Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Three corrections

Please comment if there are any questions. Apteva (talk) 19:11, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

It appears that the example "the Uganda–Tanzania War; the Roman–Syrian War; the east–west runway; the Lincoln–Douglas debates; a carbon–carbon bond" while not commenting that it is a little long (do we really need so many examples?), is in need of two corrections; in the first example, "the Uganda–Tanzania War", war should not be capitalized (see google book search), and it should be "but not the Roman–Syrian War (as Roman-Syrian War is a proper name)". The article at Uganda–Tanzania War should also be moved, to Uganda–Tanzania war, and if it is a proper name, a better example used, and it be moved to Uganda-Tanzania War. (already moved) [and now it needs to be moved, but there is an RM to decide that...] Apteva (talk) 23:08, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

• Comment. I have reverted Apteva's undiscussed move of Uganda–Tanzania War, which was apparently done to prove a point here and not in the interest of the article itself.
  This section attracted no comment before Apteva elevated it to an RFC, probably because Apteva is pushing on proper names, en dashes, and hyphens at several forums at the same time – including an RM, now closed as not moved, for the long-settled Mexican–American War. I have explicitly said, on this talkpage and elsewhere, that general issues with WP:MOS guidelines should be raised as general issues, right here. Not at several locations, and not as particular sparring points. It seems to me that this RFC is yet another waste of time. I comment on one detail only: yes, obviously many examples are needed in the guideline. Even more than we have now, perhaps. Some editors are still refusing to accept the principle it is based on as consensual; and Apteva, for example, is playing hard by appeal to inconsequential differences among the present examples. If any element of the long and meticulous community consultation on dashes in 2011 needs review, let it be done in an orderly and informed way. Some recommended background reading for those interested: the article Proper noun, most of which is now accurate. (It needs a move to Proper name.)
  Noetica^Tea? 21:48, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

  It was a correct move. Uganda–Tanzania war is not a proper noun and is not capitalized. Nor was it undiscussed. The date and time in the above discussion shows that it was pointed out on September 27 that it should be moved, and that it was not moved until October 5 (and a check of the edit history will show that I noted that it had been moved when I opened the RfC on October 7). Clearly plenty of time and some for anyone to disagree with the proposal. Seeing none, I took it as approval, not an unusual response. Should an RM to move proper noun come to my attention I would object. And I think that would be the consensus. The word phrase "proper noun" did not enter use until about 1890. The dictionary, if it contains "proper name", defines it as proper noun. The two terms are interchangeable. I have called for an RfC because I am not going to get into an edit war over the Revert. In the BRD cycle, after R comes D. There had been no response, so I am asking for a response. I do not believe that a review of a clearly embarrassing discussion needs to be reviewed. Proper names use hyphens and our MOS says so. 10,000 books use a hyphen and maybe a 100 use something else. Case closed. I would like to remind everyone to focus on the issue, not the editor, though. WP is never an authority on anything, proper nouns included. WP articles can never be used as a RS. Apteva (talk) 02:40, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

These topics have already been the focus of much long and pointless argumentation that wasted the time of multiple editors, time that could have been spent elsewhere, like in creating content. I don't understand the point of reopening these discussions so soon after they have finally and painfully been settled by consensus. --Neotarf (talk) 08:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations to Noetica, the proper noun article has just been cited by no less an authority than Mark Liberman at Language Log. [1] --Neotarf (talk) 08:09, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

There are still improvements that are needed - fix the misleading and incorrect examples. If someone wants to argue that proper nouns are not capitalized or that sentences do not need periods, not questions of course, then certainly their time is better spent elsewhere, but if someone insists that Roman-Syrian War is spelled with an endash they will have a very hard time supporting that premise. Is War capitalized in "Uganda-Tanzania War"? Possibly, but if it is the punctuation is a hyphen and not an appropriate example of where to use an endash. If war is not capitalized, Uganda–Tanzania war is an example of where an endash is used, and the capitalization needs to be fixed. In both cases the current article needs to be moved - either to Uganda-Tanzania War or to Uganda–Tanzania war. There are always people who misspell things, and use incorrect punctuation, and that is why there is an edit tab and a move option. Apteva (talk) 03:49, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Comet Hale-Bopp

This example: "Comet Hale–Bopp or just Hale–Bopp (discovered by Hale and Bopp)" needs to be removed because used either with or without the word "Comet" this is still a proper noun and therefore uses a hyphen, as supported by the thousands of reliable sources that use this punctuation. According to Google Books there are 31,900 sources, the overwhelming majority of which use a hyphen. It is not even close. Apteva (talk) 22:47, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense. Many of those reliable sources do use the en dash, which confirms that it is simply a styling choice. The fact that many sources have a style that substitutes hyphens in the traditional role of the en dash, and that the Google books OCR can't tell the difference, does not mean that WP needs to adopt that style. There's nothing special or unique about Hale–Bopp here. Your concept of "proper noun, therefore hyphen" is unsupportable hallucination. Dicklyon (talk) 01:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Not nonsense at all. There are some sources that do use en dash, but if there were many, as in many more than use hyphen, then statistically at least one would have appeared in the first ten. Out of the first 100 how many use hyphen? Out of the first 1,000 how many? Google books has 32,900 to look through. I strongly disagree with the supposition that an OCR can not tell the difference as there are a huge number of occurrences in google books of both endashes where they are appropriate and em dashes where they are appropriate. While it is far easier to do a text search, I am completely confident in my assessment that there are no endashes in the first 10 results that I obtained. As was pointed out before, any suggestion of "many" needs to also include "out of how many", as saying there are 432 examples of using Hale-Bopp with an endash sounds impressive until you find out, say, that that was out of 32,000, with 29,000 using a hyphen and 3,000 using a space, just as a made up example. Proper noun hyphen is not fiction. It is in our MOS and I really have yet to see any example of a proper noun that does not use a hyphen. I am not saying they do not exist. I can certainly imagine that if someone named Hale-Bopp and someone named Lennard-Jones discovered a comet it could be called the "Hale-Bopp–Lennard-Jones Comet, to distinguish between one discovered by Hale and someone named Bopp-Lennard-Jones, or by one person named Hale-Bopp-Lennard and one named Jones. Normally exceptions to rules are pretty easy to find. It is academic to find them, but still interesting, and I really have not seen one. One editor perhaps looked for examples of endashes in WP article titles and came up with two that are not proper nouns and two that are using incorrect punctuation on WP. Since when has WP ever been considered a reliable source? Apteva (talk) 04:27, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Nonsense. Several of them DO in fact appear in the first page of 10 hits on Google Book Search (with previews). You need to actually look at the previews to see how they are styled, as the OCR does not distinguish hyphen from en dash usually (and sometimes it sees en dashes as em dashes—I was going to say like this one, but it turns out that one really did get typeset with an em dash, due to some amateur typographer's blunder). If en dashes do show up sometimes in snippets, in probably from books that they got electronically, as with this one, where you can tell they got it electronically because if you zoom way in the letters aren't blurry or pixelated; they're being rendered from text. The same effect is often seen in Google Scholar, where papers with en dashes often show up as hyphen, but not always; in spite of that, nearly half show up on the first scholar results page with en dash. It's not an usual style like you're making it out to be. Dicklyon (talk) 05:33, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Am I hearing an echo? 5/20 is a long way from "nearly half". It is 3 to 1 in favor of using a hyphen. Which is correct based on that information? Clearly a hyphen. Apteva (talk) 06:35, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

For now I have changed "Comet" to comet, per p. 48 of the New Oxford Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors, and per our article on the comet, which does not capitalize the word comet - hence an endash is correct as it is not treated as a proper noun. There is an open RM to move the page to Comet Hale-Bopp, treating it as a proper noun. Sources clearly favor proper noun status. Halley's comet, on the other hand, does not favor proper noun status and can also be corrected. Apteva (talk) 16:28, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Please see WP:Policies and guidelines#Not part of the encyclopedia: "The policies, guidelines, and process pages themselves are not part of the encyclopedia proper. Consequently, they do not generally need to conform with the content standards. It is therefore not necessary to provide reliable sources to verify Wikipedia's administrative pages, or to phrase Wikipedia procedures or principles in a neutral manner, or to cite an outside authority in determining Wikipedia's editorial practices. Instead, the content of these pages is controlled by community-wide consensus, and the style should emphasize clarity, directness, and usefulness to other editors."

The "New Oxford Dictionary for Scientific Writers and Editors" does not have any authority over Wikipedia. The Wikipedia house style for comets is here: WP:Naming conventions (astronomical objects)#Comets.

--Neotarf (talk) 18:22, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Irrelevant. The name we have chosen is "comet" not "Comet". Using "Comet" gives it proper noun status, and it becomes Comet Hale-Bopp, with a hyphen, not an endash. the section referenced says to use the common name, and if none, give it proper noun status (how generous). The example, Comet Hyakutake, is littered with references that use comet and ones that use Comet. Apteva (talk) 18:53, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

IMHO, recalling high school grammar classes might be of help here. Is the word "comet" a part of the name, or it just reiterates what the name is about? In other words, can we leave "comet" out without loss of meaning? Does the (c/C)omet Halley-Bopp resemble the "New York Times" newspaper and a McDonald's restaurant, or, rather, The Wall Street Journal and the White House?

To my feeling, that particular space object is called Halley's Comet, and another one is called Hale-Bopp Comet. Since the names of space objects (planets, stars, comets, galaxies, constellations, etc.) are always capitalised (e.g., Mars, Jupiter, Neptune, Aldebaran, Vega, Milky Way, Sun, etc., etc.) , the word "comet" should also be capitalised in all the instances, since it is an inseparable part of that object's name. Rules as to dash/hyphen should apply accordingly. kashmiri 19:52, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course Comet Hale-Bopp (however hyphenated) is a proper noun. All names are proper nouns. Some sources may choose not to capitalize it; that's a style decision (a poor one in my view, but style rather than grammar). But even in those sources, it's still a proper noun — that's a grammatical rather than stylistic category. --Trovatore (talk) 20:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

That may be obvious to any number of people, but it is not obvious to the people who write articles about the comet, or Articles as in scientific articles published elsewhere.[2] In both cases the spelling of the dictionary is used. Why would we write a style guide that no one was using? Style guides should follow what we are doing, not make up rules that no one uses. I suggest that Comet should be changed to comet in Celestial bodies to agree with common use. We use sun and moon when 99.9+% (probably a lot more 9s for sun than moon) of the time we actually mean Sun and Moon, and it is ridiculous to capitalize it, and not done in common practice. Our style guides need to follow common practice, not introduce peculiarities. Apteva (talk) 21:04, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Your reference to "common use" seems misguided: Sun and Moon are always capitalised when used as names of celestial bodies (i.e., not in sun lotion, sunbathing, moonlight, etc.); so are Earth, Mercury, etc. As to your removal of capitalisation in "Comet", I would thus suggest you refrain from making edits that deliberately violate WP:MoS. Any such changes should be reverted. kashmiri 21:44, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself, I am not making any edits that violate the MOS. The MOS says that proper names use hyphens, so I am moving articles that are proper nouns and use an endash, like, for example, Mexican-American War and Spanish-American War. Doing that brings them into compliance with the MOS. I am removing the examples in the MOS that are not in compliance with the MOS. The MOS says that proper nouns use hyphens, and has three examples that are proper nouns yet use an endash. One of them, comet Hale–Bopp, is not capitalized in our article, is not capitalized in a respected dictionary, and yet is capitalized as an example in our MOS. What's up with that? What I do need to do, though, is politely ask editors to read the section of the MOS on hyphens and note that there actually are places they are used - like in proper nouns. We all need to get on the same page here though, and if someone can show me 10,000 books that use an endash in Mexican-American War, and that there are less than use a hyphen, by all means that is what we also should use. But no matter how some editors came to the conclusion that Mexican-American War should have been spelled with an endash so they are going to use one, if in fact that is not a reasonable decision, it needs to be re-opened. In case no one has noticed, out of 4 million articles, there are some that have errors, and that is where I would prefer to spend my time. Fixing errors - like the spelling of Mexican-American War. Apteva (talk) 02:27, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

A Google Books search shows about 50% capitalize "Comet". Art LaPella (talk) 23:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

True. But how many dictionaries capitalize Halley's comet or comet Hale–Bopp? Apteva (talk) 02:27, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Most online dictionaries on the OneLook list capitalize the "C". Some capitalize it inconsistently. None on my list uncapitalize it consistently, although Dictionary.com's Halley's comet definition comes closest. Art LaPella (talk) 04:51, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

But now I found two uncapitalizers elsewhere. Art LaPella (talk) 05:07, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

The dictionary link for Comet Hale-Bopp is amusing - links to WP with a hyphen, even though the article uses an endash, as of 2011 - "05:05, 26 January 2011‎ CWenger (talk | contribs)‎ . . (31 bytes) (+31)‎ . . (moved Comet Hale-Bopp to Comet Hale–Bopp: MOS:ENDASH #1, comet discovered by Hale and Bopp)".

We found 3 dictionaries with English definitions that include the word comet Hale-Bopp: Click on the first link on a line below to go directly to a page where "comet Hale-Bopp" is defined.

General dictionaries General (1 matching dictionary)

Comet Hale-Bopp: Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia [home, info]

Computing dictionaries Computing (1 matching dictionary)

Comet Hale-Bopp, Hale-Bopp, Comet: Encyclopedia [home, info]

Slang dictionaries Slang (1 matching dictionary)

Comet Hale-Bopp: Urban Dictionary [home, info]

I checked to see if it was just copying the punctuation used in the search entry, and replaced the hyphen with an endash and got:

Sorry, no dictionaries indexed in the selected category contain the exact phrase comet Hale–Bopp. Apteva (talk) 15:59, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• You might want to check s.t. other than a dict, such as Cometary Science after Hale–Bopp (Böhnhardt, Combi, Kidger, & Schulz, eds, Springer 2003), which uses the en dash in numerous papers and research notes, such as The 1995–2002 Long-Term Monitoring of Comet C/1995 O1 (Hale–Bopp) at Radio Wavelength; Large-Scale Structures in Comet Hale–Bopp; Modelling of Shape Changes of the Nuclei of Comets C/1995 O1 Hale–Bopp and 46P/Wirtanen Caused by Water Ice Sublimation; Observations of Rotating Jets of Carbon Monoxide in Comet Hale–Bopp with the IRAM Interferometer; From Hale–Bopp's Activity to Properties of its Nucleus; The Shadow of Comet Hale–Bopp in Lyman–Alpha, 73P/Schwassmann–Wachmann 3 – One Orbit after Break-Up; Nitrogen Sulfide in Comets Hyakutake (C/1996 B2) and Hale–Bopp (C/1995 O1), etc. These are proceedings of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Colloquium No. 186 "Cometary Science after Hale–Bopp" (Tenerife, Jan. 2002), which followed the First International Conference on Comet Hale–Bopp in Jan. 1998. There are other, similar uses, such as 4015/Wilson–Harrington, 55P/Tempel–Tuttle, the Kuiper–Edgeworth (K–E) belt, the Hertz–Knudsen relationship, and the Stefan–Boltzmann constant. They even use the dash for Hale–Bopp in their references, though I suspect that if we followed up, we'd find that many were published with a hyphen. That is, they punctuate according to their in-house MOS, which is s.t. people here have been arguing we're not allowed to do (esp. in article titles, claiming it violates COMMONNAME). — kwami (talk) 18:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• (edit conflict) Comment. Hale-Bopp carries a hyphen because the IAU says that it's spelled with a hyphen. Hyphenated surnames have the hyphen replaced with a space, like Singer Brewster, discovered by Singer-Brewster, or cut in half, like Bally-Clayton (1968d C/1968 Q1), discovered by Bally-Urban and Clayton. Some people had already moved a couple of featured comet articles via RM. Kwami (who is posting right above me by pure chance) then moved dozens of comet articles to dashed articles, then proposed "Hale-Bopp" for the MOS draft as an example of a dash names. He didn't mention that all comet articles were hyphenated only a few weeks ago, or that he had moved dozens of himself a couple of days ago without discussion. Months later I realized the problem and I tried to correct it, but the usual suspects stonewalled the change. Now Kwami has been desyosped for making massive moves against consensus. Maybe it would be time to discuss comet hyphens again..... Or should I wait until Noetica is topic banned for stonewalling and edit warring? --Enric Naval (talk) 18:45, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

And Enric Naval posts pictures of cats he's killed on his user page. If you can provide a source for the IAU rule, great, but that would simply be their in-house style. We don't copy the in-house styles of our sources any more than they do, as the result would be chaotic. Punctuation varies from source to source, and is even adapted in references and quotations.

The IAU convention, BTW, is similar to typewriter hyphenation. It's because astronomers send the IAU telegrams of their discoveries, and telegrams can't handle dashes. — kwami (talk) 19:14, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

The IAU has a comet naming guideline, not a style guideline. It's the only body that can name comets, and its naming decisions are internationally accepted. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:29, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Valuable link. Although I can't help an impression that the document deals more with naming than with typography. I wouldn't be surprised if its authors did not understand a difference between a hyphen and a dash. Astronomers hardly ever are typesetters... kashmiri 12:06, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

What it says is that spaces or hyphens are used: "each individual name is to be separated by a hyphen", and it is recommended that no more than two names be included. If someone has a hyphenated name that hyphen is replaced with a space or one of the two names only used. So that eliminates the ambiguity of Hale-Lennard-Jones - it would be either Hale-Lennard Jones or Hale-Lennard or Hale-Jones. Apteva (talk) 14:54, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

And the comet names were always announced in circulars, printed in paper, with diacritics, umlauts, scientific symbols, minus and plus signs, superscripts, and French letters like ç. The telegrams were coded and illegible, and they never contained any comet name. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:41, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't know whether this has to be a joke or what. This is a printout of a French-language news release from 1920 regarding the position of an observed new planet. Nothing about comets, naming, etc. See, basic knowledge of French prevents being misled by comments like yours. kashmiri 12:02, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The IAU circulars communicate the discovery of all types of astronomical bodies: stars, asteroids, minor planets, comets, etc. as well as observations of interest, corrections, etc. Here you have the printed IAU circulars announcing 1919 g (Skjellerup) and Reid 1921a and Väisälä 1944b. More recent version are available by subscription. As you can see, the official names have always been announced in printed circulars, which don't have any restriction for diacritics, umlauts, dashes, scientific symbols, etc. Decades before the circulars started, they were announced in printed journal Astronomische Nachrichten, which also didn't have any restriction in characters. Telegrams didn't play any role in name announcements, they were just for quick announcements of discoveries. At discovery time comets only had a provisional designation like 1944b (second comet discovered in 1944). --Enric Naval (talk) 16:27, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

I am not sure about the coded and illegible part. The IAU recently, though, asserted[3] using capital letters for planets, etc., but it is not clear if that extends to comets. Hale-Bopp for example could simply be certified as being "the comet Hale-Bopp", which provides no insight into capitalization of comet. The examples given were Solar System and Earth's equator.

It was noted that the naming of all planets so far has long predated the existence of the IAU. I think that rather than naming things they standardize names and certify them, and are an arbitor, but they do not make up the names, or sell names.

The IAU frequently receives requests from individuals who want to buy stars or name stars after other persons. Some commercial enterprises purport to offer such services for a fee. However, such "names" have no formal or official validity whatever.

Based on the survey of google book results below it is clear that the endash conclusion in 2011 took an extreme minority viewpoint and put the MOS in conflict with WP:TITLE. I suggest that it be reversed in light of new information, and that the examples of wars and comets with endash be removed from the MOS and replaced with hyphens. Whether the use of hyphens will remain dominant or, like Kiev could be replaced with a new spelling remains to be seen. WP is not a crystal ball and does not try to reflect what people should be doing or what they might be doing but simply what they are doing. Just as Kiev remains the overwhelming spelling in common usage, Comet Hale-Bopp (with a hyphen) is the dominant spelling for the comet Hale-Bopp (correctly not capitalized when preceded by the), along with airports and wars which have achieved proper name status and if there are any other names with endash or hyphen they, like Comet Hale-Bopp can be tested to see if they use an endash or a hyphen in common usage, but the MOS does not need to pretend that endash rules apply inside names, because that is not the interpretation of the vast majority of book editors. Should that change, clearly WP would eventually reflect that change as well, but certainly can not be expected to precede that change. To do so would be original research. Apteva (talk) 13:49, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The IAU decides who were the original discoverers and in which order they made the discovery, and the spelling of the comet name (the thing with modifying the hyphenated surnames). The IAU also fixates the transliterations of foreign names so they are spelled in only one way by everyone, although I can only give a example for a Moon crater(1). The IAU can ignore suggestions, see what happened to Hugh Percy Wilkins. If you disagree with a naming decision you can only appeal to the IAU itself. Most importantly, you can't assign arbitrary names to comes that you discovered yourself, the IAU will decide the name for you whether you like or not.

(1) The Far Side of the Moon: A Photographic Guide. 5.1 Identification of Named Features. Spelling of Feature Names. The IAU has fixated the transliteration of "Tsiolkovskiy (crater)", which is named after a Russian rocket scientist. You could drop the last "i" and still have a valid transliteration of the guy's name from the Russian language, but then it wouldn't be the crater's correct name. The IAU standardized all Moon crater names in 1975, and it only accepts names of dead people, except for Apollo astronauts; some old names were retained, others were changed [4]. In 2008 the MESSENGER probe mapped Mercury, and the IAU made rules for the names of it surface features: the biggest basin received a unique name, cliffs were named after famous ships, and craters were named after "'deceased artists, musicians, painters, and authors who have made outstanding or fundamental contributions to their field and have been recognized as art historically significant figures for more than 50 years.". The IAU approved names for each feature and then published official maps.[5][6]. The IAU can pull this stuff because it's the naming authority in astronomy matters.

Q: Who is legally responsible for naming objects in the sky?

A: The IAU is the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies and surface features on them. And names are not sold, but assigned according to internationally accepted rules. "Buying Star Names", IAU's FAQ

(...) rules established by the IAU, which emerged as the arbiter of planetary names and coordinate systems during the early years of space exploration. Back then, standardization helped to prevent the Solar System from being plastered with conflicting sets of names used by Soviet and US scientists. These days, the tensions are less nationalistic and more interdisciplinary: a dust-up between the geologists who tend to lead planetary missions and the astronomers who comprise much of the IAU. “Why should I let astronomers name things just because they’re on another planet?” asks Mike Malin, a geologist and principal investigator for the mast camera on NASA’s Curiosity rover mission, which has generated its own conflict with the IAU over the naming of a feature at its Martian landing site. "Space missions trigger map wars. Planetary explorers rebel against nomenclature protocols". Nature 22 August 2012

To avoid further disputes as proud pioneers sought to thank benefactors, curry favour or merely indulge themselves, the IAU went on to establish working groups to set rules and conventions for nomenclature.

, Procedures now make sure that mountains on Mercury are named with words for 'hot' in various languages, canyons on Venus christened after goddesses and small craters on Mars twinned with villages on Earth. Just last month, a 39-kilometre-wide Martian crater was named Moanda, after a town in Gabon. "The Name Game". Nature 22 August 2012

By that time, tiny P4 should have a real name. "We're tossing around some ideas," says Showalter, "but the name has to come out of Greek mythology associated with Hades and the underworld." That's according to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which formally approves the names of heavenly objects — and which has strict and sometimes arcane guidelines for what's permitted. Underworld myths are the rule for moons of Pluto; for moons of Uranus, it must be characters from the works of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope — specifically Pope's poem "The Rape of the Lock." That required Showalter to learn the verses well. "I'm the discoverer of two moons of Uranus," he says. "We named them Cupid and Mab."

The IAU is also responsible for the decision in 2006 to demote tiny Pluto, just one-half the size of Earth's moon, to the status of dwarf planet. "Pass Out the Cigars! Pluto Is a Papa" Time, Science section, 25 July 2011

So who's in charge of naming solar system objects that are discovered now? Since its organization in 1919, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has been in charge of naming all celestial objects. When an astronomer discovers an object, or wants to name a surface feature, they can submit a suggestion to the IAU, and the IAU either approves it or suggests a different name. Since we don't think there are any undiscovered planets, the IAU focuses on the naming of moons, surface features, asteroids, and comets and has websites about naming conventions for each. "Curious About Astronomy? Ask An Astronomer: Who named the planets and who decides what to name them?" Astronomy department of Cornell university.

The only official body which can give names to astronomical objects is the International Astronomical Union (IAU). (...) All official names have to be adopted by the IAU. There are certain rules which have to be followed in the official names allocated to different types of object; some of these are outlined below. (...) Comets. Comets are named after their discoverers. (...) In 1994, the International Astronomical Union updated their mechanism for naming comets (...) For more information on comet designations, please visit the International Astronomy Union website (...) "The naming of stars" Royal Observatory, Greenwich

So, is it clear now that the IAU's naming guidelines are not an "in-house style"? And that the IAU is the only body with the power of naming astronomical stuff and defining the exact spelling of each name? --Enric Naval (talk) 22:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The words "The MoS presents Wikipedia's house style" need to be nixed too. WP is not a publishing house and does not have a house style. WP is not a monolithic organization under the command of one person, even though some editors would prefer that. There are many styles that are appropriate, and the MOS explains what some of them are. It is not either inclusive nor exclusive. Editors refer to it for suggestions, but use their own common sense in applying what it says. Britannica, on the other hand, is a publishing house, and does have a house style. The words "house style" are not common language and have no reason for being used, even if we were a monolithic organization, and even if we did have a "house style", which we do not. Apteva (talk) 17:08, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Let's not expand the scope of this section so much, or we will get nothing done. We were talking about comet names: the capital "c" in "Comet", the hyphens, and the proper name status. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:02, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Above, Enric Naval ignores the difference between naming and styling, and between official names and common names. The IAU has a brief style guide in which they "recommend" capitalization of names of individual astronomical objects (just as many other organizations have style guides that recommend capitalizing the important items in their respective fields). "The IAU formally recommends that the initial letters of the names of individual astronomical objects should be printed as capitals" as their web page says, referencing their style guide which clarifies that this is "in IAU publications". If they have a recommendation for how the general public should choose to style the names, I'm not sure where it is. And if they have info that says "comet" should come before or after the name, I'm not seeing that, either; it's clear that in common names, Halley's comet is more common the comet Halley, but others go the other way. Does IAU control this? I don't think so. Do they have an opinion on en dashes? Like many style guides, theirs doesn't say anything about that. Dicklyon (talk) 17:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

(I'll comment on hyphens. I won't comment on comet/Comet.) The IAU's comet naming guideline, not styling and not an in-house style, says that discoverer names are separated by hyphens. And says to remove hyphens from hyphenated surnames to avoid confusions with said hyphens, like Singer Brewster, discovered by Singer-Brewster, or drop part of the name hyphenated surname, like Bally-Clayton, discovered by Bally-Urban and Clayton. Thus, these compounded names are not built with standard English rules, they are built with IAU's naming rules, which give explicit instructions for using hyphens and spaces to separate the name in a manner that doesn't cause any confusion about how many discoverers the comet has. (Thus, it's not necessary to use dashes to separate surnames, because there is no possible confusion with any hyphenated surname in any comet name, past or future.) --Enric Naval (talk) 18:02, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

First a clarification. The IAU is not referring to an internal guideline about how they should internally recommend capitalizing or recommend using spaces and hyphens - they are the final arbitrator as to what the "official" name of a comet or planet is. They use those guidelines in helping them make those decisions, and they publish their answers. Bally-Urban was certainly asked would you like to use Bally or Urban because you can not use both. Singer-Brewster could have been asked, but the guideline permits using up to two names. Some names go on much longer. Secondly while there is a difference between the official name and the common name of many things, in neither case do comets use a hyphen. Common usage is tested, as it was here, by checking as many sources as possible and determining the most common usage. Scholarly sources could tend to prefer the official name, but not necessarily. Common names could tend to prefer comet Halley or Halley's comet, or Halley's Comet. It is not clear whether the IAU is even specifying whether comet goes before or after the name and is simply addressing the variable portion of the name - the word planet is not a part of the name planet Earth, why would comet be part of the name comet Hale-Bopp? It is completely acceptable, in context, to use Hale-Bopp. The dominant convention though, is clear, for most comets, it comes first. But the MOS is not the place for establishing title rules. That domain is at WP:TITLE, which has, like the MOS, 70 subpages for assistance. Apteva (talk) 19:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

WP doesn't care what IAU wants to do stylistically. WP is not an astronomy journal. IAU allegedly asserting that its stylistic decision to favor hyphens over dashes (I would bet good money they did not in fact draw any such distinction, and are only drawing a distinction between using a space and using a dash that they have misnamed a hyphen, because they're astronomers, not grammarians; Apteva's own post of 14:54, 16 October 2012 (UTC) supports my view here) is actually a naming matter not a style matter is simply an alleged assertion and not one that WP is magically bound to recognize when it defies common sense and conflicts with our business as usual of creating an encyclopedia. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 22:15, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Did you read all the quotes I posted above? The IAU has a naming guideline, not styling. It decides the names and how they are written, and how foreign names are transliterated from other languages. I have seen several sources explaining that comet names use hyphens, and how hyphenated surnames need to have the hyphens removed so they don't conflict with the other hyphens. I have never seen any source saying that the IAU really meant to use dashes and not hyphens. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:28, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I still don't see any argument beyond "IAU only sets the styling", which is patently incorrect according to multiple reliable sources, and "IAU meant a dash", which is not supported by any reliable source and directly contradicts a few of them that make explicit mention of this rule. So, are we going to remove Hale-Bopp as an example of a compounded name in English. Maybe we should rename all counterexamples lik the airport names:

• Singer Brewster → Singer-Brewster

--Enric Naval (talk) 13:20, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

The fact that Hale–Bopp is so often found with en dash in sources, including astronomy journals, is strong evidence that the IAU naming guidelines are not being interpreted as styling guidelines in either astronomical or general publications. Dicklyon (talk) 18:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC)

I looked at the first 50 results in google books, and only 3 use a dash[7]. Even if you discard books that use wikipedia material, self-published books, uncheckable books, and books from suspicious publishers, there is only a tiny minority of books that choose to use a dash, 3 versus 40. Google news also show a supermajority of hyphens[8]. I think that this is much stronger evidence that astronomical and general publications actually look at the IAU when they make style decisions. And, yes, you can find as many isolated examples as you want, but they are still a tiny minority when you look at the whole of publications. --Enric Naval (talk) 18:52, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Modification to MOS:IDENTITY

A few weeks ago, there was a proposal at WP:VPP to modify the wording of MOS:IDENTITY, specifically Point 2; the archived discussion is here. It gained some traction, but it died down without any kind of resolution, so I want to raise it again. The specific change being sought is;

"Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the gendered nouns, pronouns, and possessive adjectives that reflect that person's gender at the time of notability as reflected within the prevalence of mainstream reliable sources. Identity changes thereafter should be dealt with chronologically but should always follow the conventions used with prevalence in mainstream sources."

Instead of copying over the rationale, the link to the archive shows Berean Hunter's rationale, and other examples are provided in the thread. If people think this would be better discussed elsewhere, that's fine, but since the waters at VPP have been tested this seems like the most logical place. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 17:49, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

I made a similar proposal back in May here. I agree with Blade that we need to follow what mainstream sources say rather than get ahead of these sources by making a judgment based on an individual's statements. GabrielF (talk) 18:11, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Does this mean we'll have to change Template:MOS-TW?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, it would. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:46, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

What would the template's words have to change to?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:48, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Hadn't thought about it... that'll obviously need some work. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:55, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Can you clear up the exact meaning of this proposed rule?? Is it any similar to the following:

Trans women who are notable for being trans women should be referred to as she/her. However, trans women notable primarily for an event before the operation of surgery for a reason that has nothing to do with being transsexual should be referred to as he/him as if they were cisgender men. Georgia guy (talk) 22:29, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Almost. The first sentence is right, but the idea is to refer to, say, Laura Jane Grace as "he" when he was identifying as Tom Gabel and "she" after coming out in public as a she. Make sense? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 00:10, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

You mean, we should assume that trans women actually were men, not women trapped in men's bodies, before the operation?? Georgia guy (talk) 00:13, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

To couch it in less loaded, more policy-based language, it's to avoid outright misleading revisionist history such as "she captained her tennis team at Horace Mann" (in the article on Renée Richards); specifics are in the linked VPP conversation. We at Wikipedia aren't here to play psychologists and pass judgment on whether or not they were really men or just women all along, we're here to report facts; in the cases of Grace and Richards, among others, they were notable under different names and sexes and our articles should reflect that. And this also works the other way too; the article on Andreas Krieger should be treated the same (and as of writing is actually a good example of what I'm shooting for). The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 01:34, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Notable under different names and sexes?? This phrase actually does imply the statement I was asking above whether we should assume. Georgia guy (talk) 19:14, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

The sex the person was commonly believed to be at the time. I think this is a slam-dunk. We do not — we must not — take a position on whether a person's "real" sex is. The choice to retroactively apply a sex change to previous notable events is nothing short of advocacy of a particular point of view; it must stop. --Trovatore (talk) 20:02, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

And likewise the choice to refer to people by the genders to which they were misassigned at birth is also advocacy of a point of view -- it's a claim that the person writing the article knows better than the subject what their name and gender are. Stealth Munchkin (talk) 01:12, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

In the case where we have the person saying "I am gender X, I have always been gender X, and things were misreported by the media". I agree with you. We rarely have such a statement. Quite often the person THEMSELVES represented themselves as the other gender at times in the past. Saying they did not is a lie, and unenclyclopedic, regardless of what they may have felt. Gaijin42 (talk) 01:43, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

In the case of Laura Jane Grace, we have someone who actively sought to be and maintain a public image as a man; rewriting the article to state otherwise (as some people attempted to do before someone hacked out a temporary solution) is downright inaccurate. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 02:21, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

This section can be archived, just like any section of a talk page. I remember from 2004-2006 the "Georgia moving poll" which was wasn't archived for a long time. (It was at Talk:Georgia; now it's in an archive.) Can we put this discussion in a similar area so that it won't be archived too quickly?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:00, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Not sure... anyone familiar with this talkpage have suggestions? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:15, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Think I've got it... now on with the discussion. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:31, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I support this change. This issue is also coming up in The Wachowskis article as Larry/Lana has now come out after transitioning male->female. Obviously most notable for events when she was identified explicitly as male "The Wachowski Brothers" etc. However, renewed notability with the recent release of Cloud Atlas where she is doing interviews etc as Lana. General lede/summary information should use the prefered gender/name. However, historical information should use the gender used by that person at the time, as reported in reliable sources. it is WP:OR to assume we know what they considered their gender in the past; WP:OR to assume they considered themselves "trapped" etc, unless they have explicitly said so. Not everyone's LBGT path is the same. The guidance provided in the current MOS leads to innacurate information - the given example of "He gave birth->He became a parent" in particular is a loss of precision unacceptable for an encyclopdia. There are a multitude of ways to become a parent (father, give birth, adopt, just take responsibility for, etc) and removing a factual statement because the gender doesnt make sense is inaccurate. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps we can add something to say prefer neutral language wherever possible where the historical information disagrees with current preference, or add qualifying statements such as "John so and so, who prior to their gender transition identifed as Jane, gave birth" etc. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:36, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

We should keep the current rule, in which we use the individual's most recent preferred pronoun. If a source from 1986 says that singer Crystal Zing was born in Nashville, but Zing later digs up her birth certificate and finds out that she was really born in Memphis and only grew up in Nashville, then we should no continue to say that she was born in Nashville, even though an otherwise reliable source says that she was. That source was wrong. It is the same idea with people who undergo gender transition, like L. Wachowski. The sources (like most of the rest of the world) made a good-faith mistake in referring to Wachowski as male. More accurate information has come to light showing that Wachowski is female. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:32, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

You are making an assumption that you know that Wachowski considered themselves female at that point in the past (and in this case when they explicitly identified themselves repeatedly as "Wachowski Brothers". Not everyone who is trans has felt that way their entire life. You might not claim Zing was born in Nashville. But you might say that she SAID she was born in Nashville until X, which was true before the birth certificate, and will be true forever. To say that they always claimed to be born in Memphis is inaccurate. Gaijin42 (talk) 01:07, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Not everyone who is trans has not felt that way their entire life. If our aim is to respect trans people's subjective experiences, shouldn't we allow for the possibility that some trans people will make statements along the lines of, "I have always been a woman," and respect that when they do? On a related note, while it is necessarily the case that trans people found their identities before being public about them, it is not necessarily the case that the prevalence of "mainstream, reliable sources" will reflect their identities in a timely manner. Indeed in the case of some trans people -- I have in mind certain historical figures and trans people whose only mention in mainstream media is in obituaries in which they have been misgendered -- this will never happen. -- Marie Paradox (talk) 02:38, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia, not an LGBT publication; we don't rewrite history to pretend peoples' previous names/identities didn't exist. Just as we don't refer to Eminem (I can't believe I'm using him as an example for anything) by his stage name until he himself used it, so we should do the same here. It's one thing when someone wasn't notable at all before transitioning (c.f. Andrea James, which is completely fine), articles on these people wouldn't be affected. However, in extreme cases we get articles like Dee Palmer; due to the current rule, the article is misleading and almost unreadable. We're referring to Palmer as "she" 35 years before Palmer transitioned. Palmer is almost exclusively notable for having played in Jethro Tull, and through that entire period was known as David Palmer; to pretend otherwise is 1. outright advocacy for a particular point of view on the matter (the only places I've ever heard Palmer referred to as a she while with Jethro Tull are LGBT publications and Wikipedia) and 2. misinforms our readers, because no one would have referred to Palmer as a she during that period. At Laura Jane Grace people have at least managed to hack out a decent solution for the time being; however, the same problem described above exists with the Renée Richards article and is spectacularly bad at Theresa Sparks; the proposed wording would be able to resolve that. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 03:57, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Blade. It's an encyclopedia not an exercise in making people feel good about themselves. Otherwise any person with a biography on here could complain that they're not happy about the section concerning their adultery, massive fraud, or the murder of half a dozen people and we should remove it because it offends them and they say that they don't feel they ever really killed all those people, it was the voices in their head. The encylcopedia should reflect the history as it is, Lana Wachowski can have felt like a woman since she was born but she identified herself as male, went by male monikers, filed credits for films as Larry Wachowski or The Wachowski Brothers, filled out forms as a male, that is the reality of the situation. I raed the above link to Laura Jane Grace and an IP on there actually advocated removing all mention whatsoever of the name Tom Gabel and retroactively modifying the history of the person as if there was never a man named Tom Gabel in existence. It's ridiculous over sensitivity and not what the place is about, otherwise that album cover with the underage girl on it would have been removed quite sharpish. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:10, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

Darkwarriorblake, if the problem is that some people want to remove all mention of the name -- not merely every instance in which the name is used to refer to Laura -- then why not deal with that problem? Why not explain to the user what "refers to" means and that nothing in the MOS forbids wording such as, "Laura Jane Grace, whom people used to call . . . ." In The Wachowskis the problem is almost the opposite; I have been trying to remove every instance in which Lana's old name is used to refer to her while retaining mere mentions of her old name, but another editor insists on referring to her by her old name. To prevent future violations of this sort should we revise the MOS to say that all mentions of trans people's former names is forbidden? (And, just to be clear, I am definitely not proposing this.) I do not see how that would be more overkill than what you are suggesting. -- Marie Paradox (talk) 13:55, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Blade, when have I ever advocated "rewrit"ing "history"? There is no reason we cannot acknowledge people's previous names while still referring to them in accordance with their new names, e.g., "John, whose name used to be Jane, lived with his parents in Wyoming until 1983." (This is exactly the sort of solution I have time and time again said I would support regarding The Wachowskis.) While editors may not refer to Eminem as Eminem while writing about his past, we do frequently refer to Mark Twain as Twain, even while talking about his childhood. We cannot avoid "outright advocacy" by writing articles as though a trans person is, say, Jane one day and John the next; that is a not very subtle suggestion that the correct view of trans people is a particular view that real people have advocated. This is an encyclopedia -- not an anti-LGBT publication. -- Marie Paradox (talk) 13:55, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

(Note; only a response to the section addressed to me) The names aren't an issue; it has been worked out that we use the proper nouns publicly in use at the time period being written about (in addition to Laura, The Wachowskis and Angela Morley are written this way), and MOS:IDENTITY contains nothing suggesting otherwise. A better non-transgender comparison is Muhammad Ali, as unlike Eminem or Twain he actually did change his name. We avoid advocacy by doing exactly the same with gendered pronouns. To use the Renée Richards example, the early life section is actively misleading; contrary to what the pronouns in the article state, Raskind was not attending a girl's school and captaining the girl's tennis team (Horace Mann at that time separated boys and girls, but then as now was one school, parenthetical added 16:46, 28 October 2012 (UTC)). It's not anti-LGBT to do what I'm suggesting, it's accurately documenting peoples' lives. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 15:27, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

The Renée Richards example is a false analogy. If she was in a class intended for boys, it was inaccurate to say she was in a class intended for girls. However, there is nothing inaccurate about using names or pronouns based on one's current situation. That is why we can say that someone named Isabella was born on such and such a day, even if Isabella did not have a name until some time after she was born. Indeed this is the pervasive practice in such situations. If there is disagreement over whether, say, a trans woman really was a woman, the only neutral, natural way to handle it is to call her by the currently used pronoun; it is only when we start calling her by anything else that we take a side in the matter.

Incidentally, the proposal, though being offered as neutral, is advocating more than I have suggested above. The proposal does not take all reliable sources into consideration; it simply privileges some sources (i.e. mainstream media sources that were written at the time) over others (e.g. mainsteam media sources that were written after the fact, the style guides of the same mainstream media sources, revised birth certificates, and genetic or neurological research that shows that trans people have had their genders from birth). If the proposal were to go into effect, we could not even take retractions written after the time of notability. Do I need to explain why painting ourselves into a corner like this is a bad idea?

-- Marie Paradox (talk) 16:04, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

There are two problems with this. One, how do we deal with the fact that Richards has records under the name Richard Raskind as a male tennis player? The current approach makes the entire Early life section seem to contradict itself. Secondly, I'll once again point to the Dee Palmer article as evidence why the current one-size-fits-all approach breaks down. As I've pointed out above, the article right now makes no sense (anecdotally confirmed by both people I've asked IRL to attempt to read it and by someone at Talk:The Wachowskis, which I'm sure you've seen) because we're going back 40 years to retroactively change someone's sex; Palmer was known as David through the entire time he was playing in Jethro Tull. The goal here is to remove these instances where articles are being left unreadable because of this. I've asked in a couple venues for some fresh input, so hopefully we can get a few people; I'm not sure whether or not this is RfC-worthy, but we can certainly do that if people think it's warranted. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 22:23, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

I am not advocating an all-or-nothing approach, though that is exactly what the proposal above is. If Kim's old name was Tim and Tim is a notable name for whatever reason, then we can include sentences along the lines of, "Kim, whose name used to be Tim, left her small town at the age of 23." This gives the reader all the information they need about Kim's name without referring to Kim as Tim. Looking at the "Early Life" section of the Renée Richards article as it currently stands[9], I do not see what the problem is. I must confess that I have not collected anecdata myself, but I suspect that if I asked the people in the circles I run in whether the section makes sense, at least 90% would say yes. If anyone does not understand why Richards would say she was raised a "boy", the mention of her old name provides a clue. And if readers have trouble understanding an article that is naturally, accurately, and sensitively worded, shouldn't our approach be to give them the information they need to understand it instead of protecting them from the aspects of reality that challenge people's worldview? -- Marie Paradox (talk) 05:47, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

There is no entirely neutral way of dealing with the issue of gendered pronouns for transgender individuals. If we refer to a male-to-female individual as "he," then we are taking a position. If we refer to a male-to-female individual as "she," then we are taking a position. If we switch back and forth, we're taking a position (and we look stupid). Because these three options are roughly equal with respect to politics, we should choose the person's most recent preferred pronoun because, unlike the other two options, it is polite.

What that does not involve, however, is revisionist history. Referring to Lara Wachowski as "she" does not make the assertion that she was born with female genitalia, only that she is properly referred to by a female pronoun. The way to prevent the readers from misunderstanding is to clearly refer to Lara Wachowski as a transgendered person by saying "Lara Wachowski, then Larry Wachowski," or "Lara Wachowski, who would undergo gender transition at the age of [XX]..." Any biographical article that that does not acknowledge a person's gender transition clearly needs to be rewritten in the first place. Whatever the politics of the matter, it's an important and relevant part of a person's life, at least as important as what school he or she attended or whom he or she married.

In this way, referring to a male-to-female individual as "she" while saying that she went to a single-gender school is not misleading so long as the article either 1. states that this is a male-to-female transgender individual or 2. refers to the school as an all-boys school. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:10, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

Request for comment

Should the above proposed change MOS:IDENTITY Point 2 be instituted, or should the current wording be retained? The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:24, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I think my view is pretty much evident from the above, and hopefully we can get some more input from an RfC. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 18:24, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

The current wording should be retained for the following reasons:

1. It is common, if not usual, to refer to a person at any point in the past using the referential words that currently refer to them. People, including Wikipedia's editors, refer to El Greco as El Greco, even when writing about the artist's childhood.[10] Similarly, though there is a time when it is acceptable to say, "It's a girl!", we would not say, "It was born in 1983," when talking about someone who is currently an adult. People often flout the common practice when they are being sensationalistic (e.g. "He's a she!") or when they are exercising poetic license (e.g. "Cassius Clay was born in Louisville . . . Muhammad Ali was born in Miami"[11]). Whatever the merits of these styles of writing elsewhere, it does not fit an encyclopedic tone.
2. Referring to someone using the words that currently refer never suggests anything about what terms were appropriate in the past (see Point 1). On the other hand, using different pronouns does indicate that they were the right pronouns in the past, even though some people view trans people as always having been the genders they currently identify with, and we might not know how trans people identified in the past. This raises questions regarding neutrality and sensitivity.
3. The proposed change is incoherent. If it were adopted, how would editors handle sentences like "Lana Wachowski has been a director since 1995"? This concerns a period that begins at a time when the media referred to Lana as "he" and ends at a time when they referred to her as "she". According to the proposed edit, we must therefore refer to Lana as both "he" and "she".
4. The adoption of the proposed change would allow or even require editors to refer to trans people using phrases like "he-turned-she" (as the New York Post once did[12]). This is unwieldy and insensitive.
5. As I argued above[13], the proposed change would put unreasonable limits on what would be considered reliable sources.
6. The proposed edit would require us to disregard the recommendations of trans advocacy groups.

As far as I can see, the only widely agreed upon rationale for making the proposed change seems to be that it would eliminate confusion. There are already people who have been making edits along the lines of what the proposed change would require, and I personally find the fruits of their good faith edits to be more confusing than the text they are trying to fix. In any case, there are better ways to reduce confusion. If the problem is that some readers are not acquainted with trans people's new pronouns, the current MOS allows us to use a wide range of methods to indicate how the person was once identified (e.g. "John, formerly known as Jane, was born in 1983"). If the problem is that readers do not understand trans people, the current MOS does not forbid us from linking to pages (trans woman, trans man, etc.) that will help them understand.

At this point the only relevant change I would like to see made to the MOS would be to make it explicit that trans people should be referred to using not only the pronouns but also the names by which they are currently identified.

-- Marie Paradox (talk) 19:19, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Supply of professional editors

In the interest of maintaining a supply of available Wikipedians with professional skill and experience in editing, I bring attention to these categories.

• Category:Wikipedians by profession includes Category:Wikipedian web designers and Category:Wikipedian web developers and Category:Wikipedian professional writers.
• Category:People by occupation includes Category:Editors and Category:Book publishing people, which includes Category:Book artists and Category:Book designers and Category:Book editors.
• Also, Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles (version of 14:34, 31 October 2012) includes 12 editors: Kurt Andersen and Joseph A. Cafasso and Ramsey Campbell and Kathryn Cramer and Mike Dash and brian d foy and Henry Hardy and Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Phil McMullen and Lambert Meertens and Sheldon Rampton and Jason Snell.
  

I have started the page "List of professional editors who have edited Wikipedia", a copy of which is reproduced below.

This is a list of list of professional editors who have edited Wikipedia.

Category:Connected contributors Category:Editors
—Wavelength (talk) 20:29, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

This is just crazy. If you want a "supply" of professional editors, ask for volunteers. This list is useless. Dicklyon (talk) 21:34, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about crazy, but certainly seems pointless. Is it presumed that "professional editors" are more likely to step forward if they can have their name in a list? Or is it to make easier for Wikipedians to find these professional editors? I suspect that would tend to deter them from stepping forward. I question whether these individuals have indicated willingness to be "available" (have they been asked?); this could be deemed a form of wp:outing. That some of these users are red-linked shows that they are not so available. This effort seems very poorly conceived. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:11, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

The main purpose of the list is to make it easier for Wikipedians to find these professional editors. I do not understand how or why it would deter them from stepping forward. If the list constitutes an infringement of the policy at WP:OUTING, then does not Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles do likewise? In either case, I did not intend any malice. If I behaved improperly by assembling the information, then please forgive me.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:35, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

What use case are you actually imagining for how Wikipedians might use this list? Are you imagining we might email them and ask them for help editing, or professional opinions, or what? Morwen - Talk 10:39, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I am visualizing those editors contributing from their expertise to the extent of their ability and willingness to do so. That might involve (1) answering questions, (2) contributing to discussions, (3) applying the MOS guidelines, or even (4) becoming participants in Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style (WP:WPMOS). Also, they might (5) initiate discussions or (6) directly edit the guidelines.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm a professional proofreader. If you want me to do something, you can just ask.

I guess there's a little ego buzz on being on a pro list, but is there any verification system? Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:24, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Someone can volunteer, or even be asked if they might volunteer. But simply extracting and then posting a list inviting people to ask for help (where there is no indication that tese people have actually volunteered) seems tantamount to harassment. (WP:Wikipedians with articles doesn't invite people to contact them.) That some of these users we are being directed to are red-linked really undercuts the intended utility. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:59, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

The act of asking another person for help is not, in itself, harassment. I suppose that a typical human being both asks and is asked for help of various kinds frequently.

According to Wikipedia:Userboxes (version of 12:50, 24 September 2012), a "userbox (commonly abbreviated as UBX) is a small colored box ... designed to appear only on a Wikipedian's user page as a communicative notice about the user, in order to directly (or even indirectly) help Wikipedians collaborate more effectively on articles."

The act of posting the list is not an act of asking for help. Also, the list is not inviting anyone to ask for help.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:15, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that asking someone for help is harassment, but this could end up being like telemarketers who call all the time for the editors on the list.

Is there a way to create a list of people who have put an "I'm an editor; ask me for help!" userbox on their talk page? Could such a list be automated? If this is possible, then it would be possible to expand it to lists of chemistry experts, comic book lore experts, Hungarian history experts, etc. for use in specialized articles. So long as it's voluntary and controlled by the editors in question, it could be a very good thing. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:38, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

The editors at Wikipedia:WikiProject Userboxes/Members might be able to answer those questions.

—Wavelength (talk) 03:27, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Also, there is Category:Userboxes.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:32, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Sentence case in section headings

There is an active discussion at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Where did our capitalisation rules for headings come from? (version of 15:15, 4 November 2012).
—Wavelength (talk) 15:22, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Another use for hyphens?

At WP:WikiProject Airports/page content#Body we find a project guideline for formatting shortened airport names in destinations listings:

4. Differentiate between multiple airports in one city using "-" (eg "London-Heathrow", not "London Heathrow").

I've been taking out a lot of hyphens in listings, where the links went to airports with spaces in their titles, like London Heathrow Airport, since I hadn't heard of this use of hyphens in WP (though I've seen it in various sources that list flights this way – rarely, per this book search). Any opinions on this? Is it an example of some more general use that we should represent in the MOS? Or is it a bad idea? Dicklyon (talk) 04:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

A lot like Guinea-Bissau in the non-attributive usage. Not sure about attributive London Heathrow Airport, though. — kwami (talk) 08:21, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's like that at all. Guinea-Bissau is a name, estabilshed, well recognized. London-Heathrow is a made-up construction to abbreviate London Heathrow Airport, or to disambiguate the city destination when there are multiple airports, in certain compact contexts. It's quite hard to find in sources, deviating as it does from the established name. Dicklyon (talk) 16:55, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

The Chicago House Manual of Style (15th ed.) has a painful seven-page-long description of the general patterns of hyphen use. This one likely comes under this type: "noun + noun, two functions: nurse-practitioner, city-state, city-state governance'. (Both noun and adjective forms are always hyphenated.)" (7.90, p. 303, emphases in original). I would say "London-Heathrow" has two nouns with different functions, and so needs the hyphen when used standalone. Churn and change (talk) 17:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Found it: [14]. This is 16th, which clarifies those examples as "noun + noun, two functions (both nouns equal)". It's not clear if it applies to two different or unequal functions like city-disambiguator. Dicklyon (talk) 01:18, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I think the way CHMOS uses it, for a noun-noun combination one either has "first noun modifies second noun" or "both nouns equal." From the context, looks like their definition of "both nouns equal" is essentially "first noun not modifying second noun." Churn and change (talk) 01:47, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, perhaps that's all they mean. Still, I don't see how it supports inserting the hyphen into noun–noun compounds that are normally set open in more complete noun phrases. Dicklyon (talk) 21:12, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Guinea-Bissau is also "a made-up construction", just like Congo-Brazzaville. (Funny no-one ever says "China-Taipei", though.) — kwami (talk) 22:23, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

OK, but Guinea-Bissau was made up and accepted outside of WP, and I'm asking about what appear more like novel compounds made up for WP destination listings, which are not entity names. Dicklyon (talk) 01:18, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Most of these hyphenated destination listings are piped to more proper airport names. But in a few cases, the odd hyphenation has been used in the actual airport article titles. These seem to be almost always a bad idea, with a space being more sensible as well as more common in sources. So I've moved some of those. In other cases, sources seem to support the idea of a dash, so I've done that in a few cases. Are there cases where a hyphen is really the right answer? Still not clear. But where it's clearly not the right answer, is it OK to use it for a short form in destination tables? Is this a common convention? Why did the airport project adopt it? Still wondering... Dicklyon (talk) 05:22, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

For example, consider these airports in Italy: L'Aquila-Preturo Airport (see [15]) and Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi – Umbria International Airport (see [16]). The former appears variously in sources with space, with slash, with hyphen (including many copied from wikipedia), and with spaced hyphen. The slash and spaced hyphen strongly suggest an en dash in WP style. I don't find it in any English language books not copied from wikipedia, but in Italian books it appears with space, slash, or parens, never hyphen. So I'd go for space, knowing that the dash is sometimes annoying to some editors. In the case of Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi – Umbria International Airport, there's clearly at least one dash needed if we're going to connect so many alternative name and location parts into a title, so I'd be inclined to move it to the name, San Francesco d'Assisi Airport, or the location-based name Umbria–Perugia International Airport. But maybe that's not right. In the Template:Airports in Italy it's called "Perugia: San Francesco Airport"; so maybe Perugia San Francesco d'Assisi Airport? In destination talbes, it's just Perugia, which is fine. Dicklyon (talk) 05:50, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

Linking to categories

I've added a link to Category:Members and Associates of the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, in a "see also" section of Royal Birmingham Society of Artists; but that's not very elegant. Is there a preferred way of making such links? Should I format it as, say, Members and Associates? The template we use to link to the related Commons category is much nicer; do we, or should we, have a template for linking to our own categories? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:05, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Allowable minimal change per MoS quote

• Per MOS:QUOTE: "Trivial spelling or typographical errors should be silently corrected ... a few purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment. This practice of conforming typographical styling to a publication's own 'house style' is universal."

• According to the CMOS (16th edition), this type of change is acceptable. The point of "minimal change" is to retain the wording, not the syntax or typography. According to the CMOS: "Although in a direct quotation the wording should be reproduced exactly ... changes are generally permissable to make a passage fit into the syntax and typography of the surrounding text." (p.621), "the initial letter can be changed to a capital or a lowercase letter" (p.622), "words in full capitals can be set in lowercase, if that is the preferred style for the surrounding text" (p.622). From page 624 of the CMOS: "Changing capitalisation to suit syntax: Aside from proper nouns and some of the words derived from them, words in English publications are normally lowercased unless they begin a sentence. To suit this requirement, the first word in a quoted passage must often be adjusted to conform to the surrounding text." "Initial capital or lowercase: "When a quotation introduced midsentence forms a syntatical part of the sentence, it begins with a lowercase even if the original begins with a capital."

• From the New York Times Style guide: "The Times does adjust spelling, punctuation, capitalisation, and abbreviations within a quotation for consistent style." (p.281)

• From New Hart's Rules (Oxford): 9.1 General Principles: "While the wording of the quoted text should be faithfully reproduced, the extent to which the precise form of the original source is replicated will vary with context and editorial preference." (p.152) Further, 9.3.4 Typography states: "A quotation is not a facsimile, and in most contexts it is not necessary to reproduce the exact typography of the original." (p.160)

• Question. - Is it an acceptable typographical/stylistic change to alter capitalisation of "The Beatles" in a direct quote so as to conform to our "house style", i.e "the Beatles"? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:10, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I would say yes, but this is something we never got into in detail. BTW, when CMOS says "syntax", they don't mean syntax. — kwami (talk) 00:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I think you have misrepresented CMOS regarding "the Beatles" vs "The Beatles" in a quoted bit of running prose. CMOS allows for the following:

• George Harrison said, "the Beatles will go on and on."

In this example, the entirety of Harrison's complete sentence, "The Beatles will go on and on," has been changed only by knocking the initial capital 'T' down to lower case. Because the "The" was at the beginning of the sentence, CMOS assumes that Harrison would have made it lower case in running prose. The CMOS stands opposed to your position regarding the case in which a writer purposely puts a capital 'T' in running prose; the guideline says to keep true to the original typographical style as much as possible. This much, I think, is possible for us to follow. Binksternet (talk) 00:52, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the CMOS cares one iota about what Harrison wanted, this has to do with maintaining a consistent "house style". I'm also not seeing where the CMOS prescribes the exact reproduction of quoted material. Can you point me to where it says this? Publishers adapt prose to their house style, so why wouldn't we? At any rate, our MoS says: "a few purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment", why do you think this does not apply? What have I misrepresented IYO? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:04, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

• Binksternet, would you agree that the current Wikipedia "house style" is "the Beatles"? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:06, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music#Names (definite article). — kwami (talk) 02:05, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

GabeMc, my 15th edition CMOS says: "Syntactic and typographical considerations. Although in a direct quotation the wording, spelling, capitalization, and internal punctuation of the original should be reproduced exactly, the following changes are generally permissible to make the passage fit into the syntax and typography of the surrounding text." This is why I think CMOS endorses the odd/awkward capital in a direct quote embedded in running prose. Yes, the Wikipedia house style is now "the Beatles" in running prose. Binksternet (talk) 03:25, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Binksternet, the same section in my 16th edition states: "13.7 Permissable changes to punctuation, capitalisation, and spelling. Although in a direct quotation the wording should be reproduced exactly, the following changes are generally permissible to make the passage fit into the syntax and typography of the surrounding text." (p.621) So, it would seem the CMOS editors have made a significant substantive alteration to the text of the 15th edition. Do you now agree that the latest version of the CMOS supports my assertion that "t"s should be brought in-line with our house style, "the Beatles", and not reproduced as a facsimile. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 03:42, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I acknowledge that CMOS has had a change of heart on the matter, from the 15th to the 16th edition. The fact that there have been two different practices recently advocated by CMOS weakens the argument. Binksternet (talk) 05:27, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Does it weaken the argument more than this strengthens it? Also, the 15th edition of the CMOS is 7 years old, while the 16th is 3. Shouldn't we be using the most recently updated version as our guide, and not an outdated one?

• From the New York Times Style Guide: "The Times does adjust spelling, punctuation, capitalisation, and abbreviations within a quotation for consistent style." (p.281)
• From New Hart's Rules (Oxford): 9.1 General Principles: "While the wording of the quoted text should be faithfully reproduced, the extent to which the precise form of the original source is replicated will vary with context and editorial preference." (p.152) Further, 9.3.4 Typography states: "A quotation is not a facsimile, and in most contexts it is not necessary to reproduce the exact typography of the original." (p.160) ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 05:31, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

The flightier sources (fansites, etc.) use a capital T in "The Beatles," but the more professional sites say "the Beatles." The impression that I get is that the fansites are trying to aggrandize the band and playing fast and loose with English (which is pretty loose, I'll grant) to do so. I'd go with yes, it is acceptable to correct the capitalization and use a lowercase t. However, Beatles fans have made such a ruckus about it that you should wear asbestos clothing while doing so. (To translate said joke into action, yes, use a lowercase T when inserting text, but expect to be reverted by a fan. Don't change it back unless you're prepared for a long fuss on the talk page.) Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:50, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

GabeMc has been systematically misquoting, ripping out of context and cherry-picking the material he quotes from the Chicago Manual of Style and Hart's Rules.

1. GabeMc purports to quote the following: "Although in a direct quotation the wording should be reproduced exactly ... changes are generally permissable to make a passage fit into the syntax and typography of the surrounding text. The ellipsis in the middle is highly distorting. What the CMOS actually says at that point is (emphasis mine): Although in a direct quotation the wording should be reproduced exactly, the following changes are generally permissible to make a passage fit into the syntax and typography of the surrounding text. GabeMc has conveniently glossed over the fact that the CMOS is here presenting an exhaustive list of well-defined exceptions, rather than delivering a general blanket endorsement of whatever minor changes an editor might decide upon, as his quote makes it appear. Needless to say, none of the limited classes of exception actually listed after this sentence apply to the "the/The" Beatles case.
2. GabeMc purports to quote: the initial letter can be changed to a capital or a lowercase letter. He omits the fact that the actual passage in the CMOS further points to some following sections ((see 13.13–16)), and those sections make it abundantly clear that they refer exclusively to cases such as the following: (13.14): When a quotation introduced midsentence forms a syntactical part of the sentence, it begins with a lowercase letter even if the original begins with a capital (the CMOS goes on to provide examples such as Benjamin Franklin admonishes us to “plough deep while sluggards sleep.” This is exclusively about the use of capitalization to mark beginnings of sentences.
3. GabeMc quotes, purportedly from p. 622 of the print version of the 16th edition of CMOS (the same page as the one of quote #1): words in full capitals can be set in lowercase, if that is the preferred style for the surrounding text. I have no access to the print version but only to the online version, same 16th edition, and I cannot find that quotation in that context at all. What I do find is something else entirely (emphasis mine): Words in full capitals in the original may be set in small caps, if that is the preferred style for the surrounding text. This, too, points to another section for more details, which makes it clear that it refers exclusively to matters such as "nasa" rather than "NASA". Gabe, did you accidentally misquote, or does the print edition have different text than the online edition?

   In any case, nothing in the CMOS has any bearing on the non-trivial issue of the use of capitalization to mark proper nouns. This is not a matter of trivial typographical style but a matter of orthography, and as such far beyond anything the CMOS section contemplates.

4. GabeMc purports to quote from Hart's Rules (Oxford UP), p.152 the following: While the wording of the quoted text should be faithfully reproduced, the extent to which the precise form of the original source is replicated will vary with context and editorial preference. Again, he makes this sound as if it was a blanket endorsement of whatever orthographic changes an editor prefers. He conveniently leaves out the following on p.157: In quotations from printed sources the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation should normally follow the original. This, as in CMOS, is again followed by a limited, exhaustive set of well-defined exceptions (p.158). Among them are the same two allowances for changes to capitalization: the initial letter of a whole quotation changed to integrate it into the surrounding syntax, and changes to words printed in all-capitals.
5. GabeMc further purports to quote from p.160: A quotation is not a facsimile, and in most contexts it is not necessary to reproduce the exact typography of the original. He conveniently leaves out the context: this is the section about "typography", and the next sentence makes it unmistakeably clear that it deals only with issues such as "change of font, bold type, underscoring, ornaments, and the exact layout of the text". This clearly does not include issues of orthography such as capitalization, because those have been dealt with in a preceding separate chapter ("spelling, capitalization, and punctuation")

   Again, there is nothing even remotely hinting at the possibility of a non-trivial orthographic change like the one he proposes.

6. GabeMc also quotes from the New York Times style guide: The Times does adjust spelling, punctuation, capitalisation, and abbreviations within a quotation for consistent style. I have no access to the full text of this guide here, but from what I gather, this statement is from the context of a discussion of journalistic quoting of spoken language. I see no indication that it has any bearing on how to deal with written sources.

GabeMc needs to stop misusing these quotations for his "the" crusade. If he continues trying to change quoted text in Beatles articles, or continues using these blatant mis-quotations of guidelines in support of doing so, I'm quite prepared to block him for disruption. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:12, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for looking up the various style guides to see the full context. It is wrong for anybody to misrepresent a style guide in order to push a personal preference that is not intended by the style guide. Binksternet (talk) 14:51, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

That is a very good rebuttal of GabeMc's misleading quotations. However, it is still acceptable to change a capital t to a lowercase t when the direct article is capitalized in error, as in "The Beatles." The question is whether or not an [sic] tag is required. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:44, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Oh please, let's not start this again all over now. Capitalized "The"s in sources about the Beatles are not "errors"; they are a conscious and systematic orthographic choice made by a substantial portion of the reliable, carefully edited literature (albeit not the majority usage, and not the usage recommended by most style guides). Come on people, we just had a months-long decision process debating all these things to death. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:12, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Brad does not decide for the entire Wikipedia project what is and what isn't an orthographical error. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 21:56, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

• Fut.Perf., on your above point number 1: "GabeMc has conveniently glossed over the fact that the CMOS is here presenting an exhaustive list of well-defined exceptions", one of those well-defined exceptions is "2. The initial letter may be changed to a capital or to a lowercase letter." Another is "5. Obvious typographic errors may be corrected silently." ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:28, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
• On your above point number 2: "This is exclusively about the use of capitalization to mark beginnings of sentences." What? It pertains to mid-sentence use of quoted material with caps. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:28, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
• On your above point number 3: You: " ... the non-trivial issue of the use of capitalization to mark proper nouns". 1) Why have you declared an unpronouncable orthographical alteration non-trivial? Under what authority? 2) Correction. - "the" is an article of speech, not a proper noun as you stated above.
• On your above point number 4: You seem to be confusing wording with orthography, two very differnet things. Per "and changes to words printed in all-capitals" It actually says: "Text that is printed in full caps may be rationalised to upper and lowercase (or caps and small caps)". Also, on page 159, 9.3 Styling of Quoted Text, 9.3.2 Interpolation and correction: "In some contexts editorial policy may allow the correction of trivial errors in the original, judging it more important to transmit the content of the quoted matter than to reproduce its exact form."
• On your above point number 5: I think an unneeded capital intended to glorify the band constitutes an "ornament".
• On your above point number 6: WP:AGF. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:28, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

• From a review of Ian MacDonald's book in tes (UK): "Ultimately, the book's main achievement is that it manages to direct the reader to the music itself rather than simply fascinate with the mythology it is surrounded by. After all, as Aaron Copland once remarked, 'If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of the Beatles.'" So, did "the largest network of teachers in the world" make an orthographic error when adapting the Copland quote from MacDonald's "house style" to their own? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Typographical conformity

I've copy edited this section, putting the bullet on caps at top, cutting excess verbiage, etc. However, there are some more substantial changes we might want from the style guide quoted above:

• "The Times does adjust spelling, punctuation, capitalisation, and abbreviations within a quotation for consistent style."

I don't know what they mean by "spelling". Is this just typos, or do they change UK to US spelling? Would we want to do the same in an article that otherwise uses the opposite tradition?

Where the MOS would advise against using abbreviations, should we expand abbreviations within a quotation?

— kwami (talk) 01:33, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

• As I understand it, changing varieties of spelling in a quote or title is a no-no generally (although I notice my daily newspaper changes the z to s in World Health Organization, which is pretty radical). On the other matters, I personally favour the more interventionist approach. Noetica has thought through the logic of this more than I have, I think. Tony (talk) 02:41, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I can imagine that altering the national variety of spelling could lead to all sorts of havoc on WP, with the articles going back and forth.

So, add a note on expanding abbreviations? — kwami (talk) 07:15, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Because of the English Wikipedia's identity as a multi-variety publication, I would go with not changing the variety of English within direct quotations.

The newspaper should not be changing the z to an s in "World Health Organization" or any other proper noun. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:54, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Will note that explicitly, just in case. — kwami (talk) 19:49, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Headers that begin with a numeral: capital letter for text?

Should we use an initial text capital in headers such as the following which start with numbers?

• 1964: Research continues
• 1964 – Research continues
• 11:00 a.m. – First report

Or should these be lower case?

• 1964: research continues
• 1964 – research continues
• 11:00 a.m. – first report

This is something of an extension of the question about whether to capitalize following a colon. I think that in the case of a header, the initial capitalization should be preferred even if it is not preferred in running prose. Binksternet (talk) 16:16, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the initial capitalization should be used. EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:38, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I think it's different if there's a colon or dash; for instance, "research" would be left uncapitalized in:

• 1964 research

just like in running prose. And perhaps the recommendation should be to avoid numeral+colon or numeral+dash beginnings for sections. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:06, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Section headings (version of 07:18, 8 November 2012), "[t]he provisions in Article titles (above) generally apply to section headings as well (for example, headings are in sentence case, not title case)."

All pages with titles beginning with 2012 A, All pages with titles beginning with 2012 a, All pages with titles beginning with 2012 c, All pages with titles beginning with 2012 e, All pages with titles beginning with 2012 f, All pages with titles beginning with 2012 i, All pages with titles beginning with 2012 m, All pages with titles beginning with 2012 n, All pages with titles beginning with 2012 p, All pages with titles beginning with 2012 r, All pages with titles beginning with 2012 s, All pages with titles beginning with 2012 t

—Wavelength (talk) 19:49, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

• The Wikipedia MoS currently says: "The provisions in Article titles (above) generally apply to section headings as well (for example, headings are in sentence case, not title case)."

• According to New Hart's Rules, "The word following a colon is not capitalised in British English (unless it is a proper name of course)." (p.74)

• According to the CMOS, "6.61 Lowercase of capital letter after a colon. When a colon is used within a sentence ... the first word following the colon is lowercased."(16th edition, p.327) Also, 8.1 "Chicago's preference is for the 'down' style ... sparing use of capitals." (16th edition, p.387) ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:29, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

• According to the New York Times style guide, "Ordinarily lowercase the word after a colon." (p.73) ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 02:10, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I think that the MOS suggests avoiding unnecesary caps, and not capitalizing in headings things that would not be capitalized in text, with the exception of the first letter. I don't see a good case for that exception being pushed to after a number. Dicklyon (talk) 04:21, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree, an initial capital should be used following a colon preceded by a numeral. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 06:15, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I think you mean you disagree with me then. Dicklyon (talk) 04:09, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

I guess I was confused by your comment, I thought you were saying that Binksternet was correct and I was not. I've heard this both ways depending on who you ask, or who reverts you. So, was I correct or incorrect in lowercasing the first letter following a colon in header? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:09, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps a bullet point should be added to clarify this, as there is no obvious indication (TMK) in our MoS as it currently stands. ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:08, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

What letter case is required or recommended for the first letter in the subheading at The Morgan Library & Museum#2006 Renovation (version of 17:50, 10 November 2012)?

—Wavelength (talk) 17:55, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

It shouldn't be capitalised, like 1964 research above. Usual running-prose lower case. Rothorpe (talk) 14:13, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Rothorpe, would you say the same for 1964: research? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 04:58, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Not as a bullet point, no, as it's no longer adjective followed by noun: the colon balances the two parts (1964: Research), so the second is a sentence fragment, or title in its own right. But I've often noticed people using caps after colons mid-sentence, which normally they shouldn't. Rothorpe (talk) 14:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

How about as a section header? Ala: 1964: research. How do you stand on this issue? ~ GabeMc ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Section header is what I meant, indeed. Capital after colon, new sentence. Rothorpe (talk) 01:15, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

RFC regarding ticker symbols in article leads

Hi. I've started an RFC regarding ticker symbols in article leads: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Ticker symbols in article leads. Please weigh in! --MZMcBride (talk) 15:13, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

new point

Added MOS:RTL. Technical formatting rather than style, so feel free to move elsewhere as appropriate. — kwami (talk) 19:41, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Formatting of captions

Regarding Formating of captions, a stand alone sentence in signage, such as a solitary stand alone sentence as a caption of an image, should not have a period on the end of it. This is a solid design principle that no amount of prescriptive grammar can do anything helpful to refute. Who has authority to clarify this point in above cited MOS section? If no reasonable explanation why I am not right is give, in due course I will do it myself. It is quite simply a shockingly rude design gaff to clutter a beautiful page with a misplaced period. I am sure there is hope that Wikipedia will rise above that. Please give this some thought and comment. Thank you! :-) -Rogerhc (talk) 23:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

If you change that long-standing guideline, change MOS:CAPTION, WP:CAP#Wording, and Wikipedia:Simplified Manual of Style#Periods and commas to be consistent with your change to Formating of captions. Art LaPella (talk) 03:33, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Say what? Complete sentences should not have periods at the end if they are captions? Can you point out any publications that follow such a style? Or guides that recommend such a style? If so, then we can start to look at whether it would be a good move for WP to go that way. Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Rogerhc has asked me to comment here. To give some brief context for everyone else, I directed them to this section of the MoS last night with a few edit summaries where I had undone their edits (example). I am unsure why Rogerhc feels so strongly that a sentence used as a caption should not end in a period. My personal view is that they should. Aesthetically, I see nothing distasteful about a period. I do not see why a sentence in a caption should be punctuated differently from a sentence in the main article body. If I read a complete sentence without any terminating punctuation, I feel something is missing.

Searching the archives, it seems that between January 2006 and October 2006, Rogerhc's way was the standard on Wikipedia. The current rule was introduced on 4 October 2006 with these diffs: [17] [18]. The discussion of this change is at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Captions/Archive 1#Using periods, which includes a quote from the Chicago Manual of Style on the subject. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 22:27, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I've added a link to that discussion to the Register, to save anyone else the search. – PartTimeGnome (talk | contribs) 23:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not clear on the what the objection here is. It says that, if the caption is a sentence, it should end with a period. If it is not a sentence, it should not end with a period. This makes perfect sense to me. Practically, I think most captions are not sentences, and would therefore not contain the supposedly "ugly" period. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 22:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

It definitely appears that in its short lifetime, the idea of having no period at the end of a one-sentence caption found approximately zero support in discussion. My question remains unanswered: does any publication that we know of use or recommend such a style? Until we get a positive answer, it's not even worth talking about. Dicklyon (talk) 22:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC)