "in Wikipedia" within MoS

I've noticed that MoS seems to be inconsistent between these two phrasings, with regards to text and images. Sometimes it refers to content "on Wikipedia" and sometimes it refers to content "in Wikipedia".

However, a cursory search of MoS reveals that "in" and "on" have similar numbers of results. However, most of the uses of "on" are in MoS itself, whereas most of the uses of "in" occur in proposals or talk pages. Furthermore, "in Wikipedia" seems to occur mostly in phrases like The use of icons in Wikipedia encyclopedic project content, and editorial irony and damning with faint praise have no place in Wikipedia articles; i.e. part of a phrase like "in Wikipedia articles" or "in Wikipedia encyclopedic project content". Nevertheless, there are a few mentions of "in Wikipedia" in situations where either could do, such as Pronunciation in Wikipedia should be transcribed using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), An article in Wikipedia should use one national variety of English consistently, and In general, anything can become suitable for coverage in Wikipedia if it is given significant attention by reliable sources.

At any rate, I couldn't give less of a damn which way is correct, but it seems like poor form to have inconsistent usage within MoS -- if nobody has any complaints, I'd like to go through and clean up some of the stray "in"s. jp×g 03:51, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

You've basically answered your own question, and there is no problem here. When we write "don't do X on Wikipedia", this is the same construction as "post it on YouTube", or "don't put your phone number on public websites", or "search for it on Google", or "I saw it on NBC Nightly News"; it's the standard, idiomatic form for such phrases in English. When we write "don't do X in a Wikipedia article", this is the same construction as "write it in a letter", "revise a line in my poem", "first appears in the third chapter of the novel", "according to a quoted statement in a New York Times article". If you go change "icons in Wikipedia content" to "icons on Wikipedia content" that will be a grammatical error, and if you change it to "icons on Wikipedia" you'll be introducing a scope error (MoS doesn't have anything to say about use of icons on project or user pages, other than any image-related advice at MOS:ACCESS probably also makes sense in those contexts). "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." If all you want to do is change some "Don't do X in Wikipedia." to use "on", I doubt anyone will care (though in some cases it maybe should be more specific, e.g. "in Wikipedia articles"). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 11:14, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

jpxg does provide examples of where the MoS says "in Wikipedia" without providing an additional noun like "articles", though, which is idiomatically odd. I'd support changing those to "on" as simple copy fixes. Popcornfud (talk) 11:22, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Which is why I said 'If all you want to do is change some "Don't do X in Wikipedia." to use "on", I doubt anyone will care (though in some cases it maybe should be more specific, e.g. "in Wikipedia articles").' I'm suggesting to go about this carefully, both to preserve the distinction between these two idioms, and to consider whether any "broken" ones are better fixed with on or by being more specific (e.g. where they seem to imply an over-broad scope). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:23, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

R Pop/SMC: The already-general caveat that MOS applies to articles exists, and so addition of "articles" in such contexts duplicates the caveat. So, addition may be less preferable to removal in some/many/most cases of 'in/on Wikipedia'. --Izno (talk) 15:05, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Man eating fish

The picture of the man eating fish is OK at first glance (except that the expression on his face is rather unpleasant), but if you look closely at the picture, the man is not eating fish. His dish appears to be escargot. See also the comment at Talk:Eating/Archive 1#Distracting image. —BarrelProof (talk) 19:49, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

Jesus, people are so CRITICAL! It was the best I could come up with. Can't we pretend he's eating scallops? E Eng 20:25, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

A suggestion: File:Haring 03.jpg. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:08, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

I swapped them. It's a better picture in many ways, not the least of which is the subject doesn't look miserable. oknazevad (talk) 22:28, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

A noble collaboration of editors in the finest traditions of Wikipedia! I, of all people, should endeavor to become more intimate with the Commons category system. But don't archive this thread yet! Act 2 will commence shortly, in which someone appears to say that MOS is supposed to be cold and lifeless, no images allowed. (See [36] and while we're at it, [37].)
I hasten to give our esteemed fellow editor Atsme credit for the original idea, which I shamelessly stole from a comment of theirs on my talk page. E Eng 23:46, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
The Commons category system is even more of a disaster than the one here. But if I remember correctly I found a different image, File:Haring eten op het Weesperplein - Eating herring on Weesperplein square in Amsterdam (4900684437).jpg, through a Google search for something about eating fish on commons, and then followed it to Commons:Category:People eating in the Netherlands looking for a clearer image of the same thing. If you like fish and ever have a chance to try Hollandse Nieuwe, take it, although I don't think I've ever been daring enough to try the traditional down-the-throat Dutch eating style depicted here. —David Eppstein (talk) 00:47, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
I have always found categories absolutely useless, but was hoping for a reconciliation. Now you've discouraged me. E Eng 02:50, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
You found a much better use for it, E. Count me as a +1 for images, and ++1 for humorous. Atsme 💬 📧 00:36, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
What we really need is a photo of a sign at a beach reading "Beware of man eating shark". E Eng 03:00, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
I may be able to accommodate your needs^{[clarification needed]}...for such a photograph. I see the caption was changed to include "A" - perhaps for readers who suffer double vision. Atsme 💬 📧 17:30, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The comment at 1#Distracting_image Distracting image by MaxEnt is partially correct. There is "social, cultural, and emotional subtext" but it "enhances this article". The article is called Eating, but we cannot overlook the particular social and cultural context of what otherwise would be merely ingesting nutrition. Furthermore the setting looks like fine dining, at least according to my plebeian sensibilities. I think the cultural and social would be accentuated in the more class-conscious, formal setting. Bus stop (talk) 17:47, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

If you don't like the "A", please feel free to revert it. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:10, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 October 2020

This edit request to Wikipedia:Manual of Style has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

A notice about mobile phone browsers should be added in this section:

=== HTML tags and templates for abbreviations ===

Either the {{tag|abbr|o}} element or the {{tlx|abbr}} template can be used for abbreviations and acronyms: {{tag|abbr|params=title="World Health Organization"|content=WHO|wrap=yes}} or {{tlx|abbr|WHO|World Health Organization}} will generate {{abbr|WHO|World Health Organization}}; [[mouseover|hovering]] over the rendered text causes a [[tooltip]] of the long form to pop up.

Please note that viewing HTML tooltips has not yet been implemented yet in [[mobile phone]] browsers.

84.147.35.28 (talk) 11:54, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

That's too general a statement; it will depend on the mobile OS, the mobile device type, and the browser. 2601:643:8680:4C30:C44C:6223:4571:CB09 (talk) 20:24, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Show me one mobile phone which is able to display HTML tooltips (directly, not just through view-source:.) There is none. I wish there were. (Tooltips generated using CSS or JavaScript do not count; only pure HTML.) --84.147.37.94 (talk) 08:18, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Not done for now: It doesn't appear that there's consensus for making this change yet, as this discussion hasn't been active for over two weeks now. If there's any change to this, please re-open this request. Seagull123 Φ 21:17, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Recent vandalism by a political activist

Ok ok we get it. --Izno (talk) 07:36, 8 November 2020 (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.

A political activist recently vandalized the Manual of Style, deliberately introducing obscenely-incorrect grammar: [38]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 171.97.89.106 (talk) 21:33, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, WP:MISSSNODGRASS. E Eng 21:42, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

They were helped along. --Izno (talk) 22:12, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Good to know that I'm a political activist. Maybe next time a person like you thinks that I'm deliberately introducing obscenely-incorrect grammar, they can ping me, rather than just anonymously call me out.

Of course, I was merely adding an example to the rule that already existed of Use a noun or a third-person pronoun, but some people really feel that they must call out anything possibly inclusive. Gbear605 (talk) 03:00, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Using a singular they may be inclusive and PC, but it reads badly. Better to avoid singular third-person pronouns altogether if possible. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:49, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Snore. E Eng 13:29, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

What he snored. --Calton | Talk 13:53, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I thought your edit was an improvement. But what do I know? MapReader (talk) 18:40, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

In case it wasn't clear, I agree. E Eng 19:18, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

What he agreed. --Calton | Talk 07:11, 8 November 2020 (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.

Including the release year in parentheses

An editor has pointed out that the convention of including the year of release for media in parentheses - such as Titanic (1997) - doesn't work well on screen readers.

This is a pattern used extensively on articles about movies, games, and music - probably thousands and thousands of articles. I think it has a lot of advantages. It's not always the best way of including the year of release, but it's useful when the information is good for context but otherwise not the focus of the sentence, such as:

Radiohead have achieved seven top 10 hits on the UK Singles Chart: "Creep" (1992), "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" (1996), "Paranoid Android" (1997), "Karma Police" (1998), "No Surprises" (1998), "Pyramid Song" (2001) and "There There" (2003).

If we abandon this pattern it means sentences such as this have to become:

Radiohead have achieved seven top 10 hits on the UK Singles Chart: 1992's "Creep", 1996's "Street Spirit (Fade Out)", 1997's "Paranoid Android", 1998's "Karma Police" and "No Surprises", 2001's "Pyramid Song" and 2003's "There There".

I've never liked the approach of writing "1992's..." etc - things do not belong to years; it tends to produce a dense amount of punctuation when coupled with quotes; and to me it isn't as easily scanned as tidying the years into neat parentheses after the title.

Another solution could be:

Radiohead have achieved seven top 10 hits on the UK Singles Chart: "Creep" (released in 1992), "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" (released in 1996), "Paranoid Android" (released in 1997), "Karma Police" and "No Surprises" (released in 1998), "Pyramid Song" (released in 2001) and "There There" (released in 2003).

Which obviously adds a lot of words that most Wikipedia users don't need, and may even be distracting to those familiar with the standard pattern.

Is there a consensus about how to handle this? I'm sure I've seen a MoS somewhere on Wikipedia that recommended giving the year in parentheses, but I can't find it now, so perhaps it's changed or I dreamt it. I can't find any mention of this issue on WP:ACCESSIBILITY or anywhere else.

My gut reaction is is that we shouldn't necessarily be prioritising the screen reader experience (a very small percentage of Wikipedia users) when it damages the experience for everyone else, but I am open to persuasion - I am selfish copyeditor who hates adding words, and I am largely ignorant in this area. Popcornfud (talk) 21:37, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

In what way does it fail to work well with a screen reader? Paging Graham87. E Eng 21:44, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

I assume because it literally reads it out as "Creep nineteen-ninety-two, Street Spirit nineteen-ninety-six, Paranoid Android nineteen-ninety-seven", etc, which isn't really natural, and doesn't mirror how the text is interpreted when read on the page. How distracting or unnatural users of screen readers find that, though, I can't speak for and would value some opinions on. Popcornfud (talk) 22:24, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, hopefully Graham will tell us. E Eng 22:28, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

When adding years they usually fit well without parenthesis (...the 1996 film blah blah) and I often will move the year out of parenthesis into text language for brevity (that works best when the year is in "...the film blah blah, released in 1996, ..."). When multiple films or albums are mentioned in one sentence the parenthesis often work best, but even in those sentence-lists there seems to be wriggle room for one or two of them. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:02, 31 October 2020 (UTC)
My initial reaction to this thread was "whaaaaaaat?" ... and my blind friends reacted similarly when I told them about it. Dissident93, since you made the edit ... where did you get this idea from? Are you a screen reader user yourself? Graham87 05:30, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I am not, but it has to be somewhat of an accessibility issue for those who are. Either the screenreader/TTS reads it like Popcorn wrote out or it skips over it, nether of which are ideal right? I personally try to avoid writing any sort of prose with parenthesis anyway as you don't tend to see this in published encyclopedias, so I'd even argue that we should avoid doing this regardless. If we do agree to stop doing this, then I support "...the film blah blah, released in 1996, ...") over "1996's blah blah" even though I usually prefer brevity/fewer words. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 21:36, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

The thing is that changing Film (YYYY) to the YYYY film Film or Film, released in YYYY, ... would give the release date a weight that in my opinion is undue. I for one put the year in parentheses whenever a film is mentioned in an article on a different film, but just at its first occurrence. It's just to give some chronoclogical context for the reader, it's not equivalent to having a sentence of relevant information in parentheses, which is what I generally consider somewhat clumsy and not very encyclopedic. El Millo (talk) 22:04, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

+1 E Eng 22:27, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Look, if the blind guy tells you it's not a problem, I think you need to accept that. A parenthetical interjection supplying a date or other datum is absolutely standard; we're not going to tell people to use the awkward locutions you suggest just to avoid an imaginary accessibility problem. And the idea that parens are verboten is a WP:MISSSNODGRASSism. E Eng 22:27, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

It reads it out as Popcornfud wrote ... we're very much used to it. Graham87 03:08, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

EEng asked on my talk page and I just discovered that it depends on the screen reader and punctuation setting. I have JAWS set at a lower punctuation setting than normal and it just skips parens ... but with the default it reads them as "left paren"/"right paren" and with NVDA it pauses slightly before reading parenthesised text. Whatever it does, we get used to it, as I said. Graham87 03:49, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

[first-1] This is Psiĥedelisto's first RfC, so might have formatting errors. I hope it doesn't, I looked at a few examples...

[2] If adopted, {{unichar}} will be changed to match consensus. See also Template talk:Unichar § Deviation of task, which is the seed of this IRC.

[3] Whatever that means.

[te-4] Example reference..

[FOOTNOTEBecker193012-5] Becker 1930, p. 12.

[FOOTNOTEBecker193027-6] Becker 1930, p. 27.

[FOOTNOTEBecker193012–14-7] Becker 1930, pp. 12–14.

[blah-8] Where the quoted text was found

[9] Source for 1993

[10] Source for 1994

[11] Source for 2010

[12] Source for 2011

[13] "Rule 1.2 Introductory Signals". The Bluebook Online (legalbluebook.com). Retrieved 17 September 2020.

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