Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 203

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 200 Archive 201 Archive 202 Archive 203 Archive 204 Archive 205 → Archive 210

Use of logical quotation at Billy Graham rule

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Talk:Billy Graham rule#Logical quotation in this article. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:15, 22 February 2018 (UTC)

This one's worth remembering the next time anti-LQ activism comes back up. I'll quote Primergrey: The fact that the first [fragment presented as a] sentence could be a complete sentence is exactly why it needs terminating punctuation outside the quotes, to distinguish it as a fragment..  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:08, 22 February 2018 (UTC)
Some authors, don't stick to the rules of what a sentence is. Treated as a period applying to a full sentence quote, we write "Bond. James Bond." Treated as a sentence fragment, we write "Bond. James Bond". I wonder which we prefer? (A flypast observation, nothing at stake for me).[1] Batternut (talk) 12:27, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Fleming, Ian (1973). A James Bond omnibus: containing Live and let die, Diamonds are forever, Dr No. Cape. p. 587. ISBN 9780224008235.

Use of past tense

I started this about the use of past tense when referring to historical events but no one has commented there, so I'm adding this to see if I can get more thoughts on the subject. It certainly is not subject specific anyway. MB 20:00, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

"Words to watch" for ENGVAR reasons

Would it be worth putting a list somewhere in Wikipedia space of words that editors may not realize have different meanings in different English varieties? It doesn't really seem to be the sort of thing WP:WTW is meant to address, and it's probably too specific to put in WP:ENGVAR, but it would be nice to have some sort of resource calling out words like cornflour (which means cornmeal in the States but cornstarch in the UK). --Trovatore (talk) 03:17, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Like this? And similar sections such as this? MapReader (talk) 07:32, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
Those are articles. I said in Wikipedia space, meant for editors rather than readers. --Trovatore (talk) 07:46, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

"Different meanings in different English varieties" appears to fall under "expressions that lack precision" which are indeed addressed in WP:WTW. So an addition to WP:WTW could well note this type of hazard and potentially point to a list of trouble-maker terms. Whether that list should reside in article or Wikipedia space is debatable. Wikipedia:List of commonly misused English words and Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings are of a similar genre. The discussion that moved the WP:list of commonly misused English words to Wikipedia space is here. That debate revolved around issues of whether encyclopedic, POV around standards of English, usefulness to editors and original research versus freedom from sourcing requirements. Such issues would apply here. Batternut (talk) 10:00, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

I would think a simple note saying something along the lines of "Be careful when using words that have different meanings in different varieties of English, as they may cause confusion to readers not familiar with those uses", with the articles mentioned above linked, along with a reminder to keep WP:COMMONALITY in mind. oknazevad (talk) 21:43, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Sfn template

Hey there,

In Template:Sfn, parameters p and pp are used. Sometimes users mess up which one to use (like I did in John Glenn), and I am looking into ways to make it so users cannot mess it up. Some options:

  1. Remove one of the parameters, and have the template detect if it is one page or multiple pages. Template displays p or pp based on the input.
  2. Modify the template so p and pp display an error if you give it the wrong input. Bot finds errored templates, edits en-masse.
  3. Leave it as-is.

Thoughts on this? Is there something major I am missing? Kees08 (Talk) 02:47, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

  • It sounds like something someone good with regexes could implement. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:03, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
  • I would ask about it at WT:CS1; this is where most of the citation-related coding gets hashed out.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:48, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
Or... do what I do... don’t use a template. Format the citation the “old fashioned” way. Blueboar (talk) 12:24, 4 February 2018 (UTC)
Which conflicts with WP:CITE if the article is already consistently using template-formatted citations. Doing that also costs us COinS metadata and has some other issues.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:21, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
"Have the template detect if it is one page or multiple pages" isn't as simple as it sounds. While 99% of the time this field will be populated by either a number or a number range, there are also other circumstances in which we should actually be using the loc= field, but editors aren't always aware of that field's existence and try to shoehorn things into the page field. (One that comes up fairly regularly is Middleton Press, who maintain the affectation of not numbering their pages and instead numbering the sections of their text using Roman numerals for sections of the introduction and modern numerals for sections of the body text; see this reference for an example of a citation to a numbered section using {{sfn}}.) We actually want the template to generate an error when it comes across something it isn't sure how to handle, rather than attempting to guess what the person entering its data meant, as otherwise we're not only potentially directing readers to the wrong part of the source, we're not making the person using the template aware that they're using it incorrectly. ‑ Iridescent 10:47, 9 February 2018 (UTC)
Sometimes it's handy to use both p and loc, especially with legal codes, where loc can be very handy for, e.g., §17.3.4.1.1 where the page number alone isn't enough. As someone who uses p= and pp= in the right way, I would not be happy to see the template "dumbed down" by a regex that tries to reinterpret my use of p to figure out if I "really" meant to use pp. Maybe the page number really is "5–7" (and the next page is "5–8"). As long as there's a way to preserve old functionality, I don't care what new features they add. I'm even okay with having to use a new param I didn't have to use before ({{sfn|Smith|2009|p=5–7|yesIreallyMeanIt=1}} to get it to do what it did before, but just please don't remove existing functionality; thanks. Mathglot (talk) 07:33, 12 February 2018 (UTC)
Lingzhi might know about detection. His User:Lingzhi/reviewsourcecheck detects these, although he notes that there will always be false positives because "There's simply no way to cover all the possible variations that could be displayed." – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:47, 2 March 2018 (UTC)
  • In my opinion, there is no way to "make it so that users cannot mess it up". There are just too many possible ways to format a page number. I suggest, and I am not saying this as self-promotion, install my script (User:Lingzhi/reviewsourcecheck), eyeball any warnings it raises, and use your gray matter to determine if it is really in error or not. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 15:11, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I cannot think of something more unimportant than getting p vs. pp right. Honestly, if we just used p all the time it wouldn't make a goddam bit of difference. The distinction should have gone onto the ash heap long ago along with loc. cit. and op. cit. and similar pretentious nonsense. If a few of these are wrong somewhere, so what? ...by which I mean: skip the automation and leave things as they are.) EEng 16:35, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Post-nominal letters in lead sections for British MPs

 – I have opened a Request for Comments at WP:UKPOLITICS.--Neve:selbert 20:20, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Is there any particular reason why the post-nominal "MP" isn't used in the lead paragraphs for British MPs? I have just been reverted by Sam Blacketer, who left me this message on my talkpage, without citing any specific policy barring the inclusion of the "MP" post-nominal outside of infoboxes for British parliamentarians. It is worth pointing out that for Canadian parliamentarians, for example Justin Trudeau, the "MP" post-nominal is included both in the infobox and lead section. Per Debrett's: "In formal address, the letters ‘MP’ are always shown for a member of parliament. They are shown seventh in the order of precedence of letters after the name." I think this calls for an RfC.--Neve:selbert 21:35, 1 March 2018 (UTC)

Because it's transitory. People do not retain the postnom after they cease to be an MP. It has always been our practice not to use postnoms that are not permanent. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:54, 5 March 2018 (UTC)

American usage and periods and commas associated with close quotation marks

WP:DNFT --Jayron32 13:03, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

American English usage has long called for commas and periods to always be placed inside a closed quotation mark, regardless of whether the quotation mark is part of the quoted material. Other punctuation depends on whether it is or is not part of the quoted material. British usage treats all punctuation the same for this purpose. Apparently, Wikipedia adopts British usage for periods and commas, and this is simply wrong for U.S. English. I have tried to correct this incorrect usage on several occasions, and I have received a message that I am wrong. I am not the one who is wrong. It it is not up to an outlet like Wikipedia to change standard usage in American usage. This is not your role. I protest, and ask that you correct your mistaken manual of style. I will no longer allow students to cite Wikipedia for any purpose. The language is already corrupted enough without your assistance. And I'm not even an English teacher, just a teacher who cares about the language. Thanks. John Allison — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.182.104.248 (talk) 03:29, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Straight out of the FAQ at the top of the page: 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 them being more frequent in externally published style guides. 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. --Izno (talk) 04:07, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
The way John Allison closes comes off as stright-up trolling—not allowing students to quote Wikipedia because of its established punctuation style? Pull the other one. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:49, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
We should just ignore this, as obvious trolling. For a claimed teacher his knowledge of the language could do with some improving. MapReader (talk) 07:06, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
As a former teacher myself, I am quite pleased that he is now telling his students not to cite WP. Our articles should be seen as being basic “introductions” to the topics they cover... but they are works in progress and are not always reliable.
In other words, our articles should never be cited in academic papers... instead, students should use WP as a preliminary (background) resource. Ideally, students should be told to read our articles to get an overview of the topic... but to then read the sources we cite, and in turn cite those sources in their work. Blueboar (talk) 11:46, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Another golden opportunity to shamelessly promote WP:MISSSNODGRASS. EEng 12:55, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Agreed this is trolling; any post which contains the phrase "I will no longer allow students to use Wikipedia" is a post not worth giving the time of day. Closing. --Jayron32 13:03, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

ROTFLOL

Ya'll shoulda never collapsed this! (he says as he dodges bullets)  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  18:09, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

WORDSASWORDS vs. NOITALQUOTE for articles about a quotation

Batternut, Sangdeboeuf, and myself ran into an interesting problem in a discussion at The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

In an article whose subject is a quotation, which takes precedence: WORDSASWORDS or NOITALQUOTE?

To briefly summarise, MOS:NOITALQUOTE says that quotations should be placed within quote marks and that one should not use italics for quotes, and MOS:WORDSASWORDS says that when one talks about a word as a word, rather than just using the word (i.e. the use–mention distinction), it should be placed in italics. However, both guidelines are written to deal with your typical quotation or use in the body of an article on some random topic (e.g. a biography, or a film, etc.) and so contain no guidance that directly addresses an article that is about the quotation itself.

It seems fairly obvious that for such articles you will in general have many instances where you refer to the quotation (mention), and probably also many cases where you give the quotation (use). However, in an article about the quotation itself, you get the added problem of how to deal with the bolded first sentence instance of the article's subject (where, due to the typical formulation, it will almost always be a mention).

The three of us went a couple of rounds on this—one editor taking one position, one the opposite, one waffling back and forth—and then hit a dead end. In this specific case, the two guidelines as written, appear to be in direct conflict, and neither address the relevant case directly. Thus we're here asking for both broader discussion, and, hopefully, input from editors familiar with the discussions that led up to the two relevant MOS sections. Or, obviously, other policy/guideline/MOS guidance that could help cut the knot. --Xover (talk) 07:36, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

  • As a quotation, it really needs to be in quotation marks; since it would already be in quotation marks, the italics would be redundant—not incorrect, but as pointless as having punctuation both inside and outside a quotation mark, à la She said "Yikes!". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:59, 23 February 2018 (UTC)
    • Thanks for chiming in Curly Turkey. I think even in the original discussion there was agreement that when the phrase in question is being used as a quotation it should be in quotation marks (and not in italics). However, in our article about the phrase we in some instances need to discuss it as something akin to a grammatical construct and not as a quote. And this situation obtains, for example, in the first sentence of the lead. By analogy, consider Honorificabilitudinitatibus. It is a word, and sometimes functions as such (don't try to use it in a sentence though), but often it is used as a Shakespeare quote. Or Thy name is, which also functions both as a quote and as a snowclone. In any case, it would be good to have some breadth of input on this (hint! hint! everybody) in order to form some kind of consensus that would support application across such articles without having to arrive at local consensus at every single one of them (a small, but non-trivial number). --Xover (talk) 16:29, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
      • Honorificabilitudinitatibus is not a comparable example—Shakespeare coined lots of words. I can't imagine any context in which "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is not a quotation. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:41, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
        • It may be a quotation in the literal sense, but often an unintentional one – the speaker need not know that it comes from Hamlet or even Shakespeare, according to Prof. Marjorie Garber. Garber calls it a "shorthand expression" and a "verbal macro...not a specific reference to Hamlet". It's more often misquoted, as in "methinks (X) protests too much", per the Oxford Dictionary of Reference and Allusion (2012, p. 238) and Garner's Modern English Usage (4th edition, p. 591). Granted, that doesn't affect the treatment of the original quotation, but these and other sources seem to imply that the phrase is more than a simple quotation. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:15, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
          • We use the bard's quotes ad nauseam, as we use mobile phones more for messaging than talking, but should we change the lead from "A mobile phone ... is a portable telephone" to " ... is a portable messaging client"? I think not... Batternut (talk) 16:52, 27 February 2018 (UTC)
            • We don't publish original research, so that would depend on how reliable sources describe the topic. In this case, we have reliable sources that describe the phrase as a "cliché" when taken out of the original context (Foakes 2004, p. 158) and a "shorthand expression" that has become "part of our culture" (Garber 2005, pp. 40, 467). It also appears in a "Book of Clichés" (Cresswell 2007) and a dictionary of "Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases" (Bryan & Meider 2005, p. 445, which doesn't mention Shakespeare at all). So it seems to be more than just a quotation. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:56, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
              • It would be OR to claim that people don't recognize a quote as a quote—a quote remains a quote regardless of whether the speaker recognizes the source. Regardless, the article's about the quote, so anyone reading will soon be well aware it's a quote. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:02, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
                • We have a reliable source that says explicitly that people don't always recognize it as a direct quote from Hamlet. See Garber (2005, p. 467): "Few of those who quote or adapt this line will recall that it refers to the Player Queen in 'The Murder of Gonzago', Hamlet's play-within-the-play". I'm not denying that it's a quote; I'm saying that it's a common phrase in addition to being a quote: what the sources describe as a "cliché", "universal", "part of our culture", etc. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 11:56, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
  • There is also in this case the separate question of whether The lady doth protest too much, methinks should always be treated as a quotation, or whether it has become a verbal cliché apart from its use in Hamlet. I say yes, Batternut says no. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 06:40, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
  • MOS:NOITALQUOTE says always use quote marks, MOS:WORDSASWORDS allows quote marks specifically for whole sentences, why make life difficult?
    Before Sangdeboeuf started on this article it used quote marks throughout (see March 2017 version), now we have a mix, which is ugly, and editors will have to conduct a philosophical analsysscratch their heads and bicker over "use" versus mention, which isn't always obvious (qv Davidson's both use and mention). Batternut (talk) 12:39, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
  • @SMcCandlish, David Eppstein, Izno, and EEng: Pinging a few recently active editors here whose names I recognize as MOS regulars. Apologies for the noise (notification), but we were really hoping to get wider input on this issue from a relevant constituency. So far we have gotten only one (whose participation is very much appreciated!), which, while helpful, is not really sufficient to support a consensus for even the immediately applicable article (The lady doth protest too much, methinks), much less one applicable across the handfull of similar articles. If you (or anyone else, obviously) could chime in with your thoughts on this it would be very helpfull! --Xover (talk) 07:25, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
    • I'm not at all convinced that WORDSASWORDS is relevant here (it's about a quote not about the words of a phrase), and NOITALQUOTE certainly is relevant. But even if we consider this as being a case of WORDSASWORDS, it clearly states that quotation marks are a valid form, and potentially preferable, when the phrase in question is a whole sentence as it is in this case. So I think the case for using quotation marks is strong and the case for using italics is not. It's too reliant on parsing MOS text in the most favorable way for the case and not enough on common sense. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:30, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
      • Frankly, I think that NOITALQUOTE requires a bit of parsing itself. The key phrase there is Quotation marks alone are sufficient, implying that some editors are tempted to use both quotation marks and italics. Since the vast majority of quotations on Wikipedia are not in articles about those quotations, NOITALQUOTE seems to refer only to times when Wikipedia itself is quoting a source, not when a quotation itself is the subject. I don't think it necessarily applies to a case like this, where common sense suggests that this is not a typical case of "quoting".

        MOS:ITALQUOTE goes into more detail: For quotations, use only quotation marks (for short quotations) or block quoting (for long ones), not italics [...] a quotation is not italicized inside quotation marks or a block quote just because it is a quotation (emphasis mine). This isn't a case of both italics and quotation marks, but of using italics to mark a mentioned phrase per the use-mention distinction. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 09:20, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

        • Repeating yourself after every comment like that, without actually responding to anything in the comment, is making me think WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT may also be relevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:37, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
  • No time to read the discussion so far, but...
EEng 16:36, 28 February 2018 (UTC) Did someone say barf quotes ad nauseam? That seems redundant.
  • For foreign languages the advice at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Foreign-language quotations is to use italics. MOS:NOITALQUOTE allows this where it advises "They should only be used if the material would otherwise call for italics, such as for emphasis or to indicate use of non-English words." (I also read into that advice that using both italics and quote marks is OK, though it is not explicitly stated. That could be another discussion though...) Batternut (talk) 00:06, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I'd suggest using quotation marks (normally) to indicate a quotation, while using italics to distinguish the analysis of a quotation. I've always thought the guidance for quotations was murky in some regards, but I see this as a solution that would, at least, be helpful in my own experience as a Wikipedia reader. I disagree with the earlier statement that a mix of quotation marks and italics would be "ugly". In fact, once the intended distinction was understood, it would serve its purpose quite well. Primergrey (talk) 20:38, 28 February 2018 (UTC)
  • Ok, after waffling back and forth on this for a while, and consulting a somewhat more linguistically able friend, I think I've finally managed to sort it out in my head. I got stuck on the ontology of whether the phrase we're discussing was a quote, a use, or a mention. But this is, of course, a category error: a quote (words taken from another source) is always a quote, so the relevant distinction is only whether we use the quote or mention the quote.
    And in properly encyclopedic language, we effectively always mention the quote. In a different context (newswriting, say) we might appropriately write [The unpopular politician] was therefore hoist on his own petard, so to speak., but we would never here write along the lines of Methinks [the female pop star] protests too much in this regard. WORDSASWORDS (and common sense) doesn't mandate italics, only provide them as the way to do it when a use—mention distinction is necessary, and since our use of the phrase is always a mention, we never need to make that distinction.
    Thus a quote is a quote and should have quotation marks, and doesn't need italics to distinguish our mentions of it from our non-existent uses of it.
    I'm sure we'll run into some exception somewhere, but for the wast majority of cases, including specifically in the first sentence of the lead of our articles about quotes, this should cover it. Which, I believe, is what Curly Turkey had previously said with far more brevity. :) --Xover (talk) 19:25, 1 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Concur completely with Curly Turkey; just use quotation marks for something like "’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe"; italics would be redundant. For a coinage of term now used by other people, that's about the word(s), so use italics: seredipity. When it's about the meaning, origin, or use a term in the quote, same thing: The common hypothesis is that Carroll derived the nonce word mimsy from a portmanteau of miserable and flimsy. It kind of boggles the mind that this even turned into any kind of dispute. The guidelines are not in conflict, people are just confusing themselves into thinking that if we know who said/wrote something first then that makes it a quotation even when others are using it. Not true. If you quote me saying "In my opinion, some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em", then that's how it's written (surely with a note that I'm ripping off Shakespeare). It's not written "In my opinion, 'some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em'", which is you doing original research to show me explicitly quoting someone else, when I might have thought the phrase came out of my own head. Wikipedia does not read minds or impute motives. The two largest sources of stock phrases in the English language are Shakespeare and the King James Bible; if we put quotation marks around every phrase from these works, almost every page here would have quoted things in it and no one would know why they had quotes around them. Something like Thy name is is only a quote in the context of the original material; in the snowclone context, it's words-as-words. Remember that almost every modern term of art has a known origin. When we write about the meaning of hypervisor, we use italics because we're talking about it as a term. We do not use quotation marks, unless quoting something – more than the word – directly from a cited source: "Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) is a commercial implementation of the KVM Type-1 hypervisor."[1] We do occasionally use quotation marks for words-as-words cases, but only as an alternative to italics in material already dense with italics used for another purpose.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:51, 2 March 2018 (UTC)

Attempted summary (semi-arbitrary break)

Ok, based on all the above, the prevailing opinion seems to boil down to "Just use quote marks" with a side helping of "You're overthinking this". EEng doesn't express an opinion, but adds a few other interesting examples, and Sangdeboeuf argues for italics, but everyone else that has participated lands on quote marks. Several participants also mention cases where italics might be appropriate, and, as Batternut has pointed out, when discussing the use—mention distinction we're properly in philosophical territory, and most of the discussion above has been in the abstract. I will therefore try to make it concrete in order to test whether the apparent consensus above holds. First, for reference, a pruned excerpt from the article as it stands right now; and attempted applications of the discussion above. Instances in green are, I believe, uncontroversial; the ones in maroon are the ones (again, AIUI) we're trying to settle (my emendations are blue).

Current formatting (pre-discussion, but reflects "Quote marks only when directly quoting Shakespeare" version)

The lady doth protest too much, methinks is a line from the c. 1600 play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. […] The phrase is used in everyday speech to indicate doubt in someone's sincerity. A common misquotation places methinks first, as in methinks the lady doth protest too much. […]

Hamlet then turns to his mother and asks her, "Madam, how like you this play?", to which she replies ironically "The lady doth protest too much, methinks", meaning that the Player Queen's protestations of love and fidelity are too excessive to be believed. The quotation comes from the Second Quarto edition of the play. Later versions contain the simpler line, "The lady protests too much, methinks". […]

As in the play, it is commonly used to imply that someone who denies something very strongly is hiding the truth. It is is often shortened to (X) protest(s) too much, or misquoted with methinks at the beginning, as in methinks the lady doth protest too much.

The quotation's meaning has changed somewhat since it was first written: whereas in modern parlance protest in this context often means a denial, in Shakespeare's time to protest meant "to make protestation or solemn affirmation" [quoth OED].

"Just use quote marks, you dummy!" version

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" is a line from the c. 1600 play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. […] The phrase is used in everyday speech to indicate doubt in someone's sincerity. A common misquotation places methinks first, as in "methinks the lady doth protest too much". […]

Hamlet then turns to his mother and asks her, "Madam, how like you this play?", to which she replies ironically "The lady doth protest too much, methinks", meaning that the Player Queen's protestations of love and fidelity are too excessive to be believed. The quotation comes from the Second Quarto edition of the play. Later versions contain the simpler line, "The lady protests too much, methinks". […]

As in the play, it is commonly used to imply that someone who denies something very strongly is hiding the truth. It is is often shortened to "(X) protest(s) too much", or misquoted with methinks at the beginning, as in "methinks the lady doth protest too much". [this could go either way, depending on whether you intend it to (mis)quote Shakespeare or illustrate a phrasal template that happens to be derived from Shakespeare]

The quotation's meaning has changed somewhat since it was first written: whereas in modern parlance protest in this context often means a denial, in Shakespeare's time to protest meant "to make protestation or solemn affirmation" [quoth OED].

So… Could Batternut, Sangdeboeuf, Curly Turkey, David Eppstein, EEng, SMcCandlish, and Primergrey please indicate whether one or the other of these examples are in line with their position. Or if not, what changes should be made relative to it to be in line with their position. Absent indications to the contrary, I'll assert the latter version (the "Just use quote marks, you dummy!" version) as reflecting a consensus of the discussion above.

PS. Sangdeboeuf: I'm assuming you favor the former version (what is currently in the article in mainspace), so you do not need to explicitly indicate this again unless you wish to add or correct something.

PPS. If indications are that I've correctly assessed the above debate, I propose that we then move any further discussions on details, or on implementing the consensus, back to the article's talk page. No need to bug WT:MOS once we're back to discussing a single article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xover (talk • contribs) 08:23, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

  • The "Just use quote marks..." version, as above, suits me. Batternut (talk) 23:25, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
  • +1 "Just use quote marks" Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:40, 4 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Put me with the 1st option, as I really feel it provides a useful distinction and thereby (slightly) more information. Primergrey (talk) 18:36, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Indefinite articles and/or vowel-consonant harmony

I just made this edit to correct an earlier edit with what I believe to be a style error, as described in the edit summary there. I looked for guidance re vowel-consonant harmony in the MOS before making the edit and did not find any. It seems to me that the MOS ought to include some guidance on this. This case was {{a ? an}} United States Army (probably following on an earlier edit inserting of United States for clarity). Another case I've seen where guidance would be useful is {{a ? an}} historic (WP:ENGVAR dependent, I think). There may be more cases. I'm neither a grammarian nor a MOS guru, so I won't propose specifics and will leave it for possible discussion by regular editors here. Cheers. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:52, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@Wtmitchell: While the general question of using an vs. a is a style issue, the lead of the MoS says "Any new content added to the body of this page should directly address a style issue that has occurred in a significant number of instances." Every current use of an united is a direct quote. You should be fine using your own knowledge of the English language and links to Article_(grammar)#Indefinite_article when contested; the MoS is mainly for addressing widely contested issues.
WP:ENGVAR might raise an issue. I seem to remember recently reading some guidance on this in the MoS; I will have to find it again. My general understanding is that British English is allowed to use an historic because of British pronunciation, but American English always uses a historic. And there are of course other words with different rules. However, I suspect that those handling articles in British English already know the differences, or are amenable to correction if they do not. --E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 13:32, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
An historic was recently debated Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 201#An historic, without any formal conclusion. It did not boil down to British or American. Applying that discussion to a/an United ... would be difficult anyway. I'd say a united ..., FWIW. Batternut (talk) 14:47, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
That discussion was what I saw. I didn't really think the discussions applied to a united, because that example has a consistent pronunciation, and most cases do, which is why I mentioned it's not worth adding to the MoS. --E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 15:08, 10 March 2018 (UTC)
There's no parallel to an historic—which is not an ENGVAR issue anyways—as there is no ENGVAR in which "united" is pronounced /uˈnaɪtɪd/. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Curly Turkey (talk • contribs)
Note that this American often uses "an historic" in speech, but I don't try to justify it or expect others to use it. --Khajidha (talk) 18:18, 12 March 2018 (UTC)

Discussion notice: Observe MOS:FONTSIZE in infobox templates

You may be interested in the proposal/discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Observe MOS:FONTSIZE in infobox templates. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:12, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

The "author of a quote of a full sentence or more should be named" rationale

Regarding this edit to the guideline by Anythingyouwant in January of this year and this edit by Politrukki to WP:Plagiarism, are we allowing quotes without in-text attribution now? WP:Plagiarism still states, "In addition to an inline citation, in-text attribution is usually required when quoting or closely paraphrasing source material." And it is still recommended in its "Avoiding plagiarism" section. SlimVirgin, PBS, you've both edited WP:Plagiarism, as have I. Any thoughts? I know that Moonriddengirl, mainly known for her handling of copyright and plagiarism issues, usually isn't on Wikipedia these days. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:28, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

There was a discussion around that time at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 199#Inline quotations accompanied by inline attribution. It seems there's a push to loosen these requirements up—for the worse, in my opinion. I expect soon we'll have article after article of ugly WP:QUOTEFARMs, with people arguing that the guidelines say "should", not "must"! Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:05, 13 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm not keen on loosening this. I know there are experienced editors who don't attribute quotations; there are FA writers who don't. It's much easier not to. But it leaves articles looking a bit unfinished. I admit that I've failed to do it a few times recently, because I see so many others do the same, but I think the MoS should stay firm and require attribution. SarahSV (talk) 01:08, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I obviously missed that discussion. This talk page is on my watchlist, but I don't pay attention to everything that goes on at it. You have a good point about quote farms. Another issue is WP:SCAREQUOTES. Also, when a sentence has two or more references, or one or more references are without a URL, it may not be easy to see who made the quote. In some cases, the author might be quoting someone else. I recently advised a new editor on not using quotes without making it clear who the quotes are from. But I see that the discussion you pointed to was extensive. Should WP:Plagiarism be tweaked any further in this regard? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:13, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
You don't need two cites for such confusion—books quote other sources, or have multiple authors. A citation is in no way an adequate substitution for inline attribution. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:19, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm talking about when a sentence uses a quote without in-text attribution, and the sentence has more than just one reference at the end of it. The additional references may be there to support something else in the sentence. In those cases, unless there is a footnote letting me know who made the quote, I have to check all of the sources for that sentence. WP:INTEGRITY (ref integrity) addresses this type of thing. But even when there's just one source, I might have to check the source and see who made the quote because the sentence is lacking in-text attribution. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:29, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, that's exactly my point. So many editors say that it's obvious who the quoted person is because "Look at the citation!" But the quoted person may not be the author of the source, and it should never be assumed it is. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:49, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
Citations are for verifiability, not clarification. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:24, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
Mandruss, they are for both. People shouldn't be adding quotes with making it clear who made them; this is something I used to think differently on. I used to be fine with it, but not anymore. And when we don't know who made the quote, we check the source for clarification, or we try to if it's accessible. If there's no clarity on the matter when checking the source, the line might then be marked with Template:Failed verification or removed altogether. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:16, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
Oh, by "Citations are for verifiability, not clarification.", it seems you are agreeing that a citation is not a substitute for in-text attribution when it comes to quotes? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:21, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
I obviously reviewed the archived discussion before making my edit. While I don't like the outcome of the discussion, I just felt I have to fix an inconsistency. Politrukki (talk) 07:22, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that all quotes should be attributed. I strongly object to any change away from this policy unless a RfC shows that the wider Wikipedia community supports looseing the guidelines. LK (talk) 03:13, 14 March 2018 (UTC)

I would fully endorse using in-text attribution with all quotes. I just don't see how we can say something in WP:Plagiarism if that particular something is not true. Politrukki (talk) 07:22, 14 March 2018 (UTC)
I think what Lawrencekhoo is trying to say is that "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." (from WP:LOCALCONSENSUS). If it seems likely that the wider consensus of Wikipedia has a different opinion than the few editors discussing the phrasing on the talk page (as it is less of a style issue, and more of a verifibiality/NPOV issue) then we should have an RfC. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 22:27, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
@E to the Pi times i: Well, then the question is, is the text The Manual of Style requires in-text attribution when quoting a full sentence or more. included in WP:Plagiarism because it was derived from MOS or was it because of a wider consensus (in the form of policy, guideline, or wider discussion)? If it is the latter, we may still be able to protect the idea behind the text while making improvements – like removing the reference to MOS or expanding the body – without an RFC. Politrukki (talk) 10:28, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
@Politrukki: I will concede that it was included in WP:PLAGIARISM because it was derived from the original MoS wording. However, I am concerned that an issue which was discussed only by 2-4 people in the MoS talk can bleed out into other areas. Its presence in other policy/guideline pages is an indication that it is not solely a style issue, which the MoS is meant to handle, but both a WP:PLAGIARISM issue and a NPOV issue, which means it should have been more widely advertised as a discussion. ::::I think an edit to WP:PLAGIARISM would be warranted if the status quo MoS phrasing stays. But I don't think a wholesale deletion of the reference to MoS is warranted: the MoS still talks about quotes and attribution, it just advises something different now. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 13:08, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Productions that used to be produced on a regular basis but have now stopped?

Specifically A Prairie Home Companion. "Is a formerly weekly"? "Is a weekly"? Drop the "weekly" entirely? - Immigrant laborer (talk) 19:42, 8 March 2018 (UTC)

Something like "is a program that aired weekly" seems in keeping with MOS:TENSE (it's still a program, but it's no longer airing weekly, or no longer producing new weekly segments). DMacks (talk) 20:07, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
I fixed the problem. It isn't "a program that used to air weekly". It is a "former program that always aired weekly". The program isn't aired at all anymore. Following Keillor's firing from APM as producer, the program was ended and replaced with Live From Here. That show still airs weekly. Simply put, it was just awkward wording for "was". The show is done. (note: I've oversimplified; there's a bit more to it than that, but the grammar issue has been fixed.)--Jayron32 20:15, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
Fair warning: It has passed through the current wording repeatedly already and been reverted. - Immigrant laborer (talk) 20:22, 8 March 2018 (UTC)
To me, this just highlights the sillyness of saying that a program that is no longer in production "is" anything. --Khajidha (talk) 16:59, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
The use of the present tense for shows which are not in production makes total sense if they are still airing somewhere (such as cable, a network which specializes in airing old shows, streaming, or on DVD).SciGal (talk) 17:28, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
It is virtually impossible to know for sure if something is airing or not. ESPECIALLY given streaming services. Using past tense for shows no longer produced makes much more sense to me, as the halt in production is much more easily verified. --Khajidha (talk) 17:37, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
I also don't understand how saying a cancelled show (say, I Love Lucy) "is" because reruns are still showing is any different than saying that a deceased actor from said show (say, Lucille Ball) "is" for the same reasons. Neither Ball nor the show exists anymore. --Khajidha (talk) 17:47, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
But the show does exist. And when writing about the show in the present tense, it is perfectly fine to write that it stars Lucille Ball. However, if writing about Lucille Ball, she starred in the show. Because, while the show exists, she no longer does. Seems to me, anyway. Primergrey (talk) 18:20, 15 March 2018 (UTC)
I guess I just look at is as "the show" is the active production, reruns are no more "the show" to me than old home movies of my dead relatives are them. --Khajidha (talk) 19:30, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
It also may have something to do with how I experience fiction. To me, any book I read, movie I watch, etc. isn't something going on as I enjoy it, it is a record of something that has already happened that I am reviewing. "Literary present" tense for reviews just doesn't make sense to me. --Khajidha (talk) 19:32, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree that it can sometimes produce some challenging awkwardness to write around, and if the guideline was to write in past tense I'd be fine with that, too. But it's undoubtedly, to me anyway, a good thing to pick one convention or the and go with it. Primergrey (talk) 19:52, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Closing the ENGVAR RFC

Hi all, just noting that the RFC on ENGVAR-related templates, which had been archived without being closed and is at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_201#Re-deprecate_and_merge_the_ENGVAR-related_templates_that_do_not_serve_an_encyclopedic_purpose has now been closed following a request at Wikipedia:Requests for closure. The consensus was in opposition to the proposal. Cheers, Fish+Karate 13:41, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Italicize the term for an article about a term?

Opinions are needed on the following: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section#Italicize the term for an article about a term?. A permalink for it is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:11, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Internet vs internet

This is probably (nay, undoubtedly) answered somewhere else... but I can't find it. So, quick question: do we still commonly capitalize the initial letter of 'Internet' when referring to "the" internet (ie, this thing we're on now, not just various interconnected networks that we might otherwise use)? Have we discussed whether we should still be doing this recently? I ask for information only. ◦ Trey Maturin 19:19, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I think it's covered by MOS:NAMECAPS as a proper name for a term. —  HELLKNOWZ   ▎TALK 20:59, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Commas after a year mainly at beginning of sentence

Hi. I'd like to get from feedback from some "grammar experts" out there about this. 137.187.232.48 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) has been on a rampage removing commas from years, mainly at the beginning of sentences, citing Comma#In dates. For example [2]. Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Commas shows an example of "He set October 1, 2011, as the deadline...", but this is a different case. I've seen websites say we don't need a comma after a month, year combo such as "They were married in January 2011 in Las Vegas." This sounds right in my head, but at the beginning of sentence it seems to have a different tone. "In January 2011, they were married in Las Vegas." or "In January 2011 they were married in Las Vegas." To me the former sounds better. Even more so "In 2011, they were married in Las Vegas." vs "In 2011 they were married in Las Vegas." But we can't go by sound, so does anyone have any sources of what to do in case like this, especially usage at the beginning of a sentence, and perhaps add it to the MoS? We may also consider adding an example for British date format, as I believe they never use a comma after a full date such as in, "Gerrard made his Liverpool first-team debut on 29 November 1998 in a Premier League match against Blackburn Rovers."? Thanks. Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 20:05, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

In the sentence "In January 2011, they were married in Las Vegas", In January 2011 is an introductory clause. Introductory clauses should always be offset from the main clause by a comma. This is not a Wikipedia style guideline, this is basic English grammar. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/commas-after-introductory-clauses/ General Ization Talk 20:22, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
^^^ What they said. - Sitush (talk) 20:43, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Oh, bullshit. In fact, what the page General I. linked says is Although it is not strictly required, it is considered good style to follow introductory dependent clauses containing dates with a comma. Translation: The comma's not a grammatical requirement after all, but if you're not a very good writer and can't make an intelligent decision for yourself, you're safer including it. EEng 20:44, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
^ Maybe it sounded ruder through writing, but I don't think using a comma for the introductory clause constitutes "not being a very good writer" or "not making an intelligent decision". It may very well not be a "grammatical requirement" but there's no denying the flow sounds much better with the comma. Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 21:23, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
I didn't say that using a comma for the introductory clause constitutes "not being a very good writer" or "not making an intelligent decision". I said that those who aren't good writers, and (thus) are unable to make an intelligent decision on their own, are safer including the comma. I'm sorry, but any blanket statement that "there's no denying the flow sounds much better with the comma", without seeing the rest of the sentence, is an immediate self-indictment. Next to the dash – which is essentially impossible to use ungrammatically – the comma is the most flexible of the punctuation marks. There are a handful of places where it's a blunder to include or omit them, but elsewhere their use is guided by pacing and rhythm, not rigid rules. English is not a programming language. EEng 21:36, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Fair enough. Vaselineeeeeeee★★★ 21:41, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Of course you don't agree, you're obviously unaware that... Oh, wait, you said, "Fair enough." Okay then. EEng 21:51, 16 March 2018 (UTC)
Calling "In 1776" an introductory clause, as the linked "grammarly blog" appears to do, is somewhat unusual. The Chicago Manual of Style distinguishes between dependent clauses and "introductory words and phrases". The 16th edition has: "An introductory adverbial phrase is often set off by a comma but need not be unless misreading is likely. Shorter adverbial phrases are less likely to merit a comma than a longer one. --Boson (talk) 00:17, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
I wouldn't say the lack of a comma following the date in "Gerrard made his Liverpool first-team debut on 29 November 1998 in a Premier League match against Blackburn Rovers." has anything to do with a simple rule that a full date is not followed by a comma. It is a stylistic choice that depends on how integrated the elements of the sentence are intended to be. If the information being conveyed is the date when Gerrard made his debut, and the match is a piece of supplementary information of minor importance, then the date should be followed by a comma. Mary Norris, a former copy editor at The New Yorker discusses similar issues in some detail in Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen, in the context of The New Yorker's house style of "close" punctuation (i.e. using more commas than others), in a section that starts "The New Yorker practices a 'close' style of punctuation. We separate introductory clauses with a comma [except ...] ...". As she writes, commas are used to mark "a thoughtful subordination of information". --Boson (talk) 01:10, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Very good. In summary: good judgment, not rigid rules. EEng 03:24, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
  • Both styles are correct, and because of that the IP shouldn't be systematically changing the established style (à la WP:RETAIN, etc). You're totally within your rights to revert per WP:BRD. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:16, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
This isn't a RETAIN issue because it's not about national styles of English or technical formats (e.g. date formats). But it's stupid and annoying to run around making an arbitrary stylistic change like this all over the place, so the conclusion is the same. EEng 05:24, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
I didn't say it was WP:RETAIN—I said "à la WP:RETAIN, etc". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:51, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
OK then, I don't think we should apply any principle a la RETAIN other than where actual RETAIN applies. EEng 07:11, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Then you are for endless bickering over nothing. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:18, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
No, I'm resisting instruction creep. EEng 09:25, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
It would be a good idea to elevate WP:RETAIN so that it applies to any condition where there are multiple acceptable ways of doing something, not just for national varieties of English.  Stepho  talk  06:39, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
You want to forbid changing anything not flat-out wrong? EEng 07:11, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
WP:RETAIN doesn't forbid any such thing—it forbids arbitrarily changing established consistent formats against consensus, to avoid stupid, pointless, endless arguments. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:18, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
You're in top form tonight. We're not talking about what RETAIN currently says, but rather what Stepho-wrs proposes i.e. to elevate WP:RETAIN so that it applies to any condition where there are multiple acceptable ways of doing something. That says, flat out, that once someone writes something "acceptable", that can't be changed without our most cherished ritual, consensus. Thus if an article says "attained a higher altitude", I couldn't change that to "went higher", because they're both acceptable. EEng 09:25, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
That's bullshit, but "You're in top form tonight" shows you're out for a scrap, not a discussion, so fuck this train of "thought". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:21, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
You're indeed in top form. EEng 15:16, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Stepho-wrs: I 100% support the spirit behind rewording "WP:RETAIN so that it applies to any condition where there are multiple acceptable ways of doing something"—nobody benefits from warring over formatting changes. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:21, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Curly, thank you for your encouragement. EENG, you know that we waste a lot of time with editors tossing backwards and forwards between two perfectly acceptable forms. Something similar to RETAIN working across broader subjects would minimise this time wasting. I've seen your comments across many subjects moaning about wasting time, so I am not sure why you would be against this. Naturally we would word it to avoid using it as the proverbial blunt instrument against any and all change. There would also be plenty of cases where editors agree to change the form (ie consensus). There will likely also be cases where somebody makes a change and nobody cares enough to challenge it. But it's most likely use would be to stop cases like the current one where an editor decides the world must obey his, and only his, choices. Of course it's really just a way of saying 'respect your fellow editors'. Those 3 words go a long way to having useful discussions instead of backstreet brawls.  Stepho  talk  11:45, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
  • There is a very simple solution to this, and similar situations... DON’T EDIT WAR over style choices. If you prefer a specific style choice, it is perfectly OK to edit an article accordingly... BUT, if reverted - STOP. Accept the revert, and move on. Blueboar (talk) 11:59, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Exactly. In fact, don't edit war over anything (though of course all but the saints among us do slip now and then). And we don't need any new rules for that. EEng 15:16, 17 March 2018 (UTC)
Blueboar: I don't see Vaselineeeeeeee framing this as an editwar issue. Do we really need to see talkpage discussion after talkpage discussion over which style is superior? Many of us firmly believe that DD-MM-YYYY is vastly superior to MM-DD-YYYY, for example—those exasperating, fruitless discussions are what WP:RETAIN saves us from. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:28, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
@Curly Turkey and EEng: Discussions generally shouldn't be put in collapsible templates, unless it's solely your own comments. I want to be able to easily see unobscured when it's archived. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 01:06, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
I completely agree. CT collapsed it, I uncollapsed it. EEng 02:52, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
Just to be clear, I don't think you're blameless either (renaming the collapsible and poking CT). But it's more productive to discuss the actual issues than to bicker. Regarding the extension of WP:RETAIN in a general sense, EEng and Blueboar's opinions intersect with my own (try to take that out of context EEng, ha!). Some styles are better then others, either in general or in specific cases, so imposing a more general retain standard may stifle improvement. We already favor status quo in no consensus discussions. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 03:57, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
E to the Pi times i: it's standard practice to collapse off-topic "discussions" such as the above, particularly when they're filled with ad hominems. This is not an appropriate forum for EENg to air personal issues—he's targeting me here over lingering ill feelings over previous disagreements—and if not cut off early, experience shows there will be no end to it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:02, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
"We're not talking about what RETAIN currently says, but rather what Stepho-wrs proposes i.e. to elevate WP:RETAIN so that it applies to any condition where there are multiple acceptable ways of doing something. That says, flat out, that once someone writes something "acceptable", that can't be changed without our most cherished ritual, consensus. Thus if an article says "attained a higher altitude", I couldn't change that to "went higher", because they're both acceptable." This is productive discussion, even if in a tone that you don't prefer. The example isn't nonsense, it's a legitimate concern with changing the policy for WP:RETAIN. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 04:12, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
E to the Pi times i: nothing stops him from making the point elsewhere without first personalizing it. I made my rebuttal outside that pointless ad-hominem thread, and as you've seen yourself (and linked to), EEng was not going to make any attempt to depersonalize that thread. If you'd like more examples of EEng's insistence on keeping things personalized with people he disagrees with, I could throw some diffs your way—but I'd much rather get this discussion back on topic. Both that thread and this one should be collapsed to facilitate that. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:24, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
The comma has, what I would describe as three general usages. These are: a formal use, such as separating items in an enumerated list; providing a brief pause when a passage is being read aloud; and, what I would describe as a mixed usage, where it clarifies relationships between clauses and provides a brief pause. Comma provides some detail on its use. Apart from formal uses, the test of where a comma is appropriate can be determined by reading the sentence as if it were being read aloud. Hence, it is very appropriate, if not necessary, to use a comma when the date is an introductory clause and the subsequent relative clause (where) are not restrictive. The date clause is a dependent clause and should be followed by a comma. Where the sentence is rearrange so that the date and place are after the subject, the place is a dependent clause. Even without such formal analysis, there is a natural brief pause between the two clauses, when reading the sentence.
These are generally accepted "rules" of punctuation. It is poor form to go making such a change. On the other hand, I consider a comma either before or after a conjunction (more particularly and, or or but) is grammatically incorrect if it is done purely because of the conjunction. However, I observe that it is common and refrain from making such changes where it is done consistently in an article - it is just not good form to do so.
I don't think that the question was about changing the MOS by making a new rule but about clarifying the rules of punctuation. It is not the function of a style guide to comprehensively address the rules of English. These can be taken, somewhat, as read - even if there are variations on national grounds. It is about defining those matters of style that might reasonably vary across the domain of users and those of such matters where consistency is important. A simple guide is, avoid making changes that are simply a matter of preference and that do not improve an article by way of clarity, accuracy or readability. When making blanket changes across the board, there is a fine distinction between gnoming and trolling. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 04:22, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
I mostly agree. Not sure what you're getting at with "I consider a comma either before or after a conjunction (more particularly and, or or but) is grammatically incorrect if it is done purely because of the conjunction." Yes, sure. But maybe you're also saying you consider the Oxford comma wrong? If so, I tend to disagree, but I agree with you that both methods are common in different conceptions of the right ways to use a comma, so best left alone. To me, a missing Oxford comma is an error, and I tend to fix it, though I know I should just leave it. As for comma after introductory phrases, I generally prefer them, even for very short phrases like "In 1975". But, as you say, it's a matter of preference. On longer phrases, or depending on what follows, it sometimes becomes necessary for clarity. so we remain flexible. I feel the same way about years: We can say "In March, 2017, he ..." or "In March 2017 he ..." or "In March 2017, he ...". All OK by me. But "In March, 2017 he ..." is very broken. Dicklyon (talk) 04:52, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

Someone please verify this reversion

[3] Not correct to quote like this in English. "Hello," he said -- comma inside quotes. Only outside if a fragment: it was "quite nasty", he claimed. 31.50.6.57 (talk) 20:26, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

See MOS:LQ. Wikipedia uses a style called "logical quotation", where punctuation is always outside the quotation unless it's part of the quotation. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 20:43, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
Note, however, that Wikipedia’s adoption of Logical Quotation is strongly opposed by a sizable minority ... and the question of where to put commas is probably the single most debated style question in WP’s history. Blueboar (talk) 21:45, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
I'll just point out that your ellipsis should have been a comma. EEng 23:57, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
If it is, in fact, the "single most debated style question in WP's history", it's very prudent that we provide an unambiguous answer. Primergrey (talk) 04:21, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
That would make sense if "where to put the comma" was something as, er, simple as (say) date formats. But giving an unambiguous answer to "where to put the comma" is like giving an unambiguous answer to "what verbs to use". EEng 04:44, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
I took it too mean, to put it in or out [of quotes]. Nothing at all to do with the previous section. Primergrey (talk) 05:21, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Oh. Never mind. EEng 06:11, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
It's almost funny, except it's real. You'd think people would want to spend time improving the encyclopedia instead of debating trivial[a] things like comma placement. On the other hand, I know I am guilty of this type of discussion, so this is by no means a disparagement of such editors. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 23:20, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
  1. ^ Trivial in the grand scheme of the encyclopedia, although I guess it could be argued that consistent comma placement makes a more a clearer encyclopedia in the long long term.
Who cares where, commas go? ;) MapReader (talk) 06:08, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Lots of people care where commas go, but I'm not aware of a list. If you meant that you don't care where commas go, your opinion is noted. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:14, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
I believe the term is "whoooooosh". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:21, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
I've always been partial to Herostratus' idea [4]:
Possibly the best solution would be a line at the beginning of each article containing a couple dozen commas, and also some semicolons, quotation marks, and so forth. The reader could then be instructed to mentally sprinkle them throughout the text in whatever manner she finds pleasing.
EEng 06:21, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
I'll watch for that RfC. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:30, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
I think every style rule on Wikipedia is "strongly opposed by a sizable minority". Nothing special here. Dicklyon (talk) 04:38, 20 March 2018 (UTC)
Are you asking about whether the usage is correct in Wikipedia's style or whether it is correct in English usage outside of Wikipedia? Placing the comma inside the quotation marks is consistent with the style of punctuation most American editors have been taught, so it is considered correct in at least some outside usages. However, it is not compliant with Wikipedia's own manual of style. --Khajidha (talk) 18:31, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Which is WHY this continues to be such a debated issue. Blueboar (talk) 19:27, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
Oh, I understand that. (Full disclosure: I'm an American who was taught the other way, but has come to prefer LQ) I'm just not clear what the original poster was asking. --Khajidha (talk) 19:37, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
The original poster made an edit to a page which moved the comma from the outside to the inside of quotations. Someone reverted them with the edit summary "Per MOS" (or something similar). The original editor than came here to ask whether that reversion was okay (although they didn't exactly ask, but assumed their way was correct). E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 22:34, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
(edit conflict)LQ is standard English usage so although Americans may see a difference between Wikipedia's style and "style of punctuation most American editors have been taught", you can't diffrentiate between WP style and "correct in English usage" universally. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:39, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
I'm also an American who grew up on the non-logical style, and I think that WP adopting LQ is very sensible, and not hard to deal with. It's not that much debated in recent years; just a few editors (Blueboar maybe the only one left) tend to fan the flames when the question comes up. Dicklyon (talk) 04:31, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Not that it matters so much, but I am also an American who grew up on the American style, yet completely accepts and appreciates Wikipedia's logical quotation style. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 01:34, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Consistency in title (non-) capitalization

Wikipedia's style prescriptions result in, for example, the title Style guide rather than Style Guide. OK, got it. (And as it happens, I am sure that this is for the better.)

This extends outside articles, too: Wikipedia:No original research, not Wikipedia:No Original Research.

So why not Wikipedia:Manual of style and instead Wikipedia:Manual of Style? -- Hoary (talk) 00:31, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

WP:NCCAPS and MOS:CAPS are specifically for stuff that appears in article space. For internal stuff, nobody cares that much. Dicklyon (talk) 04:54, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Fair enough; but perhaps what MoS says about capitalization would be a little more persuasive for Those Who Cling to Their Capitals if it were instead Mos. -- Hoary (talk) 05:24, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
Suggest sending it through RM. Blueboar (talk) 10:31, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
"RM"? -- Hoary (talk) 12:57, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
WP:RM - Requested Moves. Or Requested moves, possibly ;-) ◦ Trey Maturin 19:04, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

I disagree that an implementation of our style guide on internal pages would have the effect you imagine. We use contractions, address the reader directly, and a whole host of other non-MOS-compliant things on these pages. An RM would be a great way to get all the opponents of a site-wide style guide into a lather as the conversation would turn, after about 5 minutes, into, "If we change this page, I guess we'll be changing all the P&G pages?" No, anyone who uses this page's title not following the MOS as justification for overcapitalization doesn't have a leg to stand on and shouldn't be taken seriously anyway. Primergrey (talk) 21:41, 24 March 2018 (UTC)

You make an excellent selection, Primergrey. Moving would be tedious; instead, if anyone points to the capital "S" of "Style", I'll simply respond "You haven't a leg to stand on and shouldn't be taken seriously". That will put them in their place! -- Hoary (talk) 13:28, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Now, imagine saying that when the issue is the capitalization of an article’s title. Hypocrisy? Blueboar (talk) 13:42, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Erm, I imagined precisely that. I'm licking my lips at the prospect of saying it. -- Hoary (talk) 13:45, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
  • I think Hoary has put his finger on it. Anyone mouthing off like that would be cutting off their nose to spite their face, shooting themselves in the foot, and biting the hand that feeds them. Tickles my funny bone to think about it. Better they should save their breath and toe the line instead of trying to strong-arm us, otherwise we'll have to cut them off at the knees. I'll keep an eye on this. EEng 14:54, 25 March 2018 (UTC) Glad I got that off my chest.
The policies for article naming are for article names, so I don't how any reasonable non-shit-disturbing person could get a scent of "hypocrisy" from what I said. I'll try it again; if someone, in an effort to change an article name to upper-case, used the capitalization of an MOS title as their justification they wouldn't have a leg to stand on (I'm willing to take them plenty serious, though, if it serves to calm the room down). Primergrey (talk) 18:50, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
Perhaps I should have phrased myself more precisely: "I imagined precisely what you invite us/me to imagine (and no more)." -- Hoary (talk) 23:19, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Disclaimer in article

Hi, could someone please have a look at the User_talk:Twofortnights#Disclaimer and weigh in whether an in-article disclaimer would be in accordance with Wiki style. Thanks.--Twofortnights (talk) 23:25, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Question: MOS:NUM and TV

Q: Can a consensus of the TV wikiproject to use the format Season 1, 2 etc. in text and headings in articles about TV series co-exist with the WP-wide policy MOS:NUM for the format Season One, Two etc.? Further, I see MOS:NUM does refer to article text. Is there any general policy for headings or can either be used? MapReader (talk) 08:10, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

When thousands of articles used the Season # format, and it's one MOS (NUM) against another MOS (TV) that are both merely guidelines, I'd say yes. WP:CONSENSUS is a policy. The article text for The Crown (which is the article that started this post) does use the style of "the first season" in the article, and almost every television series article that I've come across (which, as a very regular contributor to the WikiProject Television, is also thousands) uses Season # in the header, which this MOS doesn't refer to. -- AlexTW 21:25, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
it may come down to text v header, which is why I asked that question. I have seen differing usage on tv pages, and IMO text is easier on the eye than numerals, including within headings, but if WP has no format policy for headings then so be it MapReader (talk) 21:40, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Can you link some examples? -- AlexTW 21:41, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
I think the text of WP:DATERANGE is relevant here. When the change from 2 digit end years to 4 digit end years happened in 2016, the provision that two-digit end years may be used in certain topic areas where "there is a very good reason, such as matching the established convention of reliable sources" was added. The established convention of reliable sources is to use numbers (i.e. season 1, 2 etc) when referring to television seasons. Very rarely are season numbers spelled out as words, if they ever are. I don't actually see support for MapReader's assertion that MOS:NUM prefers use of words. The only reference I can see to seasons in the guideline (not policy) is when we're talking about summer, winter, autumn, spring etc. --AussieLegend (✉) 21:46, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
The general provision is Integers from zero to nine are spelled out in words, but this is related to article text, which I am assuming is to be taken as excluding article sub-headings? Unless 'text' is being used in a casual sense here? p.s. "established convention" may depend on where you are. If I Google The Crown, season two comes up in words in titles on the BBC, Radio Times, Guardian, Wired, and Hello Magazine MapReader (talk) 21:56, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Those are those sites, none of which are Wikipedia. Can you give us examples where such type is used in Wikipedia? -- AlexTW 00:43, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Read Aussie's post again - he was referring to sources. What happens here and there on WP isn't really material. MapReader (talk) 06:25, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
I was talking to you, not in regard to his post, but to your quote of I have seen differing usage on tv pages. -- AlexTW 06:47, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
I have seen varying usage, but it doesn't appear material to this discussion about the MoS and therefore not really worth a lot of effort searching back for them. MapReader (talk) 06:52, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Footnotes in Manual of Style

I noticed ‎Joeyconnick reverted my edit which moved the footnote about apostrophe encoding to the end. I feel this footnote should be encoded at the end because it is referenced in multiple places, and there's no reason to choose a specific place as the main placement. Alternatively, the spread out referencing may indicate that the footnote's information merits its own section. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 20:16, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Other notes are referenced multiple times... where they are included initially is not really important. And again, consistency as per WP:CITEVAR. But it's a good point that, owing to the multiple references, maybe it ought to be in its own explicit section. —Joeyconnick (talk) 20:26, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Q: Do we use hyphen or hyphen-minus in double-barrelled surnames?

It appears that biographies on WP are routinely ignoring the guidance in MOS:HYPHEN and instead are using the hyphen-minus. Is there consensus to do so, or did it just slide under the radar? LeadSongDog come howl! 21:29, 26 March 2018 (UTC)

Do you have examples? I can't actually make my Mac generate a hyphen-minus easily, even though I have an external keyboard with a numpad. Both the key to the right of 0 (zero) and the numpad minus sign generate a character that matches \u002D. I think, given hyphen and hyphen-minus are encoded the same way in ASCII per Hyphen § Hyphen-minus, they are effectively the same. —Joeyconnick (talk) 22:34, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, \u002D is the hyphen-minus (also known in ASCII as hyphen, originally). On any keyboard, the minus or hyphen key gives you this character, whether you call it hyphen or hyphen-minus; UNICODE also has another character that's specifically for hyphen, but I'm not aware of any place that's in use by anyone for anything. Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Its most likely - no one reads MOS-HYPHEN or is even aware it exists rather than 'ignoring' it. As a practical issue, do whatever one comes naturally to you, an automated gnome will come by and correct it if its "wrong". It gives them something to do. In short, dont worry about it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:05, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Most editors don't pay attention to the MOS, but many of us do. Our gnoming is not generally easy to automate. Dicklyon (talk) 03:43, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
All of the examples in MOS-HYPHEN actually use minus-hyphens instead of real hyphens. I think it's safe to say that we don't actually use unicode hyphens on Wikipedia. Kendall-K1 (talk) 00:10, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

The hyphen-minus is the standard glyph for a hyphen (as it says at Hyphen-minus, "The hyphen-minus (-) is a character used in digital documents and computing to represent a hyphen"). Hyphen-minus is the name that Unicode made up for this code point and glyph, to recognize that in addition to being used for hyphen it's also commonly used (in code, not in typography) as minus sign. I'm pretty sure that MOS:HYPHEN never meant to suggest otherwise, but perhaps it needs an explicit clarification is someone is questioning that. Dicklyon (talk) 00:14, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Maybe a single sentence at the end of MOS:HYPHEN? I'm tempted to actually discourage use of unicode hyphen, because using it could complicate searches. But I don't want to start a huge argument over this. Kendall-K1 (talk) 13:25, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
I agree with Kendall-K1 as a practical matter. On most computers, it is easier to type a "hyphen minus" than it is to type a Unicode hyphen. If you look at articles (including, fittingly enough, Hyphen-minus), the title is encoded with a hyphen minus, not a Unicode hyphens. The situation is comparable to apostrophes and quotation marks where the ASCII ' is used instead of the fancier curved Unicode apostrophes. Generally, if we're going to adopt standards, we should maximize accessibility, not prescribe Unicode specifications to our encoding. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 14:49, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

MOS:HYPHEN is about hyphenation in general; only the first line is about surnames. Why pick out surnames only? Following the OP's logic, almost every hyphen in Wikipedia should be a Unicode hyphen, so every time some user types a "hyphen-minus", a bot should trot round and change it do a Unicode hyphen! Really?
As Dickylon said, it's obvious that that whoever wrote MOS:HYPHEN had in mind the character that's on everyone's keyboard, which almost all humans call a hyphen. As the article Hyphen-minus says, "The hyphen-minus is a character used in digital documents and computing to represent a hyphen or a minus sign ... However, in proper typesetting and graphic design, there are distinct characters for hyphens ..." Wikipedia is a digital document, not a properly-typeset or graphic-designed document.
Do we really need a formal proposal to add a line to MOS:HYPHEN to make this clear? — Stanning (talk) 17:55, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

We shouldn't have to, no. But; this is The MoS, after all  :) —SerialNumber54129 paranoia /cheap shit room 17:57, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
So try this. Dicklyon (talk) 19:11, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
Thank you all for the feedback. To clarify, I have no horse in this race, I just wished to address an apparent contradiction in the guidance. The text linked to hyphen yet the Tim Berners-Lee example used a hyphen-minus. So, I'm not at all suggesting widespread disruption, just a cleanup of the guidance text. If others are content that a wording change will do that job, then so am I. Cheers. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:22, 27 March 2018 (UTC)

Blockquote length

Format a long quote (more than about 40 words or a few hundred characters, or consisting of more than one paragraph, regardless of length) as a block quotation

Is it just me, or is 40 words a little short? I was reverted for removing blockquote formatting from a quote over 63 words. At least on my monitor (which is not particularly large), the quote I edited looks rather sparse displayed as a blockquote, and yet it's more than 50% longer than the minimum wordcount. I'd probably suggest something closer to 80 words, maybe more. Popcornduff (talk) 07:32, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

Disagree, I think 40 words is a reasonable transition point. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:57, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
I am going to concur with Nikkimaria. In my opinion, as long as the quote is over 1 line on a reasonable sized monitor, it is acceptable for use in blockquote (though not required). E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 12:13, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Not everyone uses the same skin or monitor size. --Izno (talk) 13:27, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
I used the adjective "reasonable" because not everyone has the same display. There is a range of variation, but at a certain point the display size is outside the norm (e.g. a phone screen or a large monitor). Lines are the main way the average reader evaluates the display when reading through an article. Because line count is not an objective standard for the wiki, word count is the avenue of prescription. If other editors disagree with my standard of 1 line, it's fine. I do think that fundamentally, line count is the standard pertaining to the reader, but if we don't prescribe using that measurement it's admittedly a less useful course of discussion. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 14:03, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Mobile is the new norm: 5 of every 9 (55%) page views in the main space are from mobile. And there is variation across skins, which was the other point I was trying to stress. --Izno (talk) 14:43, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
The APA recommends 40 words; the MLA recommends "four lines of prose or three lines of verse"; CMOS 100 or more--"six-to-eight lines of text in line a typical manuscript", as well as others in the 5+ lines realm. The 40 words that the APA suggests are a bit shorter than the MLA's recommendation (about 2.5 lines pre-indentation with some lorem), and clearly the others are closer to the realm of 80 words or so. I would probably support inlining only those quotes longer than 65-80 words, if we want a direct count. --Izno (talk) 13:27, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
  • How 'bout saying 40-60 and leaving it at that. There's more to such decisions than a word count. EEng 16:08, 29 March 2018 (UTC)

JOBTITLES

Have I misinterpreted MOS:JOBTITLES? Revert by @SounderBruce: says I did, but I don't think so. Dicklyon (talk) 00:35, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

I might add that the entire section doesn't match common use in American English by media outlets and doesn't make much sense in general. "County executive" (with the lowercase) is fine, but "Snohomish County executive" is not because it breaks the consistency here. SounderBruce 00:37, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
I would say it should be "King County Executive" as that is a formal title of the office, but the others should be lowercase (e.g. the powers of the county executive were) as usage is as common nouns. MB 00:48, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
It was my intent to leave it capped where suggested by MOS:JOBTITLES and not otherwise. Were there instances that you think I got wrong? It looks to me like this also follows closely what most sources do; are there instances where someone thinks I'm wrong about that? Dicklyon (talk) 00:59, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
In the diff you provided above, you changed the first quoted "King County Executive" to "King County executive". And in the search you just provided, it looks like most sources (at least on the first page) have it all caps. I agree with all the other changes you made to make the generic county executive or executive lower case. MB 01:18, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
You failed to mention the "The" and correlate that to the guideline. And you failed to note that the page hits where it is capped are wikipedia pages. Most others use lowercase, don't they? There is perhaps 1 in 10 that does it differently from what our guideline suggests. Or do you see more? Dicklyon (talk) 01:29, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
To go through one by one, (discounting WP and duplicate sources) I see once occurrence from kingcounty.gov where it refers to King County Executive, and six other sources using the King County executive/Executive. One third of those with "The" have Executive capitalized (2 out of 6). Of course the count might change if more pages are investigated. Regardless, I agree with all your changes except that one that I think is a formal title. MB 01:54, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Which one change are you referring to that you think is wrong? The lead sentence? I did that because it's what MOS:JOBTITLES says to do, and it's what most sources do (two-thirds by your estimate?). Dicklyon (talk) 02:58, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Yes, the one in the lead. That looks to me like a formal title, as in "Richard Nixon was President of the United States" from the examples. To make it match the MOS, the "the" could be removed there. If you look at President of the United States, you will see President is also capitalized even though it is preceded by an article. I think we should follow the precedent in 1/3 of the sources and the POTUS article. MB 03:33, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Got it. I'm not keen on letting an article precedent override the MOS, but for now I'll do it that way and see if there's any other objection. Dicklyon (talk) 04:03, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
My reading is the same as MB's. "King County Executive" is a formal title and should be capitalised, others lowercase per MB. Only in death does duty end (talk) 01:36, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
So no comment relative to what MOS:JOBTITLES says, or what sources do differently, or what specific changes that I made you would object to? I'm looking for specifics of what I did wrong, relative either to guidelines or sources, not just generalizations. Dicklyon (talk) 02:56, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
Well, according to the edit summary that accompanied the revert, what you did “wrong” was to inappropriately decapitalize a specific job title (treating it as if it were a generic one). Blueboar (talk) 11:20, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
But have you read MOS:JOBTITLES? It lays out very specifically the conditions under which we cap such things. Can you comment with respect to that, which is what I requested at the outset? Dicklyon (talk) 16:50, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
MOS:JOBTITLES says in part "Offices, titles, and positions...are capitalized only in the following cases...[w]hen a formal title for a specific entity (or conventional translation thereof) is addressed as a title or position in and of itself." An example given in the guideline is "Richard Nixon was President of the United States."
I think "is addressed as" is very poor wording and hard to understand. My best guess is that "Richard Nixon was President of the United States" applies the title "President of the United States" to Richard Nixon, and because the title is applied to a specific entity, Richard Nixon, "President" is a proper noun and capitalized. When the phrase "president of the United States" is not being applied to a particular person, "president" is a common noun. The part about "president" being common if it is preceded by an article seems dubious to me, especially if the article is "the". Jc3s5h (talk) 17:31, 31 March 2018 (UTC)
OK, so you're saying that maybe the problem is what the guideline says, not that I misinterpreted it? Dicklyon (talk) 23:35, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

What I wrote is my attempt to interpret the guideline, but the guideline is hard to interpret. So I agree with your original article edit that lead to this discussion. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:56, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

"late" and "former"

I keep seeing this popping up in articles, for example Ronald Reagan being referred to as "the late former President of the United States". Encyclopedias know no time, they don't use informal colloquialisms such as "late" to refer to dead people and dead past office holders would not be referred to as "former" in formal English (i.e. "Gerald Ford, the 38th president of the United States", not "Gerald Ford, the former 38th president of the United States") Paul Benjamin Austin (talk) 07:42, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

You are correct. There is even a guideline on this but my brain is in overload at the moment and I cannot, for the life of me, remember the shortcut. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:09, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
I would be interested to see the guideline, although I routinely adjust such wording anyway. A classic issue seems to be saying that "X was born to the late Y", which is almost always untrue even though it is possible for a parent to die prior to the child being born. I am beginning to see a lot of unnecessary uses of would also, eg: "he would become High Commissioner before leaving the diplomatic corps for academia". The writer means "he was High Commissioner ..." etc - Sitush (talk) 09:17, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
Or "was opened by the late", "was voiced by the late" etc. I really don't think the zombie apocalypse has started yet so dead people simply don't do these things. I wish I could find that guideline. --AussieLegend (✉) 09:27, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
For my response, see your cross-post at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies#"late" and "former". Not a good idea to split discussion. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:29, 6 April 2018 (UTC)
Not exactly the same thing, but I spend a lot of time trimming redundant time indicators. For example: "Initially released in Japan in 1997, the game was later ported to the PlayStation in 1999." When it's obvious which order events happened in - especially because we give dates - words like "initially", "first", "later", "subsequently", "previously", "earlier" etc are pointless. Popcornduff (talk) 11:33, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Boilerplate leads in lists

The articles in List of LGBT-related films by year all have leads in the form "This is a list of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender-related films released in <year or decade>. It contains theatrically released films that deal with important gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender characters or issues and may have same-sex romance or relationships as a plot device." The use of a self-referencing lead goes counter to some MOS recommendations (included below). My question is: is there a better lead which avoids self-reference in this set of lists?

Reading the through the guidelines, the general theme for the MOS entries is avoid self-reference and redundancy, while MOS:LEADOFALIST and WP:Stand-alone lists also mention inclusion criteria as something important to state in the lead. These two guidelines seem to be in conflict sometimes (possibly in this case, with the criteria in the second sentence), and we may want to revise the main MoS/Lead entry to mention that the lead should also include inclusion-criteria for lists.

Guideline quotes for reference

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section § lead sentence says:

if the page is a list, do not introduce the list as "This is a list of X" or "This list of Xs...". A clearer and more informative introduction to the list is better than verbatim repetition of the title. A good example of this is the List of Benet Academy alumni. (See also Format of the first sentence below).

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists § Lead section or paragraph says:

The contents of an article that is a stand-alone list should be clear. If the title does not make clear what the list includes, then the list's lead section should do so. Don't leave readers confused about the list's inclusion criteria or have editors guessing as to what may be added to the list.

[...]

Lead sections and paragraphs should also follow the Self-references to avoid guideline.

And Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists § Lead says:

A stand-alone list should begin with a lead section that summarizes its content, provides any necessary background information, gives encyclopedic context, links to other relevant articles, and makes direct statements about the criteria by which members of the list were selected, unless inclusion criteria are unambiguously clear from the article title. This introductory material is especially important for lists that feature little or no other non-list prose in their article body. Even when the selection criteria might seem obvious to some, an explicit standard is often helpful to both readers, to understand the scope, and other editors, to reduce the tendency to include trivial or off-topic entries.

Some context for these questions: I recently created a template that produces the style of leads, but the phrasing appears to conflict with MoS. (It is currently nominated for deletion for conflicting with WP:Templates, but that's not the issue I want to address here.) (This comment was refactored.) E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 16:58, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Note: I have linked to this discussions at WikiProject:Lists, since they may have useful feedback. E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 17:04, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

Do we discourage sections listing most notable examples?

I am engaged in a discussion in an article which has a section on notable examples in the form of a list of notable people in a given field. I made an argument that such sections are bad, because who gets included in and who doesn't is subjective. For listing things, we have lists and categories. A section entitled 'notable Fooians' should in theory list every single Fooian, because how to we decide who is more notable than others? (In some cases, there may be sources for Top 10 Fooians, but in particular where such sources are not present, making a call who is a notable Fooian and who isn't can be controversial). To put it in more practical words: article on country should not list 'notable countries', on French people, 'notable Frenchmen', on Pokemon, 'notable Pokemon', on murderers, 'notable murderes', on phones, 'notable phones', on Holocaust denial, 'notable Holocaust deniers' (or 'notable examples of Holocaust denial'). Of course, various examples of what could be in such list could and often are incorporated into relevant sections of the prose. I was trying to find something in MoS to back up my argument (that a section on notable examples of a subject is a bad section for an article on the subject), but I am drawing blank. Any help would be appreciated. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:03, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

In many cases they are useful, and restricting to ones with WP articles is often perfectly valid. If they get too long, references can be demanded, or a shunt off to "List of....". Don't know if MOS covers it. Johnbod (talk) 03:09, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
@Piotrus: This is exactly what you're looking for: Wikipedia:Notability (people) § Lists of people, specifically, "Inclusion in lists contained within articles should be determined by WP:Source list, in that the entries must have the same importance to the subject as would be required for the entry to be included in the text of the article according to Wikipedia policies and guidelines (including WP:Trivia sections). Furthermore, every entry in any such list requires a reliable source attesting to the fact that the named person is a member of the listed group." E to the Pi times i (talk | contribs) 13:47, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

RfC

An RfC has been opened that may be of interest to editors concerned about style issues. Please see https://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#RfC:_Specifying_the_code_of_football_at_first_reference_in_team_articles --Trovatore (talk) 19:49, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Moved to https://wiki.alquds.edu/?query=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Specifying_the_code_of_football_at_first_reference_in_team_articles. Apparently it's "not an RFC"; I haven't followed up the link to find out why it's not. --Trovatore (talk) 20:43, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
@Trovatore: Mostly I think, you didn't add a {{rfc}} tag. --Izno (talk) 20:48, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
Oh. OK, thanks. Does it actually matter whether it's an RfC or not, as long as the question gets discussed? If it doesn't really matter then I think I'll leave it as is. --Trovatore (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
@Trovatore: {{RFC}} doesn't hurt, and does help publicize it, and sidesteps any possible "that's not a good enough consensus" usually. --Izno (talk) 21:11, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
Ah, but discussion has already started. Can it be added after the fact? If I go back to touch second base, I want to do it right. How's that for a mixed metaphor? --Trovatore (talk) 21:39, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
@Trovatore: The tag can be added at any time anywhere, though it's usually good practice for it to get its own section (this is its own section in this case, so we're fine there). --Izno (talk) 22:40, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Fixing dashes in reference titles or keeping original punctuation

If the title of something uses a spaced hyphen where style guides would say to use a spaced en-dash, should it be "fixed" to conform with WP:ENDASH, or should the title be stated exactly as written? (This is in reference to an online source, where it is possible to say exactly which character was used.) My thought was to keep the title as close to a fascimile of how it appears in the source, but another editor has changed it to fit house style on dashes. Thanks for any guidance :) Umimmak (talk) 13:53, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles, in the section called "Typographic effects" notes that we needn't slavishly follow the typography of the source title and should instead use proper style; if our Manual of Style calls for an endash, use an endash, even if the original title uses a hyphen. In my opinion, such a choice is a "typographic effect" and not inherent to the style. --Jayron32 15:36, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
Just to clarify I didn't mean the title of an article but the |title= in a citation. I think your answer ends up being the same though, but perhaps with a different justification. Thanks :) Umimmak (talk) 16:35, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I got that. I was answering as you intended. --Jayron32 16:55, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

African-American

I didn't see a reference to how to handle hyphenation of national origin or ethnicity. I've found conflicting usage in a ton of articles. I did a search on Google and came back with several manuals of style t5hat also conflict on proper hyphenation. What is wikipedia's official policy for editors to follow?StarHOG (talk) 14:42, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

WP:MOSDASH covers this. To quote "An en dash between separate nations; for people and things identifying with multiple nationalities, use a hyphen when applied as an adjective or a space as a noun. "African Americans are a minority in the U.S." but "John Doe identifies as African-American" and "African−American relations are strained..." --Jayron32 15:22, 12 April 2018 (UTC)
So, "Barak Obama is African American" and, "Barak Obama is African-American" are, in theory, both correct?StarHOG (talk) 16:04, 13 April 2018 (UTC)
The first sentence should be "Barack Obama is an African American", as there American is a noun and African is an adjective, while in the second "African-American" is a compound adjective. oknazevad (talk) 18:43, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

Images are good; propsal to restore and add bits of text

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images, section "Images are good". This contains a proposal to restore some text to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images and add a matching bit to WP:IG. The key point is a statement that images are generally good (currently never said) and one along the lines of "Generally, available space beside the text should be used for images before a gallery is added".

Please centralize discussion there for now. Thanks, Johnbod (talk) 15:02, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

"Sandwiching" text between an infobox and image

We have the following guideline: "Avoid sandwiching text... between an image and an infobox or similar." But can anyone explain to me why we need it? I can understand why it looks bad to have text between two images, but the infobox is often so long that it is a waste of space not being able to place images next to it. Also, this "rule" is often ignored, with good results. FunkMonk (talk) 06:43, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

In my experience it's often ignored with very bad results. The problem arises when looking at the 'desktop' version of Wikipedia, rather than the mobile version, on small screens, such as a tablet. The space for text is then very narrow, and it doesn't matter what is sandwiching text, you can end up with a column a few words wide. Since mobile devices are used more often now than monitors, and not everyone is happy with the mobile version (which doesn't display all the information), it's even more important to avoid sandwiching text.
The solution with short articles and long taxoboxes is to place images sufficiently important to be included centrally, using a packed mode gallery or a multiple image. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:54, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Doesn't that go against WP:galleries, though? If the results are only bad on extremely small screens, is it really a problem that should affect all other screen sizes? The problem is circumvented in the Wikipedia app in any case, where an image is centred on the screen with only text above and under. Seems to be the same case when you look at Wikipedia on a smartphone without the app. Any images are automatically shown below the infobox. FunkMonk (talk) 08:06, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
WP:GALLERIES doesn't say that relevant images can't be collected together in a short article.
Are you looking at the mobile site or the desktop site? (See Wikipedia:Enable mobile version.) Compare APG IV system, for example, when viewed in the desktop and mobile versions. The mobile version shows nothing in the section "Short version". Compare any taxon article with a taxonbar (e.g. Ponerorchis cucullata). The taxonbar isn't shown on the mobile version. So to get the full content you often have to view an article in the desktop version, regardless of the device on which you are viewing it. A smartphone may have so narrow a screen that there's no room for text between sandwiched images/infoboxes, whereas a tablet screen may have enough room to show a narrow text column, and I can confirm that it definitely produces some poor presentations.
I agree that if styling were properly adjusted for screen size in all the different ways of displaying Wikipedia – desktop site, mobile site, app, whatever – then sandwiching would not be a problem, and we should probably be pressing the tech people to fix this. (Another problem, as noted above, is what is left out of some of these viewing methods.) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:14, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
I'll have a look at a tablet later today. Don't all mobile phones automatically switch to mobile mode? FunkMonk (talk) 10:43, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Ok, I am looking at an article in desktop mode now, and though it admittely has very little room for the text between the infobox and the first image, who even uses desktop mode, and why? Aren't we unnecessarily adapting to an outdated mode of viewing Wikipedia on such devices? FunkMonk (talk) 10:51, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
I use desktop mode because it is easier to find things and just read the article than having to open each individual heading one at a time. --Khajidha (talk) 11:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
I always use desktop view because mobile view is just so, so, so, bad for editing. It's ok for reading, but IMO is absolutely useless for editing. older ≠ wiser 11:14, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Right, so you both edit from mobile devices? Didn't take that into account. It would seem it mainly benefits editors then (and the sandwiching would not be a problem for the majority of readers, who don't use desktop mode)? FunkMonk (talk) 13:04, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
See, to me, your "Aren't we unnecessarily adapting to an outdated mode of viewing Wikipedia on such devices?" has the problem almost entirely reversed. Why are we attempting to force Wikipedia's content to "fit" on a device that isn't designed to handle it? If people want to look at the internet on their phones, they should find a phone that can handle the internet the way it is. These phones exist now, so why are we continuing to offer this half-assed, bastardization of a "mobile site"?--Khajidha (talk) 13:38, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
This to me is a really strange tack to take. Publishers who said "they should learn to read news on paper the way it was meant to be read!" are no longer in business. Wikipedia is an online site and thus is seen via many different portals and devices, and it makes sense to make format considerations for all of them, especially when mobile viewing is increasingly the dominant form of web viewing. If anything, pages should be designed mobile-first rather than the other way around. As to "the infobox is so long it interferes with the body text", that sounds like maybe editors shouldn't be trying to dump every detail into the infobox, the article lead isn't adequately covering the article, or another issue. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 16:05, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
My issue isn't that I want to enforce a specific way of showing an article, it is that others try to enforce that an image can't be shown left of an infobox because of this guideline, which I think is ludicrous. Why limit our layout possibilities to prevent something that most people won't even see? Let people use desktop mode all they want, but I don't see why this has to dictate the overall layout. As for shortening infoboxes, that is not really possible with taxoboxes, which always show a long hierarchy. FunkMonk (talk) 16:09, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
prevent something that most people won't even see What evidence do you have for this claim? While I support efforts to develop the mobile view, it is in reality still in its infancy. To say that this immature platform should override the very real and very practical concerns for the widely used desktop view seems to be a case of the tail wagging the dog. older ≠ wiser 16:38, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
After the initial discussion here, I took a look at Wikipedia pages on a mobile phone and an IPad, both which automatically jumped to the mobile version. Therefore, I assume this is what most other devices do as well. And I doubt that most non-editor readers even know how to switch to desktop mode (or would want to without knowing what it even means), so I would assume this is the most frequent way of reading Wikipedia, as it is the technical default. FunkMonk (talk) 16:41, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
More than a few questionable assumptions there. There may be better tools available that I'm not aware of, but consider page views for the main page. In the last months, peak daily views for the mobile web was 3,075,813. Peak daily desktop views were 15,585,768. older ≠ wiser 17:06, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
So what does this tell us? That most devices don't automatically switch to mobile mode, or that even non-editor readers actively switch to desktop mode? The latter seems a bit hard to believe. FunkMonk (talk) 17:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
There's no basis for such contorted assumptions. The stats simply measure page views. While there are a lot of mobile devices in use, there are still a huge number of computers in use. older ≠ wiser 17:19, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Are we not talking about mobile devices only here? I am well aware that PCs don't switch to mobile mode automatically, but that is well besides the point. FunkMonk (talk) 17:21, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
You're making comparative claims regarding mobile vs. desktop views. All I'm saying is that the statistics suggest you're assumptions are without merit. older ≠ wiser 17:45, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
In any case, that is not my real concern, as outlined below, so we can just put it to rest. FunkMonk (talk) 18:14, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

FunkMonk and others: you're not taking into account what I said above: mobile view does not show all of an article. How can you edit an article if you can't see what some of it looks like when the wikitext is rendered? Unless and until mobile view shows the same article as desktop view, then serious editors (and readers) have to use desktop view. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:14, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I see the issue, but until something is done, there isn't much we can do about it, so we have to work with what we have. So my impression was simply that people only use desktop mode for editing, not reading, articles, and that we should therefore focus on the mode that most people use (per articles automatically switching to mobile mode on most devices), and not be restricted by something that is only used by few. I'm not on some crusade to somehow restrict the use of older equipment. FunkMonk (talk) 16:25, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Except that use statistics show that the desktop site is still more widely used than mobile, so mobile isn't the mode most people use. oknazevad (talk) 16:28, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Where can these statistics be seen? And does it only take Wikipedia editors into account? In case it wouldn't really be reflective of widest use. FunkMonk (talk) 16:29, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
The foundation has mentioned them before. Trying to find them. And that was for reading, not editing, so it's not just editors. oknazevad (talk) 16:55, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Of course it doesn't go against WP:GALLERIES! Most people never read what that actually says, often relying on a folk-memory of what it used to say in 2006, when it was about preventing all-gallery pages in article space, then common. Johnbod (talk) 14:19, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
But the suggestion here was that relevant images, which would otherwise fit neatly at the top of the article next to an infobox where it would illustrate adjacent text, should instead be dumped in a gallery with other images, simply to not sandwich text between it and the infobox. That would make it a lot harder to actually make image layout reflect the adjacent text, and we would end up with galleries of random images. FunkMonk (talk) 16:27, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
No, that's emphatically not the suggestion. If the article is sufficiently long, images can be staggered right and left, or put all to the right, or whatever, all without sandwiching text. The real problem arises in short (e.g. stub or start) articles where if you put even a couple of images under the taxobox to avoid sandwiching text, they run off the end of the article. Here it's better to collect the images together until the article increases in size. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:43, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Right, but that doesn't take into account long articles with long taxoboxes. Take for example Newton's parakeet or Northern rosella (two of many species articles with a similar layout). The images showing specimens discussed in the adjacent text are placed on the left of the taxobox, which is pretty long. This looks fine on a computer screen, and is what makes most sense in relation to the adjacent text. But since it might look bad for people reading on a mobile device with desktop mode turned on, we should somehow squeeze the image down to a place in the article where it is less relevant? Such edits have been done in the past, and I don't see why it is that necessary. FunkMonk (talk) 16:49, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Might there perhaps be a misunderstanding about what it means to "sandwich" text? I see no sandwiching in the articles you linked. The images are aligned left, which is somewhat less common, but there is no text sandwiched between two images or between an image and a infobox. older ≠ wiser 17:14, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
In those cases, there is sandwiching in PC browser mode, but not in mobile device mode. But the current MOS would dictate that this is enough to move the images down anyway, which is the issue I'm concerned about (the MOS doesn't specify that it has anything to do with mobile devices, though that is what I am told here). For articles where the text is sandwiched between an image and the taxobox when seen on mobile devices, see fork-marked lemur and Mascarene martin (I checked these on IPad). It wasn't my original intention when choosing those examples, but this discrepancy between them shows that the current guideline may be iffy; some articles have text between images and infoboxes only when seen on PC screen where it looks fine, but not when seen on a mobile device (and the other way around), but now the MOS would dictate that we should move the images down anyway. What I'm asking is why this is necessary. And if anyone thinks this is just a hypothetical problem, see this edit:[5] FunkMonk (talk) 17:31, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
I see no sandwiching effects in either dsektop or mobile views. older ≠ wiser 17:45, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Hmmm, what device are you looking at them with? I see sandwiching on both my PC and IPad, here is a screenshot form PC:[6] FunkMonk (talk) 17:49, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
I have wide-screen display monitor on desktop and checked my phone and Kindle Fire for mobile. And while there is something like a sandwich effect on desktop for the fork-marked lemur and Mascarene martin articles due to the length of the navbox, I wouldn't really consider that as sandwiching as the effect is entirely dependent on desktop screen size. There was no sandwiching effect whatsoever on my phone or Kindle Fire. older ≠ wiser 17:55, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Here is what I see on IPad:[7] So if this is not a problem, what's the point of that guideline? FunkMonk (talk) 18:00, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
If you're using desktop view on a device with a narrow screen, it's likely impossible to avoid some sandwiching effects when there is a very long infobox. I'm not sure there's anything that could be done short of forcing the infobox to display in a way separate from text (e.g., in a separate section of it's own). I'm not aware of any statistics for users that choose to use desktop on mobile devices. That would be an interesting stat. While I do edit in desktop mode on my Kindle Fire, I know the pages I view there are not optimal for reading and so don't generally make stylistic edits that are dependent on device screen and viewing mode. Generally, I never use desktop on my phone. I only use WP there to do quick lookups. older ≠ wiser 18:42, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Yes, so accidentally the fact that we see different things has kind of underlined my initial issue here, which again, is not about desktop vs. mobile mode, but about whether we need a guideline that states we cannot sandwich text between an infobox and an image; we will never know who has the same problem as we do when we see such sandwiching. Therefore, having a guideline about it is not helpful, and may even be counter-productive (when it leads to images being moved outside the sections they illustrate). As for separating the infobox from the text, that is already what the mobile mode and Wikipedia app does. FunkMonk (talk) 18:51, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
There are aspects we can anticipate and others that are more variable. The advice to avoid sandwiching text is sound -- in particular when applied to two or more images within the same section or with an infobox and image within the same section. When dealing with infoboxes that stretch over multiple sections, there are too many variables to anticipate what any given user is going to see -- any any "fix" for one user's display might result in another user seeing something less optimally. Personally, I would not be averse to requiring infoboxes to conform to more stringent display guidelines, such as autocollapsing portions. older ≠ wiser 19:07, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
I'm not saying we shouldn't have a guideline against sandwiching text between two images. But the one about the infobox appears to be pointless WP:instruction creep that can only lead to arbitrary decisions at best, and crappy layout at worst (as happened here[8] today). FunkMonk (talk) 19:27, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Reply to Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs: That isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying, "if you only have a radio, you shouldn't expect to be able to watch television." --Khajidha (talk) 16:59, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

It's not just mobile users who have problems with sandwiching. On a desktop or laptop it's not compulsory to view with a maximised window. I routinely use a window that fills only half my screen (sometimes even narrower) so that I can view two windows side-by-side. It's also easier to read a narrow window than a wide one. (That's why newspapers print in narrow columns.) And in my narrow window, sandwiched text can look awful. -- Dr Greg  talk  18:28, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Ok, but that scenario indicates that you would never be able to make a layout that fits all screens when it comes to image/infobox placement. Even if they don't squeeze text viewed in full window mode, they might in minimised windows. If they don't do on PC screen, they might on tablet, and vice versa. Add to that different resolutions, text size, etc., and you have a lot of variables. So how can we have a guideline like this that is practically impossible to enforce consistently? As an example, if we assume I wanted to enforce this guideline, I would move the first left image in the fork-marked lemur article below the level of the taxobox, because I get this squeeze:[9] But that would place the image outside the text it is actually relevant to (as this editor did:[10]). Others don't even have the problem, so how am I helping anyone by making this edit? And by extension, who does this guideline help? FunkMonk (talk) 18:34, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
Users with narrow screens or windows can set their default thumbnail size to be smaller. Of course that doesn‘t help where the pixel-width of an image has been specified. (Not arguing for sandwiching, just a suggestion to those suffering from text-squeeze whatever the cause.)—Odysseus1479 19:47, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Ok so this section seems to have been derailed from the original issue, so I'll try to get it back on track. Why do we need a guideline that effectively says images can't be placed on the left of an infobox, especially since the exact layout varies from screen to screen? FunkMonk (talk) 16:28, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

MOS:GENDERID

The MOS:GENDERID guidelines contradict existing Wikipedia policy Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not with respect to WP:NOTPROPAGANDA. The Wikipedia article for Propaganda describes propaganda thusly:

Propaganda is information that is not objective and is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, often by presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented.

I recommend that this guideline be revised to encourage using pronouns objectively based on someone's actual gender as opposed to their perceived, projected, or desired gender. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an outlet for propagating the subjective delusions or preferences of biographical subjects. Snoopydaniels (talk) 17:13, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Except that mainstream academia regards Gender as a social construct and Sex as the biological fact, and has done so for decades. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:31, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
The word "gender" has historically been and continues to be used as a synonym for biological sex and that is how I'm using it here. I'm not challenging the conceptual distinction between biological sex and gender. However, you have just acknowledged that gender identity is not objective. That satisfies one of the criteria of propaganda as defined above. Meanwhile, choosing to use pronouns that reflect a person's subjective gender identity rather than their objective biological sex is clearly intended to "encourage a particular synthesis or perception," satisfying another criterion of propaganda. It is also intended, by some of the "mainstream academics" you allude to, to "influence an audience" and "further an agenda" of depathologizing gender dysphoria, even though it is still considered a mental disorder by a quorum of medical professionals. This, again, puts MOS:GENDERID in direct conflict with Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not vis a vis WP:NOTPROPAGANDA. Snoopydaniels (talk) 19:34, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
GENDERID is a result of a rather lengthy RFC of actually how to handle pronouns. There were issues of whether using the preferred pronoun (along with issues of "deadnaming") was a problem, and that is where there's a conflict between WP:NOT , and WP:BLP. In the end, the consensus was clearly in favoring following how sources refer to the person or personal prefer, save where it would illogical/confusing (eg Caitlyn Jenner's Olympic sport history). This was not added without considering the concern by editors that do take issue with the difference between "actual" and "perceived" gender, but we've decided on this route at this point. --Masem (t) 19:46, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
@Snoopydaniels: How do you propose we determine "actual gender" of people? I have not seen many sources describe people's genitals or gonads in much detail. EvergreenFir (talk) 19:50, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
That's not hard. If a person does not announce their biological sex, or if there are no secondary sources documenting the same, then we would have no idea that they were transgender in the first place and we would refer to them based on their public presentation. Snoopydaniels (talk) 20:01, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
So, based "on their public presentation"? But that's not their sex though. And what about people like David Bowie or Andreja Pejić? EvergreenFir (talk) 20:22, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
@EvergreenFir: You're right, it's not their sex. But there's nothing we can do about that. Meanwhile, David Bowie is known to be a biological man by his own admission, so that poses no difficulty to an editor. The guideline, if there must be one at all, should simply be that if reliable sources report the subject's physical gender, then use pronouns commensurate with their physical gender. If their physical gender is unknown, then defer to the prevailing pronoun usage of the sources. If the sources are divided, then rely upon editor consensus. Snoopydaniels (talk) 21:37, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
@User:Masem So did WP:NOTPROPAGANDA, specifically, ever feature in these discussions? And what about public health concerns? Implicitly promoting the views of certain sociologists and ideologues that transgenderism is perfectly normal--in contrast to the medical profession's accepted wisdom that it is a mental disorder--does a grave disservice to readers. Snoopydaniels (talk) 20:17, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
"in contrast to the medical profession's accepted wisdom that it is a mental disorder" -- that needs a citation, because I'm pretty sure most reputable medical sources that fall in WP:MEDRS do not consider having a preferred gender as a mental disorder. But as I said before, the discussion behind GENDERID did consider the balance of the importance of BLP and other policies. --Masem (t) 20:28, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
@Masem, From Gender dysphoria:

Gender dysphoria (GD), or gender identity disorder (GID), is the distress a person experiences as a result of the sex and gender they were assigned at birth. In this case, the assigned sex and gender do not match the person's gender identity, and the person is transgender.

The article goes on to explain that there are some factions that would like Gender dysphoria to be declassified, but that is not the current disposition of the APA. And that is where the propaganda issue comes in. Snoopydaniels (talk) 21:24, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
Read that carefully. "The American Psychiatric Association, publisher of the DSM-5, states that "gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder. The critical element of gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition." In other words, APA its says that this is not a mental disorder, only if the stress of having to deal with the disorder creates mental issues. Very important distinction. --Masem (t) 21:49, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
Quite so. And someone who is willing to take puberty blockers, opposite-sex hormones, and undergo surgeries that mutilate their bodies, all of which can be completely irreversible and leave them sterile in various degrees are not people who are coping well with their biological sex. Those are some of the prescribed "treatments" for gender dysphoria. Snoopydaniels (talk) 05:36, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
To anyone who follows, WP:DFTT. --Izno (talk) 17:31, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
Oh, I'm willing to imagine that OP believes they're posting in earnest, for now. Should they continue to advocate their personal beliefs regarding the relationship between gender and sex, then a WP:NOTHERE block will become appropriate. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:35, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
Ouch! Snoopy, I think you just shot yourself in the foot there. Your rationale holds no weight at all and really makes you look bad, and that's from someone who doesn't support this particular MOS! ►К Ф Ƽ Ħ◄ 19:06, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
WP:NOTHERE, see Special:Contributions/Snoopydaniels. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 06:41, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
@Pbsouthwood: How is this relevant?
See my reply to User:Ian.thomson. Your comment is not very helpful. Perhaps you could elaborate. Snoopydaniels (talk) 19:39, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
The second paragraph of the text in question has existed for at least 5.5 years if not longer, so it will need quite a consensus for removal or change. The first paragraph of the text has had multiple RFCs looking at the GENDERID text (here's a decent-sized one) indicating that you will likely need a similarly-sized consensus to change the current text. --Izno (talk) 22:01, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

OT but related

Why is it often the same people who grant humans the right to have different gender and sex become so upset about grammatical gender deviating from sex? For example ships have neuter sex but feminine gender and this can be very useful in speech: "He'll drive her on the rocks if he keeps her on that course" clearly blames the skipper (masculine gender, sex unknown) for the risk to the ship. Temperate comments only please! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:10, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

I could have sworn somewhere our MOS discourages the gender pronouns for ships and other vessels that normally get such, unless we are directly quoting those that use that pronoun. But I can't find that anywhere. Regardless, I do think we should not assign gender to inanimate objects like boats/planes, as it's more a vernacular rather than standard speech. --Masem (t) 05:57, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
WP:SHE4SHIPS asks for consistency within an article. Dekimasuよ! 06:01, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
What you're talking about is not grammatical gender, which English has not had since the middle ages (regardless, Anglo-Saxon scip was of the neutral gender—modern usage in which ships are called she has no basis in historical grammatical gender). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:58, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
  • If a ship has self-identified as male, we should use “he”... otherwise, follow the sources. Blueboar (talk) 11:45, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

More seriously I was wondering more about the mindset, ships are an example. On the other hand: @Blueboar: nice! I agree :-); @Masem: if you think ships are inanimate you've clearly never felt a yacht complaining as it crosses the channel in a force 8/9 or skips along happily close hauled with a brisk 5. They have more life and soul than quite a few people I can think of! :-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:54, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

    • I understand why people assign identity/gender to ships; as an encyclopedia I think we could avoid that but as pointed out by SHE4SHIPS, as long as one maintains consistent usage in an article, then whatever works (or floats your boat in this case). --Masem (t) 13:52, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

"certify" as intransitive verb?

See final sentence of Istanbul (Not Constantinople)'s lede, but I'm pretty sure I've seen it elsewhere. Is it slang? Wiktionary appears not to recognize it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:20, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

It's weird. "was certified as" is the easy fix.
See also the recent habit of saying films "releasing" instead of being released. Popcornduff (talk) 09:47, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
Not weird, wrong. Easy fix applied. Move along... Batternut (talk) 12:06, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Use of John/Jane Doe in running text?

I wouldn't have thought this was a problem, but I just noticed that a certain article uses "Jane Doe", and it's linked as though to explain to the reader what it means in case they don't know. But if readers are unlikely to be familiar with the term (I only learned it by accident in middle school when I was a junkie for forensics/crime documentaries, and don't know if I would recognize it otherwise), wouldn't "an anonymous woman" be better? And if they do know it then aren't links like that redundant? I'm also a little concerned that if the point of linking is to tell readers what a Jane Doe is, then depending on how it is used in context it could just mislead them into thinking it's the actual name of someone with a Wikipedia article (the allegations made by [a] former [producer], [...] Jane Doe). What do others think? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:40, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

I found one article that uses it this way: "and is hospitalized as a 'Jane Doe'" (linked and quoted, preceded with the indefinite article "a") which I think is acceptable, but agree context is important and it shouldn't imply an actual name. I know a real-life police officer named John Doe. MB 13:32, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Do you need to use a section header for a one-topic list?

Hi there. If you have a list which does not necessarily need a section heading, do you still need to add one after the lead. For instance, at List of best-selling video games, I used a basic heading of "Video games" above the table, as that's how I've written hundreds of other lists. Is there a guideline somewhere to back this up, or does it not really matter? Thanks. Andre666 (talk) 21:34, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

WP:LEAD mostly supports a header there, since the table is not a summary of the article. It also gets you over the 3-heading hump to produce a TOC, which enables some accessibility. --Izno (talk) 22:23, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

Can I place references in section headings

I am wondering whether placing a reference in the section heading is an acceptable style? I was wanting to use a reference for an entire section, but the section is in a bullet list format, so just placing the reference at the end would make it look like the reference was only for the last item in the bullet list.

I was not sure whether putting the reference in the section heading was standard, as I have not seen it done on any other articles that I have come across and (from some my testing) it would add the reference text to the WP:TOC, which would clutter the section names in the TOC for the reader.

What is the general consensus on using references in section headings?

Thanks Wpgbrown (talk) 13:40, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

Don't do it! A list should usually have a brief introduction, probably just a sentence, explaining what it is. Add the ref to that. Johnbod (talk) 13:45, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
Thanks. Will bear in mind for the future. Wpgbrown (talk) 13:56, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

β-Hydroxy β-methylbutyric acid

Does that look wrong to anyone else? Some chemists are saying the H needs to be capitalized when the word starts a sentence. (There's a separate question of β vs. beta ... not taking a position on that.) - Dank (push to talk) 20:46, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Looks right to me. --Khajidha (talk) 21:49, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
https://www.aje.com/en/arc/editing-tip-capitalization-chemical-compounds/ The exact circumstance isn't covered here, but it is an obvious extension of the pattern and jibes with my own experience. --Khajidha (talk) 21:52, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
"3-Hydroxy 3-methylbutyric acid" is a synonym for that compound; it's more straightforward when you consider how you would capitalize that one. The "beta-" and "β-" prefixes are equivalent; the former is just more verbose. Seppi333 (Insert 2¢) 22:11, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
Also, by convention β is never capitalized and "beta" is just a work around for situations where you don't have the actual β glyph available. The spelled out "beta" still follows the no capitalization rule, though. --Khajidha (talk) 22:14, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
IIRC Scientific American used to use ß (esszett). (Not that I’d ever recommend such a thing.)—Odysseus1479 21:29, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
Okay, I'm finding other RSs for that too. As long as we've got authorities behind us, it's fine. - Dank (push to talk) 22:27, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
Such capitalization seems to be accepted, and note that similar applies to number prefixes (eg 5-hydroxytryptophan); note also that such prefixes are ignored when sorting. Eg this book. (Stylistically it does actually look wrong to me too, but the logic behind it seems good). Batternut (talk) 22:36, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
ACS Style Guide is one formal style guide, and WP:CHEMMOS follows it among others. For example, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (chemistry)#Capitalization of elements and compounds is in agreement with p145 of doi:10.1021/bk-2006-STYG.ch010. DMacks (talk) 01:19, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Style discussion

There is a relevant discussion at Talk:Ford Model A (1927–31). Primergrey (talk) 13:02, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 April 2018

In the Celestial bodies section, there is no space before the period in the beginning of the following sentence: Words such as comet and galaxy should be capitalized where they form part of an object's proper name, but not when they are used as a generic description (Halley's Comet is the most famous of the periodic comets; The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy). Can you please fix that? 2601:183:101:58D0:654A:EADE:6EDC:B6FA (talk) 21:18, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

 Done with thanks, NiciVampireHeart 21:59, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

MOS wording: images that "look toward" the text

Image 1a. ✖
Image 1. ✔
Image 2a. ✔
Image 2. ✖

Would it be extremely controversial to propose that the relevant passage WP:IMGLOC reads something like:

"place images of people,animals, vehicles and/or moving objects so that they "look" or "move" toward the text..."?

I have been trained (as a professional journalist/book editor) according to a stylistic convention that positions images so that all living/animate/moveable things appear to be facing/pointing into text.

For an example of what I mean, see the images of similar trains on the left and right. That is the usage of Image 1 and Image 2a are in accordance with the layout convention to which I am referring (while the use/positioning of Image 1a and Image 2 is not). Assuming that there are no technical/content issues with Image 1 (vis-a-vis Image 2), it will always be preferred, in terms of this particular convention.

Grant | Talk 05:27, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

I agree it's a very good style idea. Not obviously the sort of thing that the Manual of Style usually covers, though. I wonder if there's a better venue to try to educate users about such visual composition style issues. Dicklyon (talk) 05:35, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
It is exactly what WP:IMGLOC (Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Images#Location) covers, currently saying: "It is often preferable to place images of people so that they "look" toward the text. (Do not achieve this by reversing the image, which creates a false presentation; faces are never truly symmetric even in the absence of scars or other features.) Probably there are other places - User:Grant65, you should always be very clear exactly where proposed changes here should go. Johnbod (talk) 15:12, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
Thanks User:Johnbod; I have updated my original post and heading to address this. Grant | Talk 02:15, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
To play Devil's advocate, I've seen suggestions that things should always look to the right because looking to the left is often seen as looking backwards. ( http://www.artlebedev.com/mandership/137/ ) Also, we often have a very limited selection of images, many of them being too dark, poorly framed, out of focus, distracting backgrounds, etc. To have to reject a good quality image and use a lower quality image solely because it points in the right direction is likely to crop up again and again. Or we have to put the good image on the opposite of the page but that often conflicts with page layout too (eg, the lower left image intrudes on the first sentence of this paragraph at the screen settings I am using). The idea is good but I think our lack of good images to choose from is going to cause conflicts. Perhaps we can say that images pointing towards to the text (or possibly to right) are preferred when choosing among similar quality images.  Stepho  talk  06:08, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
I agree withStepho-wrs, I have run into the problems described above in GA and FA reviews. It is nice to have the picture "look" towards the centre, but not always practicable. One thing we do not want, is for people to mirror images to make them look inwards. That way lies abomination. · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:02, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
  • It's nice when it can be done, but it can't always, and having guidelines for it will only give ammunition to people who have little better to do than enforce such things. So if we want to add such wording, we should make it clear that it is just an option. FunkMonk (talk) 13:37, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
Before even considering putting some of this in the guidelines, authoritative sources should be brought forward to confirm what is stated here as a mere opinion. −Woodstone (talk) 14:39, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
Not really necessary, it is a matter of stylistic preference, and therefor not really essential to provide authoritative sources. We can come up with a consensus preference based on our opinions and do not have to go with someone else's opinions. The practical problem that it is often not possible without degrading the page in some other way is far more important. · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:42, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
You could try looking at any professional magazine or website, but here's a book, and there are various snippets from this search. Johnbod (talk) 04:04, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Yes, we should do this. The current text at WP:IMGLOC, quoted above, is too restrictive. This universally understood principle of page design applies just as much to horses seen in profile as "people", and to moving objects too. The current language is "It is often preferable ...", which could hardly be milder, and ought to sooth the worries expressed above. Johnbod (talk) 15:18, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
    • I would go so far as to say it is preferable, when not problematic for other reasons, of which there are several possibilities, so that it will only occasionally be practicable with our current stock of images. In 10 years? Who knows? · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 15:42, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
      • ???I'm not sure you've grasped the proposal here. It means placing some images on the left rather than the right, which is normally no great problem. Commons has 46 million images. Johnbod (talk) 03:57, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
        • I speak from personal experience that though commons may have 46 million images, for some specific subjects it has precisely one, when it even has the one. (Not to speak of the difficulties finding the right one when it exists, that is another issue)
        • There are times when putting an image on the left side is a problem. Normally no, but occasionally yes. A page should look acceptable in all widths from mobile to wide screen desktop. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 14:07, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
        • Are you proposing moving infoboxes to the left to suit the photo? · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 14:12, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
            • No, certainly not. But I am glad to see you are retreating from your earlier position that "it will only occasionally be practicable", which was, well, wierd. Johnbod (talk) 18:34, 16 April 2018 (UTC)
              • OK, I concede that there will be rather a large number of occasions, possibly even the majority of occasions. Difficult to analyse, and not a good choice of expression. The point is that there are occasions where is is not the best option, and this might happen quite often. Cheers, · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 07:56, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment Our article on Egyō currently includes an image in its lede that is kind of a stand-in for the infobox that isn't there yet (read: it's not going to be moved to the left. The image is a scan of an old game card and a number of other articles in the series include images from the same set. The subject of the article is depicted facing right, essentially by accident. The image cannot be mirrored because of the prominent text, which would become gibberish. Then there's Lafcadio Hearn, who deliberately concealed his left eye in photographs: mirroring those photos would completely destroy the "meaning" of them, and keeping all images of the subject on the left-hand side of the page is a stylistic nightmare. I know no one here is seriously proposing anything like that, but any change to the MOS should make it clear that it should only be implemented with care for the specific image and context. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:43, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
Well, shit happens. Lead photos should almost always go on the right, certainly. But please note that "The image cannot be mirrored because" MOS explicitly forbids this, and correctly too! I repeat that the current language is "It is often preferable ...", which could hardly be milder. Johnbod (talk) 13:13, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Where are with this? Comments above have mostly concerned the general issue of images facing into the page. I'd remind people that WP:IMGLOC has said for years "It is often preferable to place images of people so that they "look" toward the text. (Do not achieve this by reversing the image,...". As far as I know this has not led to the sky falling on our heads, plagues of boils, or the slaughter of the first-born. The proposal here is to add to "people" the words "animals, vehicles and/or moving objects". There have not so far been comments that say this is inappropriate, ie that it works for people but not animals, vehicles and/or moving objects. Does anyone feel this? Johnbod (talk) 02:56, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
    Just do it. Then you'll see if anyone objects. Dicklyon (talk) 02:58, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
Unless I'm mistaken, both WP:IMAGE and standard graphic design already prefer that in the main article body, images not look off the page. The exception is the infobox, where the image is always on the right and sometimes of necessity must look off the page.--Tenebrae (talk) 04:16, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
I think you are mistaken re WP:IMAGE, a rather short page that doesn't mention the issue that I can see. The existing text at WP:IMGLOC (part of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Images) is quoted a number of times above. We are discussing adding to that, as it currently only refers to "images of people". You are correct about "standard graphic design", also discussed above. Johnbod (talk) 12:55, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
Sorry; I meant MOS:IMAGES, which states "It is often preferable to place images of people so that they 'look' toward the text," while noting the exception that applies primarily to the infobox.--Tenebrae (talk) 18:40, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
All other things being equal, images facing in to text is preferred. However, 1) images of a subject may not be equally divided between left- and right-facing examples, 2) images are never to be changed to reverse the orientation, 3) higher quality images should be used even if they would be facing the "wrong" direction, 4) infoboxes (a major use of images) must always be on the right, 5) moving an image to the other side of the page may not be a viable solution (it may create "sandwiched" text or interfere with other formatting). --Khajidha (talk) 12:40, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
Yes, agreed (all mentioned above). So presumably you are in favour of the proposal. Johnbod (talk) 12:55, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose We don't need MOS guideline for this. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:57, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
Any reason why not? We already have one, but only covering people. It is proposed to add 5 words to it. Do you actually disagree with the broad principle? That would be a refreshing novelty. Johnbod (talk) 13:00, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I disagree with the broad principle. But also per instruction creep. It is entirely irrelevant where people are looking and moving in an image, and should not be a decisive factor especially not one that is MOS mandated, but just one factor among many to take into account using standard editorial judgment. It is simply overregulation and micro-management of article space. Also in my own publishing I have never encountered a style guide that included any mention like this, and if it did as an author I would be annoyed at having my judgment of what is a good illustration of a topic interfered with by some arbitrary aesthetic preference of a publisher.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:44, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
So would you support the removal of the text on this that has been in the page for years? Johnbod (talk) 15:47, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
I would.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:57, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Oppose Some line needs to be drawn somewhere, and this level of pedantry is, to my feeling, a bridge too far. Yes, with portraits of a single person, it is somewhat more aesthetically pleasing to have the person face the center of the screen when their image is placed on one edge or the other, I get that, but to then offer guidance for all sorts of objects like trains and cars and the like is starting to get a little too prescriptive from my feeling. There's no need for this level of guidance. The guidance for personal portraits is fine, but this is too much. --Jayron32 16:30, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Comment. An example of an article which might be affected is Train (appropriate, given the example that started this discussion). The first image is of a train speeding away from the article. Would the page be improved by substituting a different image, or moving the existing image to the left? Pburka (talk) 18:04, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
    • Since that image is essentially in the spot of an infobox image and can't really lead the article on the left side of the page, it's not really a good example. If there were a different image in that spot and this train image were in the article, proper graphic design would place it on the left. --Tenebrae (talk) 18:33, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
      • If you search commons, you'll find we have a handful of other train images we could choose from. Pburka (talk) 19:43, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
      • Indeed, given that one type of image we certainly not short of is ones of trains, yes, I'd change it for one heading into the page. Johnbod (talk) 03:42, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
  • Support It's just proper, ordinary graphic design, and since most people aren't graphic designers, I believe it's practical and useful to mention. We could even say it more simply with a net one-word addition: "It is often preferable to place images of people photographic subjects so that they 'look' toward the text." --Tenebrae (talk) 18:44, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
    • Yes, of course by no means all images 'look' anywhere, but then it just doesn't apply. Johnbod (talk) 03:42, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Film MOS Debate.

There is currently a discussion regarding various interpretations of the Film MOS going on over at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film specificly regarding interpritations of how production sections should be set up/worded. You can view or join the discussion here. --Deathawk (talk) 04:42, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

From the title I was expecting a proposal to film us in debate here. Tony (talk) 06:49, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Use italics for foreign words: what about foreign units?

MOS:FOREIGNITALIC has advice on the use of italics for isolated foreign words. What if the foreign word is a unit used by {{convert}}? Please join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Unit names that are foreign words. Johnuniq (talk) 00:32, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Wacky official US style showing up in titles and other places

The US gov has some gnarly styling that shows up in a few article titles such as San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area; the jamming together of city names with hyphens, as they usually do, was moved to en dashes in this one recently, but it still exhibits the use of the postal code, with mismatched comma, and the unnecessarily capped Combined Statistical Area (which they sometimes abbreviate to CSA). Most of our articles that once had titles of that sort have been moved to more rational titles, especially since they're not really about the statistical areas per se. Here is an Obama WH doc that lists all these things, showing off further stylings like hyphen-connected pairs or triples of state postal codes as in New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Metropolitan Statistical Area, double hyphens in things like Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN Metropolitan Statistical Area, etc. It's pretty hideous, but thankfully these don't show up in too many articles. Here's another title: Evansville, IN–KY Metropolitan Statistical Area. And Joplin–Miami, MO–OK metropolitan area is one where the hyphens changed to dashes OK, and the caps are reduced, but the unbalanced commas around the "MO–OK" postal code pair still looks weird and cryptic.

I'm not proposing anything in particular at this time, just seeking help if anyone wants to help figure out how to rationalize some of the place where these do show up. Dicklyon (talk) 00:33, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

I just noticed I participated in a discussion about this five years ago, at Talk:Lafayette-Opelousas-Morgan_City_CSA#Proposed_move. It didn't go anywhere useful. We should discuss again. Dicklyon (talk) 05:02, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

  • Yeah, the names of these “statistical areas” are often clunky (and even contrary to the normal rules of English grammar). However, I think we need to present such names as they appear in the real world (ie sources), and not try to “correct” them to what we think they “should” be. When it comes to the presentation of names, we should only step in when sources are mixed in their presentation. Blueboar (talk) 11:35, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
    • The "external sources" meme might be ok when there's consistency out there. But as we all know, much naming is inconsistent in reliable sources. Tony (talk) 13:24, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
    • These names don't appear in a lot of sources. It's not clear that statistical areas are even "notable" – they're basically just line items from a long list of stats, and the "areas" they correspond to are usually known as something more sensible (and most already correspond to articles by other names). And even the gov docs don't refer to them consistently, sometimes adding a second comma, sometimes omitting or spelling the states, using dashes, etc. (e.g. here the US Department of Labor uses en dashes and matched comma; and this one from them uses em dash between state codes). Dicklyon (talk) 15:40, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

In the case of Joplin–Miami, MO–OK metropolitan area, I've moved it back to be about the metropolitan area as opposed to one or the other statistical area. As far as I can tell, there's no such thing as the claimed Joplin–Miama MSA, but there is a CSA. There are essentially zero sources for anything in this article. Dicklyon (talk) 16:32, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm... I am beginning to think the real question here has more to do with WP:Notability, rather than WP:MOS. Are these "statistical areas" really notable enough for a stand-alone article... or should they be subsumed into other articles dealing with the geographic region? (If we subsume, then we won’t have to worry about using the clunky names as titles). Blueboar (talk) 17:31, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
A further annoyance with these areas is that they have a tendency to expand and change their names. A discussion at WT:WikiProject Cities#Former/deprecated CDPs touched upon this area. For me, when the only information unique to some bureaucratically defined area is a bunch of statistics, it is not really notable. Articles for such places are either deserts of stats, or they get fluffed up with info copied from other articles. Kill them, kill them all damn it! Batternut (talk) 19:15, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that what's notable about these areas is not their statistics, and as I said before, most such articles have already been renamed to be about the actual areas. The remaining couple dozen can't just be deleted, in many cases; they need to be looked at, moved, or merged. In any case, let's do try to get these funky things out of titles one way or another. Dicklyon (talk) 20:09, 29 April 2018 (UTC)
Concur with DickLyon and Tony. Contrary to Blueboar's "official names" position (WP really does not put any stock in officialness of names), it's normal and common for WP to use a neutral, descriptive title of WP's own devising any time it improves precision, recognizability, naturalness, concision, or consistency (or some combination of these) without doing great violence to any of those criteria. That's clearly the case here, since the official versions are gibberish, and virtually no one but a tiny handful of low-level US bureaucrats knows any of the awkward official versions by heart down to the character. As long as the attested (and sometimes conflicting) weird renditions are redirects to real articles' titles that make more sense to everyday people, our job is done.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:44, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
note: I was not trying to use an “official names” argument... I was thinking of usage in independent sources. If these statistical areas are only mentioned in a few obscure “official” sources, then I have to wonder if they are notable enough for inclusion at all (and if not, then the entire question is moot). Blueboar (talk) 01:21, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Input requested at RfC on the use of née and né

Input is requested for the RfC on the use of née and né on the talk page of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies. wumbolo ^^^ 11:32, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_203&oldid=1137419024"