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This is a request for comments related to ticker symbols in article leads. MZMcBride (talk) 15:10, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Background

Articles about public companies frequently include ticker symbols in the article lead. For example (from the Microsoft article):

Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington that develops, manufactures, licenses and supports a wide range of products and services related to computing.

There is strong disagreement about whether to continue or to deprecate the practice of including ticker symbols in the article lead. The goal of this RFC is to reach consensus on the use of ticker symbols in article leads.

The standard procedure for an RFC is to leave the discussion open for thirty days (so until December 9) and then an uninvolved administrator (or user) can close the discussion based on the comments on this page.

There have been previous discussions at:

View by MZMcBride

The ticker symbol can safely be removed from article leads when it is already present in the external links section or in the infobox of the page for the following reasons:

Ticker symbols in article leads are historical artifacts.
These ticker symbols date from an era when articles about companies did not have infoboxes. Nowadays, these ticker symbols are historical artifacts (relics, perhaps) that can safely be removed from article leads in most cases. Examples: Ericsson, Apple Inc., Adobe Systems, Research In Motion, Hasbro.
The practice is unencyclopedic.
For a news site, and in particular a financial news site, it makes sense to include the ticker symbol along with the first mention of the company in an article. The Wall Street Journal and other publications do this. For an encyclopedia, the practice is uncommon and strange.
It feels strange to include an external link in the article lead.
Templates such as {{NASDAQ}} include a link to nasdaq.com in the article lead, which feels very strange. We do not even include a link to the company's own site in the article lead. There isn't a reason to include a link to a stock exchange's Web site.
This is not a new recommendation.
As far back as May 2009, it has been recommended to remove ticker symbols from article leads when an infobox parameter (such as traded_as) is available.
It gives undue weight to the ticker symbol.
When included in article leads, these ticker symbols are often the second or third word in the article, giving a relatively unimportant piece of information undue weight.
They clutter the lead sentence.
Large companies, particular multinational or international companies, are often listed on multiple stock exchanges. The infobox is a convenient and clean place to put these ticker symbols. The article's lead sentence often looks cluttered and silly when it includes three or four ticker symbols.
The Wikipedia Manual of Style does not support it.
According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section, the lead should summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight and unless the ticker symbol itself plays a sufficient role in the body of the article, the ticker symbol can safely be removed from article leads in most cases.

Users who endorse this view

MZMcBride (talk) 15:10, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
MASEM (t) 15:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC) Particularly on point 6 - to a reader who has no idea about stock markets or the like, the market and ticker symbol right there is gobblity gook and unhelpful, while a reader actually looking for this can easily location the details in the infobox. --MASEM (t) 15:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Atlasowa (talk) 15:36, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Op47 (talk) 15:46, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As long as it's in the infobox. Gigs (talk) 16:17, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to match what's already implied by the MOS. PaleAqua (talk) 16:28, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Mainly due to #2 and #3. Legoktm (talk) 16:30, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The material is appropriate for inclusion in the article (ideally, in an infobox or a section on finance), but that doesn't mean it gets to live in the lead. Arguments 2 3 and 6 are compelling. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Mainly due to #1 and #6. #6 is actually all that I think is necessary for removal anyways, doubled with the fact that there are infoboxes for this purpose there's no need to clutter the rest of the prose. The rest of the rationales I actually would disagree with if it weren't for 1 and 6. --Jayron32 17:36, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You know, for me, it was actually point three (an external link in the lead sentence feeling very strange) that first stuck out at me and caused me to raise this issue. I'm surprised that the inclusion of a link to nasdaq.com in such a prominent place has lasted so long here, honestly. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:37, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I find 3, 5 and 6 more convincing than the others but this is still close to my own view on the matter. I would add that while NASDAQ is a fairly well-known acronym, most of these ticker acronyms are quite obscure. I really don't like the idea of readers having to start guessing the meaning of the article in the first half of the first sentence. At least the infobox provides the "traded as" context. Pichpich (talk) 18:35, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I add that it's commonly a ticker external link, not just the letters of the symbol, in which case WP:External links applies, and external links should never be in a WP:NAVBOX and only rarely in the article text. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:48, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Even {{official}} links don't get embedded in the first sentence of the lede (thank goodness). —Quiddity (talk) 03:37, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've always thought it was a strange thing to see, but never questioned it. I think the second and sixth arguments are the strongest, but however you cut it I think there are very few positives for keeping it and several cogent ones for removing the redundancy. Matt Deres (talk) 04:08, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. This practice doesn't fit with an encyclopedic tone. —chaos5023 (talk) 04:47, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I think having the external link so close to the start of the article is very unusual. I also don't really think that the ticker symbol is really the #1 most important thing about every company, which is kind of what we imply if we always have it as the start of every article about companies. AgnosticAphid talk 07:40, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. The infobox is the place for stuff like this that otherwise breaks the flow of the text in the first sentence of the article. --Biker Biker (talk) 08:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I initially was uncomfortable with the removals, but on reflection I find myself supporting this approach. This is the sort of material that is eminently suitable for an infobox, and allows for much less clutter and more nuance in cases of multiply-traded companies. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
mabdul 20:21, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Mainly agree with 1 and 6, the infobox is the best place for this sort of information. Sarahj2107 (talk) 14:31, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Especially per #1, #3, and #5. I also agree with Masem's comment below that the case citations for legal decisions could probably be moved out of the lead. Sounds like another RfC waiting to happen! —Emufarmers^(T/C) 07:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, don't go straight to an RfC: too messy. Do what was done here:

First, start removing the citations without any discussion. Hopefully, no one will notice.

Create a page in the Wikipedia namespace, again without discussion, calling the citations a "historical artifact." Don't label it an essay, so people are more likely to make the mistake of thinking it is policy or guideline. Create shortcuts to that new page, and use those shortcuts in each edit summary that removes a citation.

If someone does notice and complains, call their complaining idiotic.

If discussion ensues, point to the pages that have already had their citations removed (see step 1) as evidence that the citation practice is "far from universal". UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You missed step 1. Ask at the help desk where they should go. Ignore the clear answer from an admin that the template says they should be in the lead sentence,[1] make up your own answer and pretend it is a guideline. Go to the articles that are used as examples of using the ticker symbol in the lead sentence (Google and Apple), and delete them, using the newly created essay with the edit summary "per" implying policy or guideline. Ignore the edit war this creates and state that they can safely be removed, in the RfC, which was created after getting no replies to "what next", which the obvious answer to "what next" is to "drop it". Apteva (talk) 22:12, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
For me, it's mostly #3, #5, and #7. CtP (t • c) 15:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Your first point misconstrues the nature of infoboxes. They are neither independent mini-articles nor always-attached sections of articles. They are summary templates (that re-users of WP content often remove). As summaries they by definition only include information that is already present in the article prose otherwise (or they're being misused and articles written incorrectly). While the lead section is not necessarily the best place for a ticker symbol "only ever in the infobox" is not, either. Your second point is just a random "I don't like it" opinion, not backed by a rational argument, and so cannot be objectively weighed (same goes for the counter-response to it, below). Your third point, about the external link to the commercial website of the stock exchange, is the real crux of the issue, and your proposal should probably have focused on that instead of on spinning out misc. subjective preference opinions about placement, mired in policy misinterpretations. Point #4 (the idea that avoiding ticker symbols has "been recommended" since 2009) has been disputed, below. I don't think anyone buys #5, the undue weight argument; I think you are badly misconstruing the meaning of WP:UNDUE. Point 6, on clutter, is only a case-by-case argument for improving the lead of specific, cluttered articles, not for banning tickers in leads. Your final point is a solid one, but conflicts with your misunderstanding of infoboxes; the ticker probably does not need to be in the lead, but it does need to be in the real, non-infobox prose of the article somewhere. All that said, UnitedStatesian's counter-position isn't any better, and I'm thus siding with Dicklyon's more moderate view. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 23:24, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You don't think infoboxes are mini-articles? They're usually a mini summary of the topic (which is how I'd define a mini-article...). And given the general encyclopedia nature of Wikipedia, the article prose is often also a summary of the topic (cf. "the sum of all human knowledge" ;-)

I didn't mean to suggest that WP:UNDUE was in play (and I consequently didn't link to it). "Undue weight" has a generic meaning outside of Wikipedia. These ticker symbols often come as the second or third world in the article. I think this is undue weight (lowercase U, lowercase W). Articles are hierarchical, after all.

If you're going to put quotes around "only ever in the infobox", it should be an actual quote from somewhere. I didn't mean to suggest that these ticker symbols be only in the infobox or external links section. I have no issue with mentioning them in article prose. I take issue with them appearing as the second or third word of the article as an external link. And all that said, I don't really think jamming a sentence into an article just so that the ticker symbol can be included in article prose (when it's already in the infobox) is a good idea either.

I'm glad you were able to agree with Dicklyon's view. It seems like a good path forward. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:22, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by UnitedStatesian

A single ticker symbol should be kept in the article lead in the thousands and thousands of articles on public companies where one is in the article lead (and have been for many years, and including multiple featured articles). A single ticker symbol should be added to the article lead in the articles on public companies where they have not yet been added, and re-added to the lead in the hundreds of articles where they were removed, whether or not that removal was part of a mass removal performed by one of the above editors prior to any proximal discussion of the issue. The reasons are as follows:

The "historical artifact" argument for exclusion from the lead is invalid.
Of course infoboxes came later, but infoboxes summarize and augment, and do not replace, content in the article. There is no other example of content that is removed from the main body of an article once it was added to an infobox.
The "feels strange" argument for exclusion from the lead is invalid.
That an individual common style "feels strange" to a small subset of Wikipedia users is no reason to reduce the usability of the encyclopedia to other users who have accepted the practice for a long time over many thousands of articles. And removal throws the baby out with the bathwater: if the problem is only the external link, why not use templates that have no external links, rather than removing the ticker from the lead entirely?
The "unencyclopedic" argument for exclusion from the lead is invalid.
Wikipedia is like no other encyclopedia, so it will have features that are not like any other encyclopedia; the ticker symbol in the lead sentence of public company articles is simply one of these features. That the paper version of the Encyclopedia Britannica does not have clickable external links is no reason to exclude them from Wikipedia.
The "undue weight" argument for exclusion from the lead is invalid.
Because it is so widely used, inside and outside Wikipedia, the ticker symbol is one of the most important pieces of information about a public company, in part because it is a verifiable unique identifier of every public company on Earth, and so including it in the lead does not give it undue weight. For public companies it plays the same role as the Latin name does for species of living things, and the inclusion of this Latin name in the article lead is similarly standard in Wikipedia articles about living things. Does including a person's birthdate in the lead give undue weight to the day they were born?
The "clutter the lead sentence" argument for exclusion from the lead is valid . . .
. . .but only when multiple tickers are listed, which is why the most common practice is to include only the ticker symbol from the primary, home trading exchange of the company. Some articles have yet to be cleaned up, but the standard practice is for a single, and thus uncluttered symbol link. Just as we include birthdates and deathdates in the lead for articles on people, but not marriage dates, college graduation dates, etc.: we live with some "clutter" in the lead for articles on people.
The "exclude, but only if there is an infobox" argument is logically inconsistent.
If ticker symbols in the lead sentence are unencyclopedic, give undue weight, and clutter, then they should not be in the lead sentence of ANY public company article. Allowing them in the lead when there is no infobox exposes the fallicy of arguments against including them in the lead.

Users who endorse this view

UnitedStatesian (talk) I have never felt more strongly about an issue on Wikipedia, and I am not a newbie. Would (VERY reluctantly) be willing to go along with other editors in a compromise if someone were to propose keeping the ticker symbol in the lead, but without the external link to the exchange's website (which seems to be the main issue identified by a significant number of the folks currently on the other side of this RfC). UnitedStatesian (talk) 03:49, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But why is it you feel so strongly about the tickers being in the lead rather than the infobox? Your only stated justification is that ticker symbols have been used in leads for a long time and are in lots of articles. I don't think that in and of themselves either of those is really a reason to include tickers in leads. AgnosticAphid talk 07:27, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think you missed my reason number 4 above: their presence in the lead makes Wikipedia a much, much better encyclopedia. And see the examples below. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:59, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it's super helpful to edit your comments later without indicating it. But anyway, I still don't understand why it is that you think having it in the lead is so much more awesomely helpful than having it in the infobox or later in the text. Some of the non-US exchanges have abbreviations that are very unlikely to be familiar to readers. But limiting the tickers to US-listed companies would be unfair and parochial. AgnosticAphid talk 18:17, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies, I did not see the rule where opinions had to come perfectly stated from brain to prose the first try in an RfC, and I don't know how to indicate it. Thank you very little for your unconstructive criticism. I don't think most of the Latin names for species are familiar to readers, but we have them in the lead. And the definition of the supposedly "alien" exchanges are a click away (via a Wikilink, NOT an External link). UnitedStatesian (talk) 22:00, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And can you point me to the policy or guideline that says Wikipedia should only contain information that is familiar to readers? I didn't think so. UnitedStatesian (talk) 21:59, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why does it need to be 'rather'? Though I have to emphatically agree there shouldn't be an EL in the lead to it, I disagree that it should ONLY be in the infobox and don't even necessarily be in the lead, just somewhere in the article (a middle position perhaps?). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The issue is not use elsewhere in the article, but specifically the use immediately after the company name in the article lead. Infobox and prose-body use isn't a question (however, some aspects of the discussion may suggest further limitations, such as if should be used in navbox templates related to the company). --MASEM (t) 15:10, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Well then you have agreed with the wrong view, since MZMcBride says nothing about moving the ticker in the prose body, only deleting it. Lets look at some actual lead sentences of actual articles:

Sympson the Joiner: "Sympson the Joiner (fl. 1660s) was a . . ." What the hell does "fl." mean, Florida?

Brown v. Board of Education: "Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a . . ." What are those numbers? and U.S.? That's in the infobox too, It Must Be Purged!

Microsoft: "Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) is an . . . "

Great white shark: "The great white shark, Carcharodon carcharias, also known as . . ." I don't think those italic words are even English, and italicizing of course gives them UNDUE WEIGHT. Remove!

Condoleezza Rice: "Condoleezza Rice (/[invalid input: 'icon']ˌkɒndəˈliːzə/; . . ." OK, there is this speaker thingy, and then a bunch of upside down and backwards letters. Huh?

The Microsoft lead sentence does not look so bad after all, does it. UnitedStatesian (talk) 15:59, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No, I didn't. He said about deleting it out of leads, and mentions whether its appropriate or not anywhere else in the article. As for the other examples, none of them necessitate an external link outside of WP. --MASEM (t) 16:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Neither does the public company example: we could keep the ticker, and remove the EL. But for some reason that is not the proposal. Baby, bathwater, all that. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:26, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you think that we should have ticker symbols without the EL, propose that as well. RfC's can have as many options as they want. Legoktm (talk) 16:33, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that, so I won't propose it. I am just wondering why the people who DO seem to think the EL is the only problem are proposing the complete removal. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:46, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Going back, except for the law case and the ticker symbols, the others are in standard use in academic articles about these subjects; latin names for animals are universally given after the common name; phonetic guides are given for non-standard works, and abbreviations like f. or c./circa are common for dates. In the case of the law case, I would agree that those should be moved to the infobox, particularly if the link is an internal one to point to a WP page that may lead to the actual decision. In that specific case, when such cases are written about in legal documents/reports, the case number is always repeated after the case name, but that's not a style used outside that field; in the same manner that ticker symbols aren't used like that outside financial articles. I do agree both belong in the infobox and, if necessary, mentioned later in prose, but not needed that far upfront. --MASEM (t) 18:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
bobrayner (talk) 12:41, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I would amend it to say ticker symbols are expected for all publicly traded companies, in the lead sentence, immediately after the company name or pronunciation, if given. Where stocks are traded on multiple exchanges, the ISIN, may be given, along with only a small number of exchanges (one or two, for example). See SAP AG, for example. A longer list of exchanges can be placed in the company infobox, in addition, and not as a replacement. The main point is to not go around and edit every company article to take out multiple exchanges, but definitely to go around and edit every company article that has had the ticker symbols removed from the lead sentence. Honestly, editors can be expected to use their best judgement as to how many exchanges to list in the lead sentence, and I would not want to see anyone enforcing any sort of standard limit. Apteva (talk) 06:35, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

Your point #1 is correct, but the proposal as it has been evolving is not to never, ever mention the ticker symbol except in the infobox, it is to remove it from the lead section. This does not preclude mentioning it in the prose elsewhere, which should actually be done, because re-use of WP articles by other sites and other media often entails stripping out infoboxes and other non-prose clutter. Your second point is unclear; to the extent you recognize that people are objecting to the ext. link to to a commercial entity as inappropriate, fine, but it's not an "invalid" point to raise; if you think a link-free ticker template is the answer, then provide one. (Also attacking the "it feels strange" language is a straw man that misconstrues the actual original argument). Your third point, on "unencyclopedic" is no more or less subjectively and personally opinional than what you're responding to, and neither can be objectively weighed (honestly, you seem here to be arguing simply for the thrill of debate). Your fourth point, on undue weight, strikes me as a good one. In #6, about clutter, you completely missed the point (it wasn't about the clutter of lots of ticker symbols from different exchanges, a point that no one has raised that I recall, but rather about poorly constructed lead paragraphs full of finance-geek details that are better in the infobox and in later prose where their context is clearer). Your final point also misses the boat, and conflicts directly with your first point. All that said, MZMcBride's original position isn't much better, and I'm thus siding with Dicklyon's more moderate view.— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 23:12, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is the most eloquent advocacy I can imagine for WP:Ticker symbols. It is pointed out, that often infoboxes are stripped out in re-using sites. While it is perfectly natural to open an article with the relatively geeky looking
Linux (/ˈlɪnəks/ LIN-əks or /ˈlɪnʊks/ LIN-uuks) (NYSE: LNX) is...

There is not any context that I can think of that it is "natural" to randomly throw in the pronunciation of a company or the ticker symbol in the 7th paragraph of text, when it properly belongs right next to the company name. Note: The example above is not a real company. Apteva (talk) 06:19, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Dicklyon

Lead sentences in many kinds of articles are cluttered with data and asides, making them unattractive and ineffective to the casual reader; this is worth working on. When there are accepted infoboxes to hold such data, that's usually more effective than putting it parenthetically in the prose. In the case of ticker symbols, moving them from lead prose to infobox will certainly be an improvement. However, to say that "ticker symbol can safely be removed from article leads when it is already present in the external links section..." is likely to cause a general loss of information and utility. If we're going to be removing useful info from the lead, we should be doing so only when we find a suitalbe alternative place for it: in an infobox, not in the highly volatile, noisy, and usually ignored external links section. So, while agreeing with many of the points of both of the views above, especially the first, I'd say the best practices to recommend are:

Encourage moving ticker symbols from lead prose to infobox.
Remove ticker symbols from lead prose when present in infobox.
Do not remove ticker symbols from lead prose until it is present in a prominent alternative location; a link in external link section is not a great alternative.

Users who endorse this view

User:Dicklyon – since I wrote it. Ticker symbols are but one type of distracting data that we tend to pack into lead sentences; e.g. consider airports as in "San Francisco International Airport (IATA: SFO, ICAO: KSFO, FAA LID: SFO) is a major international airport located 13 miles (21 km)...blah blah blah" where's the useful content? Isn't this the problem that infoboxes are the solution to? Dicklyon (talk) 17:02, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is a reasonable path forward. I personally only targeted ticker symbols in article leads where the exact same ticker symbol was available in the infobox (usually as part of the traded_as parameter of {{Infobox company}}). My goal is not to reduce the utility of our articles or remove any information from them. My goal is simply to fix what I view as a currently anachronistic practice. I'm agnostic toward including the ticker symbols in the "External links" section of the article. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:06, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Reasonable path to assure that the ticker symbol isn't completely stripped from articles, just the lead. --MASEM (t) 17:08, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Upon further review, I Like this proposal and think it makes more sense than putting the ticker in the external links section only (if there's no infobox). I missed that part of the other view. AgnosticAphid talk 17:13, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
PaleAqua: Seems like a reasonable approach to handle the transition and avoid losing data. PaleAqua (talk) 20:16, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yes. mabdul 20:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. The ticker name and link would be useful and appropriate in a subsection of most articles, such as Sony#Corporate information, as well as in infoboxes. —Quiddity (talk) 20:29, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Alongside the first view presented. This provides a reasonable framework for removing the ticker symbols, which should be done, and works well with the MZMcBride view above. --Jayron32 22:11, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This makes sense, as long as we remember that infoboxes are often removed by re-users of WP content, and that anything in the infobox also needs to be in the main prose. It just doesn't need to all be in the lead section. And, yes, moving this to the extlinks section just ensures it will be ignored, meanwhile several have already suggested that ext. linking to the stock exchange is a bad idea under WP:EL to begin with. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 23:01, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
As above; this looks like a good structured approach using the broad principles of the first version. Andrew Gray (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If we decide to remove ticker symbols from the first sentence, it certainly makes sense to phase this in gradually and on some form of common sense case by case manner. I think the criteria proposed by Dicklyon achieve that. Pichpich (talk) 15:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

View by Philosopher

Ticker symbols are appropriate for the lead, but some current usages are problematic.

Ticker symbols are a contemporary cultural artifact, and are appropriate for Wikipedia as their familiarity provides a common point of reference. As MZMcBride noted, they are often used in financial and news publications. Additionally, this makes their presence in Wikipedia an expected behavior.
Ticker symbols should not include an external link. There's no purpose for it.
Where cluttered, unclutter. This can be done on a case-by-case basis at the talk pages of articles where it is an issue: only the most relevant symbol(s) should be on an article.

Users who endorse this view

Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 17:54, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
This is a serious question. Would you feel the same way about, for example, the Nintendo article having "(TYO:7974)" after the name? I'm sure there are more obscure examples but this is all I could come up with. AgnosticAphid talk 18:04, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Like is currently done in Sony, Toho, JVC, many others. UnitedStatesian (talk) 18:36, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Ah, foreign (from my American POV) companies with a wide exposure in the States. I can see some potential for confusion there, sure, but the point still stands: We are used to seeing ticker symbols immediately following company names. Provided the "TYO" was appropriately wikilinked, yes, I think it would be appropriate. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 18:39, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The wikilink of TYO is a function of the template. Not having the external link as well, to the stock, is useless. Apteva (talk) 06:47, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why should ticker symbols be the exception of the general rule of having no ELs in the articles themselves? What purpose does it serve to put them there instead of an EL section where they'd be perfectly appropriate? How are they useless without it? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:32, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
If you compare (TYO:7974) with (TYO: 7974) you have a wikilink to what on earth tyo is, and a link to what 7974 is. Wikilinking from 7974 to the article that appears in would be useless, and the number 7974 without the context obtained by the link is not very helpful. WP:EL does not say no external links, it says some of the places they are appropriate and some of the ways they are not appropriate. It is not a complete list and says nothing about some of the common ways that EL's are used, such as stock symbols, although "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues, amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks), or other reasons" clearly applies (the other reason being, for one, that the information is constantly changing). Apteva (talk) 00:12, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
But we don't allow ELs in running prose, period, unless its part of a citation. The EL as an infobox link, under "External Links", or as a navbox link is fine but simply not within prose. --MASEM (t) 02:47, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
What we do not use is links like this one to Wikipedia, if I am understanding ELs in running prose. What we do with those is convert them to references. What we do with stock symbols is put them right after the company name, and they do include an external link. Nothing wrong with that. It is not technically in "running prose" because the only place it exists is right after the company name. Call it what you will, this and half a dozen examples are commonly used examples of EL's that fit into the allowable usage paragraph. Apteva (talk) 06:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And that's putting an EL in running prose which is not allowed. --MASEM (t) 08:42, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Rather than say that it is not allowed, because there is no software barrior to putting this is Wikipedia in running prose, I would say that it is not best practice to do that, and when seen it is converted to a reference. There is nothing "wrong" with someone adding a paragraph like this that does that, but when someone says this or that it is not clear what this or that refers to. I would much rather have someone add a poorly written paragraph that included useful information than not add it. And at some point they will learn how to format it better. In the case of stock symbols, the best way to format them is with a stock template, right after the company name, or pronunciation, if given, in the lead sentence. Apteva (talk) 17:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate that the ticker symbols have been around for a long period of time. I'm not sure why inertia must hold us back, however. You seem to suggest that simply because they have become common/expected, they must remain where they are. In the days before infoboxes (2004, 2005), I think it made sense to include the {{NASDAQ}} template inline, as there was no other good and/or consistent place to put it. It's now 2012. Given that there is such a convenient and consistent place to stick the information and given that it comes with the added bonus of reducing article lead clutter, I'm not sure why you object to moving the information out of the article lead and into the infobox.
I also kind of take issue with the suggestion that the practice of putting ticker symbols in article leads is common. It's perhaps more common among tech companies, but there are dozens (probably hundreds or thousands) of articles about publicly traded companies that do not include ticker symbols in the article lead. Examples: InsWeb, Integral Systems, Interline Brands, Intuit, IONA Technologies, Iridium Communications, et al. A quick browse through Category:Companies listed on NASDAQ shows that this practice isn't as common as one might expect. In fact, it's possible that the infobox more commonly contains the ticker symbol than the article lead. Someone would have to do a larger study to know this for sure, though. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:53, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are misunderstanding. My "expected" isn't in reference to Wikipedia it's in reference to company references in general. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 20:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
My experience is that there are very few editors who are interested in working on company articles. But I would be happy to add a few of the missing ones, such as those mentioned. My personal preference, though, is to let whoever is working on the articles to put in the ticker symbol. Apteva (talk) 06:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two of those companies are no longer publicly traded, so the former ticker symbol appears only in the infobox, and is not a link, using the {{NASDAQ was|SYMBOL}} template. Apteva (talk) 08:01, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, modulo Dicklyon's version. Ticker symbols are useful to have in the article, but there's no particular reason to have them in the lead section if they can be in the prose elsewhere in a less cluttering way as well as in the infobox. The idea expressed above that including them at all is "undue weight" is silly. Agreed that an extlink to a stock exchange has to go (per WP:SPAM, WP:EL, WP:NOT#DIRECTORY). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 23:30, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Views

This is the wrong format for an RfC. It is way too early to set out a bold statement and ask for a survey.

First off "The ticker symbol can safely be removed from article leads when it is already present in the external links section or in the infobox of the page" is blatantly false, and doing so in Apple simply triggered an edit war, with it being removed, replaced, removed, and replaced again. Should it be removed again I can guarantee that someone is going to replace it again. In all of the articles mentioned above it was replaced.

Second most of the "reasons" are also false. That it has been brought up in 2009 is irrelevant. It was rejected then, and should be rejected now.

What I would propose is limiting the number of stock listings in the lead sentence to two if they also prominently appear in the infobox. For example, RIMM is a Canadian company, so listing the Toronto stock exchange first makes sense. Or RIM, if you are a Canadian.

Basically I object to trying to tell other editors how to edit articles. They know best what to put in them and what weight to give, not someone who knows nothing of the subject. The stock symbol is simply the equivalent of the scientific name of a species, and obviously belongs in the lead sentence, right after the company name, or pronunciation, if given. Apteva (talk) 17:11, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No one will stop you from presenting an alternate view in this RFC. Create a new header and provide your own view. --Jayron32 17:38, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not needed. This whole idea is rubbish, and is being promoted by someone who clearly knows next to nothing about stocks and publicly traded companies. Apteva (talk) 19:33, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, more views would be welcome, and I'm holding off commenting until I can hear more than one side of what so far looks like a one-sided issue. Dicklyon (talk) 17:47, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We tell each other how to do things all the times, and in different strengths, be they policies, guidelines, or essays. If consensus is achieved here, I'm assuming it will be coming a guideline, and we will be as free to follow and ignore it as any other guideline.--Tznkai (talk) 18:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, you're not "free to...ignore" something without reason. WP:IAR makes it clear that ignoring rules (whatever name you give them) shouldn't be done capriciously. Guidelines should be followed always unless there exists a specific reason, which you can defend, for doing so. "I disagree with the guideline" is not one of those. --Jayron32 20:15, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, the proponents here of the "clean up the lead sentence garbage" proposals, are somewhat like WP MOS police who like to make outlandish proposals, put them into guidelines, and then run around enforcing them. The current MOS is close to what I can only call rubbish because of this attitude. Everyone who lives in a police state learns to disrespect both the law and the police. It is very sad to see WP becoming a police state. Apteva (talk) 07:02, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"In all of the articles mentioned above it was replaced." ← You failed to mention that in two of those cases (Research In Motion and Hasbro), you (and UnitedStatesian) were the ones to re-add the ticker symbols. I'm also not sure what you mean by "rejected then" regarding the 2009 advice on ticker symbols. Again, you (and UnitedStatesian) were the ones to edit Template:NASDAQ/doc and Template:New York Stock Exchange/doc to remove the advice you two happened to disagree with.

So we could possibly say that it's not that the format of this RFC, but your behavior, that is wrong. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And someone else failed to mention that in a majority of the five cases we were not the ones who replaced the ticker symbols, so in this small sample, there are five times as many editors who want the symbol as do not want them. Apteva (talk) 19:27, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Replaced the ticker symbols? No idea what you're talking about. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:32, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The past is past. We are here and now discussing a new consensus. As suggested, present your arguments for why ticker symbols should be used in the lead to get input on it. --MASEM (t) 19:34, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I know quite a bit about stocks and publicly traded companies, and I support removing redundant tickers in the lede. What is good for financial news sites is not necessarily good for an encyclopedia. Gigs (talk) 20:16, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since no one is actually doing it, I have added a second viewpoint. People who wish to keep ticker symbols in the lead section are free to endorse that one. I do not endorse it, but I have added it to give people complaining in this section a place to have their voice mean something. People are within their rights to hold differing opinions, but if they wish their opinions to have an affect on Wikipedia policy, they need to take the right action. The right action which will actually count for something is to add your name to the "users who endorse this view" section, next to the little "#" sign. --Jayron32 20:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An entirely different approach

At the moment, User:VIAFbot is churning away a few tens of thousands of links to authority control records in Wikipedia biographies - standardised codes, embedded in a footer template, that identify an individual and link out to external resources. I wonder if it would be worth considering this as a way of handling things like stock codes, but also links to OpenCorporates or to company registries, etc. Any thoughts? Andrew Gray (talk) 17:50, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What it is doing, as far as I can tell, is changing uses of the moved template Normdaten to Authority control. This is an extremely obscure way of identifying people, with a number or several numbers. This is orders of magnitude more obscure than a stock ticker symbol, or any of the other examples given (birth date, scientific name, etc.). Apteva (talk) 23:39, 11 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure you fully understand what VIAFbot is doing. Wikipedia:Authority control integration proposal is a good place to start. As I understand it, VIAFbot is converting dewiki data for enwiki use, as well as other data that has been collected. Legoktm (talk) 11:21, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the normdaten switch was a side-effect of the process - it should hopefully restart on new additions this week. Stock ticker codes are indeed human-readable (mostly) but my thought was that in future we may want to include other, less easily interpretable, identifying codes - no-one can easily parse company registry numbers, for example. This discussion may be a good moment to consider future approaches. Andrew Gray (talk) 13:10, 12 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 63: / Line 63: @@
 #:If someone does notice and complains, call their complaining idiotic.
 #:If discussion ensues, point to the pages that have already had their citations removed (see step 1) as evidence that the citation practice is "far from universal". [[User:UnitedStatesian|UnitedStatesian]] ([[User talk:UnitedStatesian|talk]]) 21:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
+#::You missed step 1. Ask at the help desk where they should go. Ignore the clear answer from an admin that the template says they should be in the lead sentence,[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2012_September_28#Inclusion_of_NASDAQ_ticker_symbol.2Flink_in_intro_sentences] make up your own answer and pretend it is a guideline. Go to the articles that are used as examples of using the ticker symbol in the lead sentence (Google and Apple), and delete them, using the newly created essay with the edit summary "per" implying policy or guideline. Ignore the edit war this creates and state that they can safely be removed, in the RfC, which was created after getting no replies to "what next", which the obvious answer to "what next" is to "drop it". [[User:Apteva|Apteva]] ([[User talk:Apteva|talk]]) 22:12, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 # For me, it's mostly #3, #5, and #7. [[User:Chris the Paleontologist|<span style='font-family: "Verdana"; color:#c37a1c'>''CtP''</span>]] <small>([[User talk:Chris the Paleontologist|t]] • [[Special:Contributions/Chris the Paleontologist|c]])</small> 15:17, 12 November 2012 (UTC)
 ;Comments