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{{Talk header |WT:MOS |search=no }}
==Archives==
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[[File:Moshpit2.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Welcome to the MOS pit]]
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==Style discussions elsewhere==
Because this page is so long, I have moved the archives list to an archive directory. [[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] 17:12, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
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Add a link to new discussions at top of list and indicate what kind of discussion it is (move request, RfC, open discussion, deletion discussion, etc.). Follow the links to participate, if interested. Move to ''Concluded'' when decided, and summarize conclusion. Please keep this section at the top of the page.


===Current===
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style--Archive Directory]]
(newest on top)
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Don't add threads that are on the same page as this list.
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Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters
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*[[WP:Village_pump_(idea_lab)#Could_MOS:TMRULES_be_amended_to_avoid_conflict_with_WP:COMMONNAME,_esp_for_contemporary_artists_and_their_works?]]
*[[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#British peer titles in infoboxes]] – Should British peers use their peerage title in place of their name in infoboxes?
*[[Talk:Shays' Rebellion#Requested move 27 April 2024]] – Apply [[MOS:POSS]] and add an s?
*[[Template_talk:Infobox_university#Type]] – Should multiple entries be formatted as a list or a single phrase?
* [[Talk:Sino-Soviet border conflict#Flags and wikilinks in the Infobox "Belligerents" section]] – Do flags in this infobox serve a "useful purpose" per [[MOS:INFOBOXFLAGS]] or are they primarily decorative and should be removed?
* [[Wikipedia talk:Image use policy#Collages in infoboxes]]
* [[Wikipedia_talk:Featured_list_candidates#RfC_on_the_leads_of_DOY_articles_and_their_FL_eligibility]] – Lead length of Days Of the Year (DOY) articles (Feb. 2024)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Possessives in condition names]] – On [[Asperger syndrome]] vs. [[Asperger's syndrome]], etc. (Jan. 2024)
* [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Names of deceased trans people]] (moved from WP:VPPOL) – Yet another round of this long-term, multi-RfC process. Consensus seems possible this time. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Make Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer science/Manual of style into Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Computer science]] – Proposal to merge a "guideline in all but name" into MoS. (Jan. 2024)
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Increase default thumbnail size from 220px to 250px]] – Peripherally related to [[MOS:IMAGES]] and [[MOS:ACCESS]]. (Jan. 2024)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (companies)#Use of comma and abbreviation of Incorporated]] – Involves [[MOS:TM]] (plus [[WP:COMMONNAME]], [[WP:OFFICIALNAME]]. Covers more than thread name implies, including that guideline not having substantive revision since 2009. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#JOBTITLES simplification proposal]] – [[MOS:JOBTITLES]] has long been considered too complicated and hard to follow. This is not an RfC but drafting toward one; input has stalled out over the holidays, and needs to resume. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/China- and Chinese-related articles#Kangxi radical template/gloss]] – Involves [[MOS:FOREIGN]], [[MOS:SINGLE]], [[MOS:ALLCAPS]], [[MOS:BOLD]]. Still unresolved. (Oct.2023 – Jan. 2024)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Fictional characters known by initials - what qualifies as the "preferred style for their own name" ?]] – Involves [[MOS:WAF]], [[MOS:INITIALS]], [[MOS:TM]], [[MOS:ACRO]], [[WP:OFFICIALNAME]], etc. Still unresolved, but there seems to be no appetite for diverging from [[MOS:INITIALS]]. (Oct. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles#NPOV usage of "the prophet Muhammad" or "the prophet"]] – Involves [[MOS:HONORIFIC]], [[MOS:DOCTCAPS]], [[WP:NPOV]], [[WP:CHERRYPICKING]], etc. Still unresolved, though consensus seems to be forming in one direction. (Sep. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
* [[Help talk:Table#Indenting tables]] – Help page is conflicting with [[MOS:DLIST]] and [[MOS:ACCESS]] on a technical point. No objection to fixing it, and a suggestion to just do it [[WP:BOLD]]ly, but the work actually has to be done. (Aug. 2023 –Jan. 2024)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Tables#Proposal to discourage vertically oriented ("sideways") column headers]] – Specifically in tables, possibly elsewhere. [[MOS:UNITNAMES]] (at the table "General guidelines on use of units") has an example of existing use that is being challenged, and material at [[Help:Table]] is also at issue. Still unresolved. (Dec. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Making redundant table captions screen-reader-only]] – About use of {{tlx|sronly}} around table captions (which are primarily for screen readers) to hide them from the usual non-screen-reader view when their content repeats what is in the table headers. Still unresolved, too little input; probably needs to be RfCed. (Nov.–Dec. 2023)


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==See also==
{{block indent|1=<nowiki />
'''Capitalization-specific:'''
{{Excerpt| Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters|Current|subsections=no}}
}}


===Concluded===
* [[Wikipedia talk:Establish context]]
{{collapse top|left=y|title=Extended content}}
* [[Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)]]
* [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics#ALL-CAPS for "keywords for lexical sets"?]] – Involves [[MOS:ALLCAPS]]. ''Result:'' Thinly attended, but there does seem to be a linguistics standard to render [[lexical set]]s in {{sc2|smallcaps}}, so this has been accounted for and added to the exception lists at [[MOS:ALLCAPS]] (since our articles are consistently doing it).
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dashes)]]
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch#"the late"]] – On [[MOS:EUPHEMISMS]] and whether to add another example to it. ''Result'': Discussion archived to [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch/Archive 14#"the late"]] without a clear conclusion
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (titles)]]
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Korea-related articles#About adding a link to each hangul syllable using Template:Linktext]] – On use of a template to link Korean characters to Wiktionary (Jan. 2024). ''Result'': general consensus to not do that excessive linking; and a bot request made to clean it up.
* [[Talk:Mercedes-Benz]] – Use an en dash instead of a hyphen? ''Result'': Withdrawn
*[[Wikipedia:Move_review/Log/2024_February#P%C4%81keh%C4%81_settlers|Pākehā settlers move review]] – Move review on Pākehā settlers vs. European settlers in New Zealand, related to [[WP:COMMONALITY]], [[WP:TIES]], [[WP:CONSISTENT]], [[WP:RECOGNIZABILITY]] (Feb. 2024). There were many steps in this process but ultimately [[Pākehā settlers]] was moved to [[European settlers in New Zealand]].
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles of works#MOS:TITLECAPS footnote to handle symbols substituting for words]] – To treat word-substitutions ("U" for "You", "❤️" for "Heart", {{nowrap|"..."}} for elided wording), as "words" for the purposes of a particular line-item about title-case treatment. ''Result:'' Done, with unanimous support. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks#Minor consolidation merge]] – To merge a line-item (about stylization of stage/pen names) out of MOS:INITIALS (where the one of the examples is only semi-pertinent anyway) and into [[MOS:TM]], leaving behind a cross-reference to MOS:TM from [[MOS:NAMES]]. Because of some things that apply to personal not corporate names, this ended up not being practical; intead the MOS:BIO material was cleaned up and cross-references between the two MOS sections was improved; description at: [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Minor overhauling]]. No objections or other issues have come up. (Nov.–Dec. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Standardizing ISBN formatting (and an end to editwarring about it)]] – Proposal to add something to [[MOS:NUM]]. ''Result:'' "no consensus as to whether or how to standardize ISBNs or whether to subject them to a CITEVAR-like rule .... The closest thing we have to a consensus here is that spaces (option 4) should not be used." (Oct.–Dec. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#MOS style for odds]] – About changing [[MOS:RATIOS]] to specify a format (new or otherwise) for betting-odds ratios. ''Result:'' No formal closure, but apparent general agreement that the <code>:</code> style for ratios in general applies to odds ratio in particular like the rest, and MOS:RATIOS updated to say this. (Oct.–Dec. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (Ukrainian places)#Centralization re: decommunization of names]] – Primarily a matter of article title, but there are related issues such as capitalisation. ''Result:'' basically stalled out, without resolution/action. Specific revision proposal is needed. (Nov. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television#Number format within TV articles - request for views]] – Also involves [[MOS:NUMERALS]]. RfC on "season 3, episode 7" vs. "season three, episode seven" styles (and probably also "seventh season" vs. "7th season", etc.). ''Result:'' "season and episode numbers should be expressed as numerals in tables, headings, and article body" (revision of a previous, less clear close). (Oct.–Nov. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 187#Proposed change MOS:TERRORIST]] – On how WP uses terms like "terrorist/terrorism" and "freedom fighter", specifically to add a requirement "these words should only be used in quotations or referencing third-party use of the term". ''Result:'' "nearly unanimously opposed". (Oct. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#RfC on capitalization after a colon or dash]] – Involves [[MOS:TITLES]], [[WP:AT]], etc. ''Result:'' "rough consensus to allow for lowercase or capital letters after dashes or colons in article titles, section titles, and list items". (Sep.–Oct. 2023)
* [[Talk:Ulster Scots people#RfC on inclusion of ancestral national flags]] – [[MOS:FLAGS]] / [[MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE]] and Northern Ireland again. ''Result:'' No formal closure, but near-unanimous consensus against using national flags as ethnicity symbols. (Sep.–Oct. 2023)
* [[Talk:2023 Hawaii wildfires/Archive 2#Use of Hawaiian symbols in names]] – Involves [[MOS:HAWAII]] and could have implications for what the guideline says due to wildfire news bringing many more editorial eyes to that page than to [[WT:MOSHAWAII]]. ''Result:'' Archived without closure or any clear consensus; the general gist seems to be that the state of Hawaii is named Hawaii, the island is named Hawaiʻi, and diacritics ([[ʻokina]] and [[kahakō]]) should not be suppressed in the more localized names (and the US Geological Survey, which sets official placenames, along with the Hawaiʻi Board on Geographic Names, which basically tells USGS what to do in Hawaii/Hawaiʻi, both agree). (Aug.–Sep. 2023)
* [[Talk:Bayes' theorem#Requested move 23 August 2023]] – [[MOS:POSS]] stuff. ''Result:'' Not moved. Lots of invalid arguments, and confused attempt to pit [[WP:COMMONAME]] against MoS (COMMONNAME is not a style policy, never has been one, and never will be; every proposal to incorporate a style matter into a policy has failed). (Aug. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 171#RfC: Use of 12 or 24-hour time]] – Wikiproject propsal to change [[MOS:TIME]] or [[MOS:MILFORMAT]]. ''Result:'' wrong venue, and to the extent people commented on using 24-hour time, it was mostly opposed. (Aug. 2023)
** [[Talk:Franklin–Nashville campaign#RFC on change from 12-hour clock time to 24-hour clock time]] – Above question was raised at a specific article as a "local consensus" matter. ''Result:'' unanimous opposition to 24-hour time. (Aug.–Sep. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab)/Archive 50#Multinational bands and music groups]] – Follow-up to "unfruitful" discussions at [[WT:MOSMUSIC]], etc. ''Result:'' No formal closure; general agreement basically boils down to "write clearly and don't confuse or over-simplify with an adjective". (Aug. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Archive 171#RfC: Abbreviations of rank]] – Wikiproject proposal to change rank abbreviations (to NATO style) in [[MOS:COMMONABBR]]. ''Result:'' no formal closure, but overwhelming consensus to stick with MoS and ignore NATO preferences. (Aug. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography/2023 archive#Proposal to split MOS:GENDERID from Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biography]] – And some alternative ideas, including merger into [[WP:BLP]]. ''Result:'' No formal closure, and the idea was mostly opposed, with no effect but returning all of the shortcuts ([[MOS:GENDERID]], [[MOS:GID]], [[MOS:DEADNAME]], [[WP:GENDERBLP]], [[MOS:NB]]) that someone changed to point to the [[WP:Manual of Style/Gender identity]] essay to now point back to the real guideline at [[WP:Manual of Style/Biography#Gender identity]]. The essay has been retooled to be an exegesis of the guideline, though attempts at [[WP:POLICYFORK]]ing are likely to continue, as this is one of our most hotbed internal topics. See also the guideline [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Gender-neutral language]], and the essays [[WP:Gender-neutral language]] and [[WP:Gender-neutral language in Wikipedia policies]]. (Aug. 2023)
** [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 186#RfC on GENDERID in BLP]] – Proposal to move the MoS material into WP:BLP. ''Result:'' Procedurally closed as "premature". (Aug. 2023)
* [[Talk:Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod#Requested move 25 August 2023]] – Should the en dash have spaces around it; should it be an em dash? ''Result:'' moved to spaced en dash.
* [[Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 August 5#Hyphen vs. En dash usage (Wikidata)?]] and [[d:Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2023/08#Hyphen vs. En dash to separate years of birth/death?]] – Relating to concordance between wikidata descriptions and enwiki "short description". ''Result:'' Good summary: "as long as you choose a comprehensible form, your edits are fine. However, you should not change existing descriptions for stylistic reasons, and also not to unify desriptions for a given set of items"; also observations that various languages, e.g. Spanish, do not use an en dash for this purpose. So, Wikidata will not be changing away from hyphen as default, and any desire to have WD material, like automatically provided short descriptions, will have to do that change on our end. (Aug. 2023)
* [[Talk:Decatur & Eastern Illinois Railroad#Requested move 9 August 2023]] and [[Talk:Central Maine & Quebec Railway#Requested move 9 August 2023]] – Use "&" or "and"? (see [[MOS:&]]). ''Result:'' Follow [[MOS:&]]; the essay [[WP:WikiProject Trains/Style advice]] conflicting with the guideline and with [[WP:COMMONNAME]] policy was noted, and this [[WP:ADVICEFORK]] was fixed in Jan. 2024. The second of these actually closed as "no consensus" because the [[WP:NAC]] who closed it did not know of [[WP:CONLEVEL]] policy and incorrectly treated policy- and guideline-based arguments as no stronger than those based on a contrary essay.
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 184#RFC: Change wording in MOS:SUICIDE to better reflect the supermajority consensus in the RFC that added it]] – Some re-wording proposals, and even a suggestion to remove the language entirely. ''Result:'' No formal closure, and did not result in wording changes, though a re-do might come to such a conclusion. (July 2023)
* [[Talk:SAG-AFTRA#Requested move 20 July 2023]] – move to [[SAG–AFTRA]] like [[AFL–CIO]], or is there a reason to hyphenate as [[SAG-AFTRA]]? ''Result:'' Not moved. The closer actually misunderstood the guideline wording badly, and this has created a [[WP:CONSISTENT]] policy failure with titles of other such entities including AFL–CIO, and the Famous Players-Lasky decision covered just below. This probably needs to be re-done. (July 2023)
** [[Talk:2023 SAG-AFTRA strike#Requested move 20 July 2023]] – ditto. ''Result:'' Procedurally closed as a [[WP:TALKFORK]] of the RM above.
* [[Talk:Famous Players-Lasky#Requested move 24 June 2023]] –&nbsp;proposal to use dash instead of hyphen. ''Result:'' Use the dash per [[MOS:DASH]]; a followup RM to add "Corporation" to the title rejected that idea despite [[WP:NCCORP]] supporting it, one of several recent RM incidents suggesting that at least some portions of the page do not enjoy consensus. (June–July 2023)
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 185#RfC: Proposed addition to MOS:GENDERID - when to include deadnames]] – Proposal to change [[MOS:DEADNAME]] that "encyclopaedic significance of the deadname [be] established through in-depth analysis or discussion of the name in high quality sources, or if they were notable prior to transitioning". ''Result:'' "no clear consensus". (June–July 2023)
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 182#RFC: MOS:GENDERID and the deadnames of deceased trans and nonbinary persons]] – Primarily about "When should Wikipedia articles include the former name of a deceased trans or nonbinary person who was not notable prior to transitioning?" ''Result:'' "there is a consensus against using the former names of transgender or non-binary people, living or dead, except when of encyclopedic interest or when necessary to avoid confusion. Also, there is clear consensus that a former name is not automatically of encyclopedic interest. Where, exactly, the lines of encyclopedic interest and avoiding confusion are is not simple or clear and will likely need discussion on individual articles, although there is definitely space for more guidance in the MOS". This has let to a lot of follow-on discussion and dispute. (May–June 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Abbreviations/Archive 2#"Acronyms in page titles" is mis-placed in an MoS page]] – Proposal to move section to naming-convention guideline. ''Result:'' no pro or con input; re-opened (Jan. 2024) on main MoS page. (June 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 17#RfC Can notable Brazilian jiu-jitsu people display a rank icon in their infobox like Judo people do?]] – essential information, or icon cruft? ''Result:'' "There is consensus against inclusion of rank icons." (Mar.–Apr. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Boxing/Archive 10#RfC about replacing "vs." and "v" with "vs" in boxing match article titles]] – involves [[MOS:MISCSHORT]] and [[MOS:TIES]]. ''Result:'' no consensus to use "v"; continue to use "vs." or "vs" as suits the [[MOS:ENGVAR]] of the article. (Feb.–Mar. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes#RfC about exceptions to WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE and commanders/leaders in Template:Infobox military conflict]] – ''Result:'' no consensus. (Dec. 2022 – Feb. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Fraternities and Sororities/Archive 8#Bold and Italics]] – Should an external style guide be used in place of [[WP:MOS]] in chapter lists (e.g. [[List of Alpha Phi Alpha chapters]])? ''Result:'' Insufficient input to reach a consensus. Needs to be RfCed. (Jan.–Feb. 2023)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers/Archive 162#Decimals when quoting time periods?]] – Open discussion as to whether decimalized years should be used in personal biographies. ''Result:'' discussion archived; majority felt that decimalized years are not standard in biographical prose and should be limited to a statistical/mathematical context. (Jan. 2023)
* [[Talk:Proto-Indo-European homeland/Archive 2#BCE or BC]] – another [[MOS:BCE]] question. ''Result:'' use BCE. (Oct. 2022 – Jan. 2023)
* [[Talk:Blue cone monochromacy#Requested move 6 December 2022]] – should a clarifying hyphen be used? ''Result:'' moved to [[Blue-cone monochromacy]].
* [[Wikipedia talk:Organizing disambiguation pages by subject area#RfC: make this page a guideline]] – proposal to elevate essay to guideline status; possibly merge to [[MOS:DAB]]. ''Result:'' proposal succeeded; page moved to [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Organizing disambiguation pages by subject area]]. (Nov.–Dec. 2022)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 17#Sub-national flags used in lists of national beauty pageant contestants]] – essential information, or icon cruft? ''Result:'' No formal closure, or certain resolution, but generally (on the policy/guideline merits) against the flag usage. (Oct.–Dec. 2022)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 21#RfC about hatnote links to Simple English Wikipedia]] – followup to a TfD. ''Result:'' Wasn't formally closed, but there is a [[WP:SNOW]] result that the answer to "Should hatnote links to Simple English Wikipedia be discouraged?" is "yes". (Oct.–Dec. 2022)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#2022_archive#Neopronouns RfC (moved)]] – several options were under discussion, including singular ''they'', using neo-pronouns like ''xie'', always referring to subject by surname, etc. ''Result:'' strong consensus to use singular ''they'' for subjects who use neopronouns. (Oct.–Nov. 2022)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 17#Flags in tables of national subdivisions]] – Should subnational flags be used in such tables? ''Result:'' Archived without a clear resolution. (Oct. 2022)
* [[Talk:Arthur Joseph Lewis, Jr.#Requested move 6 October 2022]] – bring recent articles into alignment with [[MOS:JR]]? ''Result:'' articles moved to remove comma. (Oct. 2022)
* [[Talk:Staffordshire Bull Terrier/Archive 5#Quotes RfC]] – Two quotes were removed, should they remain in the article? ''Result:'' no formal closure, but clear consensus against inclusion. (Sep.–Oct. 2022)
* [[Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology/Archive 13#RfC on boldfacing of scientific names in articles about organisms]] – ''Result:'' the scientific name in the lead should be boldfaced per [[MOS:BOLDSYN]]. (Sep. 2022)
* [[Talk:Winston-Salem, North Carolina#RfC about Info Box]] – involves [[MOS:INFOBOX]] and [[MOS:ICONS]] and should be a broader discussion than just about this single article. Summary: about 50% of our US city articles include highway signs in the infobox, which is very inconsistent. ''Result:'' Near-unanimous agreement to remove them, though this does not appear to have resulted in changes at other articles and probably should. (June–Sep. 2022)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking/Archive 21#Weighing MOS:SEAOFBLUE against desirable links]] – archived without any resolution to change anything (Apr.–June 2022)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch/Archive 13#RfC: MOS:LABEL]] – also involves [[WP:NPOV]] and related concerns. Archived without any resolution to change anything, but was widely opposed. (Feb.–March 2022)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trivia sections#Does this guideline (and its section MOS:POPCULT) apply to stand-alone lists or "in popular culture" articles?]] – ''Result:'' "rough consensus that this guideline and MOS:POPCULT do not currently apply to articles and stand-alone lists" (as summarized by the nominator); followup discussion considered merging some MOS:POPCULT material into [[WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE]], but that would be a policy-change proposal to discuss at [[WT:NOT]], and a suggestion to develop a content guideline on encycloepedic relevance, but neither has happened. (Dec. 2021 – March 2022)
* [[Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/SdkbBot 3]] – fixes [[MOS:CONSECUTIVE]] errors. ''Result:'' approved (Feb. 2022)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#RfC on self-linking within article prose]] – ''Result:'' "There is a consensus that self-links within prose should be allowed and that linking should be based on editorial discretion." This is about linking to one section of an article from another section of the same article. (Nov. 2021 – Jan. 2022)
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 194#System for handling possibly plural infobox parameters]] – ''Result:'' inconclusive discussion (December 2021).
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Bolding in non-lead infoboxes]] – ''Result:'' no formal closure; majority against changing infobox display (Nov.–Dec. 2021).
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Determining whether bolding of names in lists, and any other contexts on which the MOS does not comment, are useful]] – ''Result:'' inconclusive discussion (Oct.–Dec. 2021)
* [[Talk:Rolling block#Case and hyphen]] – "rolling block action" vs. "rolling-block action", and "Remington Rolling Block breech" vs. "Remington rolling-block breech". ''Resul''t: inconclusive discussion (May–Dec. 2021).
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 222#RFC: Hyphenating "virtual reality" as an adjective group]] – a [[MOS:HYPHEN]] and [[WP:CONSISTENT]] matter (April 2021); <small>began as [[Talk:Virtual reality headset#Requested move 24 March 2021]]</small>
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Legal#Mixed naming conventions]] – regarding MOS guidance for articles about "law by jurisdiction" (March 2021)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Tables#Conflicting guidance on headers]] – regarding potentially conflicting table-related guidelines (March 2021)
* [[Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#RFC: Citation Style 1 parameter naming convention]] – about parameter names like {{para|url-status}} vs. {{para|urlstatus}}; not strictly an MoS matter, but likely of interest to MoS regulars (February 2021 – April 2021)
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lists#RfC: Standardizing shortened reference column titles]] – On whether and how to abbreviate "References" as a table column heading (October 2020)
* [[Talk:Vandana Shiva#RfC: Indian English or American?]] – RfC on the application of [[WP:ENGVAR]] / [[WP:TIES]]. ''Result:'' clear consensus that the specific article should be written in Indian English.
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography/2021_archive#RfC on non-notable pre-transition names of deceased trans people]] – Clarifying our deadname policy for biographies of deceased individuals. ''Result:'' no consensus for a change after lengthy discussion and closure by panel of three. Closers recommended considering a subsequent RfC with narrowed question.
* [[Template talk:Infobox person/Archive 36#Bolding of native names]] – [[MOS:BADITALICS]]? (May 2021). ''Result:'' seemingly withdrawn by OP after realizing that "Non-latin scripts should never be bolded or italicised per MOS:BADITALICS".
* [[Template talk:Infobox racing driver#RfC on making an exception to MOS:FLAG for motorsports]] (May 2021). ''Result:'' [[MOS:FLAG]] edited during discussion, resulting in confusion, no consensus possible => withdrawn by OP.
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images/Archive 10#MOS guidelines for a collage as the lead image / infobox image]] – clarifying the status of collages as the infobox / lead image (May 2021). ''Result:'' archived without resolution.
* [[Talk:Love On Top#Requested move 25 April 2021]] – Revisiting whether to capitalize the first word of a compound preposition even when that word is a short preposition; [[MOS:5LETTER]] might need a revision. ''Result:'' No consensus, not moved.
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Captions/Archive 2#Caption centering?]] – do we have a guideline about centering captions? or should we? (April 2021). Result: archived without resolution.
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons/Archive 16#Close the coats-of-arms loophole]] – about using personal coats of arms as stand-ins for national or military flags (April 2021). ''Result:'' Language added to proscribe use of coats of arms in infoboxes in place of flags.
* [[Talk:Action of the Cockcroft#Comma before but?]] – a style issue? or grammar? (April 2021) – Rewritten to avoid the impasse.
* [[Talk:Woman on Top#Requested move 6 April 2021]] – Multiple proposals like "Receiving partner on top", "On top (sex)", etc., motivated by gender and language-reform advocacy views. ''Result:'' essentially a [[WP:SNOW]]: "not moved, and with a reception likely to strongly discourage near-future requests. ... Consensus in this discussion is strongly in the direction that any such move would be [[WP:OR|OR]]/[[WP:SYNTH|SYNTH]] violating article title policies."
{{block indent|1=<nowiki />
{{Excerpt| Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters|Concluded|subsections=no}}
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== Text produced by templates ==
----


I can't figure out if the MOS applies to text produced by templates, and if so, what special provisions exist. Most templates do not produce full grammatical sentences rather abbreviated text. For example the large [[:Category:External link templates by topic|corpus of external link templates]]. Like {{tlx|IMDb name}} produces "Marlon Brando at IMDb" and not "Marlon Brando at the IMDb" which is the recommended way per [[MOS:INSTITUTION]], and to be grammatically correct. There are 100s if not 1000s of examples like this producing abbreviated text.
* [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (jguk's changes)]]


I'm not currently seeking opinions, but am looking for help to find existing MOS, guidelines or discussions. -- [[User:GreenC|<span style="color: #006A4E;">'''Green'''</span>]][[User talk:GreenC|<span style="color: #093;">'''C'''</span>]] 02:18, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
----
:On which logic should the MOS ''not'' apply to template output? [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 06:25, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
:I think the "full sentence" would be "Marlon Brando at IMDb.com" which is why it why it was shortened without the ".com" part. [[User:Gonnym|Gonnym]] ([[User talk:Gonnym|talk]]) 06:56, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
::a) Neither ("MB at" or "MB at the") are full sentences, and whether they are or not has no bearing on the matter the OP raised. b) MOS:INSTITUTION doesn't require "the" before the name ("… at the [[Yale University]]"?) -- [[User:Michael Bednarek|Michael Bednarek]] ([[User talk:Michael Bednarek|talk]]) 07:31, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
:::Re: b): Unless it's part of the name: "The University of Calgary". Though I see that it really addresses capitalization, not grammatical articles. —[[User:DocWatson42|DocWatson42]] ([[User talk:DocWatson42|talk]]) 08:18, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
::::The general point, however, that templates should be configured to generate output that conforms with the MoS is an entirely sound one. [[User:MapReader|MapReader]] ([[User talk:MapReader|talk]]) 16:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
:Of course templates should conform to the MOS. This is the first I've ever heard of somebody suggesting that they {{em|not}} conform. That probably explains why, at least AFAIK, nowhere do we have some explicit statement that "this all applies to template output, too". It's simply generally assumed that it's the case, so there's nothing to cite for you.
:I don't see what's so {{tq|grammatically correct}} about "Marlon Brando at the IMDb"; I think most people wouldnt talk or write that way. If you are trying to say that the "the" is required because it's {{em|the}} Internet Movie Database, then maybe, {{em|maybe}} if it were written out like that, a preceding "the" might be cool. But surely few people call IMDb by the original, long name. Otherwise we'd have to talk about "the NASA launching another rocket". <i>&mdash;&nbsp;[[User:JohnFromPinckney|JohnFromPinckney]] ([[User talk:JohnFromPinckney|talk]] / [[Special:Contributions/JohnFromPinckney|edits]])</i> 20:55, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
::Yes, the use of "the" depends on common usage. People say "the BBC" but they don't say "the NASA", even though both "the British Broadcasting Corporation" and "the National Aeronautics and Space Administration" use "the" when written in full. So just "at IMDb" is fine because no one (I think?) says "the IMDb". [[User:Popcornfud|Popcornfud]] ([[User talk:Popcornfud|talk]]) 22:07, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
:::It can be confusing whether or not to use the definite article before acronyms. Sometimes it's very subtle: when writing about railway companies in the UK, pre-1948 railway acronyms usually take the definite article, post-1948 railway acronyms don't. So we might have "the GWR", which refers to the [[Great Western Railway]] of 1835-1947, and "GWR" which refers to [[Great Western Railway (train operating company)]], created in 1996 but which only adoped that name in 2015. Similarly, there are "the [[London and North Eastern Railway|LNER]]" of 1923-1947, and "[[London North Eastern Railway|LNER]]" of 2018 on. I don't think that we can (or should) write a one-size-fits-all rule. --[[User:Redrose64|<span style="color:#a80000; background:#ffeeee; text-decoration:inherit">Red</span>rose64]] &#x1f339; ([[User talk:Redrose64|talk]]) 23:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)
::::Yep, like I said, common usage. Why is it "the White House" but just "Bush House"? Why is it "the Eiffel Tower" but just "Tokyo Tower"? No reason, no logic, just common usage. [[User:Popcornfud|Popcornfud]] ([[User talk:Popcornfud|talk]]) 23:47, 8 August 2024 (UTC)


== RfC: Use of verbs in biographical descriptions ==
==Jguk's changes==
{{closed rfc top|result= There is consensus that ‘serve’, ‘served as’, etc. is acceptable in many contexts without concern for neutrality, and while in other contexts it may be bad writing or poor phrasing, these questions are superseded by the overwhelming consensus that '''the MOS should not have a rule on this language'''. <span style="font-family:Avenir, sans-serif">—&nbsp;<span style="border-radius:5px;padding:.1em .4em;background:#faeded">[[User:HTGS|HTGS]]</span>&nbsp;([[User talk:HTGS|talk]])</span> 03:35, 17 August 2024 (UTC) }}
<!-- [[User:DoNotArchiveUntil]] 18:01, 16 September 2024 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1726509666}}


In many articles about [[WP:BLP|living persons]], and particularly about persons in positions of authority, e.g. member of parliament, corporation CEO, city councilor, etc, the lead paragraph often uses the verb "to serve" in denoting the person's work." E.g. "Ms Smith serves/has been serving/has served as member of the XYZ Board of Directors." In [[Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Tense_of_verbs_referring_to_current,_ongoing_events|this related discussion]], the issue was raised about the potential for meaningless excess in that term's use. (Here's a [[Wikipedia:Location,_location,_location!#WP:AREYOUBEINGSERVED|useful essay]] on that.) This, of course, applies to biographies about persons no longer living.
Does anyone mind if discussion of the following is moved to a separate page?
#The quote at the beginning of style guide.
#Fowler's "good" guidelines.
#The expressions "period" and "full stop."
#The serial comma.
#"U.S."
:[[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] 06:20, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Comments are invited on the following options:
::I have moved all of the discussion related to the above to[[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (jguk's changes)]]. [[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] 07:34, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)


*'''A''' Use any simple form of "to be," e.g. "Smith is Acme Ltd auditor."
I have filed at [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment]] about [[User:jguk|jguk]]'s behavior. [[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] 09:56, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
*'''B''' Continue to use "serve" in biographies, e.g. "Smith serves as Acme Ltd auditor."


-[[User:The Gnome|The Gnome]] ([[User talk:The Gnome|talk]]) 17:37, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
===Reopening discussion===


*I would go with '''B''', which does continue to reflect both formal proper, and common, usage, particularly in fields like politics and public office. But both forms are of course perfectly correct and acceptable. [[User:MapReader|MapReader]] ([[User talk:MapReader|talk]]) 19:56, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
In case anyone is interested, I wanted to let you know that I have reopened the discussion at [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (jguk's changes)]]. [[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] 06:57, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
*I remember a previous discussion long ago where an argument was made that "served" is a [[WP:EUPH|euphemism]]. [[User:Curbon7|Curbon7]] ([[User talk:Curbon7|talk]]) 21:20, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''Neither'''. This is not something that needs a broad rule. Either form is acceptable, as are other options. My most common experience is that people use "serve" to capitalize a title while complying with [[MOS:JOBTITLE]], going for "served as President of Aybeeceedia" instead of "was the president of Aybeeceedia", which seems like a silly workaround but whatever. [[User:Firefangledfeathers|Firefangledfeathers]] ([[User talk:Firefangledfeathers|talk]] / [[Special:Contributions/Firefangledfeathers|contribs]]) 22:51, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''A''' is/was reflects everyday speech. To my ears 'served as' always sounds either pompous or somewhat euphemismistic, he "served as President of Aybeeceedia", but wasn't really 'up to scratch'![[User:Pincrete|Pincrete]] ([[User talk:Pincrete|talk]]) 07:00, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
* '''Neither''' per FFF, the euphemism angle is understandable in some cases but this also seems within the bounds of quite common language variation. [[User:Chipmunkdavis|CMD]] ([[User talk:Chipmunkdavis|talk]]) 07:12, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
* '''Neither''' – ''is'' should be fine most of the time, but synonyms are not forbidden, and the occasional usage of ''serve'', even if maybe a bit pompous and not strictly needed, does no harm. [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 07:20, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
* '''A''' is preferable in almost all cases; "serve" is appropriate for military personnel and the like (and also for waiters and tennis players!), but is empty [[WP:PEACOCK]]ery in other cases. Better to stick to plain English (but hoping this is not something we're going to embody or enforce in yet another MOS rule). [[User:Justlettersandnumbers|Justlettersandnumbers]] ([[User talk:Justlettersandnumbers|talk]]) 08:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*<small>Pinging participants in related discussion, minus ones already present and accounted for: {{reply to|User:Necrothesp|User:Doniago|User:AlsoWukai|User talk:EEng|User:Popcornfud|User:SMcCandlish|User:WhatamIdoing|User:Roger 8 Roger}} -[[User:The Gnome|The Gnome]] ([[User talk:The Gnome|talk]]) 11:58, 13 August 2024 (UTC)</small>
*'''Neither''' - both are acceptable. Also, it isn’t a dualistic choice… consider that there are other verbs besides “served” and “was” that might be appropriate. Don’t be formulaic when writing. [[User:Blueboar|Blueboar]] ([[User talk:Blueboar|talk]]) 12:18, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
* '''Neither''' as this is instruction creep. But if we ''must'' have one, I would choose A over B. [[User:Doniago|DonIago]] ([[User talk:Doniago|talk]]) 12:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''Either'''. Both are perfectly good English. Neither should be encouraged nor deprecated. -- [[User:Necrothesp|Necrothesp]] ([[User talk:Necrothesp|talk]]) 14:00, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''A''' since any variant of "serve" denotes a positive attribute, which goes against [[WP:NPOV]]. It's not a [[WP:BIAS|neutral]] verb no matter how many [[WP:PEACOCK|clothes]] we try to dress it with. The opening paragraph of [[WP:WTW]] is explicit: "Certain expressions should be used with caution because they may introduce bias. Strive to eliminate expressions that are flattering, vague, or endorsing of a particular viewpoint." -[[User:The Gnome|The Gnome]] ([[User talk:The Gnome|talk]]) 14:14, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
**It's not positive or negative. Adolf Hitler ''served'' as Führer of the Third Reich! Reinhard Heydrich ''served'' in the SS. It's completely neutral. I'm mystified as to why anyone should think it was not NPOV. -- [[User:Necrothesp|Necrothesp]] ([[User talk:Necrothesp|talk]]) 14:44, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
**:Agreed. [[User:AlsoWukai|AlsoWukai]] ([[User talk:AlsoWukai|talk]]) 19:53, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
* '''Neither''' because we don't need any more [[WP:CREEPY]] rules. He served as president, he was the president, he held the position of president, he worked as president, he became president, he was elected/appointed as president, he took office as president... Any of these will do under most situations. The idea of [[Public service]] being a form of service (as in [[servant]]s, as in ''the opposite of'' powerful people seeking their own aggrandizement) is not a form of peacocking, nor is it a euphemism. It may be aspirational (the rest of us hope that the politician will serve the country instead of his own interests), but there's nothing inherently or egregiously non-neutral about it, especially when applied to people who didn't exploit their roles to harm others. [[User:WhatamIdoing|WhatamIdoing]] ([[User talk:WhatamIdoing|talk]]) 17:47, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*:Agreed. [[User:AlsoWukai|AlsoWukai]] ([[User talk:AlsoWukai|talk]]) 19:53, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''No rule needed.''' Here, there is more than one way to say something, and variety can still make for good, and interesting writing (also, 'serve' is not hard to understand in the example given, rather the NPOV or related arguments are much too strained, when not baffling). As an aside, we should probably not usually write, 'someone is job', rather than, 'someone is broad occupation', followed by where they have served in that occupation. [[User:Alanscottwalker|Alanscottwalker]] ([[User talk:Alanscottwalker|talk]]) 18:07, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''No rule, please'''. Either one could be at least annoying to too many editors and possibly disruptive if applied to existing text. There are figures in history of whom I wouldn't use "serve" – {{tq|Caligula served as emperor from AD 37}}? – but we wouldn't need a MOS rule for that. [[User:NebY|NebY]] ([[User talk:NebY|talk]]) 18:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
* '''Neither''', as both are appropriate for many articles and editors can use their heads—even if this freedom results in the occasional awkward lead sentence. As my troublesome nitpick, I actually do think {{xt|serve}} has a vaguely positive connotation compared to the bare copula—but I don't think it matters enough, as every word has a web of connotations and none is truly neutral in every situation. Doesn't register as a [[WP:W2W]] in any case. {{pb
}}[[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 18:21, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''Neither''' --- [[WP:LOCATIONLOCATIONLOCATION]], which The Gnome linked in his OP, is my essay, and I'm flattered. However, we don't need a rule on this. My objection to ''served as'' is that it's usually surplusage; but it has its uses now and then, and I don't see any kind of flattery or peacock-iness in it. But I will say that, applied to Hilter, it does take some of the edge off to say he "served". That's for sure the wrong word to use for him. [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 19:38, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*:This needs to be said: The term "to serve" is being pronounced '''neutral''' in this discussion by sundry contributors. Is it really? Because if an ostensibly neutral term cannot be used at the extremes, it cannot be used anywhere. The '''Hitler''' example trumps all arguments to the contrary. It cannot be made more clear. -[[User:The Gnome|The Gnome]] ([[User talk:The Gnome|talk]]) 19:59, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*::That sounds a bit extreme. {{u|Remsense}} said it well: no word is truly neutral in every situation. So if that's the thing to aim for, we may as well shut down this website and all go home. [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 20:03, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*:::...but...but...this site is one of the few things keeping me from falling asleep at my desk during downtime at work... :| [[User:Doniago|DonIago]] ([[User talk:Doniago|talk]]) 20:08, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*::::Which is exactly why we should not make a rule… we need things to argue about during downtimes at work! [[User:Blueboar|Blueboar]] ([[User talk:Blueboar|talk]]) 20:22, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*:::::Wikipedia serves a valuable purpose, if perhaps not the purpose it was originally intended for... [[User:Doniago|DonIago]] ([[User talk:Doniago|talk]]) 20:33, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*:::I think us editors are particularly vulnerable to logocentric fallacies—i.e. we're liable to treat the lexical word as the predominant or even only issuer of meaning, while affording phrases, sentences, and other composites no credence to really influence what connotations individual words <em>must</em> themselves possess. [[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 20:48, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*::::Please, ''please'', don't go [[Wittgenstein]]ian on me. This is the last thing this discussion needs. {{smiley}} -[[User:The Gnome|The Gnome]] ([[User talk:The Gnome|talk]]) 14:36, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
*:::::I have trouble saying these things in an intelligent way sometimes—in other words I need to try sounding more like pseudo-[[Kripkenstein]] than pseudo-Wittgenstein. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">[[User:Remsense|<span style="color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="color:#ffda27">''' 诉'''</span>]]</span> 19:10, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
*::::[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=X5cQcmAtjJ0 But subjectivity is objective.] [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 21:26, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*:::::And I've said that many times. [[User:Remsense|<span style="border-radius:2px 0 0 2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F;color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]][[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="border:1px solid #1E816F;border-radius:0 2px 2px 0;padding:1px 3px;color:#000">诉</span>]] 21:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*::{{tq|if an ostensibly neutral term cannot be used at the extremes, it cannot be used anywhere.}}<sup>[RFC needed]</sup> [[User:NebY|NebY]] ([[User talk:NebY|talk]]) 20:11, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''Neither''' I have no problem with [[Richard Nixon]] saying that he {{tpq|served as the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974}}. That's not euphemistic and is normal English, even though most presidential historians rank him poorly. [[User:Cullen328|Cullen328]] ([[User talk:Cullen328|talk]]) 20:19, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*:That’s because some of us are imputing some sense of merit or sacrifice into the term “serve”, which isn’t really there. Serve can mean simply fulfilling a purpose, or function, and there is plenty of common usage where no merit is implicit, such as “serving as a bad example”. [[User:MapReader|MapReader]] ([[User talk:MapReader|talk]]) 04:28, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
::So, me saying to someone '''Thank you for your service''', for example to a veteran soldier, denotes nothing positive whatsoever; it is an abject expression of thanks for wearing a uniform, ''and nothing more''. And, logically, I could express the same thankful sentiment to a traitor soldier. -[[User:The Gnome|The Gnome]] ([[User talk:The Gnome|talk]]) 14:41, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
:::A traitor would supposedly not be thanked. How is this relevant for this discussion, though? [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 15:21, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
:::Really you are making my point for me. Your quoted phrase does, but not because it includes the word “service”. It is positive because of the “thank you”. Had you said “I confirm your service” or “I note your service”, your comment wouldn’t have been received as positive despite the word ‘service’. Whereas, had you said “Thank you for your time in the army” or “Thank you for your work”, that would be received as a positive comment without any need to refer to serving. [[User:MapReader|MapReader]] ([[User talk:MapReader|talk]]) 17:12, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''Either''', see [[wikt:serve#Verb]], particularly entries 1.2, 1.4, 8, 12. There ''are'' contexts where the word "serve" is non-neutral, such as smiling politely whilst putting meals in front of customers in restaurants despite a torrent of verbal abuse, but the original post gives "Ms Smith serves/has been serving/has served as member of the XYZ Board of Directors." as an example, and that is different from plate-juggling. --[[User:Redrose64|<span style="color:#a80000; background:#ffeeee; text-decoration:inherit">Red</span>rose64]] &#x1f339; ([[User talk:Redrose64|talk]]) 21:06, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''Neither''' Both are acceptable [[User:Roger 8 Roger|Roger 8 Roger]] ([[User talk:Roger 8 Roger|talk]]) 22:20, 13 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''<nowiki />''A'' or some other neutral alternative that suits the context'''. "Serves/served/serving" is a [[WP:NPOV]] failure, in being promotional and (positively) judgmental language. An argument could possibly be made to retain those terms for military and maybe even governmental functions, but even those uses have their long-term opponents. It's entirely inappropriate for corporate and other misc. organizational (school, team/squad, nonprofit/NGO, etc.) roles. PS: The fact that we have a bunch of articles doing this just means we have a bunch of articles to clean up. Cf. [[WP:FAITACCOMPLI]] and [[WP:NOWORK]]. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — [[User:SMcCandlish|'''SMcCandlish''']] [[User talk:SMcCandlish|☏]] [[Special:Contributions/SMcCandlish|¢]] 😼 </span> 02:18, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''Comment''' Sorry to say, but this is yet another RfC out of the blue, with no discussion on how to frame it. There certainly should have been an option C -- a new rule saying either A or B is OK, and D -- meaning nothing new added to MOS at all. This RfC is already a complete mess out of which nothing useful can possibly come. [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 20:20, 14 August 2024 (UTC)


* '''A''' Is there a specific case where anyone feels that "served as" is better, not just as good? Is it the case that "served as" has [[WP:NPOV]] problems in some people's [[idiolect]]s, but not others? If so, does that mean that it has [[WP:NPOV]] problems? [[User:McYeee|McYeee]] ([[User talk:McYeee|talk]]) 01:15, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
:My guess is that other Wikipedians would prefer this sleeping dog to lie. [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 22:19, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
*:That's what consensus is for in the abstract, and the examples proffered to illustrate why {{xt|served}} should be {{em|generally}} proscribed have not really attracted consensus. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">[[User:Remsense|<span style="color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>[[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="color:#fff">'''诉'''</span>]]</span> 01:18, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
*::I might just be out of my depth here, and I might not have been clear, but I just don't really understand any argument in favor of the usage of "served". I think my preconceived definition of the word is just less neutral than yours. I'll bow out for now. [[User:McYeee|McYeee]] ([[User talk:McYeee|talk]]) 01:32, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
*:::Aye, it's worth making explicit—no one is really saying it's superior in any or as good in all situations, but the MOS is meant to be as frugal as possible. We try to allow editors flexibility in things like word choice as much as possible, and we don't want to tell them what not to do unless it's almost always wrong (roughly, if it's more work to fix than it's good for to allow). See [[WP:CREEP]]. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">[[User:Remsense|<span style="color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>[[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="color:#fff">'''诉'''</span>]]</span> 01:38, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
* '''Neither'''. I agree with the many comments above that there's no reason to ban either form; with Remsense about [[WP:CREEP]]; and with EEng that this is not a useful RfC. [[User:Mike Christie|Mike Christie]] ([[User_talk:Mike Christie|talk]] - [[Special:Contributions/Mike_Christie|contribs]] - [[User:Mike Christie/Reference library|library]]) 02:06, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''No rule needed'''. Both are acceptable depending on context, but this is not the sort of wording choice that the MOS should be forcing on editors. See also [[WP:CREEP]]. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] ([[User talk:David Eppstein|talk]]) 05:22, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
*'''No rule needed'''. The claim that "served" is pov in general has no basis. Argue specific cases on the respective talk page, but don't impose a general rule where none is needed. [[User:Zero0000|Zero]]<sup><small>[[User_talk:Zero0000|talk]]</small></sup> 07:54, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
{{closed rfc bottom}}


== MOS:SEMICOLON ==
::Don't take my occasional silences for complacency or disinterest. I was off the 'Net for a week or so (including the brief Request for comments period on these changes). Now that I'm back, I'm rather weary of seeing people deliberately misconstrue each others' arguments which are ''already'' largely based on personal opinions and anecdotal experiences. Since I'm not getting sufficient action on my call for authoritative sources, I'm slowly working on my own research on leading authoritative sources in the various dialects of English. I expect it will take me at least another month, maybe significantly more. (American sources are relatively easy; British, Canadian, et al. are more challenging from my location. But I'd rather do it right than quickly.) If I find that the constant repetition of opinions, unscientific, biased polls, Google searches, and general bickering still haven't produced adequate research on global English publishing practices by then, I'll publish my results. Where and if warranted by the multi-national results, moderated by Wikipedia philosophy, I'm liable to do some jguk-style major editing and page moving, then challenge everyone to prove me wrong for doing so. Editing the Manual of Style and its associated elements should ''not'' be done as casually as it's been for the past few months, and I plan to raise the level of this debate even if it kills me. &#9786; &mdash; [[User:Jeffq|Jeff Q]] 04:12, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)


According to the [[semicolon]] article, the semicolon is one of the least understood punctuation marks, and is not frequently used. Therefore, I'm of the opinion that semicolons should be used sparingly, and only when an alternative sentence structure is clumsy. Should [[MOS:SEMICOLON]] be updated to give this advice?
== Possessives of words ending in 's' ==


In addition, on any introduction pages to Wikipedia, such as [[Help:Introduction_to_Wikipedia]] and [[Wikipedia:Five_pillars]], I think that the semicolons should be removed in order to make the pages more accessible to potential new editors. I've already updated those pages, one of which has been reverted so far.
There is currently a bit of controversy over whether Wikipedia writers should follow AP conventions or Strunk and White's conventions for dealing with possessives of words that end in 's'. For example, is it "Texas' Law" or "Texas's Law"? It would be nice if the Wikipedia Manual of Style could provide some guidance on this. Some articles have been reverted back and forth many times due to this controversy.
* '''AP Style Guidelines''': SINGULAR PROPER NAMES ENDING IN S: Use only an apostrophe: Achilles&#8217; heel, Agnes&#8217; book, Ceres&#8217; rites, Descartes&#8217; theories, Dickens&#8217; novels, Euripides&#8217; dramas, Hercules&#8217; labors, Jesus&#8217; life, Jules&#8217; seat, Kansas&#8217; schools, Moses&#8217; law, Socrates&#8217; life, Tennessee Williams&#8217; plays, Xerxes&#8217; armies.
* '''Strunk and White's Elements of Style''' (used by US Government and others): Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's. Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Thus write, Charles's friend, Burns's poems, the witch's malice.


I thought I'd ask for opinions and guidance here before making any more changes.
Using either "s's" or "s'" is standard English - there's no reason for us to prefer one form over another. I don't see why there should be a controversy - unless those who prefer one form over another seek to impose their views on those who prefer the other form. Use whatever seems sensible at the time. [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 23:51, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)


[[User:Random56653|Random56653]] ([[User talk:Random56653|talk]]) 10:18, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
:I'm not sure that AP style is always the best. The AP guide also says don't use a comma before the 'and' in a series while the ''Elements of Style'' and Oxford's guide do. &mdash;[[User:Moverton|Mike]] 00:25, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
:The two edits are [[Special:Diff/1240247866|diff1]] and [[Special:Diff/1240250233|diff2]]. The semicolons look good to me. [[User:Johnuniq|Johnuniq]] ([[User talk:Johnuniq|talk]]) 10:32, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
:We should not encourage such use of [[comma splice]]s (thanks for the diffs, Johnuniq), whether by setting such a poor example or by amending [[MOS:SEMICOLON]]. As the current [[A Dictionary of Modern English Usage|Fowler's]] says, the semicolon is extremely useful, though it is the punctuation mark "least in evidence to anyone riffling through the pages of a modern novel." [[User:NebY|NebY]] ([[User talk:NebY|talk]]) 10:58, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
:Admittedly I'm a priori certain that this is not a good idea. That said, I think the flaw in your specific argument here. Assuming it's true: just because many people do not generally demonstrate a working understanding of the semicolon when writing, does not mean they are confused by it when reading, or even that it is not helpful to them when reading.
:What's more: new editors do literally everything wrong—frankly, if for one reason or another a semicolon encounter scares someone off, then I'm certain that in its absence another hangup would take its place. Writing is never going to be easy, and many norms are as they are for very good reasons after centuries of iteration. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">[[User:Remsense|<span style="color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>[[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="color:#fff">'''诉'''</span>]]</span> 11:14, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
: [[You Are My Sunshine|''Please don't take my semicolon away.'']] [[User:Zero0000|Zero]]<sup><small>[[User_talk:Zero0000|talk]]</small></sup> 12:35, 15 August 2024 (UTC)
:{{br}} There may be a minor ENGVAR-ish dynamic going on here. I have the impression that British teachers, or perhaps even more particularly English-as-a-second-language teachers in Continental Europe, have this prejudice against semicolons, but it is not widespread in the States.
: To be sure, it's possible to overuse semicolons. When you first learn about them you want to put them everywhere. It gets to be a bit of a lazy habit, almost a rhythm of writing to put sentences in pairs and connect them with semicolons, irrespective of whether the two ideas being joined are really closely related.
: But the fact that they can be misused is not a reason to avoid using them when they are helpful, and I don't think they cause ''readers'' any trouble worth consideration at all. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 23:02, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
::I have definitely encountered Americans who eschewed semicolons altogether. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] ([[User talk:David Eppstein|talk]]) 01:00, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
:::I'm sure you have. I don't see how that contradicts anything I said. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 01:04, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
:No, don’t do any further such edits. Punctuation use should be correct, for sure, but you don’t edit articles simply because of personal preference for or avoidance of certain forms of punctuation. [[User:MapReader|MapReader]] ([[User talk:MapReader|talk]]) 04:32, 17 August 2024 (UTC)


== ''We'' and first-person pronouns ==
::Be careful on the [[Oxford comma]]. Its use (except where it is necessary to avoid ambiguity) is generally considered optional - with some style guides recommending its usage and others recommending using it only where necessary to avoid ambiguity, [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 00:49, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)


While first-person pronouns are considered poor writing for an encyclopedia, [[MOS:WE]] currently allows exceptions for the figurative ''we'' in history and science articles. A brief search in this page's archives didn't turn up any recent discussions on this, so I'd like to see whether it's still supported by the community. I believe this is outdated now that Wikipedia's voice has developed and it's not good practice for writing in an encyclopedic tone, even if it's often used in this fashion in primary and secondary sources. [[User:Thebiguglyalien|<span style="color:#324717">The</span><span style="color:#45631f">big</span><span style="color:#547826">ugly</span><span style="color:#68942f">alien</span>]] ([[User talk:Thebiguglyalien|<span style="color:sienna">talk</span>]]) 00:24, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:Since AP is a style guide for newspapers, where space is at a premium, it often chooses rules which result in fewer characters. It's not necessarily a good guide to use for books, or for Wikipedia, where space is less of an issue. - [[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]] 00:58, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)


:My gut feeling is that outside of quotes we (ha!) shouldn't be using first-person pronouns in article space. Certainly as a general rule, including in history and science (this is already the case in maths articles - [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Writing style in mathematics]]). [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 00:39, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:If both are acceptable, it would be nice if the Wikipedia Manual of Style stated that both are acceptable, as there are definitely those out there seeking to impose their views on those who prefer the other form regardless of what is sensible. [[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 00:52, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
::I would only keep ''we'' in a quote if I were quoting a full statement; otherwise, a ''we'' statement can otherwise be summarized or quoted in part and changing ''we'' to ''they''. [[User:Voorts|voorts]] ([[User talk:Voorts|talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Voorts|contributions]]) 01:45, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:::Using the portion of a quote with "we" in it is going to be essential to the meaning in some cases, clearly inappropriate in some others and somewhere between the two in the majority. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 03:27, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:I think that there's a difference between "encyclopedic" and "stiff", and insistence on stiffness does not suit the project. "We now know that Venus is a planet" is fine, and more comfortable than "It is now known that Venus is a planet." -- [[User:NatGertler|Nat Gertler]] ([[User talk:NatGertler|talk]]) 01:01, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:: I don't have a violent objection to {{xtg|We now know that Venus is a planet}}, but between that and {{xt|Venus is now known to be a planet}}, I'd probably pick the latter. I don't think it's stiff, just slightly less chatty, and chatty is kind of bad for an encyclopedia. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 01:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
::The construction ''We used to believe X, but now we know Y'' is vague and informal. Our goal is to summarize what reliable sources say, not dissertate in asides to the reader. To use your Venus example, an article should instead say: ''The scientist Carl Sagan discovered that Venus is a planet in 2040.'' [[User:Voorts|voorts]] ([[User talk:Voorts|talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Voorts|contributions]]) 01:43, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:I find the ''we'' constructions to be stiff-sounding. Maybe I'm associating it with the "Royal We". Also, not to get hung up on an example, but presumably the first sentence of the article would be "Venus is a planet..." so there wouldn't be a need to craft the big surprise part way through. [[User:Primergrey|Primergrey]] ([[User talk:Primergrey|talk]]) 01:47, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
::I'm certainly not expecting this to be in the lede of the entry on Venus; more along the lines of "While we now know that Venus is a planet, in Shakespeare's day it was commonly assumed to be a star, and thus his references to..." -- [[User:NatGertler|Nat Gertler]] ([[User talk:NatGertler|talk]]) 04:15, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:::The opening clause is extraneous and this can be rephrased more formally: Shakespeare, like his contemporaries, believed Venus was a star, and thus he referred to ...
:::I'm not seeing a circumstance where "wee see X" couldn't be rephrased to something more encyclopedic. [[User:Voorts|voorts]] ([[User talk:Voorts|talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Voorts|contributions]]) 12:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:To my reading, "we" is common and suitably formal in mathematics articles. I see it in a lot of FA-class articles, but I don't have a sense of new vs. old work. I'm a non-expert, but I would suggest consulting the WikiProject before moving ahead with a broad change. [[User:Firefangledfeathers|Firefangledfeathers]] ([[User talk:Firefangledfeathers|talk]] / [[Special:Contributions/Firefangledfeathers|contribs]]) 02:58, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
::As @[[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] noted, [[MOS:MATH]] already [[MOS:MATH#NOWE|prohibits]] use of ''we''. [[User:Voorts|voorts]] ([[User talk:Voorts|talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Voorts|contributions]]) 03:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:::That's not how I'd interpret the guidance, which reads {{tqd|"While opinions vary on the most edifying style, authors should generally strike a balance between bare lists of facts and formulae, and relying too much on addressing the reader directly and referring to "we".}} [[User:Firefangledfeathers|Firefangledfeathers]] ([[User talk:Firefangledfeathers|talk]] / [[Special:Contributions/Firefangledfeathers|contribs]]) 03:46, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
::::You beat me to it. I don't think anything more prescriptive than a recommendation should be adopted in general either. It just isn't possible to cover all the circumstances which may arise. [[User:Zero0000|Zero]]<sup><small>[[User_talk:Zero0000|talk]]</small></sup> 03:49, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
::::Fair, but it does strongly discourage it. [[User:Voorts|voorts]] ([[User talk:Voorts|talk]]/[[Special:Contributions/Voorts|contributions]]) 14:47, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:::::Strongly discouraged but not prohibited is I think what we should be aiming for across the board. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 15:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
::::::Was your use of first-person plural intentional, or merely an example of how this grammatical form is so natural that one doesn't even notice when one is using it?
::::::I don't see a strong reason for discouraging it, but as doing so has been adopted for years as a house style within Wikipedia (including in mathematics articles as discussed above) I also don't see a strong reason for lifting that discouragement. I don't think it should be forbidden. —[[User:David Eppstein|David Eppstein]] ([[User talk:David Eppstein|talk]]) 23:46, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
:::::::{{small|(This isn't mainspace, so even if we know we're using it to designate WP it's authorized. And yes, I know, I intentionally used it to show.)}} — [[User:Alien333|Alien333]] ( <span style="display:inline-block;line-height:75%;font-size:75%;position:relative;top:.3em">[[Special:Contributions/Alien333|what I did]]<br/>[[User talk:Alien333|why I did it wrong]]</span> ) 00:38, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
:I'm not particularly fond of the Venus construction given earlier, but completely prohibiting such things would be counterproductive IMO. At the end of the day it's rare in enwp and doesn't hurt anyone, and as Firefangledfeathers points out mathematicians are accustomed to such verbiage. ― <kbd style="font-size:85%">[[User:Mir Novov|<b style="color:#270;rotate:-2deg;display:inline-block">novov</b>]] [[User talk:Mir Novov|<span style="color:#790">(t</span>]] [[Special:Contributions/Mir Novov|<span style="color:#790">c)</span>]]</kbd> 10:40, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:"We now know" begs questions – who are "we" – and isn't in our usual Wikivoice. I'd rather we described it as acceptable but best avoided in scientific writing, rather than simply acceptable. <small>But yes, we have worse: {{tq|Afterwards, we pass a car retail company and a petrol station on our left, with some allotments and Market Harborough cemetery on our right. ... We also now have to say goodbye to Kelmarsh, and hello to Maidwell...}} ([[A508 road]]).</small> [[User:NebY|NebY]] ([[User talk:NebY|talk]]) 11:38, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
::@[[User:NebY|NebY]] that's the preferred style for the [[Society for All British and Irish Road Enthusiasts|SABRE]] wiki so you'll find a few examples of it in our articles about British roads, unfortunately. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 11:45, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:::Oh dear. [[User:NebY|NebY]] ([[User talk:NebY|talk]]) 11:56, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:Although there are not many cases where it's useful, I don't know if it's really worth explicitly forbidding it, as it's already quite rare and most unjustified uses of it already fall under another interdiction (e.g. {{tq|We know Venus is a planet}} is as much a [[MOS:WEASEL|WEASEL]] as {{tq|Some have said that Venus is a planet}}.) — [[User:Alien333|Alien333]] ([[Special:Contributions/Alien333|what I did]] &amp; [[User_talk:Alien333|why I did it wrong]]) 14:19, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
::'''strongly discouraged''' may be enough. But to achieve a FA rating first person should be removed, otherwise it is a style fail. Certainly for science articles, where I mostly work on, "we" or "our" or "us" is inappropriate. [[User:Graeme Bartlett|Graeme Bartlett]] ([[User talk:Graeme Bartlett|talk]]) 02:15, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
:As far as I can tell, there's broad interest in such a change. Is it time to create the RfC proposing the removal of {{tq|But some of these words are acceptable in certain figurative uses.}} and the corresponding examples from the MoS? [[User:Thebiguglyalien|<span style="color:#324717">The</span><span style="color:#45631f">big</span><span style="color:#547826">ugly</span><span style="color:#68942f">alien</span>]] ([[User talk:Thebiguglyalien|<span style="color:sienna">talk</span>]]) 16:59, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
::As {{u|David Eppstein}} said above, the status quo (it's discouraged but not altogether forbidden) seems fine enough. I too see no good reason to forbid it altogether, so I don't think an RfC is called for. [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 04:54, 25 August 2024 (UTC)
:::I think the proposal is to make it discouraged across the board, rather than accepted (but not encouraged) in a couple of areas and discouraged everywhere else. I would support such a change. [[User:Thryduulf|Thryduulf]] ([[User talk:Thryduulf|talk]]) 11:07, 26 August 2024 (UTC)


== Question on article title ==
::Style guides don't determine "correctness": they represent sometimes arbitrary choices between correct usages to obtain unifomity of style. This is probably unattainable at Wikipedia, where there's no authority to make such arbitrary choices. - [[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]] 00:58, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Is the title for the article [[I Voted sticker]] correct, or should it be [[I Voted (sticker)]] (and ''I Voted'' in italics). Would love to know the MOS answer to this, if there is one? thanks. [[User:Aszx5000|Aszx5000]] ([[User talk:Aszx5000|talk]]) 09:42, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:::If that's true then why does WIkipedia have a style guide at all? You presumption that it is only possible for "authorities" to make decisions about style seems a bit rash to me. Surely we can reach a reasonable decision that will help those seeking clarification, even if the decision is only to declare both styles acceptable. Otherwise this argument will continue to be played out over and over again across many separate articles with no resolution. Let's hash it out here so that people will have something to refer to at least. [[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 01:08, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)


:I'll leave it to the experts to give the definitive answer but it is important to know whether the article is about "I voted" (in which case "(sticker)" would be a disambiguator that may be redundant unless there are other "I voted" articles) -or- about the sticker (in which case, the "I voted" is an adjectival phrase and the word "sticker" should not be in parentheses). [[User:JMF|𝕁𝕄𝔽]] ([[User talk:JMF|talk]]) 09:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
::::Standards fall into three categories: (1) Things where the clearly is a "right" and "wrong" and where it is important that things be "right" (e.g. spelling of words where there is only one standard spelling). (2) Things where there is legitimate disagreement about a consequential matter, and where we probably need to tolerate diversity (e.g. U.S. vs. UK English). (3) Things that are so trivial that almost any sane standard is better than no standard, because uniformity is more important than any particular resolution of the matter. This is an example of the last. -- [[User:Jmabel|Jmabel]] | [[User talk:Jmabel|Talk]] 01:29, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
:Per JMF, the object is not called an "I voted", so it shouldn't be disambiguated as such. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">[[User:Remsense|<span style="color:#fff">'''Remsense'''</span>]]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>[[User talk:Remsense|<span lang="zh" style="color:#fff">'''诉'''</span>]]</span> 12:05, 16 August 2024 (UTC)
:The article is about the sticker, but the title should match the (correct) usage found in the first sentence: It's an '''"I Voted" sticker'''. "I Voted Sticker" should then redirect to that. [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 16:18, 16 August 2024 (UTC)


== Biographical entries ==
:::::I agree completely - but I fear that here are at least some users who will refuse to recognize class (3)<g>. - [[User:Nunh-huh|Nunh-huh]] 02:19, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)


I have long wondered why any entry of a biographical nature manages to list the dates of service or position in government in a particular order. Personally, especially for deceased persons, I would prefer to have the dates of life itself at the top of the order, instead of any honorific or notable achievement which may or may not reflect the most notable of many possibilities. I think this is also supportive of first valuing others as human beings and necessarily descriptive of any subset of time in which a position is held. Maybe this is not the place to raise the question, and I have no idea if this is already discussed in some other style guide that mandates the current practice. But I am amenable to follow the topic wherever it is listed. Wikipedia has become a very valued resource for me who grew up spending hours upon hours as a child reading printed Encyclopedias done by World Book or Encyclopedia Britannica. [[Special:Contributions/65.129.144.172|65.129.144.172]] ([[User talk:65.129.144.172|talk]]) 04:48, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
BTW, it looks like this issue was already discussed here back in July, but nothing came of it: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_6 Talk Archive 6]. [[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 02:20, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)


:I think you are talking about listings in the [[Help:Infobox|infobox]]? So for example, at [[Winston Churchill]], his infobox lists his political details (as prime minister), then his personal details, then his military service.
:It looks like it was already mentioned in the previous discussion, but let me add what my personal favorite style guide has to say about it:
:If that’s what you mean, the more appropriate forum is probably [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes]], to discuss infobox layout {{em|in general}}, but it may also be that for the specific type of bios you’re talking about, most decisions have been made at [[Template:Infobox officeholder]], where you could ask about that specific infobox on the talk page ([[Template talk:Infobox officeholder]]). I would imagine that editors of that infobox believe the political info will be more pressing for readers than the personal info, but you would have to dig through [[Template talk:Infobox officeholder/Archive index|the archives]] to see whether that decision has even been discussed explicitly.
:*'''''The Chicago Manual of Style'' (15th edition)''': "The possessive of most ''singular'' nouns is formed by adding an ''s'', and the possessive of ''plural'' nouns (except for a few irregular plurals that do not end in ''s'') by adding an apostrophe only...The general rule covers most proper nouns, including names ending in ''s'', ''x'', or ''z'', in both their singular and plural forms, as well as letters and numbers" (emphasis theirs). They give examples such as "Kansas's legislature", "Burns's poems", "Marx's theories", and so on. They also mention the alternative style, for those that do not like this method.
:I will say that I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I have found that the layout of politicians’ infoboxes are often more complex than they need to be, and less helpful than they could be—mostly as a consequence of trying to include too much, relative to other biographies. <span style="font-family:Avenir, sans-serif">—&nbsp;<span style="border-radius:5px;padding:.1em .4em;background:#faeded">[[User:HTGS|HTGS]]</span>&nbsp;([[User talk:HTGS|talk]])</span> 05:54, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
:Aside from ''Chicago'''s support, there are other reasons I think this is appropriate. Why should "Texas's law" be any different from "Nebraska's law"? They are both pronounced equivalently. ''Texas'' is not a plural, and there is no need to use plural possessive forms with it. Nor would just adding an apostrophe avoid ambuguity; rather, it can actually further it (is ''Roberts' work'' the work of one Roberts [Julia Roberts] or the work of multiple Roberts?). Using just an apostrophe when words end in ''s'', regardless of why they end in ''s'', seems a bit artificial to me. &mdash; [[User:Knowledge Seeker|Knowledge Seeker &#2470;]] ([[User talk:Knowledge Seeker|talk]]) 18:52, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)


== "Looking towards the text" ==
::Most people pronounce "Texas' Law" differently than "Texas's Law". In fact, it is considered orthodox practice to pronounce them differently [http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=449307]. I suspect this is why the exception for words that end in ''s'' was created in the first place -- to eliminate awkward pronunciations. Take for example, "goodness' sake". That phrase is almost universally pronounced without the extra ''s'' sound regardless of whether the extra ''s'' is written. Otherwise it would sound quite awkward. "Olbers' paradox" is certainly easier to pronounce than "Olbers's paradox". The former sounds much more natural, thus the tradition of spelling it without the extra ''s''. Whatever standard we decide on, I think we should make consideration for established exceptions, i.e. phrases that have always been spelled a certain way by convention regardless of standards. [[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 19:42, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)


OK, I boldly changed the unsupported assertion that "it is often preferable to place images of people so that they 'look' towards the text", to an acknowledgement that some people do prefer this, but the more important part of the bullet point is that you shouldn't reverse images to achieve this.
:::'''Fowler's Modern English Usage''' (a standard for British English) suggests dropping the post-apostriphal ''s'' if it is unvoiced. This still leaves something of a chicken and egg problem -- is it spelled because of how it's pronounced, or is it pronounced because of how it's spelled? [[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 19:57, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
::::I don't think it is a problem. The writer would spell it the way he pronounces it, and the reader would pronounce it the way the writer spelled it. Simple! &mdash;[[User:Moverton|Mike]] 20:12, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)


Mandruss reverted me, so let's talk about it.
I started that earlier discussion (the one now in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_6 Talk Archive 6]). The Strunk and White style still seems better to me. ''Olbers's paradox'' is preferable because hearing ''Olbers' paradox'' (pronounced "Olbers" instead of "Olberses") will lead some people to think that it's ''Olber's paradox''. Nevertheless, that particular example, like ''for goodness' sake'', might be a candidate for an exception, something like: "Form the possessive singular of nouns with 's. Follow this rule whatever the final consonant. Exception: Omit the ''s'' after the apostrophe if a particular possessive has become generally known without the final ''s''." One argument advanced at [[Wikipedia:Requested moves#Olbers's paradox &#8594; Olbers' paradox]] is that this particular phrase, which dates back to Olbers's work in 1823, is more often written as ''Olbers' paradox''. I admit that making such an exception would lead to sentences like "Olbers's students were initially confused by his explanation of Olbers' paradox." [[User:JamesMLane|JamesMLane]] 22:30, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)


''Why'' is it "often preferable"? Frankly I think this is just a superstition, or an aesthetic preference that some people do have but which has no actual value for the encyclopedia, beyond not triggering a reaction in the people that have that preference.
:It looks like all the main style guides, with the exception of the AP's, recommend using the ''s''. Also I should mention that I did not quote ''Chicago'''s entire recommendation; in particular, they mention, "To avoid an awkward appearance, an apostrophe without an ''s'' may be used for the possessive of singular words and names ending in an unpronounced ''s''. Opt for this practice ''only'' if you are comfortable with it and are certain that the ''s'' is indeed unpronounced." Examples: "Descartes' three dreams", "the marquis' mother". Also, "''For...sake'' expressions traditionally omit the ''s'' when the noun ends in an ''s'' or an ''s'' sound." Examples: "for righteousness' sake", "for goodness' sake". James, your proposal sounds quite reasonable to me. &mdash; [[User:Knowledge Seeker|Knowledge Seeker &#2470;]] ([[User talk:Knowledge Seeker|talk]]) 23:45, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Of course a lot of things come down to aesthetic preferences, so if enough people really do have it, then that is an answer in itself. The eye, one might say, wants what it wants. But do enough eyes really want this to justify this (in my opinion irrational) guidance? --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 05:56, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
::I wouldn't want to be prescriptive on this point. Besides, any instructions would largely be ignored by those who prefer the opposite approach. Burchfield in ''Fowler's Modern English Usage'' recommends just using an apostrophe in classical names, eg Herodotus', Socrates', Themistocles', etc. Note also that the official names of various institutions/places adopt differing approaches - for instance, it's not too difficult to find some institutions starting with "St James's" and others with "St James'", [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 08:14, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:It's because the gaze of the reader will track the gaze in the portrait. So, readers are directed into the text by the faces looking inward. [[User:DrKay|DrKay]] ([[User talk:DrKay|talk]]) 07:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:: I mean, I understand the theory. I just think it's nonsense. I can recognize a face whichever way it's pointing, and read the text just fine. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 07:10, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:A majority of the community either supports the concept or it doesn't. As I understand it, guidelines are for keeping us all on the same page, all moving in a common direction. Not for accommodating the personal preferences of all editors or even all significant subsets of editors&mdash;on relatively inconsequential issues. I think we do too much of that. When a guideline has been watered down to the point of complete impotence, it's time to retire it per CREEP.{{pb}}This was the very meta reason for my revert. While I don't have a strong opinion on this specific issue, it does seem to "feel" better to me when the image subject faces the text. I can't really explain why; it could be because I've lived with this guideline for ten years and it has become imbedded in my DNA; I don't know. If you think the guideline is nonsense, it seems to me the proper action is to seek community consensus to remove it. Or boldly remove it, for that matter, but I doubt that would be accepted. &#8213;[[User:Mandruss|<span style="color:#775C57;">'''''Mandruss'''''</span>]]&nbsp;[[User talk:Mandruss|<span style="color:#888;">&#9742;</span>]] 07:34, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:: Well, the default position of the MoS on any given issue should be no position. I like the way EEng put it, something like "if the MoS does not need a rule, then the MoS needs to not have a rule" -- I forget the exact wording. Articles do not all have to be the same.
:: So why do we need a rule on this?
:: I do agree that, whatever the outcome, we should keep the guidance about not reversing pictures, as that is actively misleading. But we could do that by itself, something straightforward like "do not reverse pictures of persons just to make them 'look' towards the text". --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 07:41, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:::{{tq|Articles do not all have to be the same.}} I would agree with that, but the ''raison d'être'' of any style manual is consistency, and any deviation needs to have a better reason than somebody's personal preference. The encyclopedia is more important than any individual's sensitivities&mdash;we're not here to please editors&mdash;but for some reason we seem to disregard that because people aren't being paid, as if there would be a mass exodus if editors were asked to be team players (there would not). I just smh. &#8213;[[User:Mandruss|<span style="color:#775C57;">'''''Mandruss'''''</span>]]&nbsp;[[User talk:Mandruss|<span style="color:#888;">&#9742;</span>]] 08:05, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:::: To be frank I don't value "consistency" as highly as some do in this context. Would it really detract from Wikipedia to have some photos facing one way and some facing another? I don't think so.
:::: What the MoS does do well is head off unproductive disputes. Would we have them without this guidance? --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 16:27, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:Since 2007[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style&diff=prev&oldid=2759419], portraits looking to the centre has been part of Wikipedia's house style. Even if it's merely an arbitrary aesthetic choice, it's served in that and in quelling potential disputes. There's no point in weakening it with a "some prefer (but do as you please)" explanation. In 2008 we briefly had {{tq|because the reader's eye will tend to follow their direction}}[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style&diff=next&oldid=202983839] but after some to-and-fro that was dropped in favour of the simple {{tq|It is often preferable to place images of faces so that the face or eyes look toward the text}}.[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style&diff=prev&oldid=228592917] Justifications in the MOS are often more trouble than they're worth, so if "it is often preferable" is being read as one, it might be better to phrase it as more of an injunction (to normally/generally place etc) than an observation. Has that been an issue since 2008? [[User:NebY|NebY]] ([[User talk:NebY|talk]]) 11:43, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:: "[I]t's served in that and in quelling potential disputes". What's "that"? Being an arbitrary aesthetic choice? Are arbitrary aesthetic choices ''good''? Really?
:: As for potential disputes &mdash; would people really be fighting about this? --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 16:27, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:::Sure - aesthetic choices are all around, from the choice of newspaper fonts to brick colours to logo design, and consistency in their application matters.
:::EEng's common and sensible response when someone seeks a MOS change is to ask where the status quo is resulting in a problem in our articles or their editing. What problems is this longstanding MOS guidance causing? [[User:NebY|NebY]] ([[User talk:NebY|talk]]) 16:40, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:::: EEng's formulation is not about the status quo; it's about whether we need a rule. If there's no active justification for a rule, that rule should be removed.
:::: My feeling is that you should ordinarily not reverse photos, and you should put them wherever they look best, not artificially put them in a different place just because of this arbitrary shibboleth. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 16:54, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:::::If you're concerned that people may be reversing photos to make them fit this style guide direction, the MOS does say {{tq|Do not achieve this by reversing the image.}} [[User:Belbury|Belbury]] ([[User talk:Belbury|talk]]) 17:44, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
:::The whole point of manuals of style is to make a decision once about a design style matter, so even if the decision is arbitrary, editors don't have to spend any time on it again. This lets them focus on content. Now it's certainly possible that this specific design choice ought to be revisited in our current world with a large range of viewing widths. Readers might be better served by placing all images on the right, for example, when there is sufficient available viewing space, and centred when there is not, in order to better support flexible layout design that is responsive to the viewing width. [[User:Isaacl|isaacl]] ([[User talk:Isaacl|talk]]) 17:26, 21 August 2024 (UTC)
::::In fact, I'd go one step farther than @[[User:Isaacl|Isaacl]] and say that the '''''entire purpose''''' of a style manual is to codify '''especially''' the arbitrary stylistic choices that go into collaboratively producing something.
::::There are ''plenty'' of design, editorial, artistic, literary, etc. questions which come down to there being <var>N</var> pretty-much-equally valid options, and you can either pick one/some for the sake of consistency, or decide not to decide and just let anarchy reign. When you pick a lane, that decision goes into the style manual. The other times don't, because it's not helpful to dictate a ''non''-choice as a point of style — which I think is the real crux of @[[User:EEng|EEng's]] point about the necessity of non-rules.
::::The Manual of Style is meant to dictate the choices made ''for'' editors, not to legislate the areas where they have the freedom to choose for themselves. There's room for that sort of discussion, and for its documentation, but it shouldn't be cluttering up the MoS. [[User:FeRDNYC|FeRDNYC]] ([[User talk:FeRDNYC|talk]]) 13:34, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
:::::If the entire purpose of {{em|our}} style manual were to codify arbitrary stylistic choices, we would have a much simpler guide for citations, and probably a more complete guide for colours and other arbitrary details. <span style="font-family:Avenir, sans-serif">—&nbsp;<span style="border-radius:5px;padding:.1em .4em;background:#faeded">[[User:HTGS|HTGS]]</span>&nbsp;([[User talk:HTGS|talk]])</span> 20:01, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
*TLDR but this has been discussed many times, and the policy upheld. This is a basic principle of picture placement, which we should follow (and generally have done, for 20+ years). [[User:Johnbod|Johnbod]] ([[User talk:Johnbod|talk]]) 14:41, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
*:For what it’s worth, I don’t have strong opinions on whether portraits should face text, but if we do collectively believe that, then we should probably use the word “should”. That would probably resolve Trovatore’s (and my) issue with “it is preferable”. <span style="font-family:Avenir, sans-serif">—&nbsp;<span style="border-radius:5px;padding:.1em .4em;background:#faeded">[[User:HTGS|HTGS]]</span>&nbsp;([[User talk:HTGS|talk]])</span> 20:02, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
*::We need an MOS for policies and guidelines. Something along the lines of use ''must'' or ''should'', as appropriate, but otherwise don't worry about constantly softening guidance, as [[WP:IAR]] exceptions are always presumed to be possible. —[[User:Bagumba|Bagumba]] ([[User talk:Bagumba|talk]]) 03:50, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
*For those in search of enlightenment, my Pulitzer-winning essay is [[Wikipedia:If MOS doesn't need a rule on something, then it needs to not have a rule on that thing]]. [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 21:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)
*:I agree that this guideline, [[MOS:IM]] and [[MOS:PORTRAIT]], has been in place for every long time and is widely followed (and, IMO, it's substantially sound). Discussions about language, 'often preferable" vs. 'should', approaches "how many angels" territory – a waste of time. -- [[User:Michael Bednarek|Michael Bednarek]] ([[User talk:Michael Bednarek|talk]]) 02:40, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
*::The distinction is whether the MOS actually recommends the first part, or whether it’s saying the first part is just a thing people do, because the MOS has a stance on the second part. If we only care to guide editors on the second, then we may as well remove the first. If we actually care that editors do the first, then we should say so. I don’t care if it’s {{tq|“Images of people should "look" toward the text”}} or {{tq|“Under normal conditions, where other concerns are not raised, images of people should be placed so that they "look" toward the text”}}, but the current wording sounds like: “Some people like peanut butter; those people who like peanut butter must use the knife that’s designated for peanut butter.” <span style="font-family:Avenir, sans-serif">—&nbsp;<span style="border-radius:5px;padding:.1em .4em;background:#faeded">[[User:HTGS|HTGS]]</span>&nbsp;([[User talk:HTGS|talk]])</span> 05:31, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
*:::How about "It is often preferable to place images of people so they "look" toward the text." [[User:Hawkeye7|<span style="color:#800082">Hawkeye7</span>]] [[User_talk:Hawkeye7|<span style="font-size:80%">(discuss)</span>]] 10:51, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
*::::Sounds good to me. And very nice that it's already the current wording! [[User:Gawaon|Gawaon]] ([[User talk:Gawaon|talk]]) 12:54, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
*::::: I just disagree that this is preferable. I think it's nonsense. But I have to concede that I haven't seen a lot of people jumping in to agree with me, so not worth pursuing at this time. --[[User:Trovatore|Trovatore]] ([[User talk:Trovatore|talk]]) 20:33, 3 September 2024 (UTC)


== [[Talk:Cobra_Crack#MOS:ITAL]] ==
How does this sound:<br>
'''Possessives ending in ''s'''''<br>
Authoritative sources differ on how to handle possessive nouns that end with the letter ''s''. Some say to add an apostrophe and an ''s'' at the end. Other say to just add an apostrophe. Still others say it depends on whether the word is a proper noun, the ''s'' is pronounced a certain way, or a variety of other conditions are met. Because there does not seem to be a widespread consensus on how to handle possessives ending in ''s'', both usages are considered acceptable in Wikipedia. In general, whichever usage of a particular word or phrase is most common should be used. For example, ''Olbers' paradox'' is more commonly used than ''Olbers's paradox''.<br>
[[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 17:27, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Is ''[[Cobra Crack]]'' reasonable italics? If you have an opinion, please join. [[User:Gråbergs Gråa Sång|Gråbergs Gråa Sång]] ([[User talk:Gråbergs Gråa Sång|talk]]) 20:16, 24 August 2024 (UTC)
:Too many "somes" - and I don't like the use of the word authoritative. Maybe we could lift something from ''The Times'' and adapt it, for example (the bit not in italics is my addition, and I have redacted a small bit) [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 19:15, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC):


Discussion has moved on to [[Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climbing#Suggesting_a_change_of_WP:WikiProject_Climbing/Article_recommendations]]. [[User:Gråbergs Gråa Sång|Gråbergs Gråa Sång]] ([[User talk:Gråbergs Gråa Sång|talk]]) 10:14, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
::''with proper names/nouns ending in s that are singular, follow the rule of writing what is voiced, eg, Keats's poetry, Sobers's batting, The Times's style (or Times style); and with names where the final "s" is soft, use the "s" apostrophe, eg, Rabelais' writings, Delors' presidency. Note that with Greek names of more than one syllable that end in "s", do not use the apostrophe "s", eg, Aristophanes' plays, Achilles' heel, Socrates' life, Archimedes' principle. ''Beware that some people voice "s" that others don't, and this will change how they write the words. Some write "Jesus'" others "Jesus's". '' Also beware of organisations that have variations as their house style, eg, St Thomas' Hospital, where we must respect their whim. Also, take care with apostrophes with plural nouns, eg, women's, not womens'; children's, not childrens'; people's, not peoples'. Use the apostrophe in expressions such as two years' time, several hours' delay etc. An apostrophe should be used to indicate the plural of single letters - p's and q's''


== Flagicon in the article ==
How about this:<br>
'''Possessives'''<br>
To form the possessive of a singular noun that ends in ''s'', the general rule is to add an apostrophe and an ''s'', for example, ''Charles's book''. Exceptions to this rule are as follows:<br>
*When the final ''s'' of the noun is soft or unpronounced: ''Descartes' theories'', ''Rabelais' writing''
*When there is a long-established tradition of adding only an apostrophe to form the possessive: ''Achilles' heel'', ''goodness' sake''
*When the possessive is part of an organization's name and they choose to only use an apostrophe: ''St Thomas' Hospital''
For plural nouns that do not end in ''s'', add an apostrophe-''s'', for example, ''<nowiki>children's</nowiki>'', not ''<nowiki>childrens'</nowiki>''.<br>
[[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 20:33, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Are the flagicon and honour decoration in the [[:Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani#Honours]] should be removed or not? [[User:Stvbastian|Stvbastian]] ([[User talk:Stvbastian|talk]]) 15:11, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
::Nearly there, methinks. Three points:


== Planning to initiate another RFC in a few weeks to challenge a 2018 RFC initiated without adequate notice ==
::1. Reword to say "the general rule is that where the ''s'' is pronounced separately, add an apostrophe and as ''s''". Then the first bullet point of exceptions to the rule becomes a further example of the general rule.
::2. "Proper name" would be better than "organisation" as "organisation" is too specific.
::3. ''Sake'' tends to be treated differently. In ''Fowler's Modern English Usage'' Burchfield writes, "''For appearances' sake, for Christ's sake, for God's sake, for Heaven's sake, for Pete's sake, for old times' sake'' illustrate the obligatory use of the possessive apostrpohe in such phrases, Practice varies widely in ''for conscience' sake'' and ''for goodness' sake'', and the use of an apostrophe in them must be regarded as optional." Burchfield goes on to say that in American English ''sakes'' is sometimes used in place of ''sake'', [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 22:12, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)


I just noticed [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style&diff=prev&oldid=1179261465 this edit] by User:Nikkimaria on 8 October 2023, which linked to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_146#RfC:_Revisiting_the_perennial_US/U.S._debate a 2018 RFC] I had never heard of.
:::1. Are you talking about the ''s'' of the original noun or the possessive ''s''? If you're talking about the possissive ''s'', I don't like instructing people to rely on whether the extra ''s'' is pronounced or not, as whether or not the extra ''s'' is pronounced often depends on how the possessive is spelled [http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=449307]. Thus we would be sending the writer in a circle: how it's written depends on how it's pronounced and how it's pronounced depends on how it's written. That's too confusing. If you're talking about the ''s'' of the original noun, then your wording is just incorporating the initial exception into the rule itself, and I'm not sure why that would be any better than listing it as an explicit exception and keeping the rule itself simplified.
:::2. Agreed.
:::3. That seems to fall into my 2nd exception. Ideally, I'd like to refrain from starting a long list of specific exceptions like greek names, something's sake, etc. and just create a general exception for traditional spellings. [[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 23:05, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Then I traced the talk page archive for this article and saw why: because [[User:SMcCandlish]] initiated a RFC on the village pump on 6 July 2018 and then [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_205#RfC_opened_at_WP:VPPOL linked to it on this talk page from a subheader] under an earlier heading initiated by [[User:Netoholic]]. As User:Netoholic correctly pointed out at the time, this was highly improper. User:Netoholic had merely proposed planning for a RfC, not initiating one immediately.
How about a more concise way, such as this:
:"Possessives of words ending in 's' may be formed with or without an additional 's'." [[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] 05:07, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Even worse, the subheading was worded in a cryptic fashion, "RfC opened at WP:VPPOL". Because this talk page gets so much traffic, it would have been very difficult for WP editors who do not read through every post to this talk page on a daily basis to immediately recognize the importance of what that subheading meant.
::I like the conciseness, but I do think there are definite cases where writers should use one or the other and it would be nice if we could provide them some guidance on that. [[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 15:33, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:::That's so concise it is useless. You might as well just say, "Possessives: no standard". Or just don't say anything at all. &mdash;[[User:Moverton|Mike]] 01:00, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)
::::I actually think it's useful in some cases to point out that we have no standard. This provides an authoritative resource to cite if there is a dispute. (I.e. "no, we don't need to standardize all references to plural possessives; Wikipedia permits either usage".) -[[User:Aranel|Aranel]] ("<font color="#ba0000"><u>Sarah</u></font>") 01:31, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)


It would have been much more fair to all interested editors to give notice of the 2018 RfC under a new heading that clearly and expressly advised that [[User:SMcCandlish]] was trying to alter the community consensus on such a hot-button issue, such as "Request for Comment opened on U.S./US debate at village pump". But from the circumstances under which it was initiated, I suspect that developing a true community consensus was not the purpose of the 2018 RfC.
If we are to explicitly state we have no preference, we need to be more explicit than Maurreen. Perhaps something along the lines of, "Where, a standard form of English permits possessives of words ending in 's' to be formed with or without an additional 's', we have no preference between those styles", [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 01:44, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)


I have reviewed the archived discussion from July 2018. I fully concur with [[User:Pyxis Solitary]]'s accurate analysis of the situation in response to [[User:SMcCandlish]]: "You are trying to push your position down everyone's throat".
OK, how does this sound:<br>
'''Possessives'''<br>
Opinions differ on how to form the possessive of singular nouns that end with the letter ''s''. Some sources say to add an apostrophe and an ''s'' at the end. Others say to just add an apostrophe. Because there does not seem to be a widespread consensus on how to handle possessives of this form, both usages are considered acceptable in Wikipedia. In general, whichever usage of a particular word or phrase is most common should be used. For example, ''Achilles' heel'' is more commonly used than ''Achilles's heel''.<br>
For plural nouns that do not end in ''s'', add an apostrophe and an ''s'' to form the possessive, for example, ''<nowiki>children's</nowiki>'', not ''<nowiki>childrens'</nowiki>''.<br>
[[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 03:19, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)


As I have argued elsewhere, the ''Chicago Manual of Style's'' adoption of the irritating British English tendency to drop periods in abbreviations makes zero sense as a matter of style or policy (which is why other American style guides continue to resist it). I have long suspected that the sloppy tendency of British writers to drop periods arose from the UK's egregious mismanagement of primary and secondary education, perhaps because it wasted too much money on idiotic things like nationalizing healthcare and railways. So there weren't enough resources to go around to adequately train and hire enough teachers to teach British children how to punctuate properly.
:How about getting to the point more quickly, like this:
:"Possessives of words ending in 's' may be formed with or without an additional 's'." Either is generally acceptable within Wikipedia. But if either form is much more common for a particular word or phrase, follow that form, such as with 'Achilles' heel'." [[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] 22:47, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)


California is full of British expats fleeing their nation's decaying educational system in search of greener pastures. American parents are happy to pay a premium to put their kids through college prep schools where they can read Chaucer with a Cambridge alum (as I did as an adolescent).
::I added your suggested guideline to the Usage and Spelling section. [[User:Kaldari|Kaldari]] 07:57, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)


The RfC discussion is full of dubious statements such as, "half the people I argue with have the style guide". No, they don't. Most people own, learn, and use the style guides appropriate to their occupational fields.
== Fictional characters ==


There are over 1.33 million lawyers in the United States. They are drilled in law school on the [[Bluebook]] or the [[ALWD Guide to Legal Citation]], which both adhere to the traditional American preference for U.S. over US. As far as I am aware, only three states omit periods in abbreviations in their state court citation styles: Michigan, New York, and Oregon. The rest of the states, the territories, and the federal courts consider those three states to have gone insane on that issue.
I've seen a bunch of articles that italicize fictional characters, for example, "Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for his portrayal of ''Hannibal Lecter'' in ''Silence of the Lambs''." I've never seen this before. Is there any precedent for this? I've also seen character names placed in quotes instead of italics. Should something about this be placed in the style guide? &ndash;&nbsp;{{User:Flamurai/Signature}} 08:00, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)


The vast majority of American lawyers continue to use U.S. in their personal and professional writing and expect others who work for or with them to do the same. In turn, U.S. continues to be used extensively in American English, because of how lawyers tend to dominate the management ranks of government agencies and also some corporations.
:A completely undesirable development. I agree with banning it in the style guide asap and then enforcing that ban before the custom becomes too widespread to stop, [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 08:16, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)


None of these points were raised in the 2018 RfC. I would have definitely raised them immediately, if I had known of the RfC at the time.
::Certainly it can't be banned, but the style guide should remind editors to use formatting sparingly. If it's used too much, it loses its meaning. --[[User:Sean Kelly|Sean Kelly]] 22:03, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)


In the next two months, I plan to visit a public library to consult a variety of style guides to assess the current style situation in other fields, then initiate an RFC to switch MOS:US back to the pre-2017 version. --[[User:Coolcaesar|Coolcaesar]] ([[User talk:Coolcaesar|talk]]) 17:14, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
"Ban" is a strong word here. I also agree that that style shouldn't be used. [[User:Poccil|Peter O.]] ([[User Talk:Poccil|Talk]]) 19:22, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)


*To compare major English-language legal style guides: Bluebook uses full stops for every abbrev. term and acronym, including looong ones, as a matter of style. By contrast, the UK's [[OSCOLA]] uses ''no'' stops for ''any'' abbrev or acronyms (and uses commas instead of stops to separate elements of citations). Open-access legal style guides in the US (which see more acceptance now) will either copy an old version of BlueBook ([[The Indigo Book]]) or emulate their university publisher style ([[Maroonbook]]). For the rest of the Anglosphere (except Canada iirc), it either looks very much like OSCOLA (e.g. [[AGLC]]) or a hybrid with some mix of stops.
:I agree that the names of fictional characters shouldn't be italicized, but I don't see the need to add it to the style guide. [[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] 05:23, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:Fwiw, I learned "U.S." in my school newspaper's MOS because we voted every 2 years on a what newspaper's MOS to use. (A now-ancient version of AP, which has the similar inconsistencies of "U.S. and UK"; the sole reason is "US" looks like the uppercase word "us".) Bluebook and OSCOLA by contrast aim largely for consistency with stops: yes vs no. But note that nobody outside of the respective legal communities uses either style, even though they have extensive style guides for general citations and prose. By contrast, AP, NYT, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, APA, etc all see wide general adoption in the US -- whether by inertia or no, general audience publishers continue to use it or adopt house variants based closely around it. [[User:SamuelRiv|SamuelRiv]] ([[User talk:SamuelRiv|talk]]) 17:41, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

:My tldr is that for the millions of lawyers in the U.S. who put stops on ''everything'', there's an equal (or greater?) millions of lawyers in the Commonwealth who put stops on ''nothing''. I sympathize with feeling blindsided by the RfC, but if having ignored the BlueBook is your primary argument, then I can't see how it's not neutralized. [[User:SamuelRiv|SamuelRiv]] ([[User talk:SamuelRiv|talk]]) 17:46, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
== Ellipses ==
*I was tempted to quit reading this rambling wall of text at the point where you tied punctuation to health-care policy and railways; but I soldiered on! Then when you said that some US (or U.S.) states judge other states' sanity based on period non-usage, I again was tempted to quit. But I read on to the end. Final analysis: I should have never started, since there's little more here than your personal musings. [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 18:15, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

*:Thanks for saving me the time. [[User:SandyGeorgia|'''Sandy'''<span style="color: green;">Georgia</span>]] ([[User talk:SandyGeorgia|Talk]]) 19:05, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
Do we have a standard form for writing ellipses? It seems to me that most style guides use "x . . . y", with spaces before and after each dot. Many people seem to use "x...y" or "x ... y", however. A standard would be nice. --[[User:Simetrical|Simetrical]] 01:18, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
*::This promised RfC should really be something. [[User:EEng#s|<b style="color:red;">E</b>]][[User talk:EEng#s|<b style="color:blue;">Eng</b>]] 20:39, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

*:::Yeah, and while we're about it, let's switch to writing R.F.C. and V.P.:P.O.L. --[[User:Redrose64|<span style="color:#a80000; background:#ffeeee; text-decoration:inherit">Red</span>rose64]] &#x1f339; ([[User talk:Redrose64|talk]]) 22:24, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
: The spacing effect may just be a by-product of [[text justification]], I would say. The [[ellipsis]] (&hellip;) is not written with spaces in between the dots. I would use the style "x... y". [[User:Poccil|Peter O.]] ([[User Talk:Poccil|Talk]]) 06:04, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)
*:Why we should focus so much on lawyers? "Law" appears not at all nor "legal" more than three or four times in the RFC, so I know it isn't a reprise of a major subject from that debate. English legal writings today remain full of fossilized languages that goes back pratically to the French. UK barristers even still wear wigs in court. Not the best role models for us in matters of style, in my opinion. [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 23:02, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

:Have you been hiding under a rock? For over five years I have seen article after article making sure we use US over USA or U.S. and this is just now being contested? Sports articles have been complying on a slow but steady basis. Not sure why we would want to change back even though the original RfC was shady. [[User:Fyunck(click)|Fyunck(click)]] ([[User talk:Fyunck(click)|talk]]) 22:37, 3 September 2024 (UTC)
:: It's definitely acceptable to put spaces in between the dots of an ellipse, it's just not that common in the USA. It's more common in fine book typography than in periodicals, as well. &ndash;&nbsp;{{User:Flamurai/Signature}} 18:37, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)

: In HTML and XML with an XHTML profile, use &amp;hellip; which causes &hellip;. Choose a font which has the amount of spacing in the ellipses you like. x&hellip; y, bla bla blah&hellip;.

::Ellipses look better (to me) if there are no spaces between the dots. I suppose it all comes down to aesthetics in the end, [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 19:07, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

:::I agree completely that it's a matter of taste, because mine is the other way (I prefer a space before and after each dot, including the first and last). I think this is another item that people should handle as they please and not waste time fiddling with what other editors have written. [[User:JamesMLane|JamesMLane]] 08:48, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I lean toward agreement with James on this. [[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] 07:11, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

:Just type &amp;hellip; when you want an ellips: then font preference can decide if there is a lot or very little spacing between the dots. This has the advantage that it will remain one character instead of three or six. {{User:Anárion/sig}} 07:32, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

== Article structuring ==

I tried to find some good advice on structuring articles in wikipedia namespaces. All I found were some pages in the [[Wikipedia:Style and How-to Directory|Style and How-to Directory]], some pages in the [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style]], and some links on [[template:FAPath]]. They mostly deal with the issue from a general stylistic and aesthetic viewpoint, and only touch on the underlying reasons for giving a logical and fairly standardized structure to encyclopedia articles.

I've therefore written up a draft guideline for writing articles in a "pyramid structure". Being mostly based on common sense, it is in part a description of what we already do, but its goal is also to explain why structuring articles in this way is good. It's at [[User:Zocky/Pyramid structure]]. Please feel free to improve and comment.

I'm not sure how to proceed. Proper structure should obviously be a FA requirement, and this should probably also be in the how-to series. But since structure is a fundamental editorial issue which heavily affects both quality and NPOV, it could also be a part of the Manual of Style. [[User:Zocky|Zocky]] 19:45, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

==Massive lost information==

A massive chunk of information seems to have been carelessly lost in [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AManual_of_Style&diff=7825646&oldid=7825580 this edit]. I am talking about the section on External Links in particular. This is referenced as <nowiki>[[WP:MOS#External Links]]</nowiki> from a number of places. E.g., the [[Wikipedia:How to edit a page#Links and URLs|editing help]], the [[Wikipedia:External links|external links]] page and so on. Given the amount of editing that has gone on, I'm not going to do an immediate revert to the version from November 24 before that edit, but I think it might be a good idea, at least until the material is moved elsewhere and/or correctly linked. Comments anyone? [[User:Mozzerati|Mozzerati]] 10:01, 2005 Jan 22 (UTC)

:The edit was to replace the Manual of Style with a shorter version that had been discussed beforehand. The references to that discussion should be somewhere in the archives (though, I'm afraid, I don't know where). From memory, I think the material on links got moved to [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)]] on Maurreen's suggestion, though I stand to be corrected.

:However, this Manual of Style is a living document, feel free to propose any changes you think are appropriate, [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 19:23, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

::The earlier discussion is at [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Draft trim (November 2004)]]. [[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] 22:50, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

== Numbers as words ==

I can't see any guide to when to write numbers as words. Am I missing something?

The style that I picked up somewhere is to always use numerals when a number is being referred to, such as ''he lived at No. 3'', or ''It is at entry 8'', but to use words otherwise, if the value is less than 13. Thus ''He had eight children'', and ''She is 23 years old''.

Comments? [[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 12:25, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

:See [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Number names]]. [[User:Bkonrad|older]]<font color=blue>'''&ne;'''</font>[[User talk:Bkonrad|wiser]] 13:46, Jan 25, 2005 (UTC)

::I tend to follow AP and CP style, which is to write out anything less than 10, but to use numerals for 10 and upwards: three dogs, 10 children, but to use numerals when numbers are referred to, as you said: "He lived at No. 3". [[User:SlimVirgin|SlimVirgin]] 19:22, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I tend to prefer writing almost everything out as words. Since the style guide doesn't say we ''shouldn't'' write out "six million", I'll continue to do so. &mdash;[[User:Simetrical|Simetrical]] 20:21, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

== Spelling and usage within quotations ==

Most of the rules in this guide would give way to the principle of accurate quotation. To take the example just above, if a written source says "He had 8 children" or "She is twenty-three years old", then the quotation should preserve the choice of the original. I'd like to warn overeager style mavens not to change quotations. Is there agreement with adding something like this (perhaps under the "Usage and spelling" heading, where it would come up most often): "When a written source is being directly quoted (as opposed to paraphrased), the quotation should conform exactly to the original text, even if the source does not follow the style prescribed by this manual." [[User:JamesMLane|JamesMLane]] 08:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

:Absolutely. Might also want to mention that it is perfectly OK to wikify within a direct quotation. -- [[User:Jmabel|Jmabel]] | [[User talk:Jmabel|Talk]] 18:46, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it's usually preferable to stick to the original spelling and usage within quotations - but I would not have a hard and fast rule. Unless there are special reasons to keep the original style, correcting misspellings, improving punctuation and correcting grammar are all acceptable, [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 20:44, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

:I lean toward agreement with Jguk on this. [[User:Maurreen|Maurreen]] 07:09, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
:I don't know. Correcting spelling and grammar seems wrong. It's meant to be a direct quote. (Of course, in quotes of speech, borderline rewriting is the norm, as any journalist probably knows. Spoken speech is messy in the extreme, and word-for-word transcripts look ugly and are often hard to understand.) &mdash;[[User:Simetrical|Simetrical]] 20:31, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 23:02, 3 September 2024

Welcome to the MOS pit


    Style discussions elsewhere

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    Add a link to new discussions at top of list and indicate what kind of discussion it is (move request, RfC, open discussion, deletion discussion, etc.). Follow the links to participate, if interested. Move to Concluded when decided, and summarize conclusion. Please keep this section at the top of the page.

    Current

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    (newest on top)

    Capitalization-specific:

    This section is an excerpt from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Current.[edit]

    Move requests:

    Other discussions:

    Pretty stale but not "concluded":

    Concluded

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    Extended content
    This section is an excerpt from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Concluded.[edit]
    Capitalization-specific:
    2023
    2022
    2021

    Text produced by templates

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    I can't figure out if the MOS applies to text produced by templates, and if so, what special provisions exist. Most templates do not produce full grammatical sentences rather abbreviated text. For example the large corpus of external link templates. Like {{IMDb name}} produces "Marlon Brando at IMDb" and not "Marlon Brando at the IMDb" which is the recommended way per MOS:INSTITUTION, and to be grammatically correct. There are 100s if not 1000s of examples like this producing abbreviated text.

    I'm not currently seeking opinions, but am looking for help to find existing MOS, guidelines or discussions. -- GreenC 02:18, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    On which logic should the MOS not apply to template output? Gawaon (talk) 06:25, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the "full sentence" would be "Marlon Brando at IMDb.com" which is why it why it was shortened without the ".com" part. Gonnym (talk) 06:56, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    a) Neither ("MB at" or "MB at the") are full sentences, and whether they are or not has no bearing on the matter the OP raised. b) MOS:INSTITUTION doesn't require "the" before the name ("… at the Yale University"?) -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:31, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Re: b): Unless it's part of the name: "The University of Calgary". Though I see that it really addresses capitalization, not grammatical articles. —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:18, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The general point, however, that templates should be configured to generate output that conforms with the MoS is an entirely sound one. MapReader (talk) 16:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course templates should conform to the MOS. This is the first I've ever heard of somebody suggesting that they not conform. That probably explains why, at least AFAIK, nowhere do we have some explicit statement that "this all applies to template output, too". It's simply generally assumed that it's the case, so there's nothing to cite for you.
    I don't see what's so grammatically correct about "Marlon Brando at the IMDb"; I think most people wouldnt talk or write that way. If you are trying to say that the "the" is required because it's the Internet Movie Database, then maybe, maybe if it were written out like that, a preceding "the" might be cool. But surely few people call IMDb by the original, long name. Otherwise we'd have to talk about "the NASA launching another rocket". — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 20:55, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, the use of "the" depends on common usage. People say "the BBC" but they don't say "the NASA", even though both "the British Broadcasting Corporation" and "the National Aeronautics and Space Administration" use "the" when written in full. So just "at IMDb" is fine because no one (I think?) says "the IMDb". Popcornfud (talk) 22:07, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    It can be confusing whether or not to use the definite article before acronyms. Sometimes it's very subtle: when writing about railway companies in the UK, pre-1948 railway acronyms usually take the definite article, post-1948 railway acronyms don't. So we might have "the GWR", which refers to the Great Western Railway of 1835-1947, and "GWR" which refers to Great Western Railway (train operating company), created in 1996 but which only adoped that name in 2015. Similarly, there are "the LNER" of 1923-1947, and "LNER" of 2018 on. I don't think that we can (or should) write a one-size-fits-all rule. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Yep, like I said, common usage. Why is it "the White House" but just "Bush House"? Why is it "the Eiffel Tower" but just "Tokyo Tower"? No reason, no logic, just common usage. Popcornfud (talk) 23:47, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    RfC: Use of verbs in biographical descriptions

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    The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
    There is consensus that ‘serve’, ‘served as’, etc. is acceptable in many contexts without concern for neutrality, and while in other contexts it may be bad writing or poor phrasing, these questions are superseded by the overwhelming consensus that the MOS should not have a rule on this language. — HTGS (talk) 03:35, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]


    In many articles about living persons, and particularly about persons in positions of authority, e.g. member of parliament, corporation CEO, city councilor, etc, the lead paragraph often uses the verb "to serve" in denoting the person's work." E.g. "Ms Smith serves/has been serving/has served as member of the XYZ Board of Directors." In this related discussion, the issue was raised about the potential for meaningless excess in that term's use. (Here's a useful essay on that.) This, of course, applies to biographies about persons no longer living.

    Comments are invited on the following options:

    • A Use any simple form of "to be," e.g. "Smith is Acme Ltd auditor."
    • B Continue to use "serve" in biographies, e.g. "Smith serves as Acme Ltd auditor."

    -The Gnome (talk) 17:37, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    • I would go with B, which does continue to reflect both formal proper, and common, usage, particularly in fields like politics and public office. But both forms are of course perfectly correct and acceptable. MapReader (talk) 19:56, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • I remember a previous discussion long ago where an argument was made that "served" is a euphemism. Curbon7 (talk) 21:20, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neither. This is not something that needs a broad rule. Either form is acceptable, as are other options. My most common experience is that people use "serve" to capitalize a title while complying with MOS:JOBTITLE, going for "served as President of Aybeeceedia" instead of "was the president of Aybeeceedia", which seems like a silly workaround but whatever. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:51, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • A is/was reflects everyday speech. To my ears 'served as' always sounds either pompous or somewhat euphemismistic, he "served as President of Aybeeceedia", but wasn't really 'up to scratch'!Pincrete (talk) 07:00, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neither per FFF, the euphemism angle is understandable in some cases but this also seems within the bounds of quite common language variation. CMD (talk) 07:12, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neither – is should be fine most of the time, but synonyms are not forbidden, and the occasional usage of serve, even if maybe a bit pompous and not strictly needed, does no harm. Gawaon (talk) 07:20, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • A is preferable in almost all cases; "serve" is appropriate for military personnel and the like (and also for waiters and tennis players!), but is empty WP:PEACOCKery in other cases. Better to stick to plain English (but hoping this is not something we're going to embody or enforce in yet another MOS rule). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 08:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Pinging participants in related discussion, minus ones already present and accounted for: @Necrothesp, Doniago, AlsoWukai, EEng, Popcornfud, SMcCandlish, WhatamIdoing, and Roger 8 Roger: -The Gnome (talk) 11:58, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neither - both are acceptable. Also, it isn’t a dualistic choice… consider that there are other verbs besides “served” and “was” that might be appropriate. Don’t be formulaic when writing. Blueboar (talk) 12:18, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neither as this is instruction creep. But if we must have one, I would choose A over B. DonIago (talk) 12:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Either. Both are perfectly good English. Neither should be encouraged nor deprecated. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:00, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • A since any variant of "serve" denotes a positive attribute, which goes against WP:NPOV. It's not a neutral verb no matter how many clothes we try to dress it with. The opening paragraph of WP:WTW is explicit: "Certain expressions should be used with caution because they may introduce bias. Strive to eliminate expressions that are flattering, vague, or endorsing of a particular viewpoint." -The Gnome (talk) 14:14, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neither because we don't need any more WP:CREEPY rules. He served as president, he was the president, he held the position of president, he worked as president, he became president, he was elected/appointed as president, he took office as president... Any of these will do under most situations. The idea of Public service being a form of service (as in servants, as in the opposite of powerful people seeking their own aggrandizement) is not a form of peacocking, nor is it a euphemism. It may be aspirational (the rest of us hope that the politician will serve the country instead of his own interests), but there's nothing inherently or egregiously non-neutral about it, especially when applied to people who didn't exploit their roles to harm others. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:47, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Agreed. AlsoWukai (talk) 19:53, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • No rule needed. Here, there is more than one way to say something, and variety can still make for good, and interesting writing (also, 'serve' is not hard to understand in the example given, rather the NPOV or related arguments are much too strained, when not baffling). As an aside, we should probably not usually write, 'someone is job', rather than, 'someone is broad occupation', followed by where they have served in that occupation. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:07, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • No rule, please. Either one could be at least annoying to too many editors and possibly disruptive if applied to existing text. There are figures in history of whom I wouldn't use "serve" – Caligula served as emperor from AD 37? – but we wouldn't need a MOS rule for that. NebY (talk) 18:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neither, as both are appropriate for many articles and editors can use their heads—even if this freedom results in the occasional awkward lead sentence. As my troublesome nitpick, I actually do think serve has a vaguely positive connotation compared to the bare copula—but I don't think it matters enough, as every word has a web of connotations and none is truly neutral in every situation. Doesn't register as a WP:W2W in any case.
      Remsense诉 18:21, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neither --- WP:LOCATIONLOCATIONLOCATION, which The Gnome linked in his OP, is my essay, and I'm flattered. However, we don't need a rule on this. My objection to served as is that it's usually surplusage; but it has its uses now and then, and I don't see any kind of flattery or peacock-iness in it. But I will say that, applied to Hilter, it does take some of the edge off to say he "served". That's for sure the wrong word to use for him. EEng 19:38, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      This needs to be said: The term "to serve" is being pronounced neutral in this discussion by sundry contributors. Is it really? Because if an ostensibly neutral term cannot be used at the extremes, it cannot be used anywhere. The Hitler example trumps all arguments to the contrary. It cannot be made more clear. -The Gnome (talk) 19:59, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      That sounds a bit extreme. Remsense said it well: no word is truly neutral in every situation. So if that's the thing to aim for, we may as well shut down this website and all go home. Gawaon (talk) 20:03, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      ...but...but...this site is one of the few things keeping me from falling asleep at my desk during downtime at work...  :| DonIago (talk) 20:08, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Which is exactly why we should not make a rule… we need things to argue about during downtimes at work! Blueboar (talk) 20:22, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Wikipedia serves a valuable purpose, if perhaps not the purpose it was originally intended for... DonIago (talk) 20:33, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      I think us editors are particularly vulnerable to logocentric fallacies—i.e. we're liable to treat the lexical word as the predominant or even only issuer of meaning, while affording phrases, sentences, and other composites no credence to really influence what connotations individual words must themselves possess. Remsense诉 20:48, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Please, please, don't go Wittgensteinian on me. This is the last thing this discussion needs. -The Gnome (talk) 14:36, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      I have trouble saying these things in an intelligent way sometimes—in other words I need to try sounding more like pseudo-Kripkenstein than pseudo-Wittgenstein. Remsense 诉 19:10, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      But subjectivity is objective. EEng 21:26, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      And I've said that many times. Remsense诉 21:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      if an ostensibly neutral term cannot be used at the extremes, it cannot be used anywhere.[RFC needed] NebY (talk) 20:11, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neither I have no problem with Richard Nixon saying that he served as the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. That's not euphemistic and is normal English, even though most presidential historians rank him poorly. Cullen328 (talk) 20:19, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      That’s because some of us are imputing some sense of merit or sacrifice into the term “serve”, which isn’t really there. Serve can mean simply fulfilling a purpose, or function, and there is plenty of common usage where no merit is implicit, such as “serving as a bad example”. MapReader (talk) 04:28, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    So, me saying to someone Thank you for your service, for example to a veteran soldier, denotes nothing positive whatsoever; it is an abject expression of thanks for wearing a uniform, and nothing more. And, logically, I could express the same thankful sentiment to a traitor soldier. -The Gnome (talk) 14:41, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    A traitor would supposedly not be thanked. How is this relevant for this discussion, though? Gawaon (talk) 15:21, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Really you are making my point for me. Your quoted phrase does, but not because it includes the word “service”. It is positive because of the “thank you”. Had you said “I confirm your service” or “I note your service”, your comment wouldn’t have been received as positive despite the word ‘service’. Whereas, had you said “Thank you for your time in the army” or “Thank you for your work”, that would be received as a positive comment without any need to refer to serving. MapReader (talk) 17:12, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Either, see wikt:serve#Verb, particularly entries 1.2, 1.4, 8, 12. There are contexts where the word "serve" is non-neutral, such as smiling politely whilst putting meals in front of customers in restaurants despite a torrent of verbal abuse, but the original post gives "Ms Smith serves/has been serving/has served as member of the XYZ Board of Directors." as an example, and that is different from plate-juggling. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:06, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neither Both are acceptable Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:20, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • A or some other neutral alternative that suits the context. "Serves/served/serving" is a WP:NPOV failure, in being promotional and (positively) judgmental language. An argument could possibly be made to retain those terms for military and maybe even governmental functions, but even those uses have their long-term opponents. It's entirely inappropriate for corporate and other misc. organizational (school, team/squad, nonprofit/NGO, etc.) roles. PS: The fact that we have a bunch of articles doing this just means we have a bunch of articles to clean up. Cf. WP:FAITACCOMPLI and WP:NOWORK.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:18, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment Sorry to say, but this is yet another RfC out of the blue, with no discussion on how to frame it. There certainly should have been an option C -- a new rule saying either A or B is OK, and D -- meaning nothing new added to MOS at all. This RfC is already a complete mess out of which nothing useful can possibly come. EEng 20:20, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • A Is there a specific case where anyone feels that "served as" is better, not just as good? Is it the case that "served as" has WP:NPOV problems in some people's idiolects, but not others? If so, does that mean that it has WP:NPOV problems? McYeee (talk) 01:15, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      That's what consensus is for in the abstract, and the examples proffered to illustrate why served should be generally proscribed have not really attracted consensus. Remsense ‥ 诉 01:18, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      I might just be out of my depth here, and I might not have been clear, but I just don't really understand any argument in favor of the usage of "served". I think my preconceived definition of the word is just less neutral than yours. I'll bow out for now. McYeee (talk) 01:32, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Aye, it's worth making explicit—no one is really saying it's superior in any or as good in all situations, but the MOS is meant to be as frugal as possible. We try to allow editors flexibility in things like word choice as much as possible, and we don't want to tell them what not to do unless it's almost always wrong (roughly, if it's more work to fix than it's good for to allow). See WP:CREEP. Remsense ‥ 诉 01:38, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • Neither. I agree with the many comments above that there's no reason to ban either form; with Remsense about WP:CREEP; and with EEng that this is not a useful RfC. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:06, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • No rule needed. Both are acceptable depending on context, but this is not the sort of wording choice that the MOS should be forcing on editors. See also WP:CREEP. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:22, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • No rule needed. The claim that "served" is pov in general has no basis. Argue specific cases on the respective talk page, but don't impose a general rule where none is needed. Zerotalk 07:54, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    MOS:SEMICOLON

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    According to the semicolon article, the semicolon is one of the least understood punctuation marks, and is not frequently used. Therefore, I'm of the opinion that semicolons should be used sparingly, and only when an alternative sentence structure is clumsy. Should MOS:SEMICOLON be updated to give this advice?

    In addition, on any introduction pages to Wikipedia, such as Help:Introduction_to_Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Five_pillars, I think that the semicolons should be removed in order to make the pages more accessible to potential new editors. I've already updated those pages, one of which has been reverted so far.

    I thought I'd ask for opinions and guidance here before making any more changes.

    Random56653 (talk) 10:18, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    The two edits are diff1 and diff2. The semicolons look good to me. Johnuniq (talk) 10:32, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    We should not encourage such use of comma splices (thanks for the diffs, Johnuniq), whether by setting such a poor example or by amending MOS:SEMICOLON. As the current Fowler's says, the semicolon is extremely useful, though it is the punctuation mark "least in evidence to anyone riffling through the pages of a modern novel." NebY (talk) 10:58, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Admittedly I'm a priori certain that this is not a good idea. That said, I think the flaw in your specific argument here. Assuming it's true: just because many people do not generally demonstrate a working understanding of the semicolon when writing, does not mean they are confused by it when reading, or even that it is not helpful to them when reading.
    What's more: new editors do literally everything wrong—frankly, if for one reason or another a semicolon encounter scares someone off, then I'm certain that in its absence another hangup would take its place. Writing is never going to be easy, and many norms are as they are for very good reasons after centuries of iteration. Remsense ‥ 诉 11:14, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Please don't take my semicolon away. Zerotalk 12:35, 15 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    There may be a minor ENGVAR-ish dynamic going on here. I have the impression that British teachers, or perhaps even more particularly English-as-a-second-language teachers in Continental Europe, have this prejudice against semicolons, but it is not widespread in the States.
    To be sure, it's possible to overuse semicolons. When you first learn about them you want to put them everywhere. It gets to be a bit of a lazy habit, almost a rhythm of writing to put sentences in pairs and connect them with semicolons, irrespective of whether the two ideas being joined are really closely related.
    But the fact that they can be misused is not a reason to avoid using them when they are helpful, and I don't think they cause readers any trouble worth consideration at all. --Trovatore (talk) 23:02, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I have definitely encountered Americans who eschewed semicolons altogether. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:00, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sure you have. I don't see how that contradicts anything I said. --Trovatore (talk) 01:04, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    No, don’t do any further such edits. Punctuation use should be correct, for sure, but you don’t edit articles simply because of personal preference for or avoidance of certain forms of punctuation. MapReader (talk) 04:32, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    We and first-person pronouns

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    While first-person pronouns are considered poor writing for an encyclopedia, MOS:WE currently allows exceptions for the figurative we in history and science articles. A brief search in this page's archives didn't turn up any recent discussions on this, so I'd like to see whether it's still supported by the community. I believe this is outdated now that Wikipedia's voice has developed and it's not good practice for writing in an encyclopedic tone, even if it's often used in this fashion in primary and secondary sources. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 00:24, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    My gut feeling is that outside of quotes we (ha!) shouldn't be using first-person pronouns in article space. Certainly as a general rule, including in history and science (this is already the case in maths articles - Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Writing style in mathematics). Thryduulf (talk) 00:39, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I would only keep we in a quote if I were quoting a full statement; otherwise, a we statement can otherwise be summarized or quoted in part and changing we to they. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:45, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Using the portion of a quote with "we" in it is going to be essential to the meaning in some cases, clearly inappropriate in some others and somewhere between the two in the majority. Thryduulf (talk) 03:27, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that there's a difference between "encyclopedic" and "stiff", and insistence on stiffness does not suit the project. "We now know that Venus is a planet" is fine, and more comfortable than "It is now known that Venus is a planet." -- Nat Gertler (talk) 01:01, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't have a violent objection to We now know that Venus is a planet, but between that and Venus is now known to be a planet, I'd probably pick the latter. I don't think it's stiff, just slightly less chatty, and chatty is kind of bad for an encyclopedia. --Trovatore (talk) 01:37, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The construction We used to believe X, but now we know Y is vague and informal. Our goal is to summarize what reliable sources say, not dissertate in asides to the reader. To use your Venus example, an article should instead say: The scientist Carl Sagan discovered that Venus is a planet in 2040. voorts (talk/contributions) 01:43, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I find the we constructions to be stiff-sounding. Maybe I'm associating it with the "Royal We". Also, not to get hung up on an example, but presumably the first sentence of the article would be "Venus is a planet..." so there wouldn't be a need to craft the big surprise part way through. Primergrey (talk) 01:47, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm certainly not expecting this to be in the lede of the entry on Venus; more along the lines of "While we now know that Venus is a planet, in Shakespeare's day it was commonly assumed to be a star, and thus his references to..." -- Nat Gertler (talk) 04:15, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The opening clause is extraneous and this can be rephrased more formally: Shakespeare, like his contemporaries, believed Venus was a star, and thus he referred to ...
    I'm not seeing a circumstance where "wee see X" couldn't be rephrased to something more encyclopedic. voorts (talk/contributions) 12:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    To my reading, "we" is common and suitably formal in mathematics articles. I see it in a lot of FA-class articles, but I don't have a sense of new vs. old work. I'm a non-expert, but I would suggest consulting the WikiProject before moving ahead with a broad change. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:58, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    As @Thryduulf noted, MOS:MATH already prohibits use of we. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not how I'd interpret the guidance, which reads "While opinions vary on the most edifying style, authors should generally strike a balance between bare lists of facts and formulae, and relying too much on addressing the reader directly and referring to "we". Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:46, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    You beat me to it. I don't think anything more prescriptive than a recommendation should be adopted in general either. It just isn't possible to cover all the circumstances which may arise. Zerotalk 03:49, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Fair, but it does strongly discourage it. voorts (talk/contributions) 14:47, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Strongly discouraged but not prohibited is I think what we should be aiming for across the board. Thryduulf (talk) 15:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Was your use of first-person plural intentional, or merely an example of how this grammatical form is so natural that one doesn't even notice when one is using it?
    I don't see a strong reason for discouraging it, but as doing so has been adopted for years as a house style within Wikipedia (including in mathematics articles as discussed above) I also don't see a strong reason for lifting that discouragement. I don't think it should be forbidden. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:46, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    (This isn't mainspace, so even if we know we're using it to designate WP it's authorized. And yes, I know, I intentionally used it to show.) — Alien333 ( what I did
    why I did it wrong     ) 00:38, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not particularly fond of the Venus construction given earlier, but completely prohibiting such things would be counterproductive IMO. At the end of the day it's rare in enwp and doesn't hurt anyone, and as Firefangledfeathers points out mathematicians are accustomed to such verbiage. ― novov (t c) 10:40, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    "We now know" begs questions – who are "we" – and isn't in our usual Wikivoice. I'd rather we described it as acceptable but best avoided in scientific writing, rather than simply acceptable. But yes, we have worse: Afterwards, we pass a car retail company and a petrol station on our left, with some allotments and Market Harborough cemetery on our right. ... We also now have to say goodbye to Kelmarsh, and hello to Maidwell... (A508 road). NebY (talk) 11:38, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    @NebY that's the preferred style for the SABRE wiki so you'll find a few examples of it in our articles about British roads, unfortunately. Thryduulf (talk) 11:45, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh dear. NebY (talk) 11:56, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Although there are not many cases where it's useful, I don't know if it's really worth explicitly forbidding it, as it's already quite rare and most unjustified uses of it already fall under another interdiction (e.g. We know Venus is a planet is as much a WEASEL as Some have said that Venus is a planet.) — Alien333 (what I did & why I did it wrong) 14:19, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    strongly discouraged may be enough. But to achieve a FA rating first person should be removed, otherwise it is a style fail. Certainly for science articles, where I mostly work on, "we" or "our" or "us" is inappropriate. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:15, 18 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    As far as I can tell, there's broad interest in such a change. Is it time to create the RfC proposing the removal of But some of these words are acceptable in certain figurative uses. and the corresponding examples from the MoS? Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:59, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    As David Eppstein said above, the status quo (it's discouraged but not altogether forbidden) seems fine enough. I too see no good reason to forbid it altogether, so I don't think an RfC is called for. Gawaon (talk) 04:54, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the proposal is to make it discouraged across the board, rather than accepted (but not encouraged) in a couple of areas and discouraged everywhere else. I would support such a change. Thryduulf (talk) 11:07, 26 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Question on article title

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    Is the title for the article I Voted sticker correct, or should it be I Voted (sticker) (and I Voted in italics). Would love to know the MOS answer to this, if there is one? thanks. Aszx5000 (talk) 09:42, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I'll leave it to the experts to give the definitive answer but it is important to know whether the article is about "I voted" (in which case "(sticker)" would be a disambiguator that may be redundant unless there are other "I voted" articles) -or- about the sticker (in which case, the "I voted" is an adjectival phrase and the word "sticker" should not be in parentheses). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:53, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Per JMF, the object is not called an "I voted", so it shouldn't be disambiguated as such. Remsense ‥ 诉 12:05, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The article is about the sticker, but the title should match the (correct) usage found in the first sentence: It's an "I Voted" sticker. "I Voted Sticker" should then redirect to that. Largoplazo (talk) 16:18, 16 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Biographical entries

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    I have long wondered why any entry of a biographical nature manages to list the dates of service or position in government in a particular order. Personally, especially for deceased persons, I would prefer to have the dates of life itself at the top of the order, instead of any honorific or notable achievement which may or may not reflect the most notable of many possibilities. I think this is also supportive of first valuing others as human beings and necessarily descriptive of any subset of time in which a position is held. Maybe this is not the place to raise the question, and I have no idea if this is already discussed in some other style guide that mandates the current practice. But I am amenable to follow the topic wherever it is listed. Wikipedia has become a very valued resource for me who grew up spending hours upon hours as a child reading printed Encyclopedias done by World Book or Encyclopedia Britannica. 65.129.144.172 (talk) 04:48, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    I think you are talking about listings in the infobox? So for example, at Winston Churchill, his infobox lists his political details (as prime minister), then his personal details, then his military service.
    If that’s what you mean, the more appropriate forum is probably Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Infoboxes, to discuss infobox layout in general, but it may also be that for the specific type of bios you’re talking about, most decisions have been made at Template:Infobox officeholder, where you could ask about that specific infobox on the talk page (Template talk:Infobox officeholder). I would imagine that editors of that infobox believe the political info will be more pressing for readers than the personal info, but you would have to dig through the archives to see whether that decision has even been discussed explicitly.
    I will say that I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I have found that the layout of politicians’ infoboxes are often more complex than they need to be, and less helpful than they could be—mostly as a consequence of trying to include too much, relative to other biographies. — HTGS (talk) 05:54, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    "Looking towards the text"

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    OK, I boldly changed the unsupported assertion that "it is often preferable to place images of people so that they 'look' towards the text", to an acknowledgement that some people do prefer this, but the more important part of the bullet point is that you shouldn't reverse images to achieve this.

    Mandruss reverted me, so let's talk about it.

    Why is it "often preferable"? Frankly I think this is just a superstition, or an aesthetic preference that some people do have but which has no actual value for the encyclopedia, beyond not triggering a reaction in the people that have that preference.

    Of course a lot of things come down to aesthetic preferences, so if enough people really do have it, then that is an answer in itself. The eye, one might say, wants what it wants. But do enough eyes really want this to justify this (in my opinion irrational) guidance? --Trovatore (talk) 05:56, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    It's because the gaze of the reader will track the gaze in the portrait. So, readers are directed into the text by the faces looking inward. DrKay (talk) 07:06, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I mean, I understand the theory. I just think it's nonsense. I can recognize a face whichever way it's pointing, and read the text just fine. --Trovatore (talk) 07:10, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    A majority of the community either supports the concept or it doesn't. As I understand it, guidelines are for keeping us all on the same page, all moving in a common direction. Not for accommodating the personal preferences of all editors or even all significant subsets of editors—on relatively inconsequential issues. I think we do too much of that. When a guideline has been watered down to the point of complete impotence, it's time to retire it per CREEP.
    This was the very meta reason for my revert. While I don't have a strong opinion on this specific issue, it does seem to "feel" better to me when the image subject faces the text. I can't really explain why; it could be because I've lived with this guideline for ten years and it has become imbedded in my DNA; I don't know. If you think the guideline is nonsense, it seems to me the proper action is to seek community consensus to remove it. Or boldly remove it, for that matter, but I doubt that would be accepted. ―Mandruss ☎ 07:34, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, the default position of the MoS on any given issue should be no position. I like the way EEng put it, something like "if the MoS does not need a rule, then the MoS needs to not have a rule" -- I forget the exact wording. Articles do not all have to be the same.
    So why do we need a rule on this?
    I do agree that, whatever the outcome, we should keep the guidance about not reversing pictures, as that is actively misleading. But we could do that by itself, something straightforward like "do not reverse pictures of persons just to make them 'look' towards the text". --Trovatore (talk) 07:41, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Articles do not all have to be the same. I would agree with that, but the raison d'être of any style manual is consistency, and any deviation needs to have a better reason than somebody's personal preference. The encyclopedia is more important than any individual's sensitivities—we're not here to please editors—but for some reason we seem to disregard that because people aren't being paid, as if there would be a mass exodus if editors were asked to be team players (there would not). I just smh. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:05, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    To be frank I don't value "consistency" as highly as some do in this context. Would it really detract from Wikipedia to have some photos facing one way and some facing another? I don't think so.
    What the MoS does do well is head off unproductive disputes. Would we have them without this guidance? --Trovatore (talk) 16:27, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Since 2007[1], portraits looking to the centre has been part of Wikipedia's house style. Even if it's merely an arbitrary aesthetic choice, it's served in that and in quelling potential disputes. There's no point in weakening it with a "some prefer (but do as you please)" explanation. In 2008 we briefly had because the reader's eye will tend to follow their direction[2] but after some to-and-fro that was dropped in favour of the simple It is often preferable to place images of faces so that the face or eyes look toward the text.[3] Justifications in the MOS are often more trouble than they're worth, so if "it is often preferable" is being read as one, it might be better to phrase it as more of an injunction (to normally/generally place etc) than an observation. Has that been an issue since 2008? NebY (talk) 11:43, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    "[I]t's served in that and in quelling potential disputes". What's "that"? Being an arbitrary aesthetic choice? Are arbitrary aesthetic choices good? Really?
    As for potential disputes — would people really be fighting about this? --Trovatore (talk) 16:27, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure - aesthetic choices are all around, from the choice of newspaper fonts to brick colours to logo design, and consistency in their application matters.
    EEng's common and sensible response when someone seeks a MOS change is to ask where the status quo is resulting in a problem in our articles or their editing. What problems is this longstanding MOS guidance causing? NebY (talk) 16:40, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    EEng's formulation is not about the status quo; it's about whether we need a rule. If there's no active justification for a rule, that rule should be removed.
    My feeling is that you should ordinarily not reverse photos, and you should put them wherever they look best, not artificially put them in a different place just because of this arbitrary shibboleth. --Trovatore (talk) 16:54, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If you're concerned that people may be reversing photos to make them fit this style guide direction, the MOS does say Do not achieve this by reversing the image. Belbury (talk) 17:44, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    The whole point of manuals of style is to make a decision once about a design style matter, so even if the decision is arbitrary, editors don't have to spend any time on it again. This lets them focus on content. Now it's certainly possible that this specific design choice ought to be revisited in our current world with a large range of viewing widths. Readers might be better served by placing all images on the right, for example, when there is sufficient available viewing space, and centred when there is not, in order to better support flexible layout design that is responsive to the viewing width. isaacl (talk) 17:26, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    In fact, I'd go one step farther than @Isaacl and say that the entire purpose of a style manual is to codify especially the arbitrary stylistic choices that go into collaboratively producing something.
    There are plenty of design, editorial, artistic, literary, etc. questions which come down to there being N pretty-much-equally valid options, and you can either pick one/some for the sake of consistency, or decide not to decide and just let anarchy reign. When you pick a lane, that decision goes into the style manual. The other times don't, because it's not helpful to dictate a non-choice as a point of style — which I think is the real crux of @EEng's point about the necessity of non-rules.
    The Manual of Style is meant to dictate the choices made for editors, not to legislate the areas where they have the freedom to choose for themselves. There's room for that sort of discussion, and for its documentation, but it shouldn't be cluttering up the MoS. FeRDNYC (talk) 13:34, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    If the entire purpose of our style manual were to codify arbitrary stylistic choices, we would have a much simpler guide for citations, and probably a more complete guide for colours and other arbitrary details. — HTGS (talk) 20:01, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • TLDR but this has been discussed many times, and the policy upheld. This is a basic principle of picture placement, which we should follow (and generally have done, for 20+ years). Johnbod (talk) 14:41, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      For what it’s worth, I don’t have strong opinions on whether portraits should face text, but if we do collectively believe that, then we should probably use the word “should”. That would probably resolve Trovatore’s (and my) issue with “it is preferable”. — HTGS (talk) 20:02, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      We need an MOS for policies and guidelines. Something along the lines of use must or should, as appropriate, but otherwise don't worry about constantly softening guidance, as WP:IAR exceptions are always presumed to be possible. —Bagumba (talk) 03:50, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • For those in search of enlightenment, my Pulitzer-winning essay is Wikipedia:If MOS doesn't need a rule on something, then it needs to not have a rule on that thing. EEng 21:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      I agree that this guideline, MOS:IM and MOS:PORTRAIT, has been in place for every long time and is widely followed (and, IMO, it's substantially sound). Discussions about language, 'often preferable" vs. 'should', approaches "how many angels" territory – a waste of time. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 02:40, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      The distinction is whether the MOS actually recommends the first part, or whether it’s saying the first part is just a thing people do, because the MOS has a stance on the second part. If we only care to guide editors on the second, then we may as well remove the first. If we actually care that editors do the first, then we should say so. I don’t care if it’s “Images of people should "look" toward the text” or “Under normal conditions, where other concerns are not raised, images of people should be placed so that they "look" toward the text”, but the current wording sounds like: “Some people like peanut butter; those people who like peanut butter must use the knife that’s designated for peanut butter.” — HTGS (talk) 05:31, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      How about "It is often preferable to place images of people so they "look" toward the text." Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:51, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Sounds good to me. And very nice that it's already the current wording! Gawaon (talk) 12:54, 28 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      I just disagree that this is preferable. I think it's nonsense. But I have to concede that I haven't seen a lot of people jumping in to agree with me, so not worth pursuing at this time. --Trovatore (talk) 20:33, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Talk:Cobra_Crack#MOS:ITAL

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    Is Cobra Crack reasonable italics? If you have an opinion, please join. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:16, 24 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion has moved on to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Climbing#Suggesting_a_change_of_WP:WikiProject_Climbing/Article_recommendations. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:14, 31 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Flagicon in the article

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    Are the flagicon and honour decoration in the Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani#Honours should be removed or not? Stvbastian (talk) 15:11, 30 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Planning to initiate another RFC in a few weeks to challenge a 2018 RFC initiated without adequate notice

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    I just noticed this edit by User:Nikkimaria on 8 October 2023, which linked to a 2018 RFC I had never heard of.

    Then I traced the talk page archive for this article and saw why: because User:SMcCandlish initiated a RFC on the village pump on 6 July 2018 and then linked to it on this talk page from a subheader under an earlier heading initiated by User:Netoholic. As User:Netoholic correctly pointed out at the time, this was highly improper. User:Netoholic had merely proposed planning for a RfC, not initiating one immediately.

    Even worse, the subheading was worded in a cryptic fashion, "RfC opened at WP:VPPOL". Because this talk page gets so much traffic, it would have been very difficult for WP editors who do not read through every post to this talk page on a daily basis to immediately recognize the importance of what that subheading meant.

    It would have been much more fair to all interested editors to give notice of the 2018 RfC under a new heading that clearly and expressly advised that User:SMcCandlish was trying to alter the community consensus on such a hot-button issue, such as "Request for Comment opened on U.S./US debate at village pump". But from the circumstances under which it was initiated, I suspect that developing a true community consensus was not the purpose of the 2018 RfC.

    I have reviewed the archived discussion from July 2018. I fully concur with User:Pyxis Solitary's accurate analysis of the situation in response to User:SMcCandlish: "You are trying to push your position down everyone's throat".

    As I have argued elsewhere, the Chicago Manual of Style's adoption of the irritating British English tendency to drop periods in abbreviations makes zero sense as a matter of style or policy (which is why other American style guides continue to resist it). I have long suspected that the sloppy tendency of British writers to drop periods arose from the UK's egregious mismanagement of primary and secondary education, perhaps because it wasted too much money on idiotic things like nationalizing healthcare and railways. So there weren't enough resources to go around to adequately train and hire enough teachers to teach British children how to punctuate properly.

    California is full of British expats fleeing their nation's decaying educational system in search of greener pastures. American parents are happy to pay a premium to put their kids through college prep schools where they can read Chaucer with a Cambridge alum (as I did as an adolescent).

    The RfC discussion is full of dubious statements such as, "half the people I argue with have the style guide". No, they don't. Most people own, learn, and use the style guides appropriate to their occupational fields.

    There are over 1.33 million lawyers in the United States. They are drilled in law school on the Bluebook or the ALWD Guide to Legal Citation, which both adhere to the traditional American preference for U.S. over US. As far as I am aware, only three states omit periods in abbreviations in their state court citation styles: Michigan, New York, and Oregon. The rest of the states, the territories, and the federal courts consider those three states to have gone insane on that issue.

    The vast majority of American lawyers continue to use U.S. in their personal and professional writing and expect others who work for or with them to do the same. In turn, U.S. continues to be used extensively in American English, because of how lawyers tend to dominate the management ranks of government agencies and also some corporations.

    None of these points were raised in the 2018 RfC. I would have definitely raised them immediately, if I had known of the RfC at the time.

    In the next two months, I plan to visit a public library to consult a variety of style guides to assess the current style situation in other fields, then initiate an RFC to switch MOS:US back to the pre-2017 version. --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:14, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    • To compare major English-language legal style guides: Bluebook uses full stops for every abbrev. term and acronym, including looong ones, as a matter of style. By contrast, the UK's OSCOLA uses no stops for any abbrev or acronyms (and uses commas instead of stops to separate elements of citations). Open-access legal style guides in the US (which see more acceptance now) will either copy an old version of BlueBook (The Indigo Book) or emulate their university publisher style (Maroonbook). For the rest of the Anglosphere (except Canada iirc), it either looks very much like OSCOLA (e.g. AGLC) or a hybrid with some mix of stops.
    Fwiw, I learned "U.S." in my school newspaper's MOS because we voted every 2 years on a what newspaper's MOS to use. (A now-ancient version of AP, which has the similar inconsistencies of "U.S. and UK"; the sole reason is "US" looks like the uppercase word "us".) Bluebook and OSCOLA by contrast aim largely for consistency with stops: yes vs no. But note that nobody outside of the respective legal communities uses either style, even though they have extensive style guides for general citations and prose. By contrast, AP, NYT, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, APA, etc all see wide general adoption in the US -- whether by inertia or no, general audience publishers continue to use it or adopt house variants based closely around it. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:41, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    My tldr is that for the millions of lawyers in the U.S. who put stops on everything, there's an equal (or greater?) millions of lawyers in the Commonwealth who put stops on nothing. I sympathize with feeling blindsided by the RfC, but if having ignored the BlueBook is your primary argument, then I can't see how it's not neutralized. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:46, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    • I was tempted to quit reading this rambling wall of text at the point where you tied punctuation to health-care policy and railways; but I soldiered on! Then when you said that some US (or U.S.) states judge other states' sanity based on period non-usage, I again was tempted to quit. But I read on to the end. Final analysis: I should have never started, since there's little more here than your personal musings. EEng 18:15, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Thanks for saving me the time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:05, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      This promised RfC should really be something. EEng 20:39, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Yeah, and while we're about it, let's switch to writing R.F.C. and V.P.:P.O.L. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:24, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      Why we should focus so much on lawyers? "Law" appears not at all nor "legal" more than three or four times in the RFC, so I know it isn't a reprise of a major subject from that debate. English legal writings today remain full of fossilized languages that goes back pratically to the French. UK barristers even still wear wigs in court. Not the best role models for us in matters of style, in my opinion. Largoplazo (talk) 23:02, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Have you been hiding under a rock? For over five years I have seen article after article making sure we use US over USA or U.S. and this is just now being contested? Sports articles have been complying on a slow but steady basis. Not sure why we would want to change back even though the original RfC was shady. Fyunck(click) (talk) 22:37, 3 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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