Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style
Frequently asked questions (FAQ) Wikipedia's Manual of Style contains some conventions that differ from those in some other, well-known style guides and from what is often taught in schools. Wikipedia's editors have discussed these conventions in great detail and have reached consensus that these conventions serve our purposes best. New contributors are advised to check the FAQ and the archives to see if their concern has already been discussed. Why does the Manual of Style recommend straight (keyboard-style) instead of curly (typographic) quotation marks and apostrophes (i.e., the characters " and ', instead of “, ”, ‘, and ’)?
Users may only know how to type in straight quotes (such as " and ') when searching for text within a page or when editing. Not all Web browsers find curly quotes when users type straight quotes in search strings. Why does the Manual of Style recommend logical quotation?
This system is preferred because Wikipedia, as an international and electronic encyclopedia, has specific needs better addressed by logical quotation than by the other styles, despite the tendency of externally published style guides to recommend the latter. These include the distinct typesetters' style (often called American, though not limited to the US), and the various British/Commonwealth styles, which are superficially similar to logical quotation but have some characteristics of typesetters' style. Logical quotation is more in keeping with the principle of minimal change to quotations, and is less prone to misquotation, ambiguity, and the introduction of errors in subsequent editing, than the alternatives. Logical quotation was adopted in 2005, and has been the subject of perennial debate that has not changed this consensus. Why does the Manual of Style differentiate the hyphen (-), en dash (–), em dash (—), and minus sign (−)?
Appropriate use of hyphens and dashes is as much a part of literate, easy-to-read writing as are correct spelling and capitalization. The "Insert" editing tools directly below the Wikipedia editing window provide immediate access to all these characters. Why does the Manual of Style recommend apostrophe+s for singular possessive of names ending in s?
Most modern style guides treat names ending with s just like other singular nouns when forming the possessive. The few that do not propose mutually contradictory alternatives. Numerous discussions have led to the current MoS guidance (see discussions of 2004, 2005, 2005, 2006, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2009, 2009, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2017, 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2021,
2022). Why doesn't the Manual of Style always follow specialized practice?
Although Wikipedia contains some highly technical content, it is written for a general audience. While specialized publications in a field, such as academic journals, are excellent sources for facts, they are not always the best sources for or examples of how to present those facts to non-experts. When adopting style recommendations from external sources, the Manual of Style incorporates a substantial number of practices from technical standards and field-specific academic style guides; however, Wikipedia defaults to preferring general-audience sources on style, especially when a specialized preference may conflict with most readers' expectations, and when different disciplines use conflicting styles. |
Discussions on this page often lead to previous arguments being restated. Please read recent comments, look in the archives, and review the FAQ before commenting. |
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Style discussions elsewhere[edit]
This section is pinned and will not be automatically archived. |
Add a link to new discussions at top of list and indicate what kind of discussion it is (move request, RfC, open discussion, deletion discussion, etc.). Follow the links to participate, if interested. Move to Concluded when decided, and summarize conclusion. Please keep this section at the top of the page.
Current[edit]
(newest on top)
- Wikipedia talk:Image use policy#Collages in infoboxes
- Wikipedia_talk:Featured_list_candidates#RfC_on_the_leads_of_DOY_articles_and_their_FL_eligibility – Lead length of Days Of the Year (DOY) articles (Feb. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea-related articles#About adding a link to each hangul syllable using Template:Linktext – On use of a template to link Korean characters to Wiktionary. (Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Possessives in condition names – On Asperger syndrome vs. Asperger's syndrome, etc. (Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Names of deceased trans people (moved from WP:VPPOL) – Yet another round of this long-term, multi-RfC process. Consensus seems possible this time. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Make Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer science/Manual of style into Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Computer science – Proposal to merge a "guideline in all but name" into MoS. (Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Increase default thumbnail size from 220px to 250px – Peripherally related to MOS:IMAGES and MOS:ACCESS. (Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (companies)#Use of comma and abbreviation of Incorporated – Involves MOS:TM (plus WP:COMMONNAME, WP:OFFICIALNAME. Covers more than thread name implies, including that guideline not having substantive revision since 2009. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#JOBTITLES simplification proposal – MOS:JOBTITLES has long been considered too complicated and hard to follow. This is not an RfC but drafting toward one; input has stalled out over the holidays, and needs to resume. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/China- and Chinese-related articles#Kangxi radical template/gloss – Involves MOS:FOREIGN, MOS:SINGLE, MOS:ALLCAPS, MOS:BOLD. Still unresolved. (Oct.2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Fictional characters known by initials - what qualifies as the "preferred style for their own name" ? – Involves MOS:WAF, MOS:INITIALS, MOS:TM, MOS:ACRO, WP:OFFICIALNAME, etc. Still unresolved, but there seems to be no appetite for diverging from MOS:INITIALS. (Oct. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles#NPOV usage of "the prophet Muhammad" or "the prophet" – Involves MOS:HONORIFIC, MOS:DOCTCAPS, WP:NPOV, WP:CHERRYPICKING, etc. Still unresolved, though consensus seems to be forming in one direction. (Sep. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Help talk:Table#Indenting tables – Help page is conflicting with MOS:DLIST and MOS:ACCESS on a technical point. No objection to fixing it, and a suggestion to just do it WP:BOLDly, but the work actually has to be done. (Aug. 2023 –Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Tables#Proposal to discourage vertically oriented ("sideways") column headers – Specifically in tables, possibly elsewhere. MOS:UNITNAMES (at the table "General guidelines on use of units") has an example of existing use that is being challenged, and material at Help:Table is also at issue. Still unresolved. (Dec. 2023)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Making redundant table captions screen-reader-only – About use of
{{sronly}}
around table captions (which are primarily for screen readers) to hide them from the usual non-screen-reader view when their content repeats what is in the table headers. Still unresolved, too little input; probably needs to be RfCed. (Nov.–Dec. 2023) - Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch#"the late" – On MOS:EUPHEMISMS and whether to add another example to it. Still unresolved. (Oct. 2023)
- Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics#ALL-CAPS for "keywords for lexical sets"? – Involves MOS:ALLCAPS. Result: Thinly attended, but there does seem to be a linguistics standard to render lexical sets in smallcaps, so this should probably be accounted for at MOS:ALLCAPS in the exception lists (since our articles are consistently doing it). But this revision has not been done yet. (Oct. 2023)
Capitalization-specific:
- Talk:Blue Water Thesis#Requested move 19 March 2024 – Sentence case the title for this concept?
- Talk:KAIROS#Requested move 18 March 2024 – Drop the all-caps for this Canadian organization?
- Talk:M1126 Infantry Carrier Vehicle#Requested move 18 March 2024 (10 articles) – Lowercase vehicle descriptions?
- Talk:1933 German referendum#Requested move 23 February 2024 – Uppercase or lowercase for "Freedom Law" in one suggested title?
- Talk:ULTra (rapid transit)#Requested move 16 March 2024 – Lowercase the second and third letters of the name?
- Talk:List of American Physical Society Fellows#Requested move 17 March 2024 (5 articles) – Lowercase "Fellows"?
- Talk:List of Honorary Fellows of Christ's College, Cambridge#Requested move 17 March 2024 (46 articles) – Lowercase "Honorary" and "Fellows"?
- Talk:1991 NHL Dispersal and Expansion Drafts#Requested move 17 March 2024 – Multi; lowercase "expansion draft" and such?
- Talk:2024 NWSL Expansion Draft#Requested move 17 March 2024 – Multi; more lowercase "expansion draft" and such?
- Talk:AAF QB Draft#Requested move 17 March 2024 – Multi; more lowercasing of draft?
- Talk:2001 WUSA Supplemental Draft#Requested move 17 March 2024 – Multi; lowercasing of "supplemental draft"?
- Talk:MLS Supplemental Draft#Requested move 17 March 2024 – Multi; more lowercasing of "supplemental draft"?
- Talk:NHL Supplemental Draft#Requested move 17 March 2024 – Multi; more lowercasing of "supplemental draft"?
- Apologies for all these.
- Talk:Battle of Van Buren#Requested move 14 March 2024 – Move to "Van Buren R|raid"?
- Talk:UK Singles Chart#Requested move 12 March 2024 – Lowercase "singles chart" in 17 article titles?
- Talk:Ma! (He's Making Eyes At Me)#Requested move 10 March 2024 – Lowercase "at"?
- Talk:Just Like Heaven#Requested move 10 March 2024 (4 articles) – Lowercase "Like"?
Other discussions:
- Talk:Union Jack#Case consistency – Union Flag, or Union flag?
- User talk:BilledMammal#Close of Talk:Full Faith and Credit Clause#Requested move 21 January 2024 – has the close been in accordance with WP:RMCI and WP:CLOSE or not (preliminary to RMCR)
- Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Capitalisation of "oblast" when used as the name of a Ukrainian administrative division – May affect other administrative divisions (e.g. raion) and other nations for which such terms are used
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization in tables – Column by column, or entire table?
- Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums#WP:THEBAND in article titles – Capitalize "the" in band names in article titles?
- Talk:2020 MLS Cup Playoffs#Rounds are proper names? – Lowercase some words in headings?
- Talk:Ballistic Missile Early Warning System#Article title – Use sentence case?
Pretty stale but not "concluded":
- Talk:Upstate New York#Other plausible capitalization issue – Capitalization of "Upstate" New York.
- Talk:Southern Italy#Lowercase or uppercase? – Capitalisation of "southern". Also "northern" and "central" in related articles.
- Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Capitalization of geologic names – Despite being opened on an NC talk page, this is about usage in general not just in our article titles.
- Talk:Fall of Saigon#Names section and capitalisation – capitalisation of Vietnamese language names and capitalisation of their English translations?
Concluded[edit]
Extended content
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MOS:PUFFERY[edit]
It's been claimed that BLPs that have "regarded/considered as one of the greatest/best X of all-time/his generation" are unencyclopedic and appear to be indiscriminately removed[1][2][3] with a request to re-write the words are in quotes with attribution as per MOS:PUFFERY.
None of these BLPs have stated the subject is "the best/greatest" but state they're regarded/considered as one of the greatest/best players of all-time/his generation" which is consistent with what's included in BLPs such as Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, Usain Bolt and many others.
MOS:PUFFERY states: "Words such as these are often used without attribution to promote the subject of an article, while neither imparting nor plainly summarizing verifiable information". My understanding is that the use of stating that the subject is regarded/considered as the "best/greatest" citing RS is within the policy and guidance as opposed to claiming the subject IS the "best/greatest". Even in the Bob Dylan article, which is cited as an example, states he is "Generally regarded as one of the greatest songwriters ever". RevertBob (talk) 10:10, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry to be pedantic but perhaps it is a trait of encyclopedia editors. Muhammad Ali is not a BLP. He died in 2016. Cullen328 (talk) 09:11, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- Well, it also has to comply with WP:DUE policy. Some random music journalist saying that Neil Peart was one of the greatest rock drummers of all time is not sufficient; what is sufficient is a large number of high-quality sources on music (not random bloggers) saying something like this, and his presence in top-lists at such publications, so that the clear reliable-source consensus is that he was one of the best. You will run into opposition to such labelling if the DUE test is not well-met, and may still run into it anyway even if it is, because it is categorically better to demonstrate to the reader that someone was a great, by listing their awards and other accomplishments (including top-lists from notable publications), rather than tell the reader that various sources say they were one of the greats, which always raises the question of whether sources have been WP:CHERRYPICKed and thus are not a DUE selection. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:13, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
- The issue with including top-lists from notable publications is then those also get removed with the claim of being trivial. So to use Neil Peart as a hypothetical example: if DUE was met with independent, reliable sources on the topic of music [i.e. not a blog and high-quality source(s)]. Is it unreasonable for the article to then say:"Considered one of the greatest rock drummers of all-time,[insert source(s)] Peart earned numerous awards for his musical performances, including an induction into the Modern Drummer Readers Poll Hall of Fame in 1983 at the age of thirty, making him the youngest person ever so honoured."[insert source(s)] RevertBob (talk) 13:49, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
- Yes. Various of our biographical articles are written this way, but the sourcing has to be particularly strong (WP:EXCEPTIONAL). Some editors are apt to disagree with it anyway, for the "show don't tell" reason I gave above. [Yes, that was a Rush lyrics reference; couldn't resist.] This sort of question might really be better asked over at WT:FAC: "Under what sourcing circumstances would the Featured Article reviewers accept a claim like 'considered one of the greatest [occupational speciality here]'?" PS: "top-lists from notable publications ... also get removed with the claim of being trivial" – Well, that's not defensible, since they're obviously not trivial when the awarders are notable and pertinent. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:41, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
- Just to clarify, did you mean yes it's reasonable/no it's not unreasonable?
- Your contributions have certainly been helpful in providing more clarify! FYI, my knowledge of drummers doesn't extend beyond Keith Moon and Ringo Starr. I don't think editors should just be able to subjective disagree and remove content within the policy and guidelines as per WP:IDONTLIKEIT. It would be good for consistency to be applied and for the goalposts to not be keep being moved (that was a footballing pun).
- It's certainly not a fringe theory or extraordinary claim for Alan Shearer to be widely regarded as one of the greatest strikers of all-time or for Mohammed Salah to be regarded as one of the best players of his generation or for Raymond Kopa for be considered one of the best footballers of all-time. High-quality sourcing would support that. RevertBob (talk) 09:09, 29 December 2023 (UTC)
- I mean "yes, it's reasonable". Though, as noted, others are still likely to object to it, because it is hard to sufficiently source, is not necessary, and another approach of showing instead of telling, if often (usually?) better. "Consistency" will never be applied on something like this, because every bio is different and ultimately the writing at each is determined by consensus on an article by article basis. The exact claim will vary by subject, the sourcing level and quality will, and so will the meaningfulness of the claim (there's a big difference between the claim that Babe Ruth was the greatest 20th-century baseball player (perhaps of all time), and Joe Schmoe being hailed by disc golf magazines and websites as the top player of a sport with few players and little public interest. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:59, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yes. Various of our biographical articles are written this way, but the sourcing has to be particularly strong (WP:EXCEPTIONAL). Some editors are apt to disagree with it anyway, for the "show don't tell" reason I gave above. [Yes, that was a Rush lyrics reference; couldn't resist.] This sort of question might really be better asked over at WT:FAC: "Under what sourcing circumstances would the Featured Article reviewers accept a claim like 'considered one of the greatest [occupational speciality here]'?" PS: "top-lists from notable publications ... also get removed with the claim of being trivial" – Well, that's not defensible, since they're obviously not trivial when the awarders are notable and pertinent. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:41, 28 December 2023 (UTC)
- The issue with including top-lists from notable publications is then those also get removed with the claim of being trivial. So to use Neil Peart as a hypothetical example: if DUE was met with independent, reliable sources on the topic of music [i.e. not a blog and high-quality source(s)]. Is it unreasonable for the article to then say:"Considered one of the greatest rock drummers of all-time,[insert source(s)] Peart earned numerous awards for his musical performances, including an induction into the Modern Drummer Readers Poll Hall of Fame in 1983 at the age of thirty, making him the youngest person ever so honoured."[insert source(s)] RevertBob (talk) 13:49, 26 December 2023 (UTC)
When I reverted some of these edits, my edit summary was "Please re-write this puffery in quotes with attribution, per MOS:PUFFERY". The policy literally says, "without attribution", and the example given shows the puffery in quotation marks. All that RevertBob needed to do was follow the policy. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:50, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
- The policy is referencing using the phrase as being referred as "is" (a claim of act) rather than "considered" or "regarded" (an opinion) i.e. "I am the greatest bird ever!" Even the Bob Dylan article which is referred in the policy has the following in the lead without attribution: "Generally regarded as one of the greatest songwriters ever". RevertBob (talk) 21:50, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
- Do you know what "attribution" means? Magnolia677 (talk) 21:56, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
- "Generally/widely regarded" is one of those WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims that requires exceptional sourcing. I don't really know if taht standard is met at the Dylan article. Being able to find potentially dubious usage in one article does not make it magically permissible everywhere (WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS). Ultimately, it really comes down to a consensus on a per-article basis. E.g., at an article like Kopa's, how many sources are making such a claim and what is their quality? If we have two sources of reasonable quality, it's probably better to attribute them directly ("according to"); if we have two of low quality, omit it; if we have 50 and many are high-quality, then maybe it's a "generally regarded". (Obviously don't WP:OVERCITE 50 sources; rather, cite the best ones and list the others in a talk page discussion to convince other editors that "generally regarded" is permissible). And did you do what I suggested? Namely:
This sort of question might really be better asked over at WT:FAC: "Under what sourcing circumstances would the Featured Article reviewers accept a claim like 'considered one of the greatest [occupational speciality here]'?"
? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:59, 1 January 2024 (UTC)- I have no beef with "the greatest", or "best kicker in the history of soccer", or "most epic player ever". My request is that it be attributed and in quotation marks; it cannot be in Wikipedia's voice. That is the essence of this policy. Magnolia677 (talk) 23:11, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
- The thing is, we summarise what sources say. If we have a lot of citations that specifically say that this person is "the best" or "one of the best", then the prose should use these sources, maybe specifically quote them, or just comment on them, but our lede should summarise that information, which quite often ends with that phrasing. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 23:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
- SMcCandlish I didn't do what you suggested as the point of contention isn't over whether these can be included or not but a consistent approach of how the content should be added. The issue is, what is the the problem with something being "regarded" or "considered" as something in Wikipedia's voice according to the policy, Magnolia677? It's an objective statement of sources rather than the subjective term of referring to something as "the best/greatest" without the words "regarded" or "considered" preceding it. I'm not trying to make an OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument here but it doesn't seem to have been raised as an issue by other editors on dozens or hundreds of other articles within sport, film, music or other topics (e.g. Messi, Brando, Dylan and many others) where this format is currently used which would appear to suggest a community consensus that it's acceptable. As Lee Vilenski has said it's a summary/paraphrasing of the information in the source. If it's a list then the subject is regarded/considered "one of the greatest..." Adding a quote would suggest that's what's quoted in the source which it isn't.
- If you look at Raymond Kopa as an example [4]. I amended "Often considered one of the best players of his generation" (which didn't appear to be sourced) to "Considered one of the best players of all-time" and added the following citations:[5][6][7][8] from Bleacher Report, Sports Illustrated, FourFourTwo and Give Me Sport. RevertBob (talk)
- An alternate approach would be to find one very reliable source, and say, -> Sports Illustrated has called him "the greatest player of 1990". Magnolia677 (talk) 20:16, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- That's also a valid approach. There are multiple ways to come at this sort of thing (and I'm not the one who needs convincinging, RevertBob). My personal take is that there is a general and loose consensus that something like "considered one of the greatest" is permissible, but only with a number of high-quality sources, but that despite this general it's-okay feeling, there is no rule requiring it, and various editors aren't comfortable with it, so it's going to come down to a per-article editorial consensus. That is apt to be a butt-pain sometimes, but I'm not sure there's really a way around it. PS: RevertBob, please don't insert blank lines between your reply and what you're replying to (MOS:LISTGAPS). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:32, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- He was 25th in Bleachers Report, 22nd in SI, 34th in FourFourTwo and 22nd in Give Me Sport - you could make the argument that it'd be cherrypicking to select one. However, even if one was selected then it'd get removed as trivial which to be fair using the policy can be argued as being used to "promote the subject of an article" whereas simply stating he's "regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time" is "imparting nor plainly summarizing verifiable information". RevertBob (talk) 20:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- That's also a valid approach. There are multiple ways to come at this sort of thing (and I'm not the one who needs convincinging, RevertBob). My personal take is that there is a general and loose consensus that something like "considered one of the greatest" is permissible, but only with a number of high-quality sources, but that despite this general it's-okay feeling, there is no rule requiring it, and various editors aren't comfortable with it, so it's going to come down to a per-article editorial consensus. That is apt to be a butt-pain sometimes, but I'm not sure there's really a way around it. PS: RevertBob, please don't insert blank lines between your reply and what you're replying to (MOS:LISTGAPS). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:32, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- An alternate approach would be to find one very reliable source, and say, -> Sports Illustrated has called him "the greatest player of 1990". Magnolia677 (talk) 20:16, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- The thing is, we summarise what sources say. If we have a lot of citations that specifically say that this person is "the best" or "one of the best", then the prose should use these sources, maybe specifically quote them, or just comment on them, but our lede should summarise that information, which quite often ends with that phrasing. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 23:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have no beef with "the greatest", or "best kicker in the history of soccer", or "most epic player ever". My request is that it be attributed and in quotation marks; it cannot be in Wikipedia's voice. That is the essence of this policy. Magnolia677 (talk) 23:11, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
I am curious whether some of those talking about “attribution” mean to say WP:INTEXT attribution. Reasonable claims (eg, at Tiger Woods: Woods is widely regarded as one of the greatest golfers of all time and is one of the most famous athletes in modern history
) don’t need more attribution than a one or two strong citations, especially in the lead (which is where I think we’re all really talking about). My main concerns for this type of writing are that a) we don’t say such things in Wikipedia’s voice, and b) we source them clearly. Including explicit quotes is arguably better, but full quotes and in-text attribution can really weigh down the writing, and I really wouldn’t want to push aside multiple strong sources just to provide in-text attribution from one of them, Magnolia677. MOS:PUFFERY should not be an anchor holding us back from describing some of our most important biographical subjects clearly with strong, decisive prose. Of course these kinds of “puffy” statements should be given this leniency only where their claim is largely uncontroversial (NB, not where the statement has been subject to controversy based on hard-line anti-puffery patrollers).
Consider also the counterpoint at Adolf Hitler, whose lead includes: The historian and biographer Ian Kershaw describes Hitler as "the embodiment of modern political evil".
, a statement sensibly attributed to a leading Hitler historian, whose inclusion in the lead is not likely to be an erroneous distraction for the reader. But in that context, I actually suggest going further, and noting Kershaw’s place in the field would better inform the reader. — HTGS (talk) 03:32, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- Both myself and User:FMSky reverted this editor after "the greatest" was added to dozens of articles. Magnolia677 (talk) 12:58, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- On a lot of those articles it already had that information and I simply added a supporting source - whether this was correct or not, my intention was to improve those articles and I wasn't intending to be disruptive. After reading into it a bit more, I've tried to be more selective about which articles to add it but it seems Magnolia677 is removing this content from every article that has it stating that it needs to be attributed which doesn't seem to be the case on any other articles. Anyway, to use a football term, I'd like to play the ball, not the player so if we could stay on the topic of discussing the policy and possibly reach a consensus rather than passing judgement of editing history. I've also had the courtesy of not canvassing other editors who may agree with my position. RevertBob (talk) 20:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with @HTGS. Sometimes a fact feels exceedingly positive, but is still basically just a fact. When it's true that any particular superlative is commonly used to describe a given subject, then we should just say that and get on with the rest of the article. It does not make sense, and it is not encyclopedic, to write "Elvis Presley was called 'the greatest performer' by Alice, Bob, Chris, Dave, Eve, Frank, and many others.[1][2][3][4][5][6]" Just say he has been called the greatest and move on. If it's DUE, it should be in the article, and you should no more try to downplay that as "only the opinion" of a list of individually named experts than you should write that climate change is believed to be real by a list of individually named experts. INTEXT attribution is for content that can be accurately presented as being the view of only a handful of people. A statement like Sports Illustrated called him "the greatest player of 1990" is appropriate when that is an unusual comment. It is not appropriate if we could name a dozen periodicals and a hundred individuals that said the same thing, or when it's not just 1990, but also a statement that was true over the course of multiple years.
- These disputes generally involve content that some editor consider to be subjective or opinion-based, by which they really mean "not actually true". Thus, we see editors who are squeamish about saying "has been called the best runner" but who are perfectly comfortable saying "is the fastest sprinter" (even though "best" and "fastest" are basically the same thing for sprinters). I think this is partly because of some editors' personal biases/ways of looking at the world, but also because we have done a poor job of communicating the need for articles to assert facts about opinions. It is a fact that certain individuals/artworks/whatever are considered the best/greatest/most important by a number of relevant experts that is too large for INTEXT attribution to be appropriate. In such cases (which should not happen in millions of articles, but which should probably happen in thousands of them), we really should use Wikipedia:A simple formulation and simply say that it's true that reliable sources say that a lot about this subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:59, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is my point WhatamIdoing, just writing someone is "considered/regarded as one of the greatest" is a lot simpler "imparting nor plainly summarizing verifiable information" than complicating it with an incomplete list of Tom, Dick, Harry or others have ranked him in such a position of all-time which could be argued as to "promote the subject of an article". RevertBob (talk) 20:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding this discussion, are we seriously going to compare Roy Kean and Eden Hazard—who I have never heard of until my encounter with this editor—with (look above) Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, Usain Bolt, Bob Dylan, and Adolf Hitler? Seriously? Magnolia677 (talk) 21:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- No we're not: Roy Keane and Eden Hazard (if you've watched top-flight English or Spanish football then you'd know who he is) are "regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation" where Messi and Maradona are "widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time". There's a big difference. RevertBob (talk) 22:38, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- @RevertBob: Please tell me the exact years of Roy Keane's "generation". How about Eden Hazard's "generation"? Magnolia677 (talk) 23:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- Generations don't come in "exact years". Neither do ages, eons, epochs, eras, or periods. Don't mistake fuzziness for wrongness. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:40, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed. Imprecision, in things that are by their nature imprecise, is not an error. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:59, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- I certainly appreciate where you’re coming from Magnolia, but I feel that those questions are easily addressable in a way that still informs the reader of a subject’s standing in their field. It’s not really a standard usable in practical ways, but I use the rule of thumb that we don’t paraphrase to anything that would be disagreeable to the average informed reader. If challenged, it should not be hard to convert phrasing to be more specific. Many average readers may be unaware of Tom Bingham, but readers who do know of him would rarely disagree with the statement:
On his death in 2010, he was described as the greatest judge of his generation.
- Maybe a similar attitude to phrasing would be helpful in those articles? I do think each article will always present its own challenge, and it is better to be specific where it gives the reader more context.
- Eg: I like that Hazard’s lead reads:
Known for his creativity, dribbling, passing and vision, he is regarded as one of the best players of his generation
, but I don’t see “vision” in either source and creativity seems less important to the sources than attack (goal.com:Hazard is widely regarded as one of the best attacking players of his generation
) or dribbling (ibid:… is, without any qualms, one of the best dribblers of this generation.
), so I would cut those without sourcing. If pressed, the claim of “one of best players of his gen” seems less well-supported than “one of best dribblers of his gen”. It’s also not hard to find similar sources that support the claim (eg, [9]). — HTGS (talk) 00:56, 4 January 2024 (UTC) - The fact that you are not the biggest football fan is not the article's problem. Not every person's who's widely considered great is going to be immediately recognizable to you. AryKun (talk) 15:55, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- And here I was sure it was about a basketballer because I saw "dribbler". :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 11:00, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- Generations don't come in "exact years". Neither do ages, eons, epochs, eras, or periods. Don't mistake fuzziness for wrongness. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:40, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- @RevertBob: Please tell me the exact years of Roy Keane's "generation". How about Eden Hazard's "generation"? Magnolia677 (talk) 23:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- No we're not: Roy Keane and Eden Hazard (if you've watched top-flight English or Spanish football then you'd know who he is) are "regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation" where Messi and Maradona are "widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all-time". There's a big difference. RevertBob (talk) 22:38, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding this discussion, are we seriously going to compare Roy Kean and Eden Hazard—who I have never heard of until my encounter with this editor—with (look above) Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, Usain Bolt, Bob Dylan, and Adolf Hitler? Seriously? Magnolia677 (talk) 21:05, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is my point WhatamIdoing, just writing someone is "considered/regarded as one of the greatest" is a lot simpler "imparting nor plainly summarizing verifiable information" than complicating it with an incomplete list of Tom, Dick, Harry or others have ranked him in such a position of all-time which could be argued as to "promote the subject of an article". RevertBob (talk) 20:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
One other distinction. Those types of phrases like "Mike is considered to be one of the best dart players of all time" imply that they are widely considered to have such a quality. And if true, such is information about what the relevant public thinks rather than puffery. Not just that somebody found a few people/sources that said it. So if 3 truly reliable sources say "Mike is one of the best dart players of all time" that does not support it, it just says that three people think that way and anything more than that would be synthesis. If they all say "Mike is considered to be one of the best dart players of all time" IMO that does support it because they are reporting on what the relevant public thinks. North8000 (talk) 21:36, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- I could find a reliable source to say just about anything...that is why we have that gatekeeper WP:VNOT. Why don't we just stick to the facts and let readers decide who is the greatest? Magnolia677 (talk) 22:34, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- Because sometimes the relevant fact is that the subject is generally considered the greatest at something. I couldn't tell you who was considered the greatest (e.g.,) Mexican politician, and even if you listed all of his accomplishments, I would still not be in a position to decide for myself whether he was generally considered the greatest. I could only decide whether his accomplishments seem impressive to me. Both public reception and expert reactions are facts. They happen to be facts about opinions, but they are still facts, and they should be reported like any other fact. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:45, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
(edit conflict) If somebody is generally considered X, it should be possible to find high-quality sources that explicitly say that they are generally considered X. TompaDompa (talk) 21:47, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, and that's generally done. The problem is that even if you provide a stack of impressive scholarly works, all of which contain the exact sentence "He is widely considered the greatest ____ of all time", you have editors who personally hate this fact and want it removed from the article. It just subjectively feels wrong to them, no matter how well-supported or obviously justified anyone else thinks it is. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:47, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- Indeed. Good evidence of this is that Neil Peart makes no mention of the fact that he's widely considered one of the greatest rock drummers of all time, despite that consideration in sources that matter for such an assessment being an easily established fact. I'm pretty certain that the article used to have such a statement, so someone's gone on the warpath to remove it, and make our article poorer, in suggesting that Peart is just one of a zillion random notable rock drummers instead of the overwhelmingly influential and respected figure he remains, even posthumously, in his field. That omission has made me care more about this question when I did not much care ("let it just be decided on a case-by-case basis") when the matter was opened. The closest the Peart articles gets to any of this is body-buried statement that "USA Today's writers compared him favorably with other top-shelf rock drummers. He was 'considered one of the best rock drummers of all time, alongside' [various other names dropped here]." But this is silly, since USA Today is not a reliable source on such matters, and much better sources consistently evaluate Peart as one of the greatest in his genre. (The USA Today bit might be retainable as part of a much longer string of such accolades, but it doesn't make much sense on its own.) I'm at a loss for how this article ended up in the state it's in. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:23, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- There's a wrinkle, too, which someone at WT:V brought up (someone who says in effect that they're not interested in getting involved in a WT:MOS discussion directly) that there's a difference between WP on the one hand summarizing often emphatic sources then saying in WP's own voice that "X was one of the greatest foo of period", versus on the other hand saying "X is widely considered one of the greatest foo of period" based on the same source material. Most editors seem to prefer the hedging of the second formulation, but that editor suggested that this is WP:OR if sources do not use wording that literally is or paraphasally amounts to "widely considered". This was a new one on me. That is, some editors might actually prefer the first and more emphatic but also more challengable and "surprising" statement as technically better-verifiable with sources that just declare the subject "one of the greatest foo" instead of themselves using hedging language. I don't think I agree with this take, but it is worth mentioning. For my part, I think it's entirely reasonable as part of a WP:DUE analysis for WP editors to come to a conclusion to use something like "widely considered" based on the preponderance of the available high-quality RS (i.e. based on wide consideration), and to avoid declaring "was one of the greatest" as an unquestionable fact rather than as a widely considered opinion found in the source material. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:11, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- On that point, I think that the "widely considered" style should also be accepted in connection with smaller versions of such a claim: someone or something could easily "considered the greatest" by a particular group of people, even if that view is not generally held outside the group. A person could be the greatest influence in a particular art movement, or among a small ethnic group, without being known at all outside the group. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:53, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- PUFFERY is relative rather than absolute, no term will always or never be puffery. Anything that focused on the words outside of their specific and unique context is misguided. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:19, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is not just a biographical matter, and much of what we're discussing here also pertains to claims such as "critically acclaimed" for films, TV shows, albums, etc. (most especially super-superlative claims like "universally critically acclaimed"). There's been a lot of scattered discussion about this, some of these threads being listed at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Film#Number of citations used at Oppenheimer for critically acclaimed, plus some further talk at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film#Superlatives. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:16, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
RfC on the use of regarded/considered as one of the greatest/best X of all-time/generation[edit]
MOS:PUFFERY states: "Words such as these are often used without attribution to promote the subject of an article, while neither imparting nor plainly summarizing verifiable information".
Request for comment on if "regarded/considered as one of the greatest/best X of all-time/his generation" can be used in Wikipedia's voice without attribution providing there's appropriate supporting reliable sources. RevertBob (talk) 22:25, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Because the WP:FRS is broken right now, lots of people who would have seen this already have not. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:30, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- Generally yes, as long as the sourcing is several and high-quality (and the citations need not be in the lead if already in the body for the same/similar claim). That it, it needs to be attributed in the sense of cited inline in the article to multiple highly reliable sources on the questions, but need not be attributed in the lead more directly with something like "According to Rolling Stone, Spin, the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, and Billboard ...". In the article body, it would be more appropriate to attribute direct quotations, to "show rather than tell". I noted above in previous discussion that someone or other (I think at WT:NOR) raised a distinction between us saying "X was one of the greatest ..." and X is widely regarded as one of the greatest ...", and actually agued to prefer the former unless sources actually used the wording "widely regarded". But I think that's backward; "widely regarded" is a WP:DUE assessment of the source material, made by us editorially, while just claiming "X was one of the greatest ..." in WP's own voice would be asserting a subjective evaluation (albeit a common and reliably sourceable one) as if an objective fact, and that will not do. WP already uses phrasing like "widely regarded", "generally agreed among scientists", "there is a scientified consensus that", and so on when it comes to WP:FRINGE claims, so there is no magical reason that the same would not apply to assessments of this other sort. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:30, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- It can be used is the optimal word. In the body of an article, it should state this, and then give prose examples of the places when it was noted with sources. In the lede, there should be a part of the article that states this with the sourcing. The biggest issue we face (when sourced), is "Mo Salah is regarded as the best frisbee player of all time" and then unattributed sources. We need to prefix such a statement with prose examples of exactly what people say. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 08:14, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, Wikipedia articles can and should assert facts, including facts about opinions (both the "public opinion" and the "expert opinion" type). Yes, Wikipedia articles can and should use WP:INTEXT attribution correctly, which means using it when reporting an unusual or speaker-specific opinion ("Oliver Odd and Ulte Unusual said...") or when contrasting views ("The economists think this, but the philosophers think something else") but not using in-text attribution when reporting a widely held opinion (e.g., "According to every single person in the world, Paul Popular was very popular"). I add in particular that the lead might need a relatively vague and imprecise statement (e.g., "widely considered one of the greatest players") as an accurate summary of the body of the article. If the body of the article has multiple sentences reporting that various people/sources gush about how great the player is, then the lead might have a simple, high-level summary that has neither Wikipedia:Attribution (of the [1] type) nor Wikipedia:Intext attribution (of the "according to Alice and Bob and Carol and David" type). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:49, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
- Literally as you’ve written it, no, because the statement you have provided is a comparative judgement (i.e. not merely that the article subject is good, or excellent, but that is better than all or most of its contemporary comparators), and that can only be established by direct, authoritative, citation from a reliable source in order not to be editor OR or SYNTH. If there are reliable sources to support the statement, then attribution is both possible and desirable. MapReader (talk) 18:14, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
- Preferably, I'd rather have those phrases/statements be used (in Wiki-voice without attribution) only for the most obvious cases (using the examples from the discussion above: Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona, Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Tiger Woods, Serena Williams, Usain Bolt, etc). I oppose the usage of "in/of [his/her/their] generation" (in wiki-voice without attribution), because the statement is vague and has an appearance of WP:RECENCY bias. Some1 (talk) 20:47, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, but multiple sources (like, 3+) should be needed. If it has coverage in multiple sources, then it is likely due. However, such a claim should have multiple good sources per WP:EXTRAORDINARY. "Regarded/considered," of course, since it's a statement of opinion. (As opposed to flat-out "is the best x of their y") 🌺 Cremastra (talk) 01:12, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yes: it should be used when the claim is made so often that it would be inadequate to attribute it in prose. For instance, I imagine you could find well over 100 high-quality sources that describe Usain Bolt as one of the best sprinters (or athletes or sportspeople) of all time. It would then be undue to pick out one such source and say "sports commentator Joe Bloggs said in 2013 that Bolt was 'the best sprinter the world has ever seen'". Instead, Usain Bolt currently leads: "[Bolt is] widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time". Terms that are usually puffery are not always so, and we still take care not to say in Wikipedia's voice "Bolt is the greatest sprinter of all time". — Bilorv (talk) 23:43, 11 February 2024 (UTC)
- Question Does
can be used in Wikipedia's voice without attribution
refer to WP:INTEXT attribution (e.g. "Mr. Smith stated...") or supplying a citation to a reliable source? For citations, the WP:V policy says:
As for use of "regarded/considered", the more relevant guideline is MOS:WEASEL:...any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supportsthe material. Any material that needs an inline citation but does not have one may be removed.
WP:INTEXT attribution is not always suitable:Words to watch: some people say, many scholars state, it is believed/regarded/considered...The examples above are not automatically weasel words. They may also be used in the lead section of an article or in a topic sentence of a paragraph, and the article body or the rest of the paragraph can supply attribution. Likewise, views that are properly attributed to a reliable source may use similar expressions, if those expressions accurately represent the opinions of the source.
—Bagumba (talk) 08:46, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Neutrality issues apart, there are other ways in-text attribution can mislead. The sentence below suggests The New York Times has alone made this important discovery: According to The New York Times, the sun will set in the west this evening.
- Already allowed. The MOS says that it is just a guideline and should not be applied rigidly. I don't see the need to add yet another disclaimer. Words to watch are not banned words, and editors can use common sense to decide if something is puffery or just an acknowledgement of someone's reputation (like Shakespeare). HansVonStuttgart (talk) 09:53, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yes – note a vote! but placing the argument that the use of stating that the subject is regarded/considered as the "best/greatest" citing RS is within the policy and guidance as opposed to claiming the subject IS the "best/greatest". RevertBob (talk) 22:27, 21 February 2024 (UTC)
Plurals[edit]
I think MOS:PLURALS should be updated to better reflect North American usage. I'm American, and I've been noticing things like "As it toured Europe for the first time..." at Nirvana and "Because of conflicts with its record label..." at Metallica, uses that sound completely wrong. We need to add something about how it's "Nirvana is" but "they are" here. Esszet (talk) 16:15, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- The section already says, regarding collective nouns, "In North American English, these words are almost invariably treated as singular". What would you propose adding? Nikkimaria (talk) 16:20, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Something like "When referring to the members of the group, however, they is generally preferred over it; thus "I spoke to the committee and they told me..." Esszet (talk) 16:31, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- But that would appear to conflict with recommended American usage? Whereas in British English, usage is more relaxed and it is common to hear both singular and plural used in both formal and informal contexts (indeed, the example given in the MoS, that it is always “England are playing…” isn’t correct as a search on “England is playing” among British media sites will quickly confirm. I was taught that singular is preferred when the group is acting in unison - so “the team is playing well today” or “the team has just scored”, but plural when the group is in conflict or at variance - so “the team are at each other’s throats” or “the team are all over the place tonight”. Which is related to what you are suggesting - group as a unit is singular, but group as a collection of individuals is plural. But that’s British usage, not American, and I’m not convinced that this guideline is widely observed nowadays, anyway. MapReader (talk) 17:48, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, when you use the noun itself, it's almost always the singular (we would say "a number of them are...", however), but when you use pronouns, they is generally preferred. It may not be completely logical, but then again, neither is "the team are". As a North American, I'm telling you, saying "it told me" in reference to "the committee" is completely wrong, we apparently need to update the MOS to reflect that. Esszet (talk) 17:58, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm a North American, too, and do not agree with you; it depends strongly on the context and the implication. Any time someone comes here with an "X is completely wrong" attitude, most especially with a nationalistic bent to it, we have little choice but to take this as purely subjective linguistic prescription, which is basically a crank position. The worst period of disruption MoS has ever been through was caused by someone with this "only what I like is possibly ever correct in American English" attitude, and we not need a repeat of that. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:03, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Did you notice that I said "generally preferred" and not "mandatory" or even much more common"? The "completely wrong" referred to that specific example (and you appear to agree, you said we should say "the band said they were tired..."), and I'm not a nationalistic crank by any means (just look at Trump), you misunderstood my argument and jumped to a completely unwarranted conclusion. I've heard about MOS wars, and you appear to be quite battle-weary, maybe you take a break for a while. Esszet (talk) 02:00, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Esszet, how arrogant do you want to be – you really think it's going to help your case? 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 03:11, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Let's quote you (Esszet) directly:
As a North American, I'm telling you, saying "it told me" in reference to "the committee" is completely wrong, we apparently need to update the MOS to reflect that.
I'm also North American I do not agree with this. It's an argument to (personal) authority as an arbiter of what is "correct" versus "wrong" in North American English, and it's a bogus argument along prescriptivist lines with regard to American and North American English (the latter often cannot be generalized about anyway, as Canadian usage is palpably shifting on many matters back toward British due to the influences of a variety of national style guides and dictionaries and other works over the last two generations or so). If you were at a committee meeting and the individual committee members (even unanimously) told you X, then they told you X; you were told something by persons. If the committee as a body sent you a letter that collectively informed you of X, then it told you X; you were told by a body. This is normal usage within the US and more broadly. Where this differs regionally is in average handling of less clear-cut cases. AmEng tends toward "it" in reference to bands and companies and boards and such, while BrEng leans toward "they", but usage of both depending on the context is easily findable regardless of country of publication. Some examples from the top of relevant search results:- Here's BBC News referring to the EU [10], the UK Parliament and a UK political party [11], a company [12], a fraternal organization [13][14], a local government commission [15][16], an awards jury [17], a some bands [18][19][20] all as "it". The first and third band examples also use "they", depending on context.
- Here's the same UK source again, now referring to the EU [21], the EC [22], the UK House of Commons [23], the UK Supreme Court [24], a UK government agency [25], a UK government commission [26], a company [27][28], a legal jury [29], a band [30] all as "they". (The House of Commons case is rare, same with House of Lords, because "the House of" calls for a singular.)
- Moving on, let's pick USA Today, here referring to the US Supreme Court [31], a federal appellate court [32], a Congressional committee [33], a "team" of regulators [34], a state government department [35], a law-enforcement agency [36], a whole city government [37], a city board of commissioners [38][39], a company [40][41], a band [42][43], all as "they". (The Senate and the House of Representatives are rarely given "they" for the same reason as the House of Commons.)
- Here's the same US paper referring to the US Senate [44], a congressional committee [45], a federal agency [46], the US Supreme Court [47], a state government department [48], a law-enforcement agency [49], an entire city government [50], a city council/board [51][52], a company [53][54], a band [55][56] and many more, all as "it".
- The band ones veer back and forth between "they" and "it" in both UK and US articles, depending on context, and this also tends to be the case with companies and other bodies. Any claim that either approach "is completely wrong" in either dialect for any of these things is firmly disprovable with a few minutes on Google News. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:11, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Did you notice that I said "generally preferred" and not "mandatory" or even much more common"? The "completely wrong" referred to that specific example (and you appear to agree, you said we should say "the band said they were tired..."), and I'm not a nationalistic crank by any means (just look at Trump), you misunderstood my argument and jumped to a completely unwarranted conclusion. I've heard about MOS wars, and you appear to be quite battle-weary, maybe you take a break for a while. Esszet (talk) 02:00, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm a North American, too, and do not agree with you; it depends strongly on the context and the implication. Any time someone comes here with an "X is completely wrong" attitude, most especially with a nationalistic bent to it, we have little choice but to take this as purely subjective linguistic prescription, which is basically a crank position. The worst period of disruption MoS has ever been through was caused by someone with this "only what I like is possibly ever correct in American English" attitude, and we not need a repeat of that. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:03, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, when you use the noun itself, it's almost always the singular (we would say "a number of them are...", however), but when you use pronouns, they is generally preferred. It may not be completely logical, but then again, neither is "the team are". As a North American, I'm telling you, saying "it told me" in reference to "the committee" is completely wrong, we apparently need to update the MOS to reflect that. Esszet (talk) 17:58, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- But that would appear to conflict with recommended American usage? Whereas in British English, usage is more relaxed and it is common to hear both singular and plural used in both formal and informal contexts (indeed, the example given in the MoS, that it is always “England are playing…” isn’t correct as a search on “England is playing” among British media sites will quickly confirm. I was taught that singular is preferred when the group is acting in unison - so “the team is playing well today” or “the team has just scored”, but plural when the group is in conflict or at variance - so “the team are at each other’s throats” or “the team are all over the place tonight”. Which is related to what you are suggesting - group as a unit is singular, but group as a collection of individuals is plural. But that’s British usage, not American, and I’m not convinced that this guideline is widely observed nowadays, anyway. MapReader (talk) 17:48, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Something like "When referring to the members of the group, however, they is generally preferred over it; thus "I spoke to the committee and they told me..." Esszet (talk) 16:31, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Is this really an issue with plural usage or rather using persoanl vs. impersonal pronouns in collective reference to groups of people? older ≠ wiser 18:04, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- You could look at it that way, yeah. Esszet (talk) 18:12, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- This stems from a discussion at the Metallica talk page (Talk:Metallica#It/They). I, for one, agree that changing to "they", their", etc. would conflict with recommended American usage and just appear inconsistent, especially if we were still going to use "Metallica is...". As an example, "Metallica recorded its second studio album, Ride the Lightning..." is perfectly acceptable, where "James Hetfield performing with the band during their tour for Load in 1996" is not based on current sourced differences in grammar from British English. Esszet used "We went on tour with it..." in their argument, but I feel like that's a poor example, as we would simply change to "the band" or its actual name to make the phrase sound better and maintain consistency rather than use "them"; even above, Esszet has said "When referring to the members of the group, however...", even though we're talking about the group as a whole here. I feel like we need to have several strong sources presented that clearly shows wide usage of "they", their", etc. – not including for proper nouns that are plural in form – if we are to make this pretty significant change to MOS and this article rather than just the word of one person, however strongly they might feel about it. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 04:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is a quite minor change, and he's Australian, if any North Americans have issues, please, let us know. Esszet (talk) 05:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- And by the way, @4TheWynne:, this is from Metallica's official website, in big bold letters: "Metallica traveled to New York in a stoled U-Haul to record their first album". Esszet (talk) 18:06, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- See here for a source. Esszet (talk) 22:45, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- This stems from a discussion at the Metallica talk page (Talk:Metallica#It/They). I, for one, agree that changing to "they", their", etc. would conflict with recommended American usage and just appear inconsistent, especially if we were still going to use "Metallica is...". As an example, "Metallica recorded its second studio album, Ride the Lightning..." is perfectly acceptable, where "James Hetfield performing with the band during their tour for Load in 1996" is not based on current sourced differences in grammar from British English. Esszet used "We went on tour with it..." in their argument, but I feel like that's a poor example, as we would simply change to "the band" or its actual name to make the phrase sound better and maintain consistency rather than use "them"; even above, Esszet has said "When referring to the members of the group, however...", even though we're talking about the group as a whole here. I feel like we need to have several strong sources presented that clearly shows wide usage of "they", their", etc. – not including for proper nouns that are plural in form – if we are to make this pretty significant change to MOS and this article rather than just the word of one person, however strongly they might feel about it. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 04:18, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- You could look at it that way, yeah. Esszet (talk) 18:12, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- We do not need a change on this. MoS is correct about the general dialectal preference, but this does not somehow erase the contextual distinction between a band or any group doing something as a unit and doing something as individuals who happen to be in the group, and shades in between. Use common sense. When a band, for example, is talking about their experiences on the road, these are human experiences, and a plural makes sense. When it/they have issued a joint statement, it's perfectly fine treat them as a singular unit. There is nothing at all broken about "Metallica recorded its second studio album ....". There's no cause of any kind to change "James Hetfield performing with the band during its tour for Load in 1996" to use "their". It would be perfectly reasonable, however, to write "The 2024 tour plans were postponed because the band said they were exhausted and needed to spend more time with their families." (Individuals get exhausted and have families, collective entities do not.) PS: WP doesn't care what style guide (if any) a band's webmaster is following when writing on their own blog; they are not following our style guide and we are not following theirs. If we changed any of the MoS wording at all on this, it should maybe be to soften "In North American English, these words are almost invariably treated as singular" to say something more like "are usually treated". — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:03, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- How do you know if they were using a style guide at all? Maybe they were just speaking naturally? Esszet (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Wouldn't matter, then, since WP is written in semi-formal English, not "how I talk on the bus" English. PS: In doing the above source review, one thing that lept out at me was that the frequent material quoting various spokespeople from either direct speech or written material in their own words, showed no consistency of any kind; bodies like Supreme Courts and Houses of [X] that in formal writing usually take "it/its" where frequently given a "they/them/their" (especially when disapproving of something, probably a personal blame implication), while bodies like boards and committees and councils that seem more often in professional writing to take the plural form were frequently given the singular, probably as a "faceless officialdom" implication. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:27, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- How do you know if they were using a style guide at all? Maybe they were just speaking naturally? Esszet (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
RfC: It/They in North American English[edit]
To speakers of North American English: this may sound stupid, but for all of our British, Aussie, and Kiwi friends out there, which of the following sounds more natural?
- a) I spoke to the committee and they told me...
- b) I spoke to the committee and it told me...
Esszet (talk) 00:00, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- They Esszet (talk) 00:00, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Completely depends on the context and implication as discussed above. This question is also disingenuous, because the nominator is trying to change a particular band article, nothing about a committee, and different sentences in that article are and should be worded differently, due to whether the material is about the band collectively or about bandmembers as people. Furthermore, it is not proper to open an RfC in mid-discussion (especially not about a trivial matter on which you are not getting agreement from anyone). This should be closed as premature at best. RfCs consume community editorial time and energy, and need to happen after regular discussion has failed to come to a clear answer. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 00:06, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Excuse me, but I was trying to word the question as simply as possible. The underlying grammatical structure is identical, and I was not trying to mislead anyone. I started an RfC because I thought it was what I was supposed to do. I read WP:PROPOSAL without reading Wikipedia:How to contribute to Wikipedia guidance, and I apologize for that. I guess close it, and we'll continue waiting. Esszet (talk) 01:15, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- The proposal process is for introducing new draft policies and guidelines (and usually done at WP:VPPRO and "advertised" at WP:VPPOL or vice versa). RfC is usually used for making minor changes to extant policies and guidelines, but not right in the middle of an ongoing discussion. It's for when discussion has failed to come to a clear conclusion and needs to do so (or has come to a conclusion that the community needs to affirmatively do something with, like decide whether to make it part of a policy.) You've been here 11+ years; surely you know by now that RfCs are time-consuming and not triggered for every minor argument. And RfCs are for making internal decisions, not for doing WP:OR on what dialectal norms are; that's a matter for source research, if we needed an answer to this question, which we don't, since we've already known for a long time that one dialect group leans one way, and the other the opposite way, with both contextually flexible on it. PS: The RfC is sorely confusing anyway, since it purports to ask about NAmEng usage, but then specifically solicits the input of everyone but NAmEng users (British, Aussie, and Kiwi); we have no reason to care what non-NAm people think is more natural in a dialect that isn't theirs. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:30, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Jesus Christ. This is my first (and last) time doing anything with the MOS, I assumed it was necessary because the MOS is held to a higher standard, bit you know what? Do whatever the fuck you guys want. There's no point wasting my time in a dark corner of the internet like this. Esszet (talk) 00:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- What's with the angry victim posture? You openened an RfC (about trivia) in mid-discussion and it's been suggested that was inappropriate, and shown what appropriate RfC uses are. The RfC asked us to answer a question that's not pertinent to our purposes here and asked the wrong audience for the question anyway. You wondered about WP:PROPOSAL process, and have been informed what it's for and where it usually happens. What exactly is the problem? If you do something other editors find confusing or unhelpful, they'll say so. That doesn't mean you're being put-upon or mistreated. And what "higher standard" (of what) do you think is not being applied here? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:40, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Jesus Christ. This is my first (and last) time doing anything with the MOS, I assumed it was necessary because the MOS is held to a higher standard, bit you know what? Do whatever the fuck you guys want. There's no point wasting my time in a dark corner of the internet like this. Esszet (talk) 00:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- The proposal process is for introducing new draft policies and guidelines (and usually done at WP:VPPRO and "advertised" at WP:VPPOL or vice versa). RfC is usually used for making minor changes to extant policies and guidelines, but not right in the middle of an ongoing discussion. It's for when discussion has failed to come to a clear conclusion and needs to do so (or has come to a conclusion that the community needs to affirmatively do something with, like decide whether to make it part of a policy.) You've been here 11+ years; surely you know by now that RfCs are time-consuming and not triggered for every minor argument. And RfCs are for making internal decisions, not for doing WP:OR on what dialectal norms are; that's a matter for source research, if we needed an answer to this question, which we don't, since we've already known for a long time that one dialect group leans one way, and the other the opposite way, with both contextually flexible on it. PS: The RfC is sorely confusing anyway, since it purports to ask about NAmEng usage, but then specifically solicits the input of everyone but NAmEng users (British, Aussie, and Kiwi); we have no reason to care what non-NAm people think is more natural in a dialect that isn't theirs. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:30, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Close as premature per above. 4TheWynne (talk • contribs) 03:11, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Also, don't start an Rfc under a sub-heading! Johnbod (talk) 05:47, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Why not? That seems pretty common, actually. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:50, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- I would say that starting under a subheading should be the normal practice. It demonstrates that there has been prior discussion, as required by RFCBEFORE; it links the two together so that the first may easily be referred to from the sacond (as in as I noted earlier in this discussion) and also in a manner that means that one won't be archived independently of the other; and avoids accusations of WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:36, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, though sometimes done separately, especially if an earlier dicussion has wound down and is long, and/or way up near the page top with lots of intervening threads. Just seems like something we don't need a rule about. :-) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:37, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- I would say that starting under a subheading should be the normal practice. It demonstrates that there has been prior discussion, as required by RFCBEFORE; it links the two together so that the first may easily be referred to from the sacond (as in as I noted earlier in this discussion) and also in a manner that means that one won't be archived independently of the other; and avoids accusations of WP:MULTI. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:36, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Why not? That seems pretty common, actually. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:50, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- It As we are talking here about one band or one committee. The Banner talk 20:29, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Pointless Rfc. I'm interested in the general topic, but I won't up- or down-vote this, because after 30+ days and a cast of thousands weighing in, what do we have? We have a consensus on how to treat the word committee wrt sg/pl agreement. So, the next word in the dictionary after committee that is a collective noun that might have an issue with this type of AE/BE distinction is council, as in : "The council [have / has] decided to implement new policies." I'm going to take a nap, now. Somebody please ping me when this is over, so I can start an Rfc about council. Or, maybe "Cream" (the band) is a better example, and it comes soon after council, and maybe they are handled differently. Oops: maybe it is handled differently? Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:22, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
- I set out my understanding of the ‘correct’ position on British English above. But taking your question as written, asking what sounds more “natural” to an (one) experienced user of written English, “they told me” sounds more natural, and would be the form chosen most often at least in spoken English, and probably not uncommonly in writing. But had you replaced “…told me” with “…decided”, I would answer “it decided” sounds more natural for written English, and probably spoken English as well, at least in a formal context. And as someone who’s been a councillor for many years, it’s wording I have used and heard very frequently. As to why there’s a difference, I can only surmise that being ‘told’ something by a committee conjures up an image of a group of people whereas something being decided makes one think of a decision making body. MapReader (talk) 04:45, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
A worsening MOS:DASH issue (causing mounting WP:CONSISTENT problems)[edit]
At some point (I don't have the patience to history-dig for it), we lost the line-item in MOS:DASH that said something along the lines of using an en dash between the name parts of merged jurisdictions and other compound/merged/commingled/spanning/encompassing entities and things (other than, mostly, corporations, the post-merger/acquisition names of which take rather random forms like "DaimerChrysler" and "KPMG Peat Marwick" and so on). This principle was consistently used numerous times for establishing various article names, such as
- Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, San Antonio–Austin metroplex (and various side-articles of those), Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area, Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Champaign–Urbana Courier, Champaign–Urbana Challenger (etc.), Center Point–Urbana Community School District, Washington–Baltimore combined statistical area (many more like that), Castilla–La Mancha, PDP–Laban, Fidesz–KDNP, Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, Murray–Darling basin, Ngero–Vitiaz languages, Chuukic–Pohnpeic languages, Demta–Sentani languages (lots more like that), Battle of Coral–Balmoral, Belgorod–Kharkov offensive operation, Lublin–Brest offensive (many more like this), country–western dance, Huron–Manistee National Forests, KwaZulu–Cape coastal forest mosaic, Church of St. Simon Stock – St. Joseph (parish merger), Danube–Iller–Rhine Limes, Olive View–UCLA Medical Center, Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton, Timoto–Cuica people, Nakawa–Naguru Estates, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (AKA Poland–Lithuania) and Polish–Lithuanian union, Acadie–Bathurst Titan (complex case not of two specific locations per se but of the Acadian cultural region in the first case and a town in the second), Afghan–Iraqi Freedom Memorial (named for US military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq), probably Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, maybe Spanish–Italian Amphibious Battlegroup (might be interpretable as an "agreement between" kind of case like Canada–Mexico relations), maybe Iran–America Society (though also interpretable as a "between" case), and many more.
What brought this to my notice was an RM at Talk:Carson–Newman University to convert the en dash to a hyphen, in a case where this is a merged entity of institutions individually named Carson and Newman, not a case of a unitary insititution having been named after two people.
Ever since the MOS:DASH wording changed along the way somewhere, various cases that called for, or at least originally called for, en dash are now at hyphens. Some examples include:
- Gilgit-Baltistan, Moravian-Silesian Region, VMRO-DPMNE, Grand Falls-Windsor (comparable except in size to Minneapolis–Saint Paul and Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area), Long Harbour-Mount Arlington Heights (ditto), Mount Carmel-Mitchells Brook-St. Catherines (ditto), Chicago-Kent College of Law (merger of Chicago College of Law and Kent College of Law), Moravian-Silesian Football League, etc. The highest-profile such case probably Austria-Hungary. This hyphenation sometimes produces weird/confusing results, like Kuban-Black Sea Oblast (there's no such thing as the Kuban-Black Sea), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (conflicts with Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area), Champaign-Urbana Symphony Orchestra (same but even more so), Urbana-Lincoln Hotel-Lincoln Square Mall (even its text actually reads Urbana–Lincoln Hotel–Lincoln Square Mall), etc.; Upper Germanic-Rhaetian Limes (directly conflicts with Danube–Iller–Rhine Limes), Municipality of Mokronog-Trebelno (conflicts with many of the examples up top that are jurisdictions encompassing multiple cities/towns/etc.), Virovitica-Podravina County (ditto, though the second is river basin not a settlement).
Locus of the problem: The remaining MoS wording that seems applicable is only this: Generally, use a hyphen in compounded proper names of single entities. ... Wilkes-Barre, a single city named after two people, but Minneapolis–Saint Paul, an area encompassing two cities.
The latter point of this seems to still vaguely suggest using, e.g., Gilgit–Baltistan, Moravian–Silesian Region, Carson–Newman University, etc., but it is too unclear to reliably result in this at RM. People just see "Generally, use a hyphen in compounded proper names of single entities", without regard for the intent (or at least former intent) for the products of merging to be en-dash treated. The seizing upon this first part is so firm for some editors that the second just gets ignored, and we end up with titles like Mount Carmel-Mitchells Brook-St. Catherines and Long Harbour-Mount Arlington Heights and Grand Falls-Windsor which are akin to Minneapolis–Saint Paul (combined name for a fused area encompassing multiple individually named places) not to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (always one place, that happens to be named after two people).
Even the "Generally" in that wording now no longer makes sense, because the case in which it didn't apply is now so obscured as to be almost missing.
So, we have something of a WP:CONSISTENT policy crisis that has developed over the last few years, with various articles on subjects of this merged/commingled/spanning nature being at en-dash titles and various of them at hyphen titles, and people willy-nilly RMing them at cross purposes to each other, with different moves concluding for conflicting results (plus sometimes just some manual moves, and sometimes pages simply having been at one or the other format the entire time without being moved). A prominent recent example is AFL–CIO being stable at that title for years, on the basis of the merged-entities reasoning, then suddenly moved to AFL-CIO on the preferences of a total of three editors.
We really need to settle one way or the other on this, and record it clearly in MOS:DASH.
PS: There are also a handful of outright errors, like:
- Trans–Haryana Expressway, which should be at Trans-Haryana Expressway (trans- is a prefix not [in this context] a stand-alone word; this is like Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Sino-Korean vocabulary, Greco-Roman wrestling, etc.). Another is Gardner–Webb University, which is not the product of merger of a Gardner institution and a Webb one, but simply something named after two people, like Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and Heriot-Watt University. Same with Hampden–Sydney College; both of these institutions should move to hyphens regardless of the outcome of the above issue. Another is Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags and Athenas, a joint intercollegiate athletics program of Claremont McKenna College, Harvey Mudd College, and Scripps College which are otherwise unrelated, so this should clearly be at Claremont–Mudd–Scripps Stags and Athenas regardless of the above issue (there is no such thing as "Claremont-Mudd-Scripps"). Another one: Lewis–Clark State College (named after Lewis & Clark, not a Lewis school and a Clark school that combined). Probably also wrong: Wheeler–Schebler Carburetor Company (not named that as product of merger of Wheeler and Schebler companies but named that originally for two co-founders); The Blanton–Webster Band (same thing); we have a practice of naming discoveries, theories, and the like named for two+ individuals with en dashes, but this has generally not been extended to companies, bands, etc. (and there seems to be no appetite to do so). There's a whole series of misnamed articles like Richelieu—Verchères with an em dash in them that need to move to en dash, and often with corresponding hyphenated ones like Richelieu-Verchères on subtly different jurisdictions that also need en dashes instead of hyphens, with parenthetical disambiguation; trying to distinguish them soley by type of horizontal line does not pass WP:DIFFPUNCT (these can probably all be tracked down through List of Canadian electoral districts and Historical federal electoral districts of Canada).
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:41, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
- Fully agree. As I said the other day at Talk:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, all of these articles should immediately be moved back per the MoS. As a style matter, these really don't have anything to do with COMMONNAME. Perhaps a mass RM? InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:58, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding names of major universities (for example), why wouldn't we give deference to the formatting on their own letterhead (whether hyphen or en, spaced out or not, depending on font), just as we give deference to random corporate branding like "DaimlerChrysler"? SamuelRiv (talk) 06:07, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Because the MoS specifically recommends this style. As I noted at the Carson–Newman RM, the only reason most websites avoid using en dashes in their style guides is that it's not on a standard keyboard. But Wikipedia has its own style guide, which doesn't defer to external style guides used by other publications. See also MOS:CONFORM; we always normalize dashes, apostrophes, quotation marks, all caps, etc. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:12, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- That seems like a massive assumption that they "only" use a hyphen because it's not on the standard keyboard. Additionally, some of these universities are two names, which MOS:DASH suggests we should stylize with a hyphen. I fail to see why we should rely on an assumption towards en dashes when all reliable source indicate the commonname and desired name uses a hyphen. glman (talk) 14:13, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Glman have you got endash and hyphen the wrong way round here? YorkshireExpat (talk) 16:53, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- No, sorry, you're right. YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:54, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Glman have you got endash and hyphen the wrong way round here? YorkshireExpat (talk) 16:53, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- That seems like a massive assumption that they "only" use a hyphen because it's not on the standard keyboard. Additionally, some of these universities are two names, which MOS:DASH suggests we should stylize with a hyphen. I fail to see why we should rely on an assumption towards en dashes when all reliable source indicate the commonname and desired name uses a hyphen. glman (talk) 14:13, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- It's not a matter of "deference". Names like DaimlerChrysler and KPMG Peat Marwick do not involve "horizontal lines", so the question never arises for them. If we had "Daimler[- or –]Chrysler", then it would. At least until recently, the decision would have been "Daimler–Chrysler" as a merger em dash. But the way MoS has drifted from clarity on this matter over the years, it would now be about a 50/50 toss-up, some arguing for consistency with other en-dashed names of merged entities, and some arguing for consitency with hyphenated ones of the same sort, when all of them in this class should be using the same style. I'm not even sure I care which direction it goes in, as long as one is picked and recorded clearly in MoS so the conflict stops. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Because the MoS specifically recommends this style. As I noted at the Carson–Newman RM, the only reason most websites avoid using en dashes in their style guides is that it's not on a standard keyboard. But Wikipedia has its own style guide, which doesn't defer to external style guides used by other publications. See also MOS:CONFORM; we always normalize dashes, apostrophes, quotation marks, all caps, etc. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:12, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- But University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a completely different case to Carson–Newman University, and I agree this should be a endash when going by the style guide. WP:COMMONNAME is a different argument. At that point one would be arguing for the
occasional exception
espoused by WP:MOS. YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:47, 23 January 2024 (UTC)- Well, yes, they are completely different cases, but both call for en dashes for different reasons, the first because it serves and is named for multiple cities, the second because it's a merger of a Carson institution and a Newman institution. Or least both used to call for en dashes, but MOS:DASH has gotten confusingly messed with over time so that the second of these categories is no longer clear (the first still is, despite someone arguing below to keep the hyphen in the university name). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- @InfiniteNexus: The point of this thread is that the MOS:DASH material has become so muddled that it's unlikely that such an RM would conclude with a consensus, and if it did it would be on a very split basis that pits one "consistency" and against another, because the guideline material no longer offers the clarity required to be certain. Anyone can spin it to mean what they want it to mean, and cite the "precedents" in RM history that agree with them. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding names of major universities (for example), why wouldn't we give deference to the formatting on their own letterhead (whether hyphen or en, spaced out or not, depending on font), just as we give deference to random corporate branding like "DaimlerChrysler"? SamuelRiv (talk) 06:07, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think the rule "use en-dash if two entities merged, hyphen if it was named after two persons/entities from the start" is entirely impractical, needlessly hard to follow, and confusing to readers, so I'm not sad that that line item was lost (assuming it ever existed, which I don't know). A rule I know that's way easier to follow and makes (for me) more sense is to use an en-dash if one of component parts consists of multiple words (e.g. Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Grand Falls–Windsor), but not otherwise (e.g. Gilgit-Baltistan, Moravian-Silesian Region). Let's not multiply the en-dashes without good reason. Gawaon (talk) 16:46, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
A rule I know that's way easier to follow and makes (for me) more sense is to use an en-dash if one of component parts consists of multiple words
. I'm sorry but this makes no sense, why would this be a rule? WP:MOS makes absolutely no mention of this. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:06, 23 January 2024 (UTC)- It used to; I'm not sure what happened to that. But it's a different kind of en dash usage not relevant to the sort under discussion here. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Rather than try to shoehorn this into the reply chain, I'll point out here that the official Representation Order for Canadian federal electoral district uses emdashes, not endashes, between geographical entities. Moving them all to endashes would often be erroneous. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 20:00, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- Nope, it's just an arbitrary style choice, not even consistently followed by the responsible agency, much less anyone else. I demonstrate this clearly below in a sub-thread. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
Generally, use a hyphen in compounded proper names of single entities.
I think discussion ends here. Carson–Newman University is a single entity, including compounded names, so it gets a hyphen. The fact that it wasn't a single entity in the past is neither here nor there; WP:MOS makes no reference to that. Why should the history of a university determine the current naming? The argument for University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is entirely different. Urbana–Champaign is a metropolitan area comprising multiple single entities, and that's why it gets the endash. Why WP:CONSISTENT should apply here is anyone's guess. Certainly there should be no mass RM based on that policy.- However, I might go further. For Urbana–Champaign, which is not a single entity, we can do what we wish and render that in our own style. For the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a single entity, the people who run it choose to render it in that style, with a hyphen. More importantly (for WP:ARTICLE) secondary sources render it in that style. It is arrogance to say that we know better, and we will change how it is rendered for our purposes. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:05, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- That's confusingly inconsistent with regard to Urbana[– or -]Champaign, and is exactly the opposite of the intent of all of MOS:DASH, MOS:ARTCON, and WP:CONSISTENT policy. To the extent that argument for "University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign" with a hyphen has a kind of logic to it, it is contradicted by other logics. The university's name is exactly like that of Seattle–Tacoma Airport; it indicates a two-city service/coverage area, which calls for an en dash. The above is exactly what I mean by people latching onto the first half of the "Generally, use ..." rule and ignoring the rest of it. This happens because the wording has gotten unclear. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Well I think I've been perfectly clear. Nowhere in policy does it say that names of entities after merger get endashes. Nowhere does it say anything about component parts consisting of multiple words. I'm going by what it says now. I don't think my second argument is confusingly inconsistent. For the institution it's all about how sources render the name, and replicating the style that the sources use (WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE). Otherwise it's single vs multiple entities. YorkshireExpat (talk) 19:20, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is my thinking as well. A single entity, such as a school or corporation, is akin to a hyphenated surname resulting from a marriage. It should be a hyphen. Whether or not a company is named for two people who co-founded the company at one point in time, or the company is named for two previously independent predecessors, it's still one company named after two things, not an alliance of still independent entities. The Baden-Württemberg principle. Another example is Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, named for the three predecessor studios, but a single, hyphenated, entity. oknazevad (talk) 21:35, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Well, that is definitely one interpretation/preference that has grown over the last several years due to the wording here becoming unclear. That perception used to be in the minority, maybe it's now in the majority; I'm not really sure. But various editors do not agree with that interpretation, and there remains a conflict, with RMs concluding for opposite results due to whichever "camp" shows up and comments more at that particular move discussion. Maybe we just need to RfC this to pick one option or the other and record it more clearly? — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:35, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Right, writing Baden–Württemberg or Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer would be absurd. So SMcCandlish's original conjecture (that this would be a generally usable and useful rule) can be considered refuted. Gawaon (talk) 03:49, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- "Gawaon doesn't like it" isn't a refutation, it's just you being firmly in one of the "camps of interpretation" already clearly identified. If there was general agreement that this use of the en dash was an absurdity, then the entire first block of examples posted above could never have existed. We have two competing views on this, and no clear resolution on getting past it. I think an RfC on what the wording should be about this kind of case is probably in order, to settle it one way or the other clearly, though I have not drafted one yet. I kind of figured that would be the case when I opened this, but it was worth checking to see if there was already a clear resolution. When the first comment, from InfiniteNexus, is pretty much diametrically opposite yours, that's not a good sign for there already being agreement. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:20, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, but how many examples of Baden–Württemberg or Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer with en-dashes can you find out there in the wild, especially in WP:RS? I know that "Wikipedia does it differently from all the rest of the world" is a theoretically possible policy, it just doesn't sound like a very well-conceived one. I'm not opposed to an RfC, but would still like to point out that the other "camp" you mention doesn't seem to exist outside of our little bubble. Gawaon (talk) 05:51, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- The infrequency of it is definitely an argument against doing it (though statistical analysis of this is not very practical since ngrams, Google Scholar, etc., treat – and - as equivalent). An argument for doing it is rule simplicity: any time names of two entites are run together with a horizontal line, use the en dash not the hyphen. [shrug]. I'm not a partisan on this issue, but I'm interested in the question being resolved clearly so that we no longer have two diametrically conflicting article titling patterns for such cases. Assuming the hyphen were preferred for such cases, we would still have the question to resolve of whether Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area being retained with an endash as multi-city juridictional label should also result in Champaign–Urbana Courier, Champaign–Urbana Challenger, and University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign for consistency with that, or instead produce Champaign-Urbana Courier, Champaign-Urbana Challenger, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for consistency with other "single entities" that are "named after" multiple things. This is one of numerous cases of warring consistencies. Then there's Center Point–Urbana Community School District in the middle. Is that a multi-city jursidiction that takes an en dash or a single entity that takes a hyphen? It could qualify as either, so how do we rewrite the MoS item clearly enough to pick one or the other for such a case? I'm pretty good at the challenges of clear policy writing, but this one is thorny. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:34, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'd give all of those hyphens personally. Also love that fact that the Champaign–Urbana Courier was previously owned by Lindsay–Schaub Newspapers :D (which is inconsistently rendered in that article, but I'd also give a hyphen btw). They're all proper names. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Whether "they're all proper names" is completely irrelevant; the question is which line to use between the proper names, in which contexts. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:41, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- Just explaining my thinking. YorkshireExpat (talk) 15:56, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- Whether "they're all proper names" is completely irrelevant; the question is which line to use between the proper names, in which contexts. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:41, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'd give all of those hyphens personally. Also love that fact that the Champaign–Urbana Courier was previously owned by Lindsay–Schaub Newspapers :D (which is inconsistently rendered in that article, but I'd also give a hyphen btw). They're all proper names. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- The infrequency of it is definitely an argument against doing it (though statistical analysis of this is not very practical since ngrams, Google Scholar, etc., treat – and - as equivalent). An argument for doing it is rule simplicity: any time names of two entites are run together with a horizontal line, use the en dash not the hyphen. [shrug]. I'm not a partisan on this issue, but I'm interested in the question being resolved clearly so that we no longer have two diametrically conflicting article titling patterns for such cases. Assuming the hyphen were preferred for such cases, we would still have the question to resolve of whether Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area being retained with an endash as multi-city juridictional label should also result in Champaign–Urbana Courier, Champaign–Urbana Challenger, and University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign for consistency with that, or instead produce Champaign-Urbana Courier, Champaign-Urbana Challenger, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for consistency with other "single entities" that are "named after" multiple things. This is one of numerous cases of warring consistencies. Then there's Center Point–Urbana Community School District in the middle. Is that a multi-city jursidiction that takes an en dash or a single entity that takes a hyphen? It could qualify as either, so how do we rewrite the MoS item clearly enough to pick one or the other for such a case? I'm pretty good at the challenges of clear policy writing, but this one is thorny. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 17:34, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, but how many examples of Baden–Württemberg or Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer with en-dashes can you find out there in the wild, especially in WP:RS? I know that "Wikipedia does it differently from all the rest of the world" is a theoretically possible policy, it just doesn't sound like a very well-conceived one. I'm not opposed to an RfC, but would still like to point out that the other "camp" you mention doesn't seem to exist outside of our little bubble. Gawaon (talk) 05:51, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- "Gawaon doesn't like it" isn't a refutation, it's just you being firmly in one of the "camps of interpretation" already clearly identified. If there was general agreement that this use of the en dash was an absurdity, then the entire first block of examples posted above could never have existed. We have two competing views on this, and no clear resolution on getting past it. I think an RfC on what the wording should be about this kind of case is probably in order, to settle it one way or the other clearly, though I have not drafted one yet. I kind of figured that would be the case when I opened this, but it was worth checking to see if there was already a clear resolution. When the first comment, from InfiniteNexus, is pretty much diametrically opposite yours, that's not a good sign for there already being agreement. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 04:20, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- YorkshireExpat: The entire point of this thread is that the wording has become confused over time and is subject to "warring interpretations", so just insisting that you have an intepretation of its currently messy state isn't exactly telling us anything. Everyone has an intepretation, and they conflict. More to the point of what you said, nothing about style matters on WP is ever about what the sources are doing (or we literally could not have our own style guide at all, and would always have to do, on every style question of every kind, exactly what 50.0000001% or more of the sources were doing – the common-style fallacy), except where we explicitly state otherwise, and that pretty much is only when it comes to one single thing: whether to capitalize something (see top of MOS:CAPS). That's a special rule the community adopted to (mostly) put an edit to disruptive squabbles over capitalization. If WP's MoS was to just use hyphens any time they are the dominant punctuation, then we'd simply delete almost everything in the MOS:DASH section and use hyphens for almost everything, because the bulk of publishers (mostly in news) have abandoned hyphen vs. dash distinctions that are preserved predominantly in academic-leaning writing, and the former no longer use dashes for any function at all other than a form of parenthetical punctuatiion – like this. WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE is entirely and only about facts, not internal style decisions about how we choose to write about the facts. Confusion to the contrary is fairly common, but it is still a confusion. If your idea that WP had to follow the most common style were correct, the only style guide that WP could ever have would be just a tiny document addressing a handful of MediaWiki technical limitations, with style otherwise being just determined by majority use in sources. Of course, WP is not actually written that way, we have a large style guide, and we have a policy at WP:NOT#NEWS that
Wikipedia is not written in news style.
One upshot of this is that a style that dominates in news material but not in academic and other non-news material is not a style we'll adopt (unless we have a good reason to do so as determined by project-internal consensus for some other particular reason). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 01:35, 25 January 2024 (UTC)- If the standard is boiled down to single vs multiple entities (the wording is pretty clear and mentions neither mergers nor multiple words as brought up in this discussion) then it's quite simple to follow (far easier than requiring a history of the entity(ies) involved) and conveys information about the nature of the construction of the thing that is being written about (this would be entirely lost with the multiple words thing). That's why I think it should stay as it is, perhaps with some better examples to clear up this confusion in the future.
- The thing about WP:COMMONNAME was only ever a secondary argument from me anyway, so I'm happy to concede that, despite the arrogance involved in retitling an institution, not to mention the assumptions made when doing that. YorkshireExpat (talk) 18:40, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- It's just a house-style matter. Names of things (like whether to "obey" silly trademark stylizations, whether to abbreviate things like "Incorporated" and "Limited" in company names (and whether with or without a trailing "." and whether or not preceded by a comma), whether to capitalize a leading "the" or include it at all, whether to put spaces between initials, etc., etc., are all arbitrary style decisions that vary from publisher to publisher. You can wish all you want that it were not so, but it provably is so. Using silly argument to emotion tactics like bemoaning things as "arrogance" are not going to convince anyone of anything, and just make you look like a crank PoV pusher of entirely subjective prescritivist notions. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:41, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yep, that's fine. I'm just going with the policy (as currently written). YorkshireExpat (talk) 16:00, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- It's just a house-style matter. Names of things (like whether to "obey" silly trademark stylizations, whether to abbreviate things like "Incorporated" and "Limited" in company names (and whether with or without a trailing "." and whether or not preceded by a comma), whether to capitalize a leading "the" or include it at all, whether to put spaces between initials, etc., etc., are all arbitrary style decisions that vary from publisher to publisher. You can wish all you want that it were not so, but it provably is so. Using silly argument to emotion tactics like bemoaning things as "arrogance" are not going to convince anyone of anything, and just make you look like a crank PoV pusher of entirely subjective prescritivist notions. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:41, 31 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is my thinking as well. A single entity, such as a school or corporation, is akin to a hyphenated surname resulting from a marriage. It should be a hyphen. Whether or not a company is named for two people who co-founded the company at one point in time, or the company is named for two previously independent predecessors, it's still one company named after two things, not an alliance of still independent entities. The Baden-Württemberg principle. Another example is Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, named for the three predecessor studios, but a single, hyphenated, entity. oknazevad (talk) 21:35, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Well I think I've been perfectly clear. Nowhere in policy does it say that names of entities after merger get endashes. Nowhere does it say anything about component parts consisting of multiple words. I'm going by what it says now. I don't think my second argument is confusingly inconsistent. For the institution it's all about how sources render the name, and replicating the style that the sources use (WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE). Otherwise it's single vs multiple entities. YorkshireExpat (talk) 19:20, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- That's confusingly inconsistent with regard to Urbana[– or -]Champaign, and is exactly the opposite of the intent of all of MOS:DASH, MOS:ARTCON, and WP:CONSISTENT policy. To the extent that argument for "University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign" with a hyphen has a kind of logic to it, it is contradicted by other logics. The university's name is exactly like that of Seattle–Tacoma Airport; it indicates a two-city service/coverage area, which calls for an en dash. The above is exactly what I mean by people latching onto the first half of the "Generally, use ..." rule and ignoring the rest of it. This happens because the wording has gotten unclear. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Some of the examples above don't seem especially well chosen, since they can be explained in other terms – i.e., Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, and San Antonio–Austin metroplex can be explained in terms of MOS:ENBETWEEN / Dash#Attributive compounds. But Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area and Seattle–Tacoma International Airport are not cases of MOS:ENBETWEEN / MOS:PREFIXDASH / MOS:SUFFIXDASH. It would be nice to get more clarity over "an institution created by merging prior institutions" and "a unitary institution/place that was named after two people" and "an area encompassing two non-merged places" or "an institution named after two non-merged places" and "a place/city/nation formed by merging previously-distinct places". I've seen opinions expressed in RMs based on such considerations, but the MoS hasn't seemed clear, and I am not aware of very relevant external style guidance. (Talk:AFL-CIO#Requested move 16 August 2023 was more a matter of the outcome for Talk:SAG-AFTRA#Requested move 20 July 2023 than the three editors who commented.) — BarrelProof (talk) 17:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
- Well, yes, the "MoS hasn't seemed clear" issue is what this is about. It needs to be clear, but there's clearly not agreement on what it should say, and there are a lot classes to consider. Not an easy RfC to whip up, but I'll put it on my list. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 02:45, 24 February 2024 (UTC)
To anyone following this I've started a move request here, if anyone's interested and has a viewpoint. I think it's an interesting case. YorkshireExpat (talk) 15:49, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
Canadian federal electoral districts[edit]
Moving reply here so as not to put a large block of links in the main thread above: G. Timothy Walton above asserts: the official Representation Order for Canadian federal electoral district uses emdashes, not endashes, between geographical entities. Moving them all to endashes would often be erroneous.
.
Nah, it is easily demonstrable that which horizontal line to use is just a completely arbitrary house-style choice, and we do not follow the Canadian government's house style, nor they ours. More to the point, they don't follow their own, anyway. The Canadian government is not consistent at all on an unspaced em dash, even within the same agency – the one responsible for administring electoral districts – and for the same electoral district; cf. their official usage here, which is unspaced double hyphens (an old typewriting convention standing in for an en dash, with an em dash represented by three), and their equally official usage here, which is an unspaced en dash not an em dash. This idea that these districts "officially" require an em dash seems to be an assumption about what what is done in a particular webpage or other document without any regard to what's done in others, in reference to the same districts. And it wouldn't matter anyway, since WP doesn't follow some other entity's house style even when it's "official".
Other agencies use whatever they want; e.g.: Library of Parliament uses spaced hyphens for this [57][58]; Statistics Canada uses unspaced double-hyphens again [59], and same at main Canada.ca government site [60][61]; Parliament of Canada prefers the unspaced em dash [62], and ditto for Elections Ontario [63] and Public Prosecution Service [64]; Federal Redistribution uses unspaced en dash [65] as does the government's Canada Gazette [66], but not always (here with unspaced em dash [67]); the City of Toronto uses an unspaced hyphen [68]; Legislative Assembly of Ontario uses unspaced en dash and unspaced hyphen in same document [69].
Independent source usage generally doesn't follow this alleged but disproven em dash convention, either: Ontario Community Health Profiles Partnership uses unspaced double-hyphen [70], GeoCoder uses unspaced hyphen [71], University of Calgary Canadian Elections Database confusingly uses unspaced double-hyphen for federal [72] and unspaced hyphen for provincial [73], StudentVote.ca uses unspaced em dash [74], Toronto.com (combined website of the newspapers The North York Mirror, Scarborough Mirror and Etobicoke Guardian) uses unspaced hyphen [75], Canada Gazette sometimes uses unspaced em dash [76], but otherwise unspaced en dash [77]; CBC News uses unspaced hyphen [78], and so do The Globe and Mail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-toronto-election-results-map/], Toronto District School Board [79], Global News [80], CTV News [81], CityNews [82], and Canadian National Multilingual News Group [83]; Toronto Star uses the unspaced em dash [84] or unspaced hyphen [85] on different pages; Simon Fraser University uses spaced hyphen [86]; Ontario Public School Boards Association uses mostly spaced en dash, some unspaced em dash, and at least one case of hyphen spaced on one side, all in the same document [87].
This is all just from the first page of search results on the same electoral district. Clearly demonstrates this is entirely a house-style choice, with some (both within and without the government) not caring at all which one it is even from page-to-page on the same site, sometimes not even on the same page. WP has no reason at all to do anything but follow it's own MOS:DASH rule, which calls for Toronto–Danforth with an unspaced en dash, with parenthetical disambiguation as needed for multiple districts. The idea of ever trying to disambiguate these just by which tiny little horizontal line they have in them is not even vaguely practical. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:17, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree. WP:CANRIDINGS (a.k.a. MOS:CANADA#Ridings) seems rogue. — BarrelProof (talk) 17:10, 15 February 2024 (UTC)
Removing or replacing 2005 ArbCom quote[edit]
I'm proposing that we remove or replace the following from MOS:VAR:
The Arbitration Committee has expressed the principle that "When either of two styles is acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change."[a]
ArbCom does not have authority over content, and so their words should not have such a prominent place in a manual of style that governs Wikipedia content. In addition, while a minor point, the quote is nearing 20 years old(!) and feels a bit out of place in a 2024 manual of style.
I'd propose that we remove the quote, as the next sentence beginning "Edit-warring over style ..." seems to cover this topic well enough. However, we could instead replace the quote with a regular old sentence that says the same thing. Ed [talk] [OMT] 19:15, 23 January 2024 (UTC) Ed [talk] [OMT] 19:15, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- That ArbCom has not authority over content does not affect the validity or consensus of their prior rulings. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:38, 23 January 2024 (UTC)
- I would agree with this. It is actually outside of ArbCom's remit to govern content (including internal WP:P&G content – ArbCom doesn't even get to rewrite WP:ARBPOL itself). While the underlying point of that material is a behavioral one about edit-warring (which was central to the case in question), the wording taken in its most literal way and out of that specific context is actually a serious over-reach of ArbCom's authority. It would be better for MoS, as a community document, to present the same idea (which appears to have longstanding community consensus), just not as an ancient ArbCom quote. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 07:29, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed. This is best expressed in the guideline's own voice. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:39, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
- I feel that they were probably summarizing guidelines or practice at the time rather than trying to write policy by fiat, but either way, since this page is the guideline and is supposed to document the practice, quoting ArbCom directly seems a bit circular, yeah. --Aquillion (talk) 11:26, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose change In this case, Arbcom is not ruling in favour of a particular style. Their point is a behavioural one; that making such changes without a good reason is disruptive. This seems well-established in cases such as WP:CITEVAR and infoboxes. As conflict over such matters can end up before Arbcom, it's good for editors to understand the risk. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:19, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
- @Andrew Davidson: In its original context, the line is definitely intended to be a content point (specifically, summarizing a content policy). Quoting them as content authorities here is not appropriate, and as Aquillion notes it's even rather circular. Ed [talk] [OMT] 22:59, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
- No, it's a behavioural point. Circularity is irrelevant as our rules are based on consensus and practice rather than authority. The key point here is that Arbcom was on board with this consensus and their enforcement of it is a significant part of our practice. Editors should therefore understand that it's not a rule that they may lightly ignore and so it's good that we make this clear. Andrew🐉(talk) 19:37, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
- @Andrew Davidson: In its original context, the line is definitely intended to be a content point (specifically, summarizing a content policy). Quoting them as content authorities here is not appropriate, and as Aquillion notes it's even rather circular. Ed [talk] [OMT] 22:59, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose change ArbCom does have authority to rule in content; it has
the authority to impose binding solutions to disputes between editors
. And their ruling is authoritative, as opposed to most of the MOS. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:59, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
Notes
- ^ See ArbCom decisions in June 2005, November 2005, and 2006
MOS:BLOCKQUOTE[edit]
According to this discussion, a transparent background is applied to quote boxes in article space because of the guidelines established in MOS:BLOCKQUOTE and MOS:COLOR. I think this choice makes the pages using this template look cluttered and visually appalling. Furthermore, as pointed out by @Belbury, these models have been employed in over 22,000 times across Wikipedia, which means the current orientation is interfering with readability in many places. I would like to suggest that article space quote boxes should have a guideline that encourages neutral tones, such as the default grey colour (#F9F9F9). As a last argument to support this change, I will also cite @Light show: "Light background colors can make a document more visually appealing by adding a layer of design and sophistication, which can make the text more engaging to readers [...] large pages of black and white text can be monotonous to read, so having some light background colors for block quotes with borders can break this monotony, making the reading experience more pleasant and less tiresome". GustavoCza (talk • contribs) 01:46, 4 February 2024 (UTC)
- The {{quote box}} background was made transparent across all articles a few days ago, citing MOS:BLOCKQUOTE. Is a floating sidebar quotation really a blockquote, though? Belbury (talk) 12:16, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
- Technically it is, I'd say, but still I don't think MOS:BLOCKQUOTE needs to, or should, apply here. Gawaon (talk) 13:59, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
- I too was very surprised to see such a major change (affecting many thousands of articles, including FAs) implemented without either discussion or notice. I just don't think such wide-reaching changes should be made unilaterally. The wording says "Block quotations using a colored background are also discouraged". It doesn't say why, nor does it actually prohibit their use. I completely understand the need for style conventions. I also get that colored boxes may cause accessibility issues. But to overturn a approach that has been widely used for many years without any discussion doesn't seem the right way to go. KJP1 (talk) 07:23, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not really involved with that, but I think you could simply revert the style change to the {{quote box}} background and wait what happens (second step of the WP:BRD process). Gawaon (talk) 08:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- That seems like a simple move, even for a technical numpty like me. But I note the template is used on 803,000 pages! I'd prefer that the editor who made the change self-reverted. And then we could have a discussion about the whys and wherefores and whatever else. KJP1 (talk) 10:36, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think there is anything broken about the current template, which displays a transparent background in article space, per two MOS guidelines. I have been told in the past by administrators that BRD does not apply to templates (something I do not believe, but I taste good with ketchup, so I do not meddle in the affairs of administrators), so I am reluctant to self-revert in this case. I think the discussion here should determine if there is a community consensus to change our MOS guidelines, specifically:
do not use colored text or background unless its status is also indicated using another method, such as an accessible symbol matched to a legend, or footnote labels
(MOS:COLOR) andBlock quotations using a colored background are also discouraged
(MOS:BLOCKQUOTE). – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:27, 8 February 2024 (UTC)- I don't think that line from MOS:COLOR applies to the question of the template's default colour, as that grey isn't communicating the "status" of anything. It's the same shade of grey you get around an image thumbnail or infobox. It generally seems to be the case that when Wikipedia floats something in a box at the side of an article, that box gets an #F9F9F9 background. Belbury (talk) 14:13, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- I am following this thread and am willing to modify the template once the guidance here on the MOS page(s) has/have been clarified. If neutral background colors are acceptable in some situations, I'm fine with MOS explicitly allowing a neutral background color for {{quote box}} and similar block content in article space, as suggested above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:26, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- A full rainbow of background colours are already acceptable "in some situations" under the part of MOS:COLOR that you're quoting! It allows background colours that communicate information so long as that information
is also indicated using another method
. - I could imagine an article that interleaved multiple quotes from two different sources (perhaps a green paper and a white paper), and used background colours in addition to in-text attribution to distinguish them as an aid to readability.
- MOS:COLOR doesn't appear to take a view at all on the background colour for infoboxes, navboxes, thumbnails, graphs and so on. I don't know if the recurring design for all of these (#F9F9F9 with a 1px #AAAAAA border) is part of a higher level Wikimedia style document. Belbury (talk) 09:12, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
- A full rainbow of background colours are already acceptable "in some situations" under the part of MOS:COLOR that you're quoting! It allows background colours that communicate information so long as that information
- I am following this thread and am willing to modify the template once the guidance here on the MOS page(s) has/have been clarified. If neutral background colors are acceptable in some situations, I'm fine with MOS explicitly allowing a neutral background color for {{quote box}} and similar block content in article space, as suggested above. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:26, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- I too think that MOS:BLOCKQUOTE doesn't apply to quote boxes, since blockquotes are part of the normal article text, while quote boxes are outside of it – like images, say. So the white background requirement doesn't apply, and the change to the styling should be reverted. Gawaon (talk) 17:33, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think that line from MOS:COLOR applies to the question of the template's default colour, as that grey isn't communicating the "status" of anything. It's the same shade of grey you get around an image thumbnail or infobox. It generally seems to be the case that when Wikipedia floats something in a box at the side of an article, that box gets an #F9F9F9 background. Belbury (talk) 14:13, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think there is anything broken about the current template, which displays a transparent background in article space, per two MOS guidelines. I have been told in the past by administrators that BRD does not apply to templates (something I do not believe, but I taste good with ketchup, so I do not meddle in the affairs of administrators), so I am reluctant to self-revert in this case. I think the discussion here should determine if there is a community consensus to change our MOS guidelines, specifically:
- That seems like a simple move, even for a technical numpty like me. But I note the template is used on 803,000 pages! I'd prefer that the editor who made the change self-reverted. And then we could have a discussion about the whys and wherefores and whatever else. KJP1 (talk) 10:36, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not really involved with that, but I think you could simply revert the style change to the {{quote box}} background and wait what happens (second step of the WP:BRD process). Gawaon (talk) 08:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- I too was very surprised to see such a major change (affecting many thousands of articles, including FAs) implemented without either discussion or notice. I just don't think such wide-reaching changes should be made unilaterally. The wording says "Block quotations using a colored background are also discouraged". It doesn't say why, nor does it actually prohibit their use. I completely understand the need for style conventions. I also get that colored boxes may cause accessibility issues. But to overturn a approach that has been widely used for many years without any discussion doesn't seem the right way to go. KJP1 (talk) 07:23, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- Technically it is, I'd say, but still I don't think MOS:BLOCKQUOTE needs to, or should, apply here. Gawaon (talk) 13:59, 5 February 2024 (UTC)
I don't think any change to the MOS is needed for the sake of the issue at hand apart from maybe an explanatory note that quote boxes are not block quotes under the MOS, which is how everyone here apart from Jonesey95 seems to understand it (myself included).
However, the root cause of the problem is that we've been sticking our heads in the sand in regard to the use of quote boxes for nearly a decade now. I previously raised the issue back in 2017, and SMcCandlish explained that the lack of mention stemmed from wishful thinking that it'd make quote boxes go away, which it didn't. I'm not updated on the issue, and the last major discussion I'm aware of is the 2016 RfC, where there was consensus against pull quotes but not much agreement on what other uses of quote boxes are appropriate. It's such a lack of agreement that's preventing them from being documented in the MoS. Has there been any attempt in the intervening years to find some agreement on this? --Paul_012 (talk) 17:26, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- I like the suggestion that we distinguish between a quote box, which is closer to an image, and block quotes which are part of the main text. Can that work? KJP1 (talk) 20:48, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Quote boxes are not block quotes, but a form of sidebar, which typically (for images, infoboxes, navboxes, etc.) have at least a slightly different background color. However, the vast majority of uses of quote boxes in our articles are inappropriate per one or more policies and should be converted into normal block quotes. People do it because they like stylizing things, but it draws a gross amount of attention to a particular party's statement versus that of other parties (that fails WP:UNDUE), or in article on a particular author/speaker, document, etc., draws a gross amount of attention to some WP editor's personally selected "most important" or "favorite" part, which fails both WP:NPOV generally and WP:NOR, in the vast majorityof cases.
We probably should have an RfC about this, well "advertised" at the relevant policy pages and at WP:VPPOL. Most of the objections to pull quotes also apply to highlighted quotes of any other kind. What has happened is that pull quotes were community deprecated, so people insistent on injecting undue "decorated" quotes all over the place, have been evading it by using quoted content that technically isn't a pull quote because it does not repeat material already quoted inline in the main text. Literally the only way to tell the difference is to read every word of the article from top to bottom and see whether the decorated quote material is or is not unique on the page (and that might change at any time anyway). This is clearly a pattern of WP:LAWYER / WP:GAMING, and it needs to stop. Legitimate uses of templates like this in mainspace are extremely rare, and zero of them are actually necessary. There is not a single case that could not be replaced by an in-context block quote (and many are so short they should not be in block quotes at all, but inline quotations in quotation marks). I'm gratified to see that the quote-boxing has been replaced by normal blockquotation at various articles on famous speeches. This is a move in the right direction, presenting the material encyclopedically both as to contextual placement in the article and as to visual presentation, instead of doing it like a magazine or a click-bait website. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 22:42, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- What Candlish said. I can't say I'm a fan of these quotes, they are almost always inappropriate Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 09:15, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
- ""decorated" quotes" I don't mind having quote boxes in the articles, the same way i don't mind having a thumbnail to provide some additional context. It's much more annoying that everything thinks their own color/border is more important than everyone else's.
The quote box template has more styling commands than I can count. Whereas a few behavior switches with accompanying standardized styles in classes should be all that is needed. (which is not to say that i think they should all be gray, I think that our gray is horrible as a text background and not suited for pieces of text like this [nor for captions of thumbs honestly]). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:42, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
MOS:COLLAPSE[edit]
Does MOS:COLLAPSE support the collapsed infoboxes as used at, for example, Montacute House and Little Moreton Hall? I don't believe it does, but at Talk:Montacute House, @Nikkimaria has argued the reverse, so wider input would be helpful. A.D.Hope (talk) 10:28, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- My position is that the MOS doesn't support automatically collapsed infoboxes except under specific circumstances; the general position is "Collapsible templates should not conceal article content by default upon page loading".
- The fifth paragraph of the section gives one exemption for infoboxes, stating that "A few infoboxes also use pre-collapsed sections for infrequently accessed details." I don't believe this provision applies to the examples above, both of which use use template:infobox historic building. The same template is used with all relevant parameters un-collapsed in several 'good' and 'featured' articles (e.g. Cragside and Ham House), so it's difficult to argue that they're considered "infrequently accessed". A.D.Hope (talk) 10:36, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, it does. This is a compromise, agreed locally, for information that otherwise should not be in the infobox at all - heritage listing registration dates and such, spread over many lines. Unfortunately, like the unbelievably useless UNESCO world heritage site template (ok its not as bad as that), the template:infobox historic building has been overrun by editors who think Wikipedia is a database rather than an encyclopaedia. Johnbod (talk) 12:45, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not unsympathetic to your position, Johnbod, but I don't think the consensus is with you on heritage listings. Template:infobox historic site is used in many 'good' and 'featured' articles, and besides the two mentioned above I don't think any collapse those parameters, which implies a consensus against doing so. Nevertheless, a proper discussion of the issue at template talk:infobox historic site would be worthwhile and help settle the issue one way or the other. For what it's worth, I'm not sure if I agree on removing all the listing information, but I do think it should be condensed from a box to a single line.
- It's also worth noting that the heritage listing is not the only collapsed parameter in these cases – the type, location, co-ordinates, building date, builder, architectural style, and owner parameters are also collapsed. A.D.Hope (talk) 13:14, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- On the point of examples, it's worth considering others such as Belton House, Bramshill House and Buckingham Palace. All are FA, none have infoboxes. You could equally well write one with a collapsed infobox, indeed I could collapse the one at Cragside. The point is that the presence, absence, or collapsed or un-collapsed state, of the infobox is wholly secondary to whether or not the article is well-written, comprehensive, well-researched, neutral, stable and compliant with Wikipedia's copyright policy. The secondary issue of whether, or how, an infobox should be used is better left to an article's main contributors. Trying to impose a "standard" approach through MoS will, in my view, alienate editors and work to the detriment of readers. KJP1 (talk) 21:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'd generally take the view that, where an optional feature is included in an article, it should follow MOS. A given article might work with or without a table, for example, but if a table is included it shouldn't be bright red so as to comply with MOS:COLOUR. In a similar way, the MOS has rules about collapsing which apply to infoboxes. A.D.Hope (talk) 21:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yep. Collapsing content has accessibility and usability issues; it's why we don't do it to the content per se, just to crap that's not really necessary like navboxes. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:58, 9 February 2024 (UTC)
- I'd generally take the view that, where an optional feature is included in an article, it should follow MOS. A given article might work with or without a table, for example, but if a table is included it shouldn't be bright red so as to comply with MOS:COLOUR. In a similar way, the MOS has rules about collapsing which apply to infoboxes. A.D.Hope (talk) 21:24, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- On the point of examples, it's worth considering others such as Belton House, Bramshill House and Buckingham Palace. All are FA, none have infoboxes. You could equally well write one with a collapsed infobox, indeed I could collapse the one at Cragside. The point is that the presence, absence, or collapsed or un-collapsed state, of the infobox is wholly secondary to whether or not the article is well-written, comprehensive, well-researched, neutral, stable and compliant with Wikipedia's copyright policy. The secondary issue of whether, or how, an infobox should be used is better left to an article's main contributors. Trying to impose a "standard" approach through MoS will, in my view, alienate editors and work to the detriment of readers. KJP1 (talk) 21:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
- Now that I am trying to mediate the infobox issue at Montacute House, I will add my opinion on collapsing of infoboxes in general. It is my opinion that collapsing an infobox as a compromise between having an infobox and not having an infobox is a compromise that leaves everyone equally unhappy. It is therefore anti-utilitarian because it results in more dissatisfaction than choosing one way or the other. So my question is whether we should add a statement that the use of a collapsed infobox as a compromise between having an infobox and not having an infobox is discouraged. Robert McClenon (talk) 01:47, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, we're having THREE discussions on the same issue now? I've lost track of where the 2nd one is. Johnbod (talk) 19:29, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, it does. This is a compromise, agreed locally, for information that otherwise should not be in the infobox at all - heritage listing registration dates and such, spread over many lines. Unfortunately, like the unbelievably useless UNESCO world heritage site template (ok its not as bad as that), the template:infobox historic building has been overrun by editors who think Wikipedia is a database rather than an encyclopaedia. Johnbod (talk) 12:45, 8 February 2024 (UTC)
Contradictions of the MOS[edit]
Hi. Today I reverted an edit by an editor who had changed a title of several bands so the The in the title was changed to the in the article John Miles (musician). I reverted them based on MOS:5, which states: Always capitalized: When using title case, the following words should be capitalized: The first and last word of the title (e.g. A Home to Go Back To) It was reverted back by the editor quoting MOS:THEBAND which states: Mid-sentence, per the MoS main page, the word the should in general not be capitalized in continuous prose, e.g.: Wings featured Paul McCartney from the Beatles and Denny Laine from the Moody Blues. I had not seen this part if MOS before so fair play. However is this not a contradiction? Should we not link MOS:THEBAND as an exception? Davidstewartharvey (talk) 17:15, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
- @Davidstewartharvey, I don't think there's a contradiction. The name of a band (organization, company, etc.) is not a title. A title is the name of a work (book, album, movie). Schazjmd (talk) 17:20, 18 February 2024 (UTC)
When is a local, non-proper loan word (that is synonymous with a more recognizable term used in the same context) acceptable in titles?[edit]
WP:COMMONALITY states Use universally accepted terms rather than those less widely distributed, especially in titles. For example, glasses is preferred to the national varieties spectacles (British English) and eyeglasses (American English); ten million is preferable to one crore (Indian English).
When does WP:TIES override this guidance? JoelleJay (talk) 23:48, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
- It doesn't, I think. TIES refers to cases where no opportunities for commonality exist. Gawaon (talk) 06:56, 20 February 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with this; it makes the most sense from the perspective that we are trying to write an encyclopedia that our readers can generally understand, and I would support clarifying TIES and COMMONALITY to make this clearer. BilledMammal (talk) 22:17, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
- It seems to me that the key words in this question are "synonymous" and "non-proper". Some varieties of English contain words that are not synonymous with their closest equivalent in other varieties of English and that, while they are loan words, are proper within their ENGVAR. For example, Québécois as a term is not fully synonymous with "Quebecker", which may linked explain why the linked article has the title it does.
- The terminology used in the WP:HQRS on a topic will typically reflect the formal register of the ENGVAR associated with the topic and, where other terms are not fully synonymous, should generally be reflected in enwiki articles. As I see it, this isn't a matter of "overriding" COMMONALITY, but of defining where it ends and TIES begins. Newimpartial (talk) 17:42, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- How are editors supposed to determine which terms are non-synonymous, or which terms are most prevalent within an ENGVAR? Does the mere existence of some HQRS using one local term mean that term should be preferred even if the vast majority of HQRS use the more recognizable term? JoelleJay (talk) 20:39, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
- As I understand it, editors are supposed to follow HQRS in general - reading for content, accepting distinctions that are documented in the literature and treating ad synonyms terms that are treated in the literature as synonyms. In my experience, hit counts from search engines are of little if any use in making such evaluations. Newimpartial (talk) 00:08, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
- How are editors supposed to determine which terms are non-synonymous, or which terms are most prevalent within an ENGVAR? Does the mere existence of some HQRS using one local term mean that term should be preferred even if the vast majority of HQRS use the more recognizable term? JoelleJay (talk) 20:39, 25 February 2024 (UTC)
- MOS:TIES and WP:COMMONALITY are subsections of WP:ENGVAR. They should be read as a whole and in the context of the policy, WP:TITLEVAR at WP:AT. WP:TITLEVAR makes it quite clear that we should choose a vocabulary where the meaning is commonly understood but we use the spelling of a particular word according to the national ties of the country. Reading WP:TITLEVAR, it is IMO WP:PETTIFOGGING to reasonably argue otherwise. Cinderella157 (talk) 04:11, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
- @Gawaon, Here is a relevant RM discussion that disagrees.... JoelleJay (talk) 06:56, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
American English vs: British English[edit]
It seems to me that it makes the most sense of that articles covering topics that are occurring in or based in America should generally be written in American English, and articles covering topics that are occurring in or based in the UK or other countries were British English is predominant should generally be written with British English, and that this sentiment should be reflected in the MOS. Comments or questions on this proposition would be most welcome here.
Thanks,
Lighthumormonger (talk) 17:04, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
- It is, see MOS:TIES Martin of Sheffield (talk) 17:10, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
You are correct. Thank you Martin for pointing that out to me. I looked for it but could not find it. Lighthumormonger (talk) 17:20, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
RFC: Imperial/U.S. customary units in astronomy object infobox[edit]
An RFC has been created at the WikiProject Astronomy talk page titled "RFC: Imperial/U.S. customary units in astronomy object infobox". Jc3s5h (talk) 16:35, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
I have some difficulty in working out the point of Spelling § International organizations. As written, it is non-prescriptive, at least explicitly, and therefore seems out of place in the MoS.
Given this, the natural reading to me is an implicit extension of an MOS:TIES-style principle to articles with a strong ties to international organizations. I may have missed an explicit statement of such a policy in this connexion, but, if I have not, and am nevertheless right, it would be good to be clearer. Docentation (talk) 04:15, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Spelling#International_organizations is mostly listing the variants that Wikipedia allows and the differences between them. MOS:ENGVAR, MOS:TIES and MOS:RETAIN cover how to apply them and whether you can/should/shouldn't change from one form to another. Stepho talk 05:16, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
- The point of MOS:SPELLING might simply be to describe the proper use of different varieties of English. But in that case why mention international organizations? Whether or not the World Bank uses US English does not change how US English is spelled.
- If the point of MOS:SPELLING is to list acceptable varieties of English,
- it is both incomplete and redundant: it says nothing about Pakistani or Malaysian spelling in English; and nearly all the varieties of English it mentions are listed at MOS:ENGVAR or MOS:TIES;
- the inclusion of international organizations’ preferred varieties of English remains inexplicable—whether some international odganizarion uses a variety doesn’t change how that variety is actually spelled; and
- any such purpose, as far as I can tell, remains implicit given the wording of the page.
- I therefore remain of the view that listing international organizations’ preferred variants only is useful as part of the style guide if that gives some guide as to which variant to use. Accordingly I think either
- the section should be deleted, or
- it should be made explicit that strong ties to an international organisation listed give reason to use its preferred variety of English.
- I am minded to propose this at some point, but raise this query informally in particular to establish whether there is any other explicit reason for MOS:SPELLING § International Organizations to exist in its current form; in such a case my proposal would be misconceived. Docentation (talk) 17:39, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
- The point is to make clear that articles about these international organizations use the style used by those organisations for their own publications and internal documentation, and do not necessarily follow the style of the country in which their HQ is located. MapReader (talk) 17:48, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that that’s the only plausible point of the section—otherwise, it seems to be pointless. But is that explicitly stated anywhere? Docentation (talk) 23:43, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
- The other question is whether it's even relevant for us. We don't otherwise follow any organization's style guide when writing about them – so why should we make an exception here? Gawaon (talk) 07:19, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
- Adopting the same variety of English as an international organization is articles about it is rather less deferential than adopting the style guide wholesale. It seems to me that extending MOS:TIES to international organizations is more analogous to using the right national variety of English when there are strong national ties. Docentation (talk) 18:35, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
- The other question is whether it's even relevant for us. We don't otherwise follow any organization's style guide when writing about them – so why should we make an exception here? Gawaon (talk) 07:19, 3 March 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that that’s the only plausible point of the section—otherwise, it seems to be pointless. But is that explicitly stated anywhere? Docentation (talk) 23:43, 2 March 2024 (UTC)
- I propose to insert the following text in MOS:TIES:
Articles with strong ties to an international organization listed under a variety of English at Spelling § International organizations should use that variety
, and to amend Spelling § International organizations accordingly. If nobody objects for a week, I shall go ahead; otherwise, I shall raise a proper RfC. Docentation (talk) 22:08, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
Essay suggestion: "How to ignore the MOS"[edit]
Of course, we have learned—or are still trying our best—to internalize that the MOS is a set of guidelines, and there are exceptions of some quantity to nearly every prescription therein. Especially regarding the niche-er points with tables and markup, I like the idea of surveying pages that clearly, intentionally contravene points of the MOS, but
- It is done intentionally
- It is done for a compelling reason, possibly one very particular to that article's topic,
- It works; moreover, it works for everyone, and following the MOS would likely make the article obviously worse to read.
I know this is going to be more subjective than most collaborative ideas on here—it's coloring outside the lines, but I think it's possible to create something educational, right? Remsense诉 03:57, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
- What goal are you trying to achieve by doing this? More to illustrate the sort of case that, when editors come across it, they should understand the point and leave it alone; to encourage editors to recognize circumstances where they should do this; to explain to them how to do this; or something else? One way of looking at is that if you're seeing cases where it's been done nondisruptively and successfully, then maybe no help is needed from the guidelines, but maybe that isn't the case. Largoplazo (talk) 04:57, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
- Largely the first two reasons you gave. (I realize many editors might read a headline like this and have heart palpitations because someone's trying to be clever again—I promise, I'm not actually interested in guideline-flaunting for its own sake.) Maybe "exceptions that prove the rule" are equally in order? Remsense诉 05:03, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
- I wouldn't really title it like that. The key point is what to do when you believe that the MOS and core policy (NPOV, OR, or V) or higher-priority policies (BLP, FRINGE, MEDRS) come into contradiction. Those policies do override the MOS in situations where they actually, genuinely come into direct conflict; however, caution should be exercised before assuming that that's the case in any specific instance, because the MOS is usually written with an eye towards core policies anyway and because what seems like a sufficiently clear-cut V or NPOV issue as to override the MOS to you may not seem so clear to anyone else. I think a good rule of thumb is that if the contradiction you've identified is narrow and specific then you might have a case, although you still have to convince people if anyone objects; but if you have some sweeping objection to an entire aspect of the MOS (eg. "using BCE anywhere is obviously POV!") then it's usually safe to assume that the community considered that when writing the MOS and didn't agree with you. --Aquillion (talk) 05:48, 4 March 2024 (UTC)
Mention of table of contents[edit]
In the section organization section, there's the text If an article has at least four section headings, a navigable table of contents appears automatically, just after the lead.
This appears to have been removed in newer versions of Wikipedia, as the table of contents was moved to the left of the article. I'm not sure how to address this text, so I welcome other editors to take a look. —Panamitsu (talk) 09:23, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
- I believe that the behaior is browser dependent: I'm still seeing the TOC after the lead. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:57, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Chatul: It's skin-dependent. Vector 2022 puts the TOC in the sidebar; all other skins put it between the lead section text and the first heading. Logged-out users get Vector 2022. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:24, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
- Is the skin kept in a cookie? I get different behavior depending on which machine/Firefox I'm using, for the same user id. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Chatul: It's skin-dependent. Vector 2022 puts the TOC in the sidebar; all other skins put it between the lead section text and the first heading. Logged-out users get Vector 2022. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 00:24, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
- Since the location is skin-dependent, can we just say "table of contents appears automatically"? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:06, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Italics for foreign words that refer to the article's topic?[edit]
I am currently working on an article about a Malagasy zebu-wrestling sport. Its names are tolon'omby and savika—Malagasy words. Should they be italicized and/or use the lang template throughout the article? What about the bolded first uses in the lede? Zanahary (talk) 22:42, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
- Use
{{lang-mg}}
and{{lang}}
as appropriate for any Malagasy text in an en.wiki article so that screen readers pronounce the text correctly. Use bold markup where approriate. - —Trappist the monk (talk) 23:46, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
- Should I do the same in the articles for kangina, masonjoany, akazehe, and okujepisa omukazendu? Zanahary (talk) 23:59, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
- Why would you not?
- Something to mind, cf:
- Kangina ←
{{Lang|prs|Kangina}}
– not correct - Kangina ←
{{Lang|prs-latn|Kangina}}
– correct
- Kangina ←
- —Trappist the monk (talk) 01:19, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks! And should the titles of these articles be italic? Zanahary (talk) 01:25, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- WP:ITALICTITLE.
- —Trappist the monk (talk) 01:35, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- That policy says it should be done for foreign phrases, which I think is natural, but does it apply to single words, when the word itself is not the article's topic? Quick search gave me mehndi, bedhaya, buda, debtera. Zanahary (talk) 07:24, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
when the word itself is not the article's topic
What? If the article title is not the article topic, one of them needs to change so that the article title is the article topic.- In WP:ITALICTITLE, 'foreign phrases' is linked to MOS:FOREIGNITALIC which begins with this:
- Wikipedia uses italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have everyday use in non-specialized English.
- I read that to mean
single words
andforeign phrases
should be marked up. - —Trappist the monk (talk) 14:19, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- That policy says it should be done for foreign phrases, which I think is natural, but does it apply to single words, when the word itself is not the article's topic? Quick search gave me mehndi, bedhaya, buda, debtera. Zanahary (talk) 07:24, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks! And should the titles of these articles be italic? Zanahary (talk) 01:25, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- Should I do the same in the articles for kangina, masonjoany, akazehe, and okujepisa omukazendu? Zanahary (talk) 23:59, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
MOS and Unlinking[edit]
2604:3D08:9B7B:E800:AC7D:A86B:5EE4:14B7 (talk · contribs) seems to be on a quest to unlink United States from every Simpsons article. What's the MOS on that?? Q T C 04:05, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
- MOS:OLINK indicates that major countries are generally appropriately unlinked. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:31, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Inline spacing templates[edit]
I really wish we didn't need inline spacing templates like {{-?}} and {{'s}}. It feels like they're just trying to compensate for bad kerning that browsers ought to be handling automatically. Sdkb talk 04:58, 7 March 2024 (UTC)
Parenthetical citations in explanatory notes[edit]
Does the manual of style take any stance on parenthetical citations within an explanatory note?
A post by an editor at Help talk:Shortened footnotes [88] objects to an example because it "seems to maintain that parenthetical references are still allowed inside explanatory notes. That might have been true at some stage, but WP:PAREN now says "deprecated on Wikipedia".
" If this is true, that example should be removed, but after looking through the RFC this appears not to be so. {{harv}} still has several thousand uses, and pages like the Holy Roman Empire article seem compliant with the Manual of Style. The documentation for {{harv}} should also be updated. Template:Harvard citation/doc should either make clear that the template is now meant for explanatory notes, or state that its usage is deprecated outright. Regards, Rjjiii (talk) 02:35, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
- Haven't closely followed this, but it may be possible to finesse this by the simple measure of using {{harvnb}} insted of {{harv}} in some of these cases. I've replied at the thread and given one example of how to do this for the § 5 example. Not sure to what extent that is extensible to other examples, as I haven't examined them. Mathglot (talk) 03:06, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
- Or nicer still, {{harvp}}, which (like the primary {{sfnp}}), produces references with the year in parentheses like CS1. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:10, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
- It is INLINE parenthetical referencing that is deprecated, not parenthetical referencing per se. When {{harv}} is used within a <ref>....</ref> pair there is nothing wrong with it. It is however more work when you consider that {{sfn}} does the same job with less typing! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 09:22, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
- Or nicer still, {{harvp}}, which (like the primary {{sfnp}}), produces references with the year in parentheses like CS1. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:10, 8 March 2024 (UTC)
Relevant discussion...[edit]
at the WP:Articletitles talkpage, to do with italic titles. Primergrey (talk) 00:39, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
Addition suggestion: Lifespan tags[edit]
Lifespan tags are dates in parenthesis which contain the birth and death dates of a person. For example: (1 January 1900 – 1 January 2000).
- The start and end dates should be divided by an en dash, and not a hyphen or em dash.
- If the lifespan tags are of the subject of the article, the en dash should be separated with spaces: (1 January 1900 – 1 January 2000), not (1 January 1900–1 January 2000)
- If the lifespan tags appear in another part of an article, such as being used to give the birth and death date of a person who is not the subject of the article, the dates should be divided with an en dash, but the en dash should not be spaced apart, and should only include the year, not the month and/or day: (1900–2000).
- Lifespan tags should be included in the short description, but only the years: Chinese encyclopedia writer (1900–2000). Except if the article is of a holder of a highly important office position, such as Abraham Lincoln, where the years serving in office are placed instead of lifespan tags.
- If one date is not known, then where the date would go should be replaced with a question mark (?): (? — 1 January 2000; this also goes for the short description.
- If the subject is Living, then put b., followed by their birth date: (b. 1 January 1900.
- Lifespan tags should be included after the article title in set index articles
- Lifespan tags can be used to disambiguate article titles, but only as a last resort. Use occupational titles before lifespan tags, which should be placed after the occupational title, separated with a comma (,): John Doe (businessman, 1900–2000), not John Doe (1900–2000).
Roasted (talk) 20:09, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- Isn't most of this covered by MOS:DATERANGE? And I think the abbreviation "b." should (almost) never be used for "born". And the em dash in your "date is not known" example is wrong. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:21, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
- I also think this is largely redundant and not needed. Also, some of it is in conflict with current best practices – for example, short descriptions typically don't include the years of life, unless needed for disambiguation. Which is for the better, as they are meant to be short, after all. Gawaon (talk) 07:33, 19 March 2024 (UTC)
Kind of a design question[edit]
Some folks here might be interested in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Islam#RfC on using the crescent and star symbol or Allah calligraphy. It's not directly MOS-related, but it's a design-related question about whether we want to use a unified symbol/logo for various items (e.g., sidebars, navboxes), and if so, which one (of the two main candidates). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)