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:::This from someone who until now has appeared to object to any kind of regularisation. Is it only when it suits you? [[User:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">'''Tony'''</font >]] [[User_talk:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">(talk)</font >]] 08:44, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
:::This from someone who until now has appeared to object to any kind of regularisation. Is it only when it suits you? [[User:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">'''Tony'''</font >]] [[User_talk:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">(talk)</font >]] 08:44, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
::::Dear Tony: Your frequent personal aspersions, which are personal attacks and fail to assume good faith, are uncivil and also counterproductive (that is, they are the opposite of persuasive). Please examine your behavior. Thank you. [[User:Finell|Finell]] [[User_talk:Finell|(Talk)]] 15:24, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
::::Dear Tony: Your frequent personal aspersions, which are personal attacks and fail to assume good faith, are uncivil and also counterproductive (that is, they are the opposite of persuasive). Please examine your behavior. Thank you. [[User:Finell|Finell]] [[User_talk:Finell|(Talk)]] 15:24, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
:::::Dear Finell, I ''do'' examine my behaviour, every day — as I do my stools. Both are fine, thanks for asking. [[User:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">'''Tony'''</font >]] [[User_talk:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">(talk)</font >]] 13:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
:::*Thank you, Finell. As for the substantive point: no, I support consistency ''within'' articles, and always have; varying between British and American English is normally a pointless distraction, and I have yet to see a good reason to do it. (There may be good reasons to be inconsistent on other stylistic features, but that's for other sections.) Varying between ''fourth'' and ''quarter'', which either a Briton or an American may choose to do (for example, if one paragraph uses "fiscal quarter"), is another matter. I trust Tony will read this carefully, and attempt to reply without invective. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] <small>[[User talk:Pmanderson|PMAnderson]]</small> 16:14, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
:::*Thank you, Finell. As for the substantive point: no, I support consistency ''within'' articles, and always have; varying between British and American English is normally a pointless distraction, and I have yet to see a good reason to do it. (There may be good reasons to be inconsistent on other stylistic features, but that's for other sections.) Varying between ''fourth'' and ''quarter'', which either a Briton or an American may choose to do (for example, if one paragraph uses "fiscal quarter"), is another matter. I trust Tony will read this carefully, and attempt to reply without invective. [[User:Pmanderson|Septentrionalis]] <small>[[User talk:Pmanderson|PMAnderson]]</small> 16:14, 1 March 2008 (UTC)



Revision as of 13:06, 2 March 2008

See also
Wikipedia talk:Writing better articles
Wikipedia talk:Article titles
Wikipedia talk:Quotations
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/quotation and punctuation

Try and vs. Try to

Are both these usages acceptable or do a lot of people make the mistake?

I want to try to discover the correct usage. Can I also try and discover it?

IMO if you are going to try and do something, make up your mind, either try, or do it, but not both.

Hope that sense makes :) Franamax (talk) 21:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try and sounds too informal to me. Strad (talk) 23:27, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I know J.R.R. Tolkien preferred to use "try and" in his works, and was often "corrected" by well-meaning editors when publishing his works. I found that in the Note on the Text in my 1995 single-volume HarperCollins paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings, page xi. I'm not sure what to conclude from that, but I wanted to mention it here. Phaunt (talk) 01:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think Tolkien was idiosyncratic in other respects too. I agree with Strad -- "try and" is perfectly fine informal English, probably with a very long pedigree, but it's not appropriate to the register of English used in an encyclopedia. --Trovatore (talk) 01:09, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Other users of "try and": Charlotte Bronte, Lord Byron, Lewis Carroll, Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, James Fenimore Cooper, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, Theodore Dreiser, George Eliot, Kenneth Grahame, H Rider Haggard, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, DH Lawrence, Herman Melville – without even venturing into the second half of the alphabet. All abysmal stylists, of course. Our editors must be warned away from such catachrestic usage as theirs.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 01:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
These are fiction writers, at least the names I recognize. When you're writing fiction you do what you like; you finely calibrate the particular effect you're trying to evoke in the reader. Writing for a formal reference work is quite another matter. --Trovatore (talk) 01:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes indeed, Trovatore. And what would they know about proper language? Let us by all means guard against following their example, as reference works with titles like these appear to have done:International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, International Encyclopedia Of Economic Sociology, Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning, The Concise Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management, Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas, Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages, Academic American Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of the American Judicial System, Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War, and a zillion wannabes from that same "college of dullards" (in Mencken's memorable phrase). Standards, I cry!
(Meanwhile, we can't even get the hard space sorted out. Or the ellipsis.)
– Noetica♬♩Talk 02:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't "try and" imply success at what was tried, while "try to" carries no implication of success? Whether "try and" is correct might depend upon whether the author wanted to imply success. Is the debate about a specific rule of grammar without any artistic license? -- SEWilco (talk) 02:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think "try and" implies success. It's just a more informal way of saying "try to". --Trovatore (talk) 02:47, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Working through the words, "try and" would imply success, but that's not how I see it used, I tend to agree with Tr that it is informal usage, of course that's why I'm asking. Anothger point is that I am currently "trying to" find the answer whereas almost no-one is ever "trying and" find such a thing.
I have two specific questions: is there such a rule of grammar? what is the appropriate usage in Wikipedia mainspace articles? Franamax (talk) 04:20, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And thank you Noetica for the new word! I don't think I'll be accusing my friends of catachresis anytime soon though, could get me in trouble. :) Franamax (talk) 04:22, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(Happy to help with the lexical supplementation, Franamax.)
This thing with try and has been turned inside and out for eighty years at least. Fowler's first edition approves of it, and does indeed find in it a suggestion of encouragement towards success that is absent from try to. The latest Fowler's gives the issue almost a page, approvingly. M-W's Concise Dictionary of English Usage (fabulous work, along with its earlier unabridged sibling) devotes almost two full pages to the issue, and finds the form quite acceptable (citing, among many other sources, a letter by Jane Austen). Both of these current authorities observe that inversions and similar contortions are impossible with it: you can't have this: "Arrive on time? I'll try and, at least!" But you can have this: "Arrive on time? I'll try to, at least!" Duh.
(Meanwhile, we can't agree on a rational policy for punctuating captions!)
– Noetica♬♩Talk 05:21, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No one's saying there's anything inherently wrong with it. It's in the wrong register. I stand by that. --Trovatore (talk) 06:25, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I had a feeling try and would turn up a million times in a corpus search. That's good enough for me. Strad (talk) 05:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem with "Try and", as in "Try and do it" is its implication of "try [to achieve something]" AND "do it [succeed in doing it]". It's a round-about expression that should be conflated into a single meaning ("Try to do it"). "Try and" is more common in speech than writing, I suspect, because it avoids the t ... t and can be slurred lazily as "Try 'n". It may have its place in fictional dialogue, but not in serious writing such as WP articles aspire to. I always correct it where I come across it. Tony (talk) 11:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You "correct" it? You alter it. It is presumptuous to call it correction when the usage is enshrined in great works of English literature (by no means only, or even predominantly, in dialogue), and common in good serviceable prose outside of fiction as early as the 17th century. As my small sample shows (see above) it is also in common use in reference works, and approved by major authorities on theoretical and empirical grounds.
I might alter it, too, for style: but I would not think or say that I was correcting. Ameliorating, rather: after a nuanced weighing of context and intent.
Why seek to legislate on such subtle matters here, when so much else is more pressing? And why pretend that such questions are not subtle, when the literature shows very plainly that they are?
My intention here? As Milton has it: "At least to try and teach the erring soul" (Paradise Regained).
– Noetica♬♩Talk 11:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm. I see that's been misquoted (missing comma). The text (my emphasis) actually says:
"At least to try, and teach the erring soul,/Not wilfully misdoing, but unware/ Misled; the stubborn only to subdue."
--ROGER DAVIES talk 13:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(Serves tea all round) Silly me for coming here looking for an answer, I forgot the WP in WP:MOS :) I tend to agree with Tony that the "try and" usage is a little easier to say, thus tends to get written the same way. Would it be fair to say that "try to" is a preferred usage?
And who's that Milton guy? I haven't seen him editing around lately :) Franamax (talk) 12:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Milton hasn't published anything recently, so he's not qualified to be considered a writer. -- SEWilco (talk) 16:45, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think "try to" is preferred for Wikipedia articles, but I can see situations where "try and" will reasonably appear. -- SEWilco (talk) 16:45, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One convenient place for an outside opinion on usage is the American Heritage dictionary online. They have a usage note for try and at the bottom of the entry. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:33, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think try to makes more sense. Per CBM's comment above, the usage of "try and" seems to be informal, and while its actual grammatical correctness is perhaps in question, its formality doesn't seem to be, and formal writing should be preferred in an encyclopedia. Also, while it may not be viewed this way, at least technically "try and" implies that one will succeed. For example, "I will try and find a solution to this dilemma" can be viewed as you are going to make an attempt at solving the problem, "and find a solution..." While many people may not view it this way in the interest of ambiguity I would say go with "try to". Of course other options like "attempt to" are even better. Just don't "take a crack at it"--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 17:07, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To make my view of the matter even clearer than I have already, and to answer a couple of recent comments, I present these points:
  • I do not accuse any person of being presumptuous, but I say that certain behaviour is presumptuous. It is presumptuous to "correct" usage that has been established for centuries in the language, from the pens of great writers. It is presumptuous to think that commentators in all editions of Fowler's, and other major authorities, are wrong and that one's opinion is by natural right more weighty then theirs. It is presumptuous to think that the competence of a huge number of reference works in print is less than ours here. As I have pointed out, we can't even get good policy on the hard space, ellipses, or punctuation for captions. And we can't sort out the formatting of dates and numbers. Why should we think editors here have any better judgement on this matter? If we agree that the matter is subtle, and if we don't seek to legislate, we should let editors have their way and not "correct" them as a reflex reaction. (Tony says: "I always correct it where I come across it.")
  • Milton may or may not have been misquoted. I was perfectly aware of different punctuations of the line I cited. I chose to follow the OED's version (in the entry for "and"). Until any of us has cited and named a proper textual version, there is little more to say. Even if we have it recorded, and not some editor's attempt at emendation, the punctuation of Milton's time was vastly different from any modern practice; and it would take further argument to demonstrate any relevance to the present question, anyway.
  • I say we should work on what's more important, and not dwell on minor, disputed, and subtle questions of style. It this were the most urgent of our concerns we would be in a happy situation indeed. That is the point of what I have contributed above. Of course style is important, and I myself am constantly making alterations to improve it. But this will always be a matter of individual judgement or negotiated consensus: except in those cases where there is already an established majority opinion among those who have actually looked, analysed, and thought on the matter.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 21:58, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, let me make my view clearer. There is nothing wrong, in English grammar, with the phrase a lot in the sense of "many" or "much", and I would hazard a guess that you can find the usage in the works of many great writers, and that Fowler probably had no problem with it (though this is a guess). But the tone is wrong in an encyclopedia article. If I happen across a lot while reading an article, I will most likely change it to something that sounds more formal. (It does depend a bit on the subject matter of the article -- if the article itself is some piece of pop-culture fluff, I'm more likely to leave it alone.)
I would do the same thing with try and, for the same reason. We needn't call it a "correction", if that word strikes you as a presumption. --Trovatore (talk) 22:45, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you, Trovatore. I might change try and, myself. Same for a lot and a bit. That is not presumptuous: it is a large part of what editors are there for! But I would weigh each case, and not rush to coin inept rules that intimidate more often than they encourage.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 23:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, we're on the same page there. I might go a bit further -- I tend to think the MOS is generally too detailed and too pushy now. --Trovatore (talk) 00:00, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of try and, could you suggest an example of where this phrasing would be appropriate? I'm not trying to stir things up here, I really would like to know when it would or would not be appropriate to change the text. Noetica, you are right that there are more important things to work out, but it would be nice to get agreement on this small issue, at least I'd feel better :) Franamax (talk) 23:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You want me to try and treat the two differently? OK. I agree with Tony that the sound may be a factor; but I think that's perfectly legitimate. I recently advised an editor at WP:FAC to change this text: "At around the same time, Cage started studying...". I suggested "...Cage began studying...", which is much easier to say. (No -ge st-, etc.) Good prose stands up well when spoken, I say: and nothing is lost by changing started to began. Now, try to say my own first sentence here, but with to instead of and: "You want me to try to treat the two differently?" A bit harder, yes? Why should we not think that Milton chose and for the same reason? Try to say this: "At least to try to teach the erring soul." All those sibilants and dentals!
So sound gives one sort of reason. And then, sometimes a colloquial feel is no bad thing. It depends on the kind of article. But try and convince the pedants of that ! :)
(Another? Yes, why not! One lump, please.)
– Noetica♬♩Talk 01:00, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you've raised an important point that's often forgotten. It's the inner sound of the language that determines good prose, not any number of arbitrary and ever-changing rules. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But Noetica has changed my question! I didn't ask for two things, I asked for one: treat the two forms differently, I don't insist on success, I just ask for the attempt, failure is an option, so I haven't set a "try and" task, I've set a "try to" task.
I do take the speakability point, too many t's in a row leads to spittle, however generally encyclopedias are read, possibly with lips moving, but generally in a deliberate manner, so the inner sound is no more important than the inner meaning. That's why I brought this up, what gives the best meaning?
And looking at the Milton quote again, using the alternate punctuation: "At least to try, to teach the errant soul / Not wilfully misdoing..." - add that 1/4 second pause and maybe I've just out-Milton'ed Milton?
What is the appropriate tone for an encyclopedia? I suppose the lesson I will draw here is that "it depends" Franamax (talk) 01:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, Franamax! I only did it that way to set up an example! To answer more directly: you could use try and in all sorts of contexts, and there is usually very little difference between it and try to, as far as meaning is concerned. Since that is so, we can let sound determine the choice in many cases. Especially in articles where a less formal tone is acceptable. You can try to make your own example. Think of an article about a TV show, perhaps. Make a sentence with spittle and twisted lips and try to, and change it to try and. Try and find a way to do that!
As for your having out-Miltoned (no apostrophe) Milton, perhaps the change to to with the comma alters the sense, to something like "to try, [and in so doing] to teach". We'd have to do a deep analysis, using a proper text, to try (in the sense of test) whether Milton actually meant that or simply to try to teach.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 02:15, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I did see the deliberate example(s) and chose to respond by pointing out the dichotomy I see in your chosen phrasing. Perhaps I met your rhetoric with my sophistry? Dunno - I get lost around apostrophes, and, often, use of commas. :) I've always thought of the usage in question as a corruption: "trying to" - "tryna" - "try'n" - "try and"; and of course if that's how it happened, well that is the living language, it is correct by right of its own evolution. I suppose I will continue to change the phrasing but try to be careful in choosing my spots.
Having now looked up the context of the Milton quote, I agree a deeper analysis would be needed, it seems as though the aim is the trying itself since in the event of failure the option is to simply subdue the stubborn. Set up the discussion sub-page as you wish :) I do like that Wikpedia-ready line though: "by winning words to conquer willing hearts".
I'll bow out now with thanks to all thoughts above. I've posed the same question to The Economist, my exemplar of English usage, if I get a response I'll be sure to reappear (who knows, the same argument may be raging through their offices right now). FTR I like full stops after captions and ,,'s for nbsp's is a fantastic idea, put me on the list for notice when you decide to unveil. Thanx all! Franamax (talk) 03:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Very well, Franamax. Thanks for tea. And thanks also for noticing our push to reform markup for the hard space, which needs promoting at every opportunity. (I must go and [sic; not go to] update that page right now.) I look forward to your report from The Economist.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 04:37, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Trovatore and Oni_Ookami_Alfador make good points. In new text, I would use "try to" because I feel it is more encyclopedic. I'm less sure about replacing existing occurrences of "try and". I'd make the change if rewriting the sentence completely for other reasons, or for consistency with use of "try to" elsewhere in the page. As usual, there are exceptions: "I try and [I] succeed" deliberately differs in meaning from "I try to succeed". Certes (talk) 13:45, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a useful piece about "Try and" at http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-try1.htm in the splendid "World Wide Words" website. Michael Quinion's conclusion is that it is "entirely legitimate". PamD (talk) 09:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hard-space proposal: invitation to comment

A completed draft

The working group on hard-space markup has completed a detailed proposal. Click "show" to see it:

We took the discussion elsewhere so we could work on the proposal without cluttering this page, and to keep things self-contained. But we now present our work for your comments and assistance, right here at WT:MOS. This is not a call for a vote, or for formal expressions of support or opposition.

Any thoughts on the proposal as it now stands?

– Noetica♬♩Talk 03:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The use of ,, as a substitute for &nbsp; seems odd, and exactly counter to your examples of ''...'' for <i>...</i> and '''...''' for <b>...</b>. The more wiki-like technique would be something like ,,...,, (e.g., ,,17 sq ft,,) to turn all spaces within the markup into hard spaces. RossPatterson (talk) 05:27, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Ross. Yes, it isn't wiki-like if we assume that wiki markup must affect a whole block of text, rather than standing for a single entity. But single insertions of the entity &nbsp; are what we need most pressingly.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 05:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would be better to devote improvement efforts to making the Wikipedia editor show Unicode hard spaces distinctively, and making them easy to insert. This would not only solve the problem of new text, but also allow editors to work effectively with articles that already contain Unicode hard spaces, or to work effectively with passages that are copied from other sources which already contain hard spaces. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 06:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The current proposal tends toward that sort of clear visibility, doesn't it? What will ,, mean, if not a hard space? It doesn't mean anything else at present. We never see it! If we didn't already have '', that markup would look just as suspect and counterintuitive. But we recognise it, insert it, and edit it very naturally. I'm interested in your mention of "articles that already contain Unicode hard spaces". Are there many of those, in fact? It's hard to research such a thing. In any case, if ,, were adopted surely bots could be deployed to convert both existing Unicode hard spaces and occurrences of &nbsp;. Soon all hard spaces would be very visible, and all would have the same appearance to editors. Thanks for your comment.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 07:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Basically, Mr Patterson's proposal is reminiscent of the nowrap template, the deficiencies of which have already been indicated; the double double-commas idea, though less intrusive, would still present problems, including greater confusion in reading it and more mistakes in applying it correctly. Waltham, The Duke of 10:22, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That equivalence is hard to understand. After all, there don't appear to be any acknowledged deficiencies of the bold and italic wiki markups after which my suggestion is modeled. If the working group's proposal is to stand on its own, perhaps it should explain why Wikipedia should introduce this new concept of "wiki character entities" before making arguments about which notation to use for it. RossPatterson (talk) 18:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If this is intended for more Mediawiki projects than just English Wikipedia, here is probably not the best place to discuss it, because there may be issues with the proposed markup in other languages, e.g. ,, may look very similar to , which is used as an opening quotation mark in some languages.
I think the underscore _, maybe doubled __, would be more intuitive, because it already represents (soft) spaces in links. _foo_ or __foo__ is used in some adhoc inline markups for underlining, though, and sometimes for Tex-like subscripts too (CO_2).
If we did character replacement markup, there would be some others I’d like to see: typographic quotation marks ("foo"“foo”, for English) and apostrophes (foo'sfoo’s), dashes (foo -- barfoo – bar, foo---barfoo—bar), ellipses (...), arrows (-> =>), Tex-inspired diacritics (f"oo or f\"ooföo), superscripts (m^^2), fractions (3/4¾, although also an OpenType feature), mathematical symbols (1deg * 2 N*m >= x1° × 2 N·m ≥ x) etc.pp. — Christoph Päper (talk) 12:46, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Crissov's underscore for hard spaces may be a worthwhile idea; but to push for a large number of shortcuts at once is likely to capsize the whole thing. Hard spaces are our major concern, and I hope that we can keep to the original, specific issue here. Of course it needs to be taken elsewhere, but I think the matter has been raised here to generate constructive comments and much-needed support if this important initiative is to succeed. Let's see if we can succeed in this first addition to MediaWiki's code for a long time; with that experience behind us, more may be possible. Tony (talk) 14:05, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would love to see those automatic replacements too. The straight ' and " really make my eyes bleed. This could enhance significantly the typography of articles which is sometimes a bit unoptimal let's say. Med (talk) 00:39, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Several of the above comments start discussing the exact form the new markup should have. May I take that as an approval of the principle of adding some markup symbol(s) for hard to enter special symbols? −Woodstone (talk) 16:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that's an appropriate argument by extension. There seems to be a significant difference between spaces (hard or otherwise) and everything else. In other words, the English Wikipedia would die if you were forced to type spaces as &#x20; (and to read them that way in the editor), but it will probably survive every other character-handling difficulty. RossPatterson (talk) 17:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think each additional symbol needs to be more intuitive to justify the mental cost of learning it. Far more people are familiar with HTML tags than Wiki markup. Replacing <BR> with markup seems pointless at best; it's mostly easier to read concatenated XML tags than long strings of punctuation symbols, and often easier to read character-entities too. In summary, I would quite like to see -- for en, --- for em, and _ for nbsp, but any more complicated markup, or any extra other replacements, seem unnecessary for the default edit mechanism; though clever mappings and substitutions in whatever layer may be useful options for particular users. jnestorius(talk) 17:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Many valuable observations! Already our request for comment has paid off.
Waltham is right that Ross's ,,...,, is relevantly like (not equivalent to) {{nowrap}}. I don't know if Ross's suggestion is serious or just illustrative; but let's note in passing that it wouldn't work well. Apart from problems of parsing (surmountable), consider an en dash, with hard space before and normal space after:
,, –,, ; or
,, ,,– .
And if the en dash were done another way (see below for --):
,, --,, .
All silly-looking! But then, consider the current options (setting aside direct use of a Unicode hard space):
&nbsp;— ;
{{nowrap| –}} .
Does any of us like any of those? Under the current proposal:
,,— .
Stands up rather well, does it not? Then there is one possible extension touched on in the proposal, and mentioned above by jnestorius:
,,,--, .
The status of future extensions has been problematic in the proposal. It is important to address wider implications of ,,; but all we need is to show that more could be done, without attempting immediately to do it. Anyway, surely we can see the virtues of ,,— . If there is any option, current or mooted, to which jnestorius does not say yuck, perhaps it should be this last.
The underscore _ might be more intuitive than ,,, but unlike ,, it has too many existing applications, whether these are deprecated or not. Christoph raises other matters: the curly question of ‘’ and “”, for example. Again, we do need to have an eye to the big picture. Despite earlier exchanges in this forum, I am sympathetic to calls for better typographic substitutions. (Not all available ones: preformed … is inferior to ..., I think.) Regrettably, none of that seems achievable. Faced with this reality, we have attempted to solve a single pressing problem.
Ross makes a useful point by considering an extreme case: "if you were forced to type spaces as &#x20;...". Yes, WP can survive anything short of such absurd inconvenience. But that is no reason to refuse reforms.
Finally, jnestorius comments on intuitiveness. So have we all! But in the end, intuitiveness is not an intuitive matter. There is very little intuitive about ''...'' or '''...''', but they work. So might other markup, given a gentle push forward.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 22:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree completely with Noetica, and should like to add the following:
  • Although the underscore is indeed more intuitive than the double-comma, the latter is, nevertheless, much more intuitive than most other symbols, as it is restricted to the base of the line, much like an underscore; there are no dots or lines hovering above the commas.
  • True, more people with Internet experience are more familiar with HTML than with Wiki-markup; however, there are infinitely more people without any experience with markup. This ought to be taken seriously into consideration when judging what would be easier for editors to use.
  • The resemblance of the double-comma with a „ might indeed pose a minor problem, yet not nearly as great as one may imagine; the distinction in the edit box is quite clear, and if editors use the preview button (which is, of course, always recommended in every editing manual) they will immediately notice the effects of what they have typed; the position of hard spaces is also rather characteristic and quite different from wherever one might expect to find quotation marks. In my opinion, there is no obstacle here.
  • Finally, in respect with the date example, I agree that there is an error there (one which had slipped under my radar until now); there is no practice of hard-spacing a day with a month in a date. However, it is still perfectly valid to use a hard space between the first date and the connecting en-dash.
Waltham, The Duke of 21:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Waltham is right, I think, that the similarity of „ and ,, is a minor concern – compared to the potential for confusion of '' and ", in some contexts of WP work. We have to remind ourselves of the relative frequency of these things. A hard space will be required orders of magnitude more often than „ . In the few articles that use „ an inline note could be supplied at the head, to alert editors if confusion is at all likely.
Minor it may be: but we hadn't noticed it, and it's great to have such a thing pointed out.
[Corrected contribution]– Noetica♬♩Talk 01:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Confusion between ,, and may be little (here and now), but choosing double comma for the no-break space makes it unavailable for other uses. (Obvious fact, but sometimes worth pointing out.) Such a future use might be entering , if language-dependent replacement of " would not be implemented, but more ASCII character aliases as envisioned earlier were. — Christoph Päper 09:35, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Christoph. I agree: obvious facts should be on the table for discussion, so they are not neglected in the rush to address every last subtlety. I too had thought about unavailability, though not for . Any system of coding, from the profligacy of hieroglyphics to the parsimony of binary, involves decisions so that what is important or common is given an easier representation than what is trivial or uncommon. I can't think of a character that needs reformed representation more urgently than the hard space. I know you are a crusader for other characters! I would be too, as I have said above, if Wikipedia were ready for huge changes. I'll just add this: the hard space supports many of those characters that interest you (and me), so that they sit properly with their adjacent text. Hence the privileged treatment some of us have given to the problem of the hard space. The difficulties with {{nowrap}} (see below) are yet more evidence that the whole thing has been neglected and misunderstood for too long – by developers of wiki markup, browsers, and HTML itself.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 12:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Amendments to the draft, and problems with {{nowrap}}

I have made amendments to the draft, prompted by two considerations:

  • Amendment 1. The date example has been disputed. MOS currently says this: "In compound items in which numerical and non-numerical elements are separated by a space, a non-breaking space (or hard space) is recommended to avoid the displacement of those elements at the end of a line." This is, quite properly, very general. On a reasonable reading it applies to dates (which have numerical and non-numerical elements). But since there are further contested guidelines for dates at WP:MOSNUM it seems better to remove that example from the draft. I have substituted "89 sq in – 3 sq ft". Which may look contrived (it is!) and unlikely (not necesarily); but it illustrates the sort of thing that can arise in real editing.
  • Amendment 2. I discovered that the behaviour of {{nowrap}} is not as documented at Template:Nowrap; I have therefore added this text to the draft, at Objection 4: "Currently, {{nowrap}} does not behave as specified in its documentation, since a space at the start or end of the enclosed text is rendered in HTML outside of that text, leading to unexpected breaks." This fact is of some interest for the proposal and the discussion here. See my detailed report and request for amendment at discussion for {{nowrap}}.

– Noetica♬♩Talk 00:23, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Technical report: the nowrap template

As I mentioned above, there has been some action at discussion for {{nowrap}}. Woodstone, a key participant in the hard-space working group, has since joined me in exploring the behaviour of the template, and of the HTML code it generates. Here are our findings, and latest developments in documentation of {{nowrap}}:

  • x{{nowrap| TEXT }}y generates this HTML code:
x <span style="white-space:nowrap">TEXT</span> y
This is against expectations, since the spaces are forced outside. This anomaly has now been added to the documentation. We are informed by editor Random832 that it cannot be corrected without radical changes to the parser.
  • x<span style="white-space:nowrap"> TEXT </span>y is the expected code for the template to generate. But it too would be inadequate, because both Microsoft IE and Mozilla Firefox still allow a break before and after TEXT with this code.
  • x<span style="white-space:nowrap">&nbsp;TEXT&nbsp;</span>y also breaks in IE before TEXT, but not after it. This does not occur in Firefox.
  • x&nbsp;<span style="white-space:nowrap"><code>TEXT</span>&nbsp;y, quite remarkably, also breaks before TEXT in IE (but not in Firefox).[Correction: inadvertent <code> tag deleted from the code. See posts below.– Noetica♬♩Talk 09:57, 25 January 2008 (UTC)][reply]
Conclusion 1
The template {{nowrap}} is irredeemably quirky, and deficient for some purposes.
We might think it doesn't matter if spaces at the start or end of the included text are allowed to break. What are they doing inside in the first place? But there are situations in which we do want them inside. In fact, such a situation arose in the last few days, here at WT:MOS. That's how I made the lucky discovery that prompted my enquiries.
Conclusion 2
The code &nbsp;, along with markup that inserts it, is superior to {{nowrap}}.
Conclusion 3
The hard-space markup proposal should be supplemented and strengthened with these further facts.
We can do that some time later, perhaps.
Conclusion 4
Deficiencies in this template, and allegedly in the parser, suggest that template solutions to the hard-space problem generally will not work.
This is interesting, because we examined one such solution. It came second in our poll, in fact. Further research would be useful.
Conclusion 5
WP:MOS should alert editors to these deficiencies in {{nowrap}}.
Anticipating agreement on this obvious point, I'll make an addition right now.

Comments?

– Noetica♬♩Talk 09:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pure shock, sir...
...and, thinking of the increased acceptance of the double-comma solution this would bring about... Glee... (Evil grin) Waltham, The Duke of 15:15, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can't agree that case #1 is "against expectations"; Wikipedia's general template markup documentation makes it very clear that whitespace between and around parameters and their values is ignored. I.e. x<span style="white-space:nowrap"> TEXT </span>y is not the expected output, if you absorb the templating system more fully. This has its minor downside, but it is generally pretty helpful for most cases. For example it, it's what lets us do:
{{WPBiography|
|class=Start
|priority=Low
}}
instead of:
{{WPBiography|class=Start|priority=Low}}.
(The readability/usability importance of this may not be clear until one uses a template with 27 parameters...) The principal downside is that occasionally one wishes that the spaces were interpreted as literals, and the workaround for that is to use &nbsp;.
Your second, "also breaks in IE before TEXT, but not after it", example: Well, what else is new? IE is just known to be severely broken. More than 300 (X)HTML and CSS bugs have been documented in it, and the ver. 7 "upgrade", while yes there were some security improvements, was mostly cosmetic plus addition of widgets (RSS parser, etc.); if you read the MS developer blogs and various other forums, it is clear that MS made a conscious decision to not f'ing bother fixing the CSS and other parsing bugs in the last long-overdue IE development round, despite it being clear that the most-needed IE fixes were precisely the ones they punted on. We (by which I mean web developers generally, not WPians in particular) cannot keep bending over backwards to account for IE's failures to follow the standards forever (and yes the abiguity of that phrase is intentional). If the result for MOS purposes is that some things will wrap in broken browsers, but will behave properly in standards-compliant browsers, then that's just fine. Inveterate, insistent users of IE are already used to having to mentally compensate for their preferred but weird browser's shortcomings, so this will be nothing new for them.
The third case – "quite remarkably, also breaks before TEXT in IE (but not in Firefox)" – is invalid markup, so who knows what would actually happen were it cleaned up. The tag order in that passage is: begin-template code nowiki span code /span /nowiki /code end-template; there is not only a missing /code, there is a span code /span /code overlap. With XHTML that broken, the results cannot possibly be predictable; different browsers have different failure compensation modes.
Hope that helps. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:55, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If I may "reconclude": Your conclusion 1 and 4 are incorrect with regard to there being something broken with the nowrap template or the template parser, and I remain neutral on conclusion 1's second point that the template may simply be deficient for some purposes (since I can't imagine all possible purposes :-) Conclusion 2: I've been saying that all along. Conclusions 3 and 5: Probably so, though I think these findings and the alleged deficiencies need to be seriously re-examined given what I've said so far. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 04:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much, SMcCandlish. We have needed someone with sufficient knowledge to address template matters. A request at talk for {{nowrap}} was ignored. Some comments and queries for you, though. Your text in italics:
I can't agree that case #1 is "against expectations"; Wikipedia's general template markup documentation makes it very clear that whitespace between and around parameters and their values is ignored. I.e. x<span style="white-space:nowrap"> TEXT </span>y is not the expected output, if you absorb the templating system more fully.
The normal experienced editor's reasonable expectation is that a template will do what its documentation says it will do. This one did not, and that has now been acknowledged and rectified. The documentation for templates and the templating system as a whole is generally poor, and impenetrable to non-geeks. Is this satisfactory, when templates are supposed to be a service to all editors?
[...] The principal downside is that occasionally one wishes that the spaces were interpreted as literals, and the workaround for that is to use &nbsp;.
Well, yes. And in the present case, which is all about spaces, that should have been accounted for and pointed out. We could ask for greater clarity in the documentation. Question: would it have been possible for {{nowrap}} to use multiple instances of &nbsp; instead of span tags? If so, could the system be made to pick up a first or a last space and do that with them? After all, it seems to be able to identify them in order to drop them outside the span tags, yes?
Your second, "also breaks in IE before TEXT, but not after it", example: Well, what else is new? IE is just known to be severely broken.
That's certainly true. I wouldn't use IE except to test things. Relevantly for this whole discussion, in IE x&nbsp;–&nbsp;y and x&nbsp;—&nbsp;y will not break after the first &nbsp;, but will before the second &nbsp;. And x&nbsp;…&nbsp;y (preformed ellipsis) will not break at all. None of these will break at all in Firefox.
[...] If the result for MOS purposes is that some things will wrap in broken browsers, but will behave properly in standards-compliant browsers, then that's just fine. Inveterate, insistent users of IE are already used to having to mentally compensate for their preferred but weird browser's shortcomings, so this will be nothing new for them.
Perhaps. But we should remember that we write for all browsers, no matter which we use ourselves. Despite IE's serious shortcomings, it does seem to behave better with &nbsp; (at least breaking after a dash rather than before, as explained) than with {{nowrap}}. We should document this for editors, and take it into account, shouldn't we? To excuse ourselves on the ground that a major browser is a non-compliant "outlaw" seems a bit rash and unrealistic.
The third case "quite remarkably, also breaks before TEXT in IE (but not in Firefox)" – is invalid markup, so who knows what would actually happen were it cleaned up. [...]
So sorry. I input the code wrongly here and at talk for {{nowrap}} (fixed now), with a stray and unmatched CODE tag. The corrected code:
x&nbsp;<span style="white-space:nowrap">TEXT</span>&nbsp;y
Do you acknowledge that this is valid code that might turn up in attempts to circumvent IE's and WP's deficiencies? This code is what I tested, with the result that I report. And it is generated by:
x&nbsp;{{nowrap|TEXT}}&nbsp;y
So I still think there are more deficiencies in WP's existing options for the hard space than are acknowledged or documented. For the non-expert, it takes an extraordinary amount of time, cunning, and effort to hunt these things down. This just reinforces the need for better analysis in the first place: and better documentation, coding, and understanding of what a sound editing system demands. That is not being delivered – certainly not for the hard space, certainly not for most editors. Hence our attempt at reform. So far we have seen many invaluable comments here; but I have to say: I see nothing compelling against the proposed markup with ,,. They would have to be an improvement over the present arrangements, surely?
– Noetica♬♩Talk 06:54, 25 January 2008 (UTC)[Amended contribution– Noetica♬♩Talk 07:10, 25 January 2008 (UTC)][reply]
Well, if we can't sort this out here or at Template_talk:Nowrap I might make some enquiries at WP:VPT. It's important for us to sort out just what these templates can and can't do. How is it, I ask, that a template can shift spaces but not convert them (to &nbsp;, say)? Can anyone help with an answer?
– Noetica♬♩Talk 05:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This process of development

The process of working on the hard-space proposal has been unusual. We set up a page in userspace (a subpage of my own userpage: User:Noetica/ActionMOSVP). Our experience, I think, has been positive: we were able to educate ourselves and each other, and keep to a system that appears to have been fruitful. We are not closing that page, but transferring discussion to here for now, before making the proposal even more public in the wider WP community.

Any thoughts, positive or negative, on that process? I think it's independently interesting.

– Noetica♬♩Talk 03:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it is. Ignoring for the moment the possibility of a multitude of unchartered "working groups" and Wikipedia's mixed opinions on experts or expert groups, I like it. But if you expect the proposal to derive some credibility from the group's status, membership, deliberations, etc., it might have been helpful to start with a set of stated goals. The User:Noetica/ActionMOSVP archives imply that the proposal itself is the goal, but given the numerous alternatives considered, I doubt that was the case at the beginning. As things stand right now, I expect you're going to have to recapitulate the private discussions "in public", so it will be interesting to see how the working group members handle the concomittant frustration. But thanks for giving it a try! RossPatterson (talk) 17:32, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please see my message in the next section (item #1: idea about project page). Waltham, The Duke of 21:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it would have been preferable to conduct the whole process here, with more users, a simpler structure, a lot less text, and a greater level of pro-active presumption with invitations to criticise. In my experience, relatively fast-moving, stratified democracy is the best way to garner expertise and opinion from a wide range of people without losing momentum. It did lose momentum, I'm afraid, and I found the page unnecessarily difficult and time-consuming to negotiate, when all I wanted was to be clearly directed—like a sheep—to the decisions already made, the issues that needed input, and the plans for action. Only early on when we were asked to vote on candidate codes was it easy to see what was going on and to contribute. Even then, it would have been simpler to ask people to list their first, second and third choices in one simple row separated by commas (4, 1, 5) and to sign once than to negotiate the table in the edit-box. Keep it simple and quick is my advice. We still don't know how/where/who further down the line, and it's this lack of a big-picture strategy that put me off. IMV, one-to-one legwork to produce options for where to take the proposal would have made a difference, not open-ended discussion lacking fine-grained goals and interim deadlines.
However, I support the proposal, thank Noetica for taking the initiative, and look forward to progress. Tony (talk) 09:05, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Tony. Interesting and useful to have your views concerning our experiment recorded here. I will not give my detailed response, though there is much to challenge in what I have just read. I'll wait for others to give opinions.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 11:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Recording" my views wasn't uppermost in my mind; just responding to your call for feedback. I didn't see it as combative. Tony (talk) 23:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Combative? I didn't see it that way either. You have indeed responded to my call for feedback, and I have thanked you. But in my assessment you raise some questions on which we disagree, and which it is not profitable to pursue right here, right now. Good to have a range of opinions recorded.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 23:28, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Enough with the "recording" idiocy, both of you; we are not at Abbey Road here. Focus on the subject, please. Waltham, The Duke of 15:18, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How to promote the proposal

The working group would appreciate your thoughts on how to move forward with the completed proposal. Certainly your interest and help are important, for a start. We had thought Village Pump (proposals) would be a proper place to present it. But that may not be best. It needs a big vote of support, from editors who have studied it and have come to see the need for this simple change.

Suggestions?

– Noetica♬♩Talk 03:24, 21 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, this proposal is even more embracing than the rollback tool, for it concerns a markup: it is meant to be used by literally everyone, regardless of status, and as a part of the regular editing process. Therefore, I believe that it ought to receive maximum publicity. These are the steps I think we should take:
  1. Create a page in the project namespace, thoroughly explaining the proposal and the procedure by means of which it has emerged. The discussion on the proposal and any potential straw polls will take place there. The page shall, of course, be appropriately tagged; it might also have a shortcut.
  2. Leave messages in the Village Pump's Technical, Proposals, and Policies sections, referring to said page.
  3. Leave messages in the relevant Manual of Style talk pages: here, in dates and numbers, and in mathematics.
  4. Leave a note in the Community Portal's bulletin board calling editors to comment on the proposal.
  5. Leave a message in the Administrators' Noticeboard similarly calling sysops to comment.
  6. Create an entry in Centralized discussion regarding the proposal.
  7. Leave messages in the talk pages of all the relevant WikiProjects (ideas including the League of Copyeditors and the Punctuation and Typo projects).
  8. Leave messages in whatever other relevant pages' talk pages we can locate.
I do not find it necessary to ask an administrator to create a watchlist note; we could mention it somewhere, but if the proposal does gather momentum, someone will probably do it on their own accord anyway.
Anything I have left out? All this might sound slightly excessive, but, seriously, we are talking about a major change here; we need all the input we can get. Waltham, The Duke of 21:09, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps seeking an article in the Signpost would effectively bring it to the attention of a large number of committed editors. Franamax (talk) 00:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. However, it will probably be hard to gain more than a mention in the Signpost; a full article will be written if this becomes a story worth including, which will only happen if and when a lot of activity takes place. See what happened with the rollback debate: after the discussion, the poll, and the reactions, and only then, was the story published. Waltham, The Duke of 15:52, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Now that I think of it, maybe this kind of treatment would be excessive; after all, this is just one of tens of such proposals being made every year (not to say hundreds). However, if we are to discuss it in the Village Pump (instead of creating a separate page in the project namespace), we probably ought to prefer the Technical section, as more relevant. Waltham, The Duke of 22:37, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My experience of that is that the entry will soon be covered in a swamp of others, possibly without comment. Tony (talk) 22:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Tony. Being swamped is the problem: just as the developing proposal would have been lost in noise if it had been pursued here, as experience shows for other such efforts.
Waltham, looking at the various pages of Village Pump, I don't think this belongs primarily in the technical area. There are certainly technical implications, but the immediate question is to do with policy: in general, the kinds of markup that WP should embrace, and then the specific suggestion for one change, regardless of the deep technical mechanisms involved.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 23:40, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, Noetica, it could have been managed here, and experience has shown that reforms have been worked through successfully here. I'm not interested in the bickering though, so let's concentrate on moving forward the hard-space reform. Tony (talk) 23:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting to see your further opinion recorded, concerning what can and cannot be achieved here (and at WT:MOSNUM, perhaps?). I see no bickering, but sure: let's work on the job in hand.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 00:09, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hey guys, do I detect an inability to play nice together? Tony, the best way to show you're not interested in bickering is to not bicker, especially in the immediately preceding sentence. Noetica, if you see no bickering present, best not to introduce your own example. Did either of your most recent posts here get us farther toward implementing double-comma? Just asking. :) Franamax (talk) 00:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, they didn't; Interesting to see your rejoinder recorded here, Noetica. What else are we going to record? Tony (talk) 00:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tony, you are aware that every time you click "Save page" the text you entered is recorded in perpetuity? That's how wikis work and it's a correct statement, I hope you're not accusing Noetica of making a correct statement. Are you trying to pick a fight? Maybe this isn't the best place to do so. :) Did that last post help with the double-comma proposal? Let's cool down a bit. :) Franamax (talk) 00:34, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Or are you being combative now, Franamax? I just object to the continual explicit framing of my contributions as recordings, rather than current engagement in discourse. The mild put-down is not helpful, and nor is your "recording". For example, I could frame your entries as "html code", although even that would not carry same negative connotation as "recording". Understand? Tony (talk) 00:54, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(e/c I think this is the right spot)Umm, I guess the short answer is: no I don't understand :) I'm certainly not trying to be combative, I was actually trying to defuse a potential off-topic fight I saw developing. Obviously I've failed in that effort, but I don't mind failure, in fact I've honed that skill throughout my life. :) I'll include my recent posts in the question "are we advancing the subject of the thread?", the question applies to all of us, and I'll offer apologies if I've offended you. Franamax (talk) 01:21, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, I say (and said) that it is a Good Thing to put useful and relevant opinions on record. We are all doing that. I asked for that, more or less. Tony, you think it is a put-down to label a contribution as an act of recording? I didn't see it that way. Sorry if you were offended. I simply wanted to record that I disgree with you on some matters, and also that I don't want to engage with you about those, at this stage.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 01:07, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, I should like to add that you are all being ridiculous, and amusingly so, too. (chuckles) Seriously, can we go back on-topic, please? I fail to locate the reason for this distasteful digression.
Now, do we, or do we not, agree that this page is suitable enough to serve as the main forum of discussion for the hard space proposal? Please answer this question, and no other. Believe me, it is for the best. Waltham, The Duke of 15:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't find it amusing. I hope that, having insulted each other, Noetica and I can very soon move on and resume our very productive friendship. Tony (talk) 10:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{nowrap}}, {{nowraplinks}} and {{nowrap begin}}

As a webmaster and Wikipedia editor I have worked a lot with line breaking issues. In the end I created {{nowraplinks}} and {{nowrap begin}} and their helper templates to solve/handle the problems with {{nowrap}}. (I just wanted to mention those since most of you don't seem to be aware of them.)

I took a look at the suggestion above to use the wikimarkup 34,,kg to mean 34&nbsp;kg and it seems to me it is a good suggestion. Although as others have pointed out it has to be discussed with the other language wikipedias too of course, especially those languages that use the low double quotation mark: „Quoted text“

Of course what really is needed is that the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) finally accept and standardise the old well working and easy to use HTML markup <nobr> + + </nobr>.

--David Göthberg (talk) 10:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for joining the discussion, David. I see that you have also commented at Template_talk:Nowrap. As you can see, the discussion has paused for a while. The whole matter of hard spaces has been argued over at length in another context, at WT:MOSNUM. That discussion centred on extent of use rather than means of inputting. Since it grew long and heated, I suggested that the whole thing be put aside for now. But we should resume it soon, in a more integrated form.
I wrote (see above):

Well, if we can't sort this out here or at Template_talk:Nowrap I might make some enquiries at [[WP:VPT]]. It's important for us to sort out just what these templates can and can't do. How is it, I ask, that a template can shift spaces but not convert them (to &nbsp;, say)? Can anyone help with an answer?

This was about spaces at the start or finish of the string enclosed in a {{nowrap}}. The spaces are dropped outside when the HTML is generated. If that can be done, why can't such a space be converted to a &nbsp;? I'd be grateful if you would answer that!
I note your remarks about reform of HTML itself. But let's not wait for that! As for „ , surely at German Wikipedia for example they don't use two commas to input that character. And ,, and „ are surely no more confusable than '' and " are. We all live with these, all the time.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 22:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it is not the {{nowrap}} template itself that move the leading and trailing spaces outside the span-tag it creates. It is the MediaWiki rendering that does it. And from what I read and experienced that is the default behaviour for MediaWiki rendering for all things that internally in MediaWiki rendering uses span tags, such as bold and italics too. I am not sure if that is a good or bad default behaviour for the span-tag rendering for bold and italics, but yes in the nowrap case it seems to be a bad thing. But note if you need more control we now do have the {{nowrap begin}} + {{wrap}} + {{nowrap end}} templates. Simply enclose the whole line of text in {{nowrap begin}} + {{nowrap end}} and then insert {{wrap}} where you want to allow line breaks.
Currently we can not process and convert characters in input to templates, thus converting spaces to &nbsp; is not possible from just template programming. To make that possible the MediaWiki functions for template programming would have to be extended with a whole new set of string handling functions. Again, it seems to me the situations were you want spaces converted to &nbsp; is the same situations where I would currently use {{nowrap begin}} + {{wrap}} + {{nowrap begin}}. (Yeah I know that might in some cases look very ugly when we edit the pages, but at least it is clear.) But yes, using ,, for &nbsp; would in many cases be a much nicer solution and give the editors much more control.
And I more than agree that ,, is a good notation for &nbsp;, see at least in the three web browsers I have I can see the difference between ,, and „ but I can not see the difference between '' and ".
Also, the ,, notation would make it easier to use hard spaces which probably would make people use them more often, which I think would be a good thing.
By the way, as you already have seen this kind of suggestion causes a lot of discussion and needs a lot of examples and explanations. You already have spread this discussion and examples over many different pages. Therefore I suggest the same as someone suggested above, move all these examples and discussions to a single page + talk page. You can see how we did with for instance the article message boxes standardisation project. We put the examples and draft write ups at Wikipedia:Article message boxes and put all discussions at Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes. Then we advertised that all over Wikipedia. That would also make it easier to get people from other language Wikipedias to join in since we could ask them all to come to that one single place. You kind of started that by using User:Noetica/ActionMOSVP, but if you put it on a more official address instead of in user space it would be more inviting. Come to think of it, even more correct would be to move all this to Wikimedia Meta-Wiki.
So I suggest you move all this to say meta:Wikimarkup for hard spaces and its talk page. And I mean literally move it as in cut and paste all the discussions from the different pages (including this page) to that talk page. And of course put a notice in the old pages: "This discussion has been moved to meta:Talk:Wikimarkup for hard spaces." If you don't want to go as official as using Meta-Wiki then at least move all this to say Wikipedia:Wikimarkup for hard spaces and Wikipedia talk:Wikimarkup for hard spaces.
--David Göthberg (talk) 07:39, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I'll think through all that you have said. We will take this up again, and I'll advise you when we do so. I look forward to your continued involvement, and your very useful contributions.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 09:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Project guidelines

Back in September when we had the discussion that WikiProject guidelines shouldn't be part of WP:WIAFA unless they were part of WP:MOS,[1][2][3] as I recall, the only WikiProjects that had garnered community-wide MOS approval for their Project guidelines were WP:MEDMOS and WP:MILHIST. Both had (or MilHist was going to) subjected their guidelines to community wide approval via posts to multiple projects, Village Pump, etc. In three recent FAC/FARs, I've come up against Project members who believe that Project guidelines trump WP:MOS (see the F-4 FAR, Boeing 747 FAC, although a lot of that dialogue was on my talk page, and now the Transformers (film) FAC, where WP:MOSBOLD isn't being followed.) I see that the film guidelines were added to MOS in September.[4] Where is a the global discussion for the addition of these guidelines to MOS? Was it discussed here? There needs to be some overall guidance on these Project standards before they become part of MOS. Did that happen, for example, for Music and Film? By what process are these Project guidelines getting tagged as part of MOS? WP:MEDMOS was only added after it was posted at Village Pump and over 20 other Projects to gain community wide consensus, for example. Can someone point me to that process for Film? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More generally, by what process are we determining that any of the recent additions conform to WP:MOS and have achieved broad consensus for addition to the MOS template? I know MilHist and MEDMOS went through the "process" of garnering broad consensus,[5] but what about others and who is watching this template? Examples in addition to Music and Film:[6][7][8] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, can we address the general problem of Project guidelines that may be out of step with WP:MOS by adding to MOS a statement outlining the overall hierarchy, and making it clear that MOS trumps when Projects are out of step? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very pertinent questions, Sandy. They are all part of an even broader question. Using the term WP:MOS most inclusively, how should WP:MOS be structured, with what range of content, with what process in place for maintenance and coordination, endowed with what level of authority over what pages?
Such a broad question should trump all others at this talkpage because it affects how all subordinate questions are dealt with, and what effect the answers to those questions can ultimately have. If no else formally initiates this dauntingly important discussion, I will. When I have time.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 02:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fine, but that's a long-term project which ignores the fact that there's an immediate problem. A proper project to address this problem ought to have both long and short term goals I would suggest. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:00, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Malleus, I couldn't have said it better. I have two, soon to be three, FAC/FARs that hinge on this issue, and editors insisting that their Project guidelines "count", even when they are out of step with WP:MOS. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with both of you. But I for one can't answer your excellent questions, Sandy, and I wanted to explain why I can't. I doubt whether anyone can provide a definitive answer, given the present chaos. Most pointedly: "Where is [the] global discussion for the addition of these guidelines to MOS? Was it discussed here?" That puts the difficulty in a nutshell. As far as I can see, such things are not addressed in any forum that is at all obvious to the searcher. No ready solution presents itself. There is no genuine alternative to tackling the overarching problem.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 03:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree. I think that a definitive statement that the MoS trumps any local MoS would be both common sense and hopefully lead to a productive debate on why any project would feel it necessary to come up with a different style guide. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But Malleus, who is to make that statement? How is it to be arrived at? The question spills beyond the boundaries of any particular MOS-talkpage. Are you sure you disagree with me? I would like definitive statements about all sorts of things, too.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 03:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone who is sufficiently WP:BOLD can make that statement.There are no rules. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 04:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Goodness, if it's not abundantly clear that WP:MOS, which enjoys wide community input, trumps over every little group of editors who put together some Project guidelines and may or may not run them by the broader community, the problem is bigger than I thought. I thought this was given, straightforward, but somehow never got stated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't envy you in your role as FA director(?), but I do have faith in your common sense. I know that's not much help though. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not director: delegate, proxy, just a helper :-) The problem is that my prose is crappy; can't someone draft an overall statement for discussion? It should be clear to everyone that MOS trumps, but shouldn't we discuss a way to state that here? Noetica or Malleus, both of you would be better at drafting something than I am. No, it won't solve the immediate problem with specific articles, since we need to discuss this addition, but it will get us started. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But it should not "trump". No guideline trumps any other; the strength of amy guideline is the arguments and practices it contains; it has no real power that the arguments and evidence would not separately. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And this is a recipe for chaos. Whatever "real power", "arguments" and "evidence" you're referring to, Anderson, better that they be expressed in a single place, so we all know where we and WP stands. Would you have the fair-use policy and copyright issues expressed in a multitude of different, competing pages? Would you dismantle the five pillars of WP and let them push and pull each other to bits on competing pages? No, of course you wouldn't, so why object to a rational step to centralise discussion/consensus/objection WRT style and formatting where there is disagreement among MOS pages? Tony (talk) 10:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oddly, it's how the rest of Wikipedia works, and how these pages worked before a handful of editors claimed ownership of them. Less than half-a-dozen editors ever discuss anywhere which page "trumps" which; and we should ignore the bores here as elsewhere.
Our guidelines proliferate because we have a large encyclopedia to write; they disagree when editors disagree. This is how it should be; claiming a sham consensus is the act of a bully. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal

  • I formally propose, as a first and relatively straightforward step, that where there is inconsistency between MOS and its subpages, MOS prevails. This is the only sane way of organising the Manual. If editors at a subpage disagree with a particular MOS guideline, let them come here and argue it out. This proposal concerns attracting discussion onto this very talk page, where things can be debated and both MOS and its subpages managed centrally where the left and right hands say different things. It is a means of encouraging rational interplay between the groups of editors who inhabit MOS and the subpages. And it is a means of clarifying what is what for the hapless nominators and reviewers of FACs, who might well complain at the moment that they find it confusing. We owe it to WPians, especially newbies, to provide proper, coordinated guidance. I suggest that this arrangement be expressed in the lead of MOS. Tony (talk) 10:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It would be prudent to announce this discussion on the talk pages of the other MOS pages so that their readers are aware of this discussion. Fg2 (talk) 11:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've done the active ones for the time being. Tony (talk) 12:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You missed MOSFILM. Do you want me to copy your message over, or will you do it? Steve TC 16:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the spirit but the specialism sometimes need to override the generalisms. Rich Farmbrough, 21:41 5 February 2008 (GMT).
And so it should; who suggested that MOS-central wouldn't change where joint consensus among the custodians of both pages was for the wording on the sub-page? See my example below. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talkcontribs) 12:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please support (or oppose), provide brief feedback if you wish, and sign.


  • Support—It's a good first step towards rationalising the chaos. Tony (talk) 10:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - agree, there is such a rabbit warren of information there has to be a default option at a particular point in time until changes are nutted out properly (in cases of discrepancy). cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support which will become a support should clarification be received. This is a good idea, for the reasons stated by Tony. However, I would like to know if there will be scope in the wording to allow the listing of certain exceptions which individual projects might bring up. A one-size-fits-all approach for different article types is not necessarily the best aid to reader comprehension in some circumstances, and it is that which we should be primarily concerned with. Any such exceptions would of course have to be discussed and approved on this talk page before being implemented on the MOS subpage in question, so overall control would still retained here. Steve TC 10:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC) I'd envisaged the new arrangement as two-way—that MOS central might very well change to the wording of a sub-page if it suits everyone. Tony (talk) 12:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support – This is an essential preliminary if we want a properly organised MOS, worthy of respect throughout the WP community. Long overdue. The details will need sorting out, as Steve points out above: longer discussion should often be at a subpage first (like the protracted conversations at WT:MOSNUM about the hard space, and about spacing in long decimal numbers). But all matters affecting the substantial content of MOS should come here in the end for final community discussion and endorsement.– Noetica♬♩Talk 10:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question How does anyone propose to enforce this? Sorry, but if project editors are willing to not adopt the "prescriptions" of a guideline which enjoys "community wide approval" without discussing it here, then adopting a proposal which says "WP:MOS pwns you all!" seems in danger of resembling the act of someone putting on a tinfoil crown and declaring themselves king. Moreover, the wording of the proposal "where there is inconsistency between MOS and its subpages, MOS prevails" appears to go against the very nature of guidelines themselves -- to quote a policy page, "Guidelines are more advisory in nature than policies." Is the advice that WP:MOS offers "Do as we say"? --—Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles Sturm (talkcontribs) 11:17, 5 February 2008
    • "Enforce"? I didn't see it as black and white as that, like houses of parliament rejecting each others' bills. More like a centralised place for consensus-generation, which is what HAS to happen anyway to coordinate policy. And FAC people need to know which one prevails, frankly. It's a serious process that is bound to follow these pages, so ... which one? It's only fair to make it transparent and straighforward, isn't it? And BTW, MOS-central editors don't own MOS or any other pages; all editors are welcome to contribute to debate here, yes? Tony (talk) 12:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • To be perfectly honest I assumed this was the accepted practise. Hiding T 13:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Need more examples. Tinfoil hats? MOS discussions are such a guilty pleasure for me, even when I suspect a certain amount of, um, inefficiency. Count me in - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:52, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: what are we defining "inconsistency" to cover here? Is it only active contradiction (i.e. the MoS says to to X while another page says to not to do X), or passive contradiction (i.e. the MoS says nothing while another page says to do Y, or the MoS says to do X while another page says to do X+Y) as well? In other words, does the omission of some point from the MoS allow other groups to specify such a point, or prohibit it? And, more generally, are more specific guidelines—as appropriate for particular subject areas—to be permitted, or will "the main MoS doesn't require this" be a valid objection to all of them. Kirill 14:03, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A great question, and personally I plan to go by the sniff test. If moving a discussion to a sub-page feels like "forum-shopping" to me, then I would tend to support the sense of the main page, whether the sense is conveyed by expression or omission. If the information on the sub-page feels like it really needed to be on the sub-page to be argued properly, then I would tend to respect the more nuanced or more detailed answer on the sub-page, although anything that the main page stated explicitly would still govern, at least if the current consensus holds. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Only active; see my reply below. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, good; I'm fine with the proposal based on that understanding. Kirill 02:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The proposal may give the impression that you're trying to overrule sub-MoSs by stealth. I can understand the argument that a consensus here should trump a consensus at a sub-MoS, but first of all a discussion between the people here and the people at the sub-MoS should take place. I think it's improper to say that this MoS prevails over a sub-MoS before such a discussion has taken place. For instance, I just saw that WP:MOS and WP:MOSMATH disagree over one point: WP:MOS says you can use we in mathematical articles and WP:MOSMATH says you cannot. Looking at the relevant discussions at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 93#Recent edit to "avoid first-person pronouns" and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (mathematics)#Encyclopedic vs conversational tone, it seems to me that the text in WP:MOSMATH has seen wider discussion and should thus prevail over the text here (on this one point) if it's necessary to pick one rule. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support, absolutely essential to tame the chaos and create a central MoS. We have FACs and FARs appearing that contradict MoS because they are following other Project guidelines. Sub-pages must come into compliance with MoS or propose/discuss changes here. Per Kirill's question, only active contradiction (i.e. the MoS says to to X while another page says to not to do X); passive contradiction (i.e. the MoS says nothing while another page says to do Y, or the MoS says to do X while another page says to do X+Y) is no problem, if those additional guidelines have gained broad consensus from outside that individual Project. By the way, wording was added last week. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of a discrepancy between a guideline as stated here and how it's described in one of those sub-pages, then the guideline as stated here takes precedence.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose – a blanket rule as is suggested is not a good idea. As far as possible, sub-pages should follow the conventions set out in MoS. However, I believe the purpose of sub-pages is to deal with specific situations not covered by MoS. In such cases, generalia specialibus non derogant (a general provision does not derogate from a special one). — Cheers, JackLee talk 16:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for pointing out Kirill's posting. However, I'm still slightly uncomfortable with the wording "In the case of a discrepancy between a guideline as stated here and how it's described in one of those sub-pages, then the guideline as stated here takes precedence." Let me try and clarify my first comment. What I meant is that editors should, as far as possible, ensure that what is stated on sub-pages is in line with the guidelines set out in MoS. However, isn't it possible that there may be situations where compliance is simply inappropriate (e.g., because of certain regional conventions)? I realize it's a difficult to talk in the abstract, but shouldn't any proposed guideline on the matter take that possibility into account? That having been said, the MoS deals with pretty basic matters and not with issues such as how people's names should be indicated, so perhaps the scenario I've posited may not happen too often. — Cheers, JackLee talk 17:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No one is suggesting that providing a means to encourage MOS to speak with one voice is going to alter the status of MOS in relation to the project as a whole—not one jot. It will still be a guideline, with the same caveat in the template at the top. The proposal concerns only the internal relationship between MOS and its sub-pages. It seeks to provide a default mechanism for resolving inconsistencies, rather than allowing them to survive unchecked in a way that is unprofessional and smacks of the sloppiness that gives WP's detractors ammunition. Tony (talk) 11:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose. I agree with the overall goal, but I'm not sure that this is the best way to get there. I'd support a policy that says "Sub-MoS guidelines should not conflict with MoS; exceptions can be granted through the following process: (add a couple of reasonable steps, like announcing the conflict on the MoS talk page)." I'd also support a policy that says that compliance with a project MoS is strictly optional until it has been accepted by (fill in this blank with a couple of reasonable steps). What I don't like about the current proposal is that it basically says, "When there is a conflict between MoS and a project MoS, even if it involves a technical issue that has never been considered in MoS, please use MoS rules instead of the good sense that the MoS is supposed to promote." WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I'd characterize my concerns as having more to do with the content and application of the proposal than with word choice. I do not support a mindless and absolute preference for one set of rules, especially when we can't predict what conflicts may appear. For example, you will readily agree with me when I say that env is a gene, and Env is the protein it produces. On its face, MoS doesn't approve of following this convention: the name of a gene is not an authorized opportunity for using italics, and it's not clear that Env should be considered a proper noun. I'd be sad to see someone remove the italics from the gene and the capital letter from the protein simply because MoS doesn't accommodate this convention.
Ultimately, where there are conflicts, I think that the specific conflicts should be addressed and resolved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you're saying that genes should always be italicized, that is reflected neither at WP:MOS nor at WP:MEDMOS, and you should put up a proposal to get it added to both. Again, no reason for the two to be out of sync. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:40, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I give this as an example of something which could be reasonably specified at MEDMOS, and which might reasonably excluded from the main MoS page, and which a non-expert might object to as an "inconsistency." If a non-expert actually tried to turn a statement like "env is translated into Env" into the de-formatted "env is translated into env," under the mistaken impression that the Manual of Style approved of producing unintelligible nonsense, then I will certainly propose a formal approval of this convention at that time.
The possibility that more obscure technical conventions will affected by this rule is the basis of my opposition. I would support the proposal if it said, "where there is inconsistency between MOS and its subpages, MOS can be assumed to prevail until the conflicts have been properly addressed on the MoS talk page." WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So if you discover that inconsistency, you'd probably raise it at both MEDMOS and MOS, suggesting which you think should be changed. Until that time, the MOS wording would prevail. Rather than the ridiculous situation in which the hapless editor doesn't know which to believe, here's inbuilt motivation for all MOS-interested WP's to sort it out promptly. That is the intent. At the moment, there's no such motivation to house-clean regularly, to reconcile, to cross-talk at both pages. The proposal has in mind the fostering of a collaborative culture—a sharing of expertise—among MOS and sub-page editors. It's not an attempted power-grab or coup d'etat. The striking thing about MOS and its plethora of sub-pages at the moment is how litttle the experts talk to each other; this should be of concern to all WPians who yearn for a cohesive project. Tony (talk) 11:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would oppose the proposal if it said "where there is inconsistency between MOS and its subpages, MOS can be assumed to prevail until the conflicts have been properly addressed on the MoS talk page." The MOS and subpages should agree on their face; readers shouldn't have to search through years of talk page archives to see if they actually agree, even though the plain text disagrees. If the details of a certain style issue are too complex to repeat in the MOS, it could contain a statement along the lines of "see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles) for rules concerning italics in medicine-related articles." --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Gerry. WhatamIdoing, First, we're extending into unreasonable hypotheticals; as one of the main writers of MEDMOS (along with Colin and a few others), I can assure you that it conforms with MoS and was subjected to broad community consensus before it was added to MoS, and will conform with MoS as long as we're watching it. In fact, it may be the only subpage that was subjected to that consensus, and that is the concern (that other Projects have not). If you want genes italicized, I encourage you to bring it to MoS for broad consensus. There should be no problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find any indication of genes being italicized in any FA, so this is a good example of why centralization is needed. Do you have a sample? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strike. This is already part of WP:ITALICS, so I don't know what the discussion was about. MEDMOS doesn't contradict MoS, and MoS covers it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, but ... As a matter of logic, the main MoS should state the general guidelines for style to be used throughout Wikipedia; sub-pages should elaborate on specific guidelines. Therefore, if this proposal passes, any editor would be justified in deleting or changing any material on a sub-page that contradicts anything in the main MoS. Indeed, in my opinion, logic dictates that this would be so if this proposal had never been made. Still, logic notwithstanding, I have a few practical reservations.
    • The Wikipedians who regularly edit particular a sub-page tend to be individuals with special expertise in the the sub-page's topic. The attention given to a sub-page's topic on that sub-page is generally more focused and thorough than the attention given the same topic on the main MoS page. Therefore, one could argue that, for topics that are treated on a sub-page, the main MoS should summarize the main points of, and should conform to, the sub-page. This would be analogous to an article that has a section about a topic that is treated in its own article, often introduced with {Main} template.
    • Unlike a real (pardon me: I write from the perspective of a former editor of an academic journal) style manual—that is, one that is prescriptive, is systematically revised every several years rather than haphazardly modified every few minutes, and is actually followed by those publications that profess to adopt it—inconsistency among the pages that comprise the Wikipedia MoS is inevitable. Here, a relatively small number number of Wikipedians are extraordinarily active on the MoS pages. Some edits, including significant ones, are made without discussion. Where there is discussion, a so-called consensus on some point may be based on fewer than five non-unanimous expressed opinions. While it would be nice if those who revise some part of the MoS revise other parts that treat the same point, not all Wikipedians are this conscientious. So our MoS understandably, and for the same reasons, mirrors the inconsistency throughout Wikipedia articles, where subsections of several articles will treat a topic that is the subject of its own article, often inconsistently with one another and with the main article.
    • If this proposal were adopted, who would police it? It is unrealistic to believe that adopting a new guideline will affect the behavior of Wikipedians. Could the time that would have to be devoted to maintaining consistency of sub-pages with the main MoS page be invested more productively in improving Wikipedia articles themselves? Indeed, how much time should be devoted to refining the MoS, given that most Wikipedians ignore it when editing articles? Finell (Talk) 20:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • MoS is not ignored at WP:FAC and WP:FAR, and it is enforced on featured articles; clarity is needed in those cases where individual Projects have put guidelines in place, supported by a few editors, which disagree with the main MoS page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC) Further, for examples of Project guidelines which did gain widespread support from outside their Projects and do conform with the main MoS and do contain specific guidelines which go beyond MoS, see WP:MEDMOS and WP:MILHIST. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I know that MoS compliance is considered for WP:FAs; that represents a tiny percentage of Wikipedia and Wikipedians. Consideration of WP:GAs pays some attention to the MoS, but less rigorously. Personally I devote a large proportion of my edits to Wikifying and to copy editing. Still, my statement that "most Wikipedians ignore" the MoS is accurate, unfortunately. As for the projects, their enthusiasm for following the MoS, or even knowledge of it, is mixed. Articles within Wikipedia:WikiProject Architecture largely ignore the MoS. Math articles largely ignore Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics), especially the section on Writing style in mathematics. Finell (Talk) 00:50, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I'm slightly concerned that someone may use a strained application of a rule in the main MOS as justfication for making an inappropriate edit to a subpage, when a reasonable reading of the main MOS is that it really does not apply to the situation. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as above; the force of a guideline consists solely of the cogency and general acceptance of the arguments in it. If MOS is weaker in either aspect (and it is not impossible for it to be weaker in both) it should not prevail; and it cannot make itself prevail merely by saying so. If it can, then any obscure guideline can prevail against it by the same method. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If I can make out the twists and turns in your comment, Anderson, if any part of MOS lacks cogency or general acceptance, it's up to the editors to argue it out, as has always been the case. As I've stated above, the proposal has no effect on the status of MOS a propos the rest of the project, and will make no difference to the push-and-pull gradualist mechanism that characterises all of WP. It is, if you like, a matter of disciplining ourselves, within MOS and its sub-pages, to interact more often and more productively. The default prevalence of the main MOS page is simply more practical than a default that a sub-page should prevail. The expectation is that inconsistency will be short-lived—and certainly not be allowed by the custodians to persist for long periods as now, simply through neglect. We do need to work more as a team on MOS and its sub-pages: it's as simple as that. Tony (talk) 11:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • This entire violation of our guideline policy is provoked by the silly claim that every jot and tittle of a MOS page should be binding at FA, whether it was intended to be or not, whether it represents more than a couple of cranks or not. The easy way out is to stop saying that. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: I don't come here often so I am not familiar with MOS main contents, or with its discussion page. It would help me form an opinion if some examples were provided of inconsistencies that are causing concern. It would be particularly helpful if the examples could be discrepancies with WP:MOSNUM, with which I am more familiar. Thunderbird2 (talk) 07:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can make out, the precipitating concern is that MOSFILM has declared that the names of actors and the characters they play should be in bold text in all film-related encyclopedia articles, and everyone who is not part of the film-industry project is horrified to see text formatting rules derived from celebrity column stylebooks, as if Wikipedia were just another promotional opportunity. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you WhatamIdoing. I think the main page should contain general principles, with details thrashed out in the sub-pages. Mostly I would expect the details to clarify the principles, in a manner that is consistent with the main page. But I would also expect to find the odd exception, and I think the best place to spell out exceptions should be the sub-page not the main page. Like Rich Farmbrough I find myself agreeing with the principle but questioning the details. It's tempting to sit comfortably on the fence, but on balance I oppose the proposal. Thunderbird2 (talk) 23:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, that's not the precipitating concern at all. The current situation is that any Project (say six or eight editors) can put together some Project guidelines that contradict the overall WP:MOS guidelines and consider them part of MOS, without gaining broad community consensus. The proposal is designed to make sure that Projects attempt to conform with MOS, or bring exceptions to the broader community for input. Otherwise we have chaos, as Projects consisting of a small number of editors can contradict the community consensus that MoS enjoys. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just on a point of fact, WhatamIdoing, while some interpretations of the guideline have resulted in difficulties recently, MOSFILM does not actually conflict with the main MOS on bolding. Steve TC 00:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have doubtless been incomplete, but your note at the top of this discussion (immediately above the proposal) specifically names the discrepancy between the rules on using bold-faced text as stated in MoS and in MOSFILM (which, IMO, does not officially exist, precisely because it is low-consensus subversion standard MoS rules) as an example of the kind of problem that needs to be addressed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And, as Steve correctly points out, MOSFILM doesn't contradict MoS. The question is a general one, since everybody and his/her brother can add random guidelines to MoS unless we put something in place to govern the chaos. MEDMOS submitted to at least 20 projects and Village Pump; since then, other Projects have randomly added guidelines, and we have no means of making sure they have attained community consensus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If the content of Wikipedia articles as a whole (not just the better ones), rather than the content of the MoS, determines "whatever practices are widely accepted", then the answer is that no practices on which reasonable minds can differ are widely accepted, and there are no guidelines to which the MoS can "conform". If there is any place for prescriptivism on Wikipedia, it is in a style manual. If that degree of prescriptivism is inconsistent with Wikipedia's culture, then at least the MoS should reflect some consensus on best practices to which Wikipedia should aspire. Finell (Talk) 02:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If indeed its impossible to get a widely accepted consensus on this issue, then we won't be able to have rules. It wouldn't hurt the MoS to become 95% shorter. One of the problems with this page is that its content has historically been controlled by people who like making rules for their own sake; unfortunately that spirit is detrimental to the growth and continuing success of Wikipedia. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose in the strongest possible terms. This frankly looks like a power grab by the sort of folks who hang around the MOS. Tony, this is frankly reprehensible. Even if the proposal passes I intend to ignore it entirely, because the people likely to oppose it are, naturally, not likely to be here. --Trovatore (talk) 02:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Please work on WP:AGF; this proposal was likely precipitated by me, not Tony, since contradictions in MoS pages have arisen at FAC and FAR. Since consensus isn't determined by "votes", do you have a logical reason to oppose some sort of coordination of sub-pages and the main page? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:37, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whoever "precipitated" it, Tony "formally proposed" it. Personally I don't care much about FAC and FAR or the other dens of wikiwonkery, as long as they stay out of the hair of the mathematics articles. But I do say that if mathematicians and non-mathematicians disagree on a style point for the math articles, the mathematicians should be listened to. --Trovatore (talk) 02:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the proposal should be read as, if the MOS and a subpage disagree, the MOS prevails, but if those knowledgable about the subject matter of the subpage don't like the MOS, they can gather a consensus and either change it, or put in an exception for certain subject matter. If we consider the case of mathematics articles, what about the case of an editor who knows math, but seldom if ever publishes in math journals, so is not familiar with the finer points of math style. This editor takes the trouble to read the MOS, but doesn't notice that a MOS for mathematics exists. As things stand, he might follow the general MOS. If there was coordination, he would find a warning that he ought to go look at the mathematics MOS for certain style rules. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, this strategy that Trovatore uses every time is to launch into a personal attack on me and accuse me of power-grabbing every time I'm involved in proposing a change. It really is childish. I could play the same game with him, but I wouldn't bother. Perhaps he says that he intends "to ignore it entirely" because people tend to ignore him entirely. It's perfectly plain why they do. Tony (talk) 08:08, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Trovatore 100% and strongly oppose this "formal proposal." Policies and ArbCom decisions span all of Wikipedia -if a policy says "do this" we do it, no matter where we're working. Style guidelines are the exact opposite. The MOS tells us wonderful things about how to style articles, but there is no uniform format for Wikipedia - things like section headers are written "Like this" not "Like This." But the MOS is a general guideline - it gets refined and adapted to whatever region of Wikipedia we're talking about. Am I qualified to speak on the MOS? No, not really, I don't contribute to it, I'm not 100% familiar with every aspect of it, but it is not something to be enforced throughout the land of Wikipedia by decree of the MOS-regulars. I assume that is not the intent, but that's what this "formal proposal" amounts to, as far as I'm concerned. I'm extraordinarily surprised that people even use the term "enforce." If the MoS disagrees with another guidline (let's not forget, these are guidelines), it's not a moment for MoS people to flex their muscle and "enforce" anything. In fact, if the project, subject-specific manual, or local consensus disagrees with the MoS about how to deal with issues related to that project/manual/locality, then there's something wrong with the MoS, not the other way around. --Cheeser1 (talk) 04:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm curious at how far off-topic these comments are going, and the reluctance to address the core issue. If three different subpages of MoS or the main page of MoS say three different things, which do our editors follow? And by what process that a small group of editors, say a dozen, turn a page into a Guideline if there is no consensus gleaned via, for example, Village Pump? There are currently subpages of MoS that have never gained community consensus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:09, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is that rhetorical? I'll assume it's not and say that they would follow whichever is most specifically applicable to the article in question (with flexibility - something else that this "proposal" seeks to abolish). If that cannot be immediately determined, the issue should be discussed at the artlce's talkpage. I don't understand why this convoluted "formal proposal" was made, but it looks alot to me like declaring absolute power to a guideline. It doesn't make any sense, and it continues to inform alot of people who work in specific fields/projects/whatever on how the MoS is used or will be used by people foreign to those areas. --Cheeser1 (talk) 04:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Manuals of Style are supposed to reduce flexibility, but not to the point that it becomes impossible to express a thought, or to the extent that expressing the thought is much more difficult than if the MOS were ignored. The goal is to make different articles look like each other, so long as doing so does not prevent or impede the expression of thought. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, up to a point. There is a role for the MoS, as I said. But the MoS is already pretty near that point, and may be past it. Further attempts to extend the reach of the central MoS strike me as a shift of power from the experts on content to the process wonks. When this shift is proposed by those very wonks themselves, it is not out of line to point out that they are not disinterested parties. --Trovatore (talk) 04:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Every professional writer will be aware that their work has to conform to the style guide of the publication that their work is to appear in. The purpose is not to "reduce flexibility", but to increase consistency, for the benefit of the readers. Remember them? BTW, you ought not to be "expressing your thoughts" as you put it, you ought to be writing encyclopedia articles, which by definition express the thoughts of others. Think about it. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 04:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as worded. I offer a counter proposal: If editors find a discrepancy between the MOS and one of its subpages they should bring the issue to the talk pages of each to hammer out the differences and build a consensus. I think this addresses the issue at hand without the appearance of "power-grabbing". -- Fropuff (talk) 04:57, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm more interested in examples than in yes/no. Trovatore, can you think of something done in math articles that you wouldn't want to bring up to the entire community of MoS editors, for fear that they will try to overrule and override you? (Hm, I guess if the answer is "yes", you wouldn't want to say. Okay, warn me, at least :) - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:58, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. A manual of style offers guidelines, which must be interpreted applied with common sense. The aim in having a manual of style is to make the encyclopedia easier to read for our users. In specific cases common sense may dictate that not literally following the guidelines serves that aim better. Often, when the more specific guidelines of subpages appear to contradict the guidelines of the main page, the reason will be that in the specific circumstances covered by the the more specific guidelines, the latter do a better job of serving the purpose of readable presentation of the information. Making it mandatory that all such cases be added as a rider to the main page will only result in making that page unreadable, like a legal contract with lots of clauses and small print.  --Lambiam 06:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Unfortunately, the time, energy, and vehemence devoted thus far to this argument exemplifies the third reservation I expressed above in casting my Support, but ... vote. First, it is logically indefensible that the main MoS and a sub-page should contradict. Logic aside, what's a poor, conscientious newbie supposed to do when the MoS taken as a whole contradicts itself? Second, there are sub-pages and there are sub-pages. That is, some sub-pages elaborate guidelines in the main MoS (e.g., date and numbers, links, text fromatting, citing sources); there is no conceivable argument for inconsistency for this type of sub-page, although inconsistencies do arise through inadvertence. Other sub-pages deal with particular types of articles (e.g., biography, math). At the Wikipedia-wide level of generality that the main MoS addresses, logically there should be no contradiction between the main MoS and a topical sub-page. The math sub-page should not promote guidelines for heading capitalization (one of clearest, most widely accepted, and also most violated guidelines) or use of italic that contradicts the main MoS. On the other hand, for stylistic matters that are unique to a specialized topic (e.g., punctuation within mathematical expressions), there is no occasion for inconsistency and the wonks on the main MoS page need not be consulted. Third, it is pointless to try to make order out of the chaos of Wikipedia, because the proponents of chaos are numerous and vocal. Finell (Talk) 07:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Re what is a newbie (or an oldbie for that matter) supposed to do upon seeing an apparent contradiction: what's wrong with talking to someone, rather than trying to find another rule to follow in cases of contradictions? It may not be a contradiction after all, or it may indicate a problem with one of the guidelines that needs fixing, neither of which will be uncovered by blindly following rules. And if it really is a newbie, how do we expect him or her to know about the rule describing which guideline to choose from? —David Eppstein (talk) 08:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Why not clean it up in the first place? None of us would put up with inconsistencies within an article. We'd all, to a person, scoff at inconsistencies between an in-text statement and a reference cited in support of it. Why do we object to a simple measure for default resolution in our style guide, which will only ever be temporary until the inconsistency is resolved by getting together and talking it through. That is what any self-respecting publication or organisation strives for: mechanisms that encourage self-correction through collaboration, not chaos by neglect. Tony (talk) 12:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, but some clarification along those lines is clearly needed.
    1. There should be a distinction between subpages of general applicability (abbreviations, dates and numbers, capitalization, and the like) and subpages of more limited scope (Anime & manga articles, Japan-related articles, Latter Day Saints), with the former as a group generally being controlling over the latter.
    2. More specifically, for those parts of the main MoS page which include a Main article cross-reference, that subpage should be controlling in some sense, but not necessarily as proposed here, over both the MoS main page and the specific-topic subpages, for the scope of that section of the MoS. It would be pretty good to go why what has the "Main article" pages now, but it would be reasonable to review that if a breakdown of these lines is given a more formal recognition as being part of the main MoS, and it would be helpful to include more cross-references on the main MoS page to the other subpages which are not "main articles" on the topic.
    3. I think it would be helpful to have a discussion page devoted specifically to perceived conflicts between the MoS and its subpages. Or maybe conflicts between a "core MoS" group of pages of general applicability vs. the special-topic pages also connected to the MoS.
    4. There are some rules that could maybe be specifically identified in some way as controlling over special-topic guidelines, but not all the details associated with the rules on the MoS page and the examples shown deserve the same treatment.
    5. The ever-changing nature of all these pages are a factor that needs to be taken into consideratino. Not all of the rules presented on the MoS at any one time have been put there due to general support. Gene Nygaard (talk) 08:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. While I sympathise with SandyGeorgia and others that inconsistencies between MoS, its subpages, and WikiProject guidelines cause problems at FAC, this is not the answer. This "first and relatively straightforward step" is nothing of the sort. By declaring that one guideline trumps another, it goes completely against community principles such as Pillar Five and WP:What Wikipedia is not (policy). The solution is to stop taking MoS so seriously: it is just a style guideline, for goodness sake, to be treated with common sense. I'm quite shocked to hear editors speak of "enforcing" it: guidelines are advisory. I'm also surprised by the changes to Template:Style-guideline: we should not be using the word "breach" to describe not following a guideline! Guidelines reflect consensus, they do not determine it: their applicability comes entirely from the consensus they reflect. MoS carries greater weight only to the extent that it reflects greater consensus.
Discussions at FAC should be based on what improves the article and hence the encyclopedia, not on Wikilawyering between different guidelines. If there is a conflict between one MoS guideline and another, the solution is to go back to Wikipedia's policy on improving the encyclopedia: either apply a little common sense, or quite possibly, if two style guidelines conflict, then perhaps it means that the difference doesn't actually matter. Geometry guy 10:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment on "subpages". To refer to the guidelines on Wikipedia with "Manual of Style" in the title as subpages of this page already begs the question. The actual subpages of this page are are all proposals, surveys or redirects. An alternative viewpoint is that the various manual of style guidelines on different issues are the manual of style, and this page is just a summary of some general points. For instance, pages such as WP:MEDMOS and WP:MSM are quite independent guidelines on stylistic issues that arise in medical or mathematics articles. They are not subpages of this page and I see no consensus for the recent edit to {{Style}} to suggest that they are. Geometry guy 12:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fine, GG. It's good that you have pointed it out: the term subpage has been used in two different senses. That's just a small part of the confusion that arises when things are never given a clear explicit structure, and never clearly and publicly named. That's the very sort of confusion the present proposal begins to address, though a huge amount more would then need to be done. A related ambiguity: as the template at the top of the page has it, the various "subsidiaries" (or what you will) are included as a part of MOS:

This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

Not a subsidiary at all, but a part. Yet when we refer to MOS we often mean just WP:MOS, and paradoxically the wording in the template does that as well, in a way.
All very mixed up. Reading through the analyses above, I am not convinced that people understand just what a mess we have on our hands. Even if you are entirely laissez-faire about adherence to Wikipedia's Manaual of Style, surely you'd want it to be a coherent, readily identifiable, and hierarchically organised body of text, wouldn't you? It's useless otherwise.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 13:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. The mess should be cleaned up. But this cannot be done by fiat. Simply declaring the mess gone will accomplish nothing of value. -- Dominus (talk) 15:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm particularly impressed by Geometry Guy's negative, Gerry's affirmative (although perhaps more relevant generally than to math in particular), Trovatore's negative, and David Eppstein's invocation of WP:instruction creep. I have great sympathy (and a little fearfulness) concerning Trovatore's point that he expects bad things to happen when someone comes to the MoS community and says, "Our little community at Wikipedia has always followed the following policy and needs this exception to MoS rules in order to engage and appeal to our readers". So, what's the track record on questions like this? Is he right? I don't think his concern should be dismissed or outvoted; I would appreciate examples, and lots of them.
But on the other hand, what makes Gerry's argument so compelling is that policy questions at Wikipedia work by consensus or don't work at all...we can't solve any problem with Balkanization. We all know that manuals such as the Chicago Manual of Style are already regarded by even professional journalists as being so large that it's not reasonable to expect journalists to know all the material...that's what copyeditors are for, is the consensus. We also all know that (our) MoS and related pages don't have the luxury of being as compact as even the Chicago Manual of Style, because we can't simply say that "this is how it should be done" in a self-satisfied way; we must admit that we live in a world of people with various abilities who follow various usage rules, and we must be as inclusive as possible because we need as many people as possible to help us work on our encyclopedia. Therefore we don't have the luxury of restricting the question to what's best, we must constantly ask what is acceptable, how far tolerance can stretch, what is practical. But, as the kids say, ZOMG: that means that even in the best possible world, MoS and related guidelines would be an order of magnitude larger than a body of knowledge that professional journalists already consider to be an order of magnitude larger than what they can be expected to know. Gerry is pointing out the obvious: if we compound this problem by having subcommunities go their own way without debate or acknowledgement, on the grounds of being pessimistic about ever getting consensus, then we've just added a third order of magnitude to the number of rules that conscientious people would need to read to know what to do read, or worse, to intuit on their own, in order get a good feel for what everyone is doing and why. Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. I'm also impressed by Noetica's comment just above mine - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:11, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
P.P.S. I also want to point to Tony's comments in font=brown above. I really like how Sandy and Tony have defined the goals. What I'm taking from the negative arguments is that they know from experience, or predict, that certain things will go wrong. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Interestingly, most of the opposition to a coordinated MOS (at least seven that I count so far, maybe more) is coming from the Math Project, who has also in the past sworn off of GA because of differences they had over guidelines and policy. It's unfortunate that one Project (for reasons I'm not aware of) would stall coordination on MOS, where we currently have a situation allowing for multiple, contradictory guidelines. I didn't know Tony1 had planned to put this up for a "vote", and would have preferred we hammer out some wording first, since many people reading this proposal don't appear to understand the proposal and don't appear to have read the discussion. Specifically, pls see Kirill's query early on in this section. I'm not sure how we should handle one Project stalling aims to better coordinate MOS; perhaps the proposal should be withdrawn, wording should be hammered out, and we should approach a broader audience via Village Pump. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think any of us are opposed to coordinating the MOS with its subpages. I think we can all agree that this is a good and noble goal. We are opposed to the notion that the MOS should automatically trump the subpages. This is just the wrong way to go about things. When discrepancies are found they need to be addressed and resolved. Maybe the subpage is right or maybe the main page is, but this can only be determined by a discussion and a consensus. I think the proposal under discussion has enough opposition to withdraw it for now. -- Fropuff (talk) 18:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While I disagree that opposition from one Project constitutes broad opposition, I still feel the proposal was premature in that wording hadn't been hammered out and discussed, and one Project appears to have overreacted and misunderstood the issues. For those reasons, I suggest withdrawing and re-approaching a broader audience when wording is ready. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I confess to being a bit taken aback by some of these comments from you, Sandy. First, this is not a vote, it is a discussion to determine consensus on a specific proposal (there are no support/oppose sections and arguments are preceded by bullets, not numbers). What counts in such a discussion is weight of argument, not numbers of editors, or where they "come from". This last is rather difficult to define anyway, as most editors work on a variety of different things on Wikipedia. Were you counting me as "coming from the math project" for example? Whether you were or not, your comment that the math project "has... sworn off GA" is incorrect and irrelevant to the present discussion, and borders on being the project equivalent of an ad hominem argument. :-)
Anyway, I guess we can pass over this: I agree with your main substantive assertion that this proposal is poorly worded, and your suggestion to withdraw the current proposal and rework it. If a proposal can be put forward which addresses the perceived problems of inconsistencies without violating basic principles of Wikipedia policy and without referring to one guideline "prevailing" over another, then my arguments against this proposal would immediately become invalid. Geometry guy 19:37, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, that example gives me even more pause. You can have four pages that prescribe different treatments to the same text, correct; but that doesn't necessarily mean that the proper way to treat this conundrum is by making the MOS the prevalent page, elevating it to the level of policy. An alternative way is to treat the MOS subpagesmanual pages as the normative recommendations, with WP:MOS being the summary of those recommendations. In a way, that would transform this page into more of a portal or introduction page to the Manual of Style. But even then, the way this proposal is worded is just too ambiguously to accept. So, oppose for now. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 20:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't disagree with your reasoning. Wording might have been hammered out via discussion before this turned into a "support/oppose vote". The idea is that we need a method for coordinating all these pages. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Consider a "sub-page" of MOS as inheriting (in the sense of OO) from the general to the specific. A general guideline, meant to be broadly applicable, can and should be over-ruled by a specific guideline formulated for a particular area; just like slowing for school zones on a road that generally supports a higher speed limit. Mathematics, for example, has very hoary ancient traditions about typography (such as the restriction to single-letter names for everything, obliging the use of multiple alphabets and typefaces) which can't, and should not, be consistent with more general style guidelines. Of course I don't mean to imply that the current (spaghetti bowl?) system of MOS articles is hierarchically organized, but we want to allow for development in that way. Pete St.John (talk) 20:15, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose. What PeterStJohn said. There is no way to write down universal rules that will cover everything that can arise in a work as large as Wikipedia. The only way to structure things reasonably is to have some general guidelines that give good results in most cases, and supplement them with more specific guidelines about cases where unthinking application of the general guidelines lead to bad result. This proposal seeks to forbid such and organization; it says that no matter how necessary and well thought out an exception from a general rule in a particular context may be, the general rule must still take precedence. Under such a system, all special-case exceptions need to be stated at the same time as the general rule; this will make the guidelines impossible to read, impossible to edit, impossible to maintain, and impossible to disucuss. It will be a disaster. –Henning Makholm 22:36, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another failure to understand the proposal: in fact, the proposal seeks to coordinate the very structure you describe. Obviously, there is a problem with how the wording has been put forward here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:40, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Did some vandal remove a negation in the proposal, or flip words to make it say something else? Right at the moment it reads: "where there is inconsistency between MOS and its subpages, MOS prevails." This says in clear and plain English that subpages cannot define exceptions to general rules in the superpage, because in that case the superpage will still prevail. –Henning Makholm 22:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Which I think is perfectly correct. Someone introduced the OO analogy earlier, not entirely correctly, but to take that one step further it is for the superclass to say what may be overridden by its subclasses, not the other way around. The superclass must always prevail. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:15, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Consensus is what prevails, not subclasses, superclasses, subpages or whatever. As I pointed out above, MoS does not have subpages. It doesn't have subclasses or superclasses either. Geometry guy 23:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CONCLUSION: The proposal fails for lack of consensus. Finell (Talk) 23:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • CONCLUSION: The proposal will eventually pass, but many "opposes" appear to be under a misapprehension; clearly this needs more discussion, which should take place here, now. Tony (talk) 02:15, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Tony: Don't patronize. Finell (Talk) 05:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Tony: How do you come to that conclusion? The only real support came at the beginning, from hard-core MOSers; as time goes on I expect more opposition than support. By my count there are more than twice as many !votes opposing than supporting. This is more than lack of support; this verges on consensus to oppose! CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Eventually", I said. In any case, many of the opposes appear to come from little empire-builders on MOS sub-pages: those who have ownership issues and are here to protect their patch from what they fear is an encroachment on their agendas, without bothering to think through the larger issues. Tony (talk) 14:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Funny, the issue strikes me the same from the other side: the MOS minority seems to be making a radical move toward encroaching on everyone's agenda, while each project simply wants to be left alone. As for eventually... 90% of the support (literally, count the !votes) came in the first 12 hours, while more than 90% of the !votes in the several days since have been for opposing the proposal. Discussion is good, dicta bad; monolithic style document bad, interlocking encyclopedias good. CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Feel free to move this around, this section is already 66K.) Okay, so we're back on. Affirmatives: you never presented your best argument, the order-of-magnitude argument: it's simply impossible for someone who considers WT:MOS to be their "hangout" to simultaneously keep up with all usage guides, but it's not impossible for someone who feels primary connection with a specialized usage guide to keep up with at least WP:MOS, and possibly also WT:MOS. For reasons I gave earlier, this would be a completely unreasonable burden to put on WT:MOS editors, and therefore it's only appropriate to put the primary burden on proponents of the other (I think we've all learned not to say sub :) guides to bring discrepancies to everyone's attention. Negatives, you gave solid general principles, but they generally relied on distrust of the people who hang out at WT:MOS...that is, there was generally implicit the idea that if you did what I just said, and always brought up discrepancies to the WT:MOS guys, bad things would happen, since you know more about your subject area and they wouldn't be willing to admit that or step aside. Well, where is the evidence that that has happened? I don't doubt that you have some, at least looking at it from your side, but your argument would be strengthened considerably by presenting it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:24, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On the very contrary, it would be a staggeringly unresonable burden to put on WP:MOS editors and readers, if that page had to spell out explicitly every little special-case exception to the general rules that has been found needed. Exceptions for special cases belong on the subpages that treat those special cases. A policy that voids any exception that is not stated on the main page will prevent any reasonable attempt to keep the MOS well structured. This is not about power or influence, it is about allowing the MOS to be structured in a readable way at all. –Henning Makholm 21:04, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, particularly the current wording. Trying to invest central authority to one arm of the multi-limbed manual of style is both impractical and conflicts with our understanding of what a guideline should be – something to be treated with common sense, and not as a prescription; moreover, it's certainly not clear that WP:MOS would be the natural place in which to invest such authority, were we capable of doing so. While, I understand there are concerns about inconsistencies between different MOS guidelines, and with practices in at least one mentioned project, the way to address this is via discussion, and not by decree. (FWIW, some kind of task force/project to focus on style inconsistencies sounds a more practical solution to me.) --Sturm 11:59, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another example of an Oppose which supports the principle aim of the proposal; the only way to discuss the differences among the many subpages is to have a mechanism where we even know when those differences exist. Asking the main MoS page to go out and find differences in dozens of guideline pages isn't feasible; asking those Projects to come to a central place and discuss differences when they exist is more practical. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. These are supposed to be guidelines, not a legal system where some laws have precedence over others. Consistency is good but can be achieved through normal means. --Itub (talk) 12:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, if I'm not too late. Sometimes one branch of knowledge uses a different style to the rest, either for sound reasons or just by historical convention. I feel that listing exceptions to MoS on a sub-page is a good way to document that real-world inconsistency. However, I would support a gradual review of the sub-pages to flag entries that contradict MoS. Each flagged point can then be justified (retained and marked as an exception), removed or even promoted with cross-discipline consensus to replace a weaker MoS entry. Certes (talk) 15:15, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yet another example of someone entering an Oppose who actually supports the ultimate goal of coordination among the pages. Asking MoS-main to review and keep up with scores of pages isn't practical; asking those pages to come to one central place to assue coordination when differences existed is what the proposal was about. A large number of the Opposes actually support the overall aim of coordination of the chaos, confusion and contradiction that reigns on multiple pages. The problem is in the wording and groupthink of people who don't seem to have understood the aim of the proposal. It's revealing how many of the Opposes are actually Supports in principle. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, for a reason that no one else has directly invoked: WP:COI. Both the opening remarks in the project and every word that has followed supports the thesis that there are some people who feel ownership of MoS issues (and don't get me wrong...with very good reason, and I'm glad they've done all the work they've done). These people got annoyed that other people weren't listening to them properly, and introduced a proposal to force them to listen. WP:COI (certainly the spirit of it, anyway) predicts that what will follow is exactly what has followed, and it suggests a solution: disinterested parties have to take up both the pro and con debate. I oppose this proposal for that reason, and I will oppose any future proposal on the same subject that is either introduced or principally argued by the same people, for that reason. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify: I was in fact supportive at the very first, then agnostic...it seemed to me that there were "people" issues, but this was a debate and those issues needed to be ignored to get the right answer on this important question (which is the tip of the iceberg of larger questions of who should listen to whom, and when, and for what reasons...you really stepped in something here, guys.) Today, I've reached my limit. The legitimate concerns of the many, many negatives have all been dismissed as irrelevant and as coming from a single cabal. There is insufficient reasoned debate here, and we all have lives.
Sorry you've "reached your limit", but the problem of multiple pages with contradictory information will persist, and those who have more patience will have to continue to find ways to address it. Since you've pointed out that you will oppose any further efforts to do, should we consider your future input as pointy? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I got angry when I read that but I hope I am more motivated by the big picture now. What I think I'm doing here is working on exactly the problems that I'm having at WP:ROBO. The problem relevant to this discussion is, there's a big display of which articles are FA, GA etc. on our front page that I haven't been able to talk Jameson into moving (and I'm trying to avoid an early edit war). I kind of naively (arrogantly is more accurate) assumed that I'd be able to get up to speed on these issues quickly and get back to work...and btw, yes I don't have much time now for MoS issues...but what I'm finding is a quagmire. As you admit right from the start, there are a lot of WikiProject people, and I'm finding, a large majority of technophiles, who say "meh" to MoS issues, with the result that (take this with a grain of salt, I really don't know yet) their articles may not make it into Version 1.0 or Veropedia or be featured on the front page, but more than that, they may feel like they've just been given a low grade in school, and leave. Note that I have not had any direct experience with the GA/FA process and I certainly don't know what I'm talking about. But all this rancor is really leaning me in the direction of saying "Anyone who cares about MoS issues here (at WP:ROBO), other than the designated masochists, will be shot."
Sandy, in the response you just gave me, you made two big mistakes (given that it was clear that I was referring to you and Tony and not anyone else...I hope that was clear, guys, I think MoS people in general are wonderful), illustrative of exactly what I was talking about. I totally understand if you were speaking out of anger, so you might want to go back and change what you said, before I use that to illustrate my point. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Anger? References specifically to Tony and me? WikiProject issues unrelated to MoS? I'm sorry Dank, but I have no idea what you're talking about, but if it's anything specific to either Tony or me, then please take if off of this page and onto individual talk pages where it belongs. To bring you up to speed, no FAC has ever failed because of MoS issues as far as I know, so no, that is not the issue you make it out to be. If the personalization of this entire discussion, a needed one, continues, we may need to ask a previously uninvolved admin to watch over this discussion and help keep it on track. The issues still need to be addressed; I regret that proposed wording wasn't worked out before "voting" took place, leading many to Oppose when their comments show they support the principles raised. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Because I feel strongly about the connection between my own project and these issues, you are right, Sandy, and I shouldn't be arguing here any more. Also, not for Sandy and Tony because they probably won't hear it at the moment, but for anyone else unfortunate enough to read all of this, do not use any of this to claim that I think that there is anything wrong with Sandy or Tony. Wikipedia has been built on the backs of people exactly like them (dare I say, us). However, as happens so often on WP, you and Tony have gotten too close to the issue, and this discussion has every one of the elements of other discussions that I've read that were closed down for COI reasons. What I was referring to above was, I said that you and Tony (everyone knew who I meant) probably should step aside for COI reasons and let other people argue the point. You said that that meant that I was violating WP:POINT...that is, any resistance to you and Tony was equivalent to disrupting Wikipedia. That's not the case, there are other people who can argue this, without accusing the negatives (who are in the majority) of all being misguided, cabalish spies and saboteurs (including on my talk page, I think the inference was clear, Tony). - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. It would be totally fair if you dropped into a discussion at WP:ROBO sometime in the future, when I'm sure I'll feel as attached to my project as you are now to yours, and get me thrown out of a discussion on grounds of WP:COI :) - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • This discussion really isn't going anywhere. The proposal was rushed in, poorly worded, and then received some opposes that failed to assume good faith. Extending the discussion is just making matters worse, with more opposes and rebuttals dividing editors rather than helping to address the issue: Finell (who supported the proposal) attempted to close it last night, and I think this attempt was in the spirit that the discussion was going nowhere. I mistakenly backed this attempt up, because I think it is the only way we can move forward to address the issues raised: it was a mistake because there is no WP:IT'S ABOUT TO SNOW, and because there is much personal energy invested in this.
But it doesn't change the fact, that as predicted, this discussion is still going nowhere. Sandy suggested closing this discussion yesterday: if she had done so, I would have supported that. Hence I welcome her "New Start" thread below. Geometry guy 20:47, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal to close discussion

The use of term sub-pages, in retrospect, may have unfortunate. However, everyone understands that the MoS includes all the pages that have been referred to here as sub-pages, so the problem being discussed arises where any page of the MoS contradicts another MoS page (including but not limited to the page named Wikipedia:Manual of Style). And it is a problem, regardless of how one feels about bureaucracy. Further, it is factually incorrect to say that the Wikipedia:Manual of Style page itself is just a summary of the other MoS pages: some matters treated in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style page are not treated elsewhere in the MoS. However, even without adopting a new policy, editors can and should edit MoS pages so that they are consistent with one another, just as inconsistencies elsewhere in Wikipedia can and should be fixed. For example, if something said in Nicolaus Copernicus were to contradict something in Heliocentrism, editors should fix the contradiction when they discover it. Those Wikipedians who find inconsistencies within the MoS pages can and should harmonize them, always with discussion at all the involved pages to achieve consensus on the best solution to the contradiction. Time would be better spent doing that than in continuing the necessarily abstract argument here. Let's please close this discussion or proposal and get back to improving Wikipedia, including its articles and its MoS. Finell (Talk) 18:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the proposal to close the discussion, and also agree that "summary" is not an accurate description of this page (I described it as an alternative viewpoint, not an accurate one). I would urge you, however, not to make analogies between guidelines and articles. There's been a whole load of trouble over at WP:LEAD recently, caused partly by one editor insisting that WP:LEAD should be written in accordance with WP:LEAD, despite the fact that WP:LEAD is a guideline for writing articles, and WP:LEAD itself is not an article. In this case, if something said in Nicolaus Copernicus contradicts something in Heliocentrism, then editors can consult reliable sources to resolve the contradiction, and if reliable sources are contradictory, then both articles should discuss the disagreement in accordance with WP:NOR. However, neither WP:RS or WP:NOR apply to guidelines, so the process for resolving disagreement is entirely different. As you say, it is called consensus. Geometry guy 20:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, the flat-out refusal of the people editing the Wikipedia:Manual of Style page and the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) page to follow, on those pages, the universal rule that symbols for units of measure are never italicized, is a serious detriment to the credibility of both of those pages. That is especially true when Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting), Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics), and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) itself all state the very rule which a few editors refuse to let these two MoS pages follow. Gene Nygaard (talk) 16:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Was closing the proposal some kind of joke? It was open for two days and active discussion was taking place. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject MoS?

I have been struck (in a good way, I hope) by the following exchange, which I quote from the proposal discussion above.

Well, what do we normally do when we need to provide a mechanism to coordinate editors of multiple different but related pages? How do we provide central coordination, communication and discussion without centralizing authority?

Answer: we form a WikiProject. So how about WP:WikiProject Manual of Style? Not associated with any individual guideline, and with no more authority than the consensus it reflects, is something like this not the right Wikipedian way to find and discuss inconsistencies between individual MoS guidelines? Geometry guy 21:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Projects are good, in principle. Centralization of discussion is good. Consensus is ideal. However, the MoS is already treated as a project. Each MoS page is a project page, with an associated Talk page. If a new project would help coordinate the MoS pages and would be a means to consensus, fine. If, as I suspect, it would become another sandbox for the denizens of the MoS pages to have another place to argue at each other, then a new project is a bad idea. As I proposed above, further argument (that is all it is) is getting nowhere. We don't need another guideline and we don't need another project. What we need to do is go out and fix whatever inconsistencies exist among the MoS pages, resolve specific differences of opinion by consensus, and PLEASE STOP THIS USELESS ARGUMENT ABOUT ABSTRACT PHILOSOPHY NOW! [Notes to other editors: (1) Talk page posts need not conform to MoS text formatting conventions. (2) Yes, I am shouting.] I intend to refrain from further discussion of this topic. The proposal for a new guideline obviously fails for lack of consensus and should be closed. End of discussion, PLEASE! Finell (Talk) 23:43, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
NO! IF WE HAVE NO PHILOSOPHY, WE DON'T KNOW WHY WE ARE WRITING A MOS. DOCUMENTS WHICH HAVE NO REASON TO EXIST ARE ALMOST ALWAYS CRAP! --Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm both sorry and surprised to the see the hard feelings. I left a nice message of support on Tony's page, and got this in return:

I don't know what to make of your strong expression of support when I see a similar posting on the talk page of this Geometry person, who has just tried to sabotage the whole process. Very strange behaviour on your part. Tony (talk) 00:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

So...once again, from the top. I was not aware that there were two "camps", because no one told me (and I still don't have convincing evidence that that's true. Not all of the negatives came from mathematicians...I had reservations, for instance...and all the negative comments seemed, and seem, perfectly sensible, even if the lack of examples was unhelpful). I pointed out Tony's 3 comments in brown...how could anyone not support those? I pointed out Geometry Guy's two comments, no one disagreed, they added important relevant facts to the discussion, why should I not support that? And sure enough, GGuy has continued to think hard and carefully about the problem, and said that my support and input was helpful. Now, exactly what sin was it I committed? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 01:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC) Actually...let me rephrase, that sounds like I'm lobbying for support, and I really don't care. What I would like is for you guys to acknowledge that this problem is really very hard, that was the entire point of my argument...as in, the amount you have to know in order to feel really comfortable with all the issues that would form the "facts" (if this were a trial, which it's starting to sound like) is 3 orders of magnitude higher than journalists are generally willing to put up with. Isn't it possible that people are simply not understanding each other, rather than trying to blow each other up? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 01:58, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sensible remarks again. I'm also somewhat taken aback by the heatedness of the discussion. This is another reason why I think a WikiProject might work better: WikiProject talk pages tend to encourage a more constructive spirit of discussion than guideline talk pages (again, recent experience at WP:LEAD). I don't see two camps here, more a spectrum of opinion, ranging from supporters of the proposal as is through to some downright distrustful opposition. In between there are a great number of editors who do not support the proposal exactly as written, but agree that there is a problem here that needs to be addressed.
No one seems to have addressed my comments or similar comments about the nature of guidelines; that may be because they are so firmly grounded in community policy and principles that there is little one can say in response. I'm sad when ad hominem arguments individuals and projects fill the void when arguments of substance remain unaddressed.
The proposal above would not have to be modified a great deal to line up better with community policy. On the other hand there may be better alternatives, and a WikiProject is one which has merit, I believe. Geometry guy 09:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I could go either way on this proposal, Gguy. On the one hand, I'd oppose having yet another place where MoS issues are discussed, as these discussions are already all over the place and there are limited numbers of people who might want to keep up with the maintenance chores of running a Project. But if having a Project would lessen the perception of ownership at the main MoS page, it could help.

What I am opposed to is the red bold font shouting above, see WP:TALK, avoid excessive markup, would be nice if it was removed by its authors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sandy, and I also objected to all the font shouting yesterday: it made me see red :-). I think a WikiProject could be good both for perception, and for organisation. I had some additional comments in response to the assertion above that "the MoS is already treated as a project." I suggested then, why does it not have a project page? I find it unsatisfactory to use the talk page of a guideline as a project page: some of the recent discussions here are not focussed on improving the content of WP:MoS, which is what talk pages are for. If this is a project, then where do we list the participants and their interests? At the moment, they are inferred in discussions, and not always in a particularly helpful way. And wouldn't it be a good idea to have central place to list MoS issues, such as contradictions between the various pages in the MoS fleet? A project page would provide a place to do all of this, and more. Geometry guy 21:04, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well ... getting down to brass tacks, who is going to initiate and manage the process of getting that Project up and running? You're up to your eyeballs in work, so is Tony (and considering the ownership accusations leveled at him, he can't do it anyway), and I can't do it (COI). I'm worried about the practical. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:12, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll have more time soon, and would be willing to help with wiki-gnome-like activity. As it would be a WikiProject rather than a guideline, I don't see any real COI issues: the ideal would surely be to make the project inclusive. I also think that if there were consensus here that such a WikiProject would provide real benefits, then actually, rather a lot of people would want to be involved. Geometry guy 11:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New start

I prefer that my commentary not be chopped up, so respectfully request that others respond below my sig. I'll number my paragraphs in case others find that makes responding easier.

1. Reading the proposal section above, I see agreement in principle even among most of the Opposes, and disagreement largely over wording that may have been premature. The discussion also sidetracked into personalization of the issues; I hope that will stop so we don't need to request an uninvolved admin to assist. There are still issues to be resolved; I hope we can find some areas of agreement so we can move forward.

2. Since my initial post here apparently initiated this imbroglio, what brought me to this discussion to begin with? I helped in the crafting of the medicine guidelines; at one point, the guideline tag was removed, we were told it was an essay, and we were told we had to submit to community-wide consensus before the page could be considered a guideline. We submitted to over 20 other Projects and the Village Pump and gained broad consensus before we added the page to {{style}}. We made sure nothing in the page contradicted WP:MOS, or we came to MOS to work out areas of disagreement, and we crafted a page that didn't cover territory already covered at WP:MOS, rather addressed only issues specific to health-related articles. I am not saying this process is correct, I am not proposing this, but I am pointing out that we were apparently subjected to requirements that other pages have not been subjected to, so there's inconsistency. I have been surprised since to find that other pages are added to {{style}} without being forced through those hoops as we were. So ...

3. The current situation is that a group of six or eight editors can get together, put together some guidelines that don't enjoy broad consensus and may contradict multiple other pages, and add them to {{style}}. There is no means of coordinating these pages. For example, ship naming conventions could be covered under WP:MOS, WP:ITALICS, WP:MILHIST, WP:SHIPS, WP:Shipwrecks and probably others I'm not aware of. For example, a new essay was added just yesterday, and there was recently a strange split of the pages in {{style}} that makes no sense to me and appears to be undiscussed. There are currently almost 70 pages listed on the Style template; there's no way any one editor can know how many of them contradict each other, unless we can find a way to get them to come to a central discussion point. Several examples of contradiction, or potential for contradiction, have already been posted on this page.

4. It appears that several of the WikiProjects that stay in sync with the main MoS page, or work to iron out differences at talk (example, Medicine, MilHist and Film, there may be others) haven't opposed the proposal, while other Projects or individuals who may be in conflict with MoS or individuals who edit MoS have opposed. Just an observation.

5. Another observation is a few editors deprecating MoS or scoffing at it; the heated discussion here argues that we need a coordinated means of resolving these issues, and that they do matter to a lot of editors.

6. Asking any given set of editors who monitor MoS to attempt to coordinate the pages isn't feasible or practical, considering there are over 60 pages. Asking those pages to come to some central location to iron out differences when they become aware of them seems to make more sense, and offer the best way of keeping "big brother" out of each Project (that is what happened at MEDMOS).

7. There seems to have been confusion about the scope of the proposal, addressed very early on by Kirill, but ignored by many subsequent Opposers.

Question: what are we defining "inconsistency" to cover here? Is it only active contradiction (i.e. the MoS says to to X while another page says to not to do X), or passive contradiction (i.e. the MoS says nothing while another page says to do Y, or the MoS says to do X while another page says to do X+Y) as well? In other words, does the omission of some point from the MoS allow other groups to specify such a point, or prohibit it? And, more generally, are more specific guidelines—as appropriate for particular subject areas—to be permitted, or will "the main MoS doesn't require this" be a valid objection to all of them. Kirill 14:03, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

This needs to be ironed out, but I agreed with Kirill that it was the former, not the latter (which is exactly what MilHist and MEDMOS do).

8. There was also some apparent confusion about the featured article process. To my knowledge, a FAC has never failed strictly on MoS issues, but given the amount of heat and passion we've seen in this discussion, and that the number of potential contradictory pages is growing, the potential for this kind of imbroglio to land at FAC is only growing. My motivation is to iron out a way to coordinate pages and resolve issues before one lands at FAC. I don't care what the procedure is, as much as I care that we have something, because the issue isn't going away.

9. I request that Tony consider tagging as closed the Proposal section, so we can reorient the discussion and attempt to craft some new wording, but also agree that it was earlier closed prematurely without his discussion or input, considering he is in a time zone that may be significantly different than the rest of us. I also ask that others refrain from personalizing any further discussion, and consider the big picture. We have almost 70 pages added to the Style template, and no means of knowing how many of them contradict each other.

Based on these points, and having the attention of a broader audience now, can we re-orient the discussion to finding areas of agreement? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Care to give examples of #4? Actually I'd like to see many examples of conflicts between the MOS and individual manuals of style, but in 4 you seem to be railing against a small group of projects, and I'd like to know more before commenting further. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:58, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't really care to engage the discussion by overly focusing on any given Projects or individuals; I've already said I think we should avoid personalizing this, and focus on the big picture (the potential that exists for chaos, confusion, contradiction among conflicting pages). I pointed out some examples of Projects that work to stay in sync with the main MoS page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have pointed out that quote by Kiril several times now. It doesn't make much sense to me. What is the difference between "main page says do X, subpage says do Y" and "main page says do X, subpage says do X+Y"? I cannot see any difference between the two except an editorial choice of what one chooses to abbreviate to "Y", yet you seem to say that one is okay and the other is not?

And you're completely ignoring the most common and necessary case of inconsistency between the main page and a subpage: Main page says "do X", subpage says "do X, except do Y in such-and-such special case". Is that supposed to be forbidden or not? I cannot overstate how disasterous it would be if such all such inconsistencies were declared to default to the main page. It would make it absolutely, utterly impossible for the main page to be useful to editors if it had to enumerate all the little special-cased exceptions that will be needed in a work with the scope that Wikipedia has. –Henning Makholm 21:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The reason it matters is that many of the opposes appeared not to understand the distinction drawn by Kirill. I'll give a hypothetical example of the two scenarios you question, intentionally keeping it as trivial as possible, and (partly) fictional:
A. Active contradiction: main page says italicize the names of genes, MEDMOS says do not italicize the names of genes. This would need to be ironed out, as an active contradiction. Your example of subpage says "do X, except do Y in such-and-such special case" can and should be discussed and added to the main page, so we don't have contradiction. But the main page doesn't know the contradiction exists if the sub-page doesn't bring it to attention. You seem to be saying there are many of those, but I'm not aware of more than a few (discussed on this page). Do you have examples of specific situations where those exceptions actively contradict the main page of MoS?
B. Passive contradiction: main page says hierarchical section of headings subject to certain guidelines about how those headings are formed, MEDMOS suggests specific headings particular to health articles, as this helps assure comprehensiveness. This sort of passive contradiction (main page says X, other page says X + Y, is fine). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What about "main page says italicize the names of genes, MEDMOS says italicize and bolden the names of genes"? Is that "active" (with X="italicize", Y="italicize and bolden") or "passive" (with X="italicize" and Y="bolden")?
Since you respond to my question about the common (and necessary) case of contradiction by specialization under case A, I tentatively presume that you do want do forbid that. It looks like I will have to continue opposing, then. I hold it to be completely impossible to expect the main page to list all special cases. It would make the general principles completely drown in exceptions; such a main page would be completely useless to a new editor who just wants an overview of the general principles. And what would we even need subpages for, if everything had to be stated on the main page anyway?
You ask for examples: Every case where a subpage considers a question in greater detail than the main page has space for, and identifies particular situations where the quick rule on the main page would lead to bad results, is an example. To point out particular examples one by one would be counterproductive, because each individual example I were to point at could conceivably be folded into the main page without much damage. It is folding all of them at the same time into the main page that will bring forth disaster. –Henning Makholm 21:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(Later) Oh, wow, it's been a while since I actually looked at the main page. It seems that the disaster has already happened. That does not make me support a proposal to formally forbid un-disasterifying it, of course. –Henning Makholm 22:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've identified why I am against MoS over-ruling subpages, and perhaps why some others don't share my views. I think the best approach depends on the quality of the MoS and particularly of its subpages. If they are felt to be (and remain) an unruly mess of contradictory opinion then having MoS keep them in line may well be the best practical solution. On the other hand, if they are (or can become) a coordinated work of higher quality then there are advantages to allowing subpages to take priority.

In my ideal world, MoS would contain general guidance useful to most editors. Subpages would have two functions: to cover matters omitted from MoS due to their narrow scope, and to document rare local exceptions to MoS to reflect real-world differences (where one discipline consistently does things differently from the rest of us). This would cause occasional conflicts and give a good reason for resolving them in favour of a relevant subpage. Everything else would be covered once only, with a few judicious links to help us find our way around the content.

I am wondering whether others share this vision and, if so, how close we are to that level of quality. If the aim is misguided or simply unachievable, what do you feel is a realistic target? This question may seem like a nebulous diversion, but I think it needs to be answered before WP can sensibly decide on more detailed matters. Certes (talk) 18:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We are very far from that level of quality. MOS is a collection of tendentious opinions, each opinion having some handful of editors who would like to see it control all Wikipedia; so are many subpages. Fortunately, these pages don't really matter, despite the hysterical cries of "chaos, chaos" any time the system is threatened. What matters is consensus on actual pages; we have too few controlling editors to actually tyrannize. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like Titoxd's suggestion: "An alternative way is to treat the MOS manual pages as the normative recommendations, with WP:MOS being the summary of those recommendations." CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • How does this resolve the problem that Sandy is identifying, where the MOS pages contradict each other without people being aware of it? I think it's perfectly acceptable to expect editors from other MOS pages that want to contradict WP:MOS to drop a note here and discuss the issue. On the other hand, I would also expect that when WP:MOS is changed in a way that clearly affects other MOS pages, the editors of the relevant MOS pages are warned and given a change to comment. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 21:25, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[copied at Sandy's and Tony's talk pages] An apology here is appropriate: I want to thank people for being supportive recently. A week ago when I was arguing here, I was under the impression that I was making a useful, if clumsy contribution. I now understand that having passion in no way gives me permission to make accusations about Sandy and Tony, and I'm sorry about that. I have agreed to stick to writing boring, factual articles here and to start a blog as an outlet for my passion. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my view, your contributions here have been valuable, primarily because they show you have read and thought about the comments by other editors, and have assimilated multiple viewpoints. Apologies are always appreciated, but we all make mistakes, so the real distinction is between those who are willing to admit to their mistakes and/or apologize for the them, and those who are not. I hope that your apology will be well appreciated, and that you will continue to contribute here rather than censor yourself. Geometry guy 21:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Being new to this one (I just posted a contrary opinion about the "editorial we" in the math MOS subarticle) I skimmed around just now regarding the apology above. I note this item (italics denote the copied material):
To me this is an example of my suggestion that if two guidelines do not line up on a minor issue such as this, then it probably means that the issue is unimportant to article or encyclopedia quality. As it happens, in this case, that is essentially what MoS-central says (it permits either approach). But also MOSNUM only implicitly rules out the other format. If this is the kind of issue that causes problems during FAC discussions, then FAC needs to think seriously about its priorities. Geometry guy 19:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Keep your dirty hands off the discussion section and this section that needs independent resolution, Geometry. What a hide, thinking you can walk in and do what you like at almost no notice. Tony (talk) 00:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure I'm missing something from the context, but after skimming several items along similar lines (particularly, not addressing content specifics), this juxtaposition struck me vividly. It's not plain to me that all appropriate apologies are forthcoming. Pete St.John (talk) 22:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I made a mistake, which I acknowledged at the bottom (currently) of this thread. I was upset by the thread you quote, but suggest that any other apology issues are best resolved on user talk pages, not here. Geometry guy 22:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm concerned about certain kinds of intimidation tactics getting under the radar. It would seem the wrong person was bullied into an apology, but of course, y'all want to address content issues here. Good people trying to ignore bad behaviour let's too much bad behaviour pay off, IMO. But I have my own problems to deal with; here I just wanted to advocate "we", and incidentally call a spade when I happen to see a spade. Pete St.John (talk) 22:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was very upset at Geometry's action, and I overreacted, as I often do when stressed out at what people do (you must be used to it by now). I'm assured by someone here that I should be collaborating with him, not taking an adversarial angle. I was perplexed by Dank's seemingly contradictory stances on talk pages, but in the storm I may have got it wrong. I second Gimmetrow's advice to him. It's unclear whose behaviour PeterStJohn is calling "bullying" and "intimidation"; not mine, I hope. I don't go around squeezing apologies out of people.
The proposal to bring sanity to the structure of MOS and its sub-pages appears to have brought out lots of ownership attitudes surrounding the sub-pages, and consequent outrage that anyone could suggest that the main MOS here should have precedence, even if only as a fulcrum for dealing with inconsistencies. It's very sad that the current structure has atrophied, and that those who propose change are labelled with such words as "power-grabbers". Tony (talk) 14:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't go around doing that either, but I appreciated these comments very much. Anyway, it is definitely time to move on and work together to address the issues.
I agree that there is a genuine problem that needs a solution, and ownership and/or percieved ownership issues have been getting in the way of solving it. In my view, the best way to sidestep these ownership issues is to place the fulcrum for dealing with inconsistencies in a neutral place. I have suggested one approach: a WikiProject for MoS. I think it has potential, and I think it might work, but it needs to have support, and it needs to have its scope discussed and elaborated here. It is also not the only possible answer, and there may be other suggestions. All ideas are welcome! Geometry guy 22:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So it's an idea worthy of consideration, but my concern is that any central location will simply be taken over by those who favor a detailed and assertive (or meddlesome, depending on your POV) MoS. They have a natural advantage because they're more interested in that sort of thing; those of us who oppose it also tend to find the whole thing tedious. So I lean against a central location. I might be persuaded if there were firm guarantees that the relevant WikiProjects would be scrupulously notified in the event that an inconsistency had been identified. --Trovatore (talk) 22:52, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's not workable; a Project shouldn't/can't go out and survey daily 70 sub-pages. They should come to a central point when a discrepancy needs to be resolved. The other problem with the way this was approached is that, in attempting to achieve consensus, Tony notified the very Projects who are likely to have ownership issues; a wider audience should be sought via a more neutral forum like the Village Pump. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A Project doesn't need to involve itself with 70 "sub-pages". The math project is unlikely to be interested in a discrepancy involving, say, the MoS page on ships. But if an inconsistency involving MOSMATH is being discussed, then the project should be specifically notified. The ownership issues go both ways here -- frankly I see them more from the other side, with the MoS regulars being at least equally guilty, perhaps more so. Obviously this is a "where you stand depends on where you sit" kind of thing. --Trovatore (talk) 23:07, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Going in circles again; a main MoS page doesn't know if there are discrepancies on 60 or 70 other pages unless those pages self-identify when there's a problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why does it need to? My rule of thumb would be, if the problem doesn't come up, then it's not a problem --Trovatore (talk) 23:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You two are talking about different issues, though. Sandy is concerned with damage control; Trovatore, with actual resolution. You could get away with something like:

In cases of inconsistency between the main Manual of Style and a subsidiary guideline, the inconsistency shall be resolved by [... add stuff about cross-notification, etc. here]. Until the resolution process is complete, the version in the central manual shall be considered the canonical one for the purposes of any process which requires a binding Manual of Style.

which would allow you to make the process as complex as it needs to without impacting the short-term matter of which version should be followed at FAC. Any articles temporarily switched to the "wrong" version can be switched back post-resolution anyways. Kirill 23:27, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would support that if you removed the last sentence, because I believe that declaring one version effective by fiat would make an effective, consensus-based resolution less likely. (In the same way that protecting a page can often inhibit resolution of a content dispute because the party whose version is protected has little incentive to discuss.) In the mean time I don't believe that the absence of a clear guideline would have a materially detrimental effect on FAC. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(←) I really hope we can move on from the ownership/perceived ownership issues. Perception does indeed depend on where you stand, which is why I do not distinguish between ownership and perceived ownership in my comments. Both are a distraction.

The advantage of the WikiProject approach is that a WikiProject page is not a guideline. If a WikiProject fails to notify WP:MSM about an issue which is relevant WP:MSM then it is shooting itself in the foot, not excluding WP:MSM. In other words we need a system which not only makes parts of the manual of style accountable to the manual of style as a whole (by which I mean the totality of MoS pages, not just this page), but also a system which ensures that the coordination of the manual of style is itself accountable to the consensus of all of its satellite pages. Geometry guy 23:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do wish Trovatore could move on from his us and them mindspace, which I see as the root of the problem in the first place. Just why he thinks that this page itself wouldn't resolve to the wording of a sub-page at least half the time is beyond me. No, instead, he prefers to set up and maintain an adversarial, insular frame: that is what is preventing MOS and its sub-pages from achieving harmony. Along with Anderson, who seems to encourage inconsistency (under some circumstances—see above), this makes reform far more difficult than it ought to be among intelligent, adult, cooperative editors.
The problem at the moment is that there is no formal motivation for resolving inconsistencies: look at how many inconsistencies there are—clearly, we're not doing a good job at coordination. WPians out there may be the most likely people to come across inconsistencies as they consult MOS and the sub-pages. I can think of no better way than notice from a user that there's an inconsistency, prompt advice from a sub-page requesting MOS central to either change its wording or negotiate the issue, and in the meantime, a mechanism for WPians to be advised in one way, not two conflicting ways, at any one time. Sandy is quite right to be alarmed at this situation WRT to the hapless FAC nominators, who deserve better than this. But no, apparently this is enough to threaten ownership. I suppose this scenario arises because Travatore and friends conceive MOS here as bound by walls, an exclusive club of insiders. But that would be of their own making, since anyone, including them, is welcome to contribute here, occasionally or regularly, just as you should not object if others contribute to sub-pages. It's not only sub-pages of MOS that suffer from this: there's one person in particular who acts as though he rules the Naming Conventions policy page—most unpleasant and unWikipedian. Why the fractured little empires? Tony (talk) 13:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(de-indenting because I'm not replying to the last two posts) I agree with Christopher that there are two issues here. Firstly, if an inconsistency is discovered, then we need a way to discuss and resolve it. I don't care where this happens, but if it's an inconsistency between, say, WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM then obviously editors on both pages needs to be warned. Secondly, the FAC process apparently needs to know a specific rule at every point. I'd say that this is an issue for FAC; if they decide that they will follow WP:MOS in case of a contradiction that's fine with me. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

From the above discussion it appears that there are cases where specific MOS's deviate from guidelines in the generic MOS for valid reasons. A way to signal this would be to refer to the specific MOS from the section in the generic MOS that is modified. This should become a strongly recommended rule. Interested editors could go have a look and start a discussion on the talk page of the specific MOS page. How's that for a procedure? −Woodstone (talk) 15:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hyphens

Should a hyphen be used in phrases such as "a previously-identified protein" or "naturally-occurring cadmium" or "a spontaneously-active state"? My understanding is that this is incorrect. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:24, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No W. As MOS says:

Hyphens are not used after -ly adverbs (wholly owned subsidiary) unless part of larger compounds (a slowly-but-surely strategy).

This is a widely accepted principle.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 21:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree: no. The main purpose of a hyphen in that position would be to resolve ambiguity. There can be no ambiguity with adverbs: there is no such thing as "a previously identified-protein" or "naturally occurring-cadmium". However, typing "wholly owned" into my search engine suggests that 41% of writers think it is hyphenated. Certes (talk) 23:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The usual exception applies for contrived examples with multiple adjectives, such as "naturally-dark blonde hair" (she bleached it) versus "naturally dark-blonde hair" (it's always been light brown). Certes (talk) 23:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, that's a good example. I wonder whether it should be included in MOS. Tony (talk) 11:46, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your responses; it is always helpful to have a way to double-check my understanding.

Perhaps someone else would be willing to re-correct the affected pages: previously-identified protein, naturally-occurring cadmium, and spontaneously-active state. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently you haven't figured out yet the split between the editors who do things, and those who quibble about how they should be done on the guideline pages. Gene Nygaard (talk) 08:18, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Or those who quibble about those who quibble. Tony (talk) 15:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I changed naturally-occurring cadmium. There is always the potential that a general rule in the MOS might not apply in a particular situation. However, if one goes to the web site for Science magazine, and searchs for "naturally-occurring" with or without a hyphen, one finds that Science does not use the hyphen. The fact that one of the best science journals in the world does not use a hyphen suggest that this case is not an exception to the MOS rule. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 09:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We must acknowledge that the reason for the high percentage of individuals that write wholly-owned subsidiary with a hyphen, as found by an internet search, is due to the fact that conventional practice is not always correct, and that great numbers of users of English are following the natural progression of language along the lines of logic. However, regardless of abiding convention versus adhering to logic, maybe we can all accept that there are different modes of expression of an idea; and, acknowledging the great flexibility of the English language, we can loosen the restrictions and make allowances for these differences. The question is amplified with:

a. previously-identified gene

b. tightly-regulated process

c. spontaneously-active site

d. naturally-occurring cadmium.

The two groups with contrasting viewpoints are:

1. Those that abide convention, insisting that, because there is "no ambiguity" in previously identified gene, the hyphen is superfluous and, therefore, unnecessary. And, so, the declaration was established: For "all adjectival phrases with -ly adverbs, we do not use the hyphen, period."

2. Those that adhere to logic, contending that previously is used in the way that already in already-identified gene is used; therefore, the phrase demands a hyphen in order to show a one-ness of idea.

May I suggest that we recognize the merit of both, and - in acknowledging that both viewpoints are meritorious, and one is not correct and the other wrong - not demand that one vanquish over the other? I would like to propose that the protocol within Wikipedia be to leave the phrases as the contributor of the article had originally written them, whether one way or the other, as we do not change whilst for while, knowing full well that the instrumental-ablative case had dropped out of common usage in English centuries ago and has no contemporary value, yet still recognizing the merit of the archaic form through having acquired the indispensable against from again. And, how many of us would hasten to correct the spelling of thru in the content of the semi-formal writing of a Wikipedia article, but remain with shackles on the hands confronted with drive-thru? The point is that change, sometimes even at the risk of forsaking convention, is for the betterment of our powerful communication tool called English.


[May I also put forth for consideration in this debate a few examples of how [erroneous] convention continues to provide examples of wrong literations of ideas:

1. The use of shall and its variants exclusively in the first-person form and will and its variants exclusively in the second- and third-person forms, completely ignoring not only language history but also logic:

- When a woman utters I should like to meet him, does she mean I am obligated to meet him or I desire to meet him? Due to adherence to an illogical imposition of style mandated by scribes of the king's court centuries ago, we are not sure out of context, and even many times in context. Saying what she means would solve the problem: I would like to meet him (from the Anglo-Saxon willan, meaning to desire) or I should like to meet him (from the Anglo-Saxon sculan, meaning to be obligated).

2. The exclusive use of the relative pronoun who and whom for humans and which for nonhumans, disregarding the historical and linguistic value of that:

- John is the man who spoke makes no reference to any other person, whereas John is the man that spoke singles out John among the other people in a group as the speaker. So, in order to impose an unfounded rule based on pretentious formality, that is many times replaced by who, thereby dissolving the meaning of the idea of the latter statement.

- The phrase the liver secretes an enzyme which converts phenylalanine can be erroneously understood as the liver secretes an enzyme, all of which convert phenylalanine, whereas the liver secretes an enzyme that converts phenylalanine pinpoints the idea that the liver secretes a particular enzyme that converts phenylalanine, as distinguished from enzymes that do not.

3. "All right", as in they are all right, which leaves one wondering whether the meaning is all of them are correct or they are not hurt, which begs the spelling shunned by grammarians yet correct with regard to logic and language history alright:

- already underwent the same metamorphosis, starting with all ready, then all-ready, to the now-accepted already, allowing us now to distinguish between the two different scenarios in already they are here and all ready they are here

[other examples: all together and altogether, all most and almost, all though and although]

4. All natural ingredients, which really means all the ingredients are natural and not the intended meaning: ingredients are completely natural, which is accomplished with the correct written phrase: all-natural ingredients, or, in the manner of already et al., alnatural ingredients

5. All new programs, which means all the programs are new and not the intended meaning: programs are completely new, which is accomplished with the correct written phrase: all-new programs, or, in the manner of already et al., alnew programs

6. Commercial free program, which means a commercial program that is without cost, and not the intended meaning: program without commercial(s), which is accomplished with the correct written phrase: commercial-free program, wherein free is a suffix meaning without, as less in boneless chicken.]Drphilharmonic (talk) 02:56, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Drphilharmonic makes several useful points there, some of which deserve their own sections. Personally, I would not copyedit an article simply to remove a logically-sound (sic) but conventionally deprecated hyphen, nor normally change it whilst editing for some other reason. Both forms are commonly used and serve their purpose of conveying the meaning. I didn't intend to recommend that "we do not use the hyphen, period". The MoS subsection itself describes its content as "broad principles that inform current usage" rather than a statement of what is correct and incorrect.
Perhaps neither "yes" nor "no" are adequate answers to the original question, a more detailed alternative being: "is such a hyphen mandated, encouraged, discouraged, banned, or does WP have no policy on the matter?". My reply was meant to suggest "discouraged" but on reading Drphilharmonic's argument I think "no policy" would be an equally sound response. Certes (talk) 18:43, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I disagree with Drphilharmonic's emphasis on a particular notion of logic over convention, I would be willing to accept an agreement from Drphilharmonic that he (or she) will no longer add unnecessary hyphens to this kind of phrase. A broad application of this principle is appropriate. For example, I would also be pleased if an original choice of "...is generally accepted..." was not changed to Drphilharmonic's preferred phrase, "...is, in general, accepted...".
  • For the MoS, please note that Drphilharmonic has not named a single style guide to support "logical" hyphenation. This absence of support is doubtless because grammar and style guides from the last century all either deprecate or outright condemn the unnecessary use of hyphens in this context. Therefore, I do not support changing the MoS guideline to reflect what amounts to one editor's personal preference. Cogent or passionate arguments in support of this preference are unimportant, because hyphenation in these phrases is ultimately a matter of convention. The MoS should support the existing convention when the convention does not substantially interfere with meaning. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:47, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I really like Drphilharmonic's little essay for some of its acute and well-chosen points. I do, incidentally, change thru (only accepted in America) to through, since this is not a purely American encyclopedia. For the same reason I also change alternate to alternative and through to to where the meaning is preserved and is made understandable to all speakers of English. I also change whilst to while for reasons of style; and I supply a more durably acceptable alternative to as per, thusly, and overly. We are free to improve style according to our best judgement, aren't we?
I am against allowing -ly+hyphen in our guidelines. This is contrary to all precedent in publishing practice, and to all style guides; and it tends toward more punctuation, where the modern preference is generally for a cleaner and less cluttered appearance. Some style guides are beginning to acknowledge home education students and the like, where there is no ambiguity. Like it or not!
Adherence to the consensus of all style guides is not compulsory for us; but widespread practice in poorly edited writing is no reason for us to alter our guidelines.
Certes says:

The MoS subsection itself describes its content as "broad principles that inform current usage" rather than a statement of what is correct and incorrect.

But this is not quite right. The qualification in full:

Hyphenation involves many subtleties that cannot be covered here; but the rules and examples presented above illustrate the sorts of broad principles that inform current usage.

That doesn't license just any departure from the rules given; it only says that there is more to say, and that it can't be said here.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 23:54, 4 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tangential note: I'm an American and certainly do not accept "thru" in formal writing. Agree with most of the rest at least in broad outline. But I can't think of an example where "through" can be changed to "to" while preserving the meaning -- just what would be an example of this? --Trovatore (talk) 01:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I work 6 pm through 10 pm is only American. In British and other English it's I work [from] 6 pm to 10 pm, or variants. Since this to is accepted by Americans also, it is preferable since it avoids alienating either side. I work Monday to Friday may not be thought ambiguous, since it would surely be taken to include Friday. But if it is thought to be ambiguous, I work Monday through Friday is not available outside of American. Prefer I work from Monday morning till Friday evening, or whatever is more accurately intended.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 03:14, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I work 6 pm through 10 pm is not good American English, in my opinion, nor is it clear: When do I walk off the job? At 10:01 pm? At 10:00:01 pm? I work from 6 pm to 10 pm is good American English, and is accurate. I work Monday to Friday in American English does not include Friday, although no one who means Monday through Thursday would say Monday to Friday. In American English, I work from Monday morning till Friday evening means the person's work includes all the hours from Monday morning through Friday afternoon, which includes a lot of overtime, but is only possible for insomniacs. Correct American English would be My work week is Monday through Friday. This topic has strayed rather far from hyphens. Finell (Talk) 03:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We have indeed strayed from the topic, Finell. I had responded to a query concerning a brief illustration of something. I expected that someone would disagree with my understanding of American English, and sure enough you have. Whether or not I work 6 pm through 10 pm is "good" American English, it is used very commonly. Your particular objection, though, is not apt. 10 pm is a point in time, not a duration in time. So clearly someone saying I work 6 pm through 10 pm works until that point in time, and that is the obvious intention in examples found with Google (check "through noon", perhaps). You claim that "I work Monday to Friday in American English does not include Friday". I'm sure that for many it does. Do a Google search on "Monday to Friday job" "New York". The first hit for me was this one. Go there, read the text, and then report how we are to interpret the working week (from an American online employment agency). As for your penultimate point, it is for that very reason that I added "...or whatever is more accurately intended". All of this just illustrates my point that the American through is, like it or not, often used meaning to (and from an American point of view, vice versa). It also demonstrates even more forcefully that American "through" should be avoided in an encyclopedia intended for all of the English-speaking world. But that is off-topic!
– Noetica♬♩Talk 12:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]


We have the following articles on Wikipedia that use "9 to 5" (sometimes spelled out) as descriptive of a typical workday:
Except for the first listed article, these articles are about and take their titles from major works of peforming art. I found nothing comparable for "9 through 5". This suggests that "9 to 5", and more generally "X to Y", is the preferred usage and more widely adopted. Finell (Talk) 23:51, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well researched, Finell. This suggests that usage at Wikipedia is strongly in favour of 9 to 5. (See Ybor_City_Museum_State_Park, though: "Open 9 AM through 5 PM every day...".) That is also more common outside of Wikipedia, as I have never disputed. For through noon, see Palladium_(club). For through midnight, see Typhoon_Ewiniar_(2006), Louisville_Falls_Fountain, Texas_A&M_Aggies_football, and Aggie_Bonfire. And see Tide_Light_Rail:

Service will be from 6:00 a.m. through 10 p.m Monday-Thursday, 6:00 a.m. through midnight on Friday-Saturday, 7:00 a.m through 9:00 p.m. on Sundays, and 9:00 am through 9:00 pm on Holidays.[5]

Other instances like this can be found, of course. I think they should all be changed to to, if this is not standard usage anywhere. You'd agree with this, yes? The real problem with these cases is that they add to the uncertainty of meaning in expressions like grades 2 through 4. A non-American might read those other "incorrect" cases, and think that through just means the same as to, in all ranges. For such a reader, the meaning of grades 2 through 4 will remain ambiguous. Then there are oddities like this, from Busch-Reisinger_Museum:

The Busch-Reisinger is open (other than holidays) from 10:00 through 5:00 on Monday through Saturday and from 1:00 to 5:00 on Sundays.

Two throughs and a to. Awful.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 00:36, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Working example of the proposal for MOS coordination

Since there seems to be widespread misapprehension about the practical application of the proposal under discussion above, I looked for an example of how we should be resolving inconsistencies. It wasn't hard to find one.

Under "Chronological items", "Longer periods", "Years", MOSNUM says this:

AD appears before a year (AD 1066) but after a century (2nd century AD); the other abbreviations appear after (1066 CE, 3700 BCE, 3700 BC).

But MOS-central says this:

AD appears before or after a year (AD 1066, 1066 AD); the other abbreviations appear after (1066 CE, 3700 BCE, 3700 BC).

Thus, MOSNUM says that 1066 AD is wrong, but MOS central cites it as an example of good usage. Under the proposal, MOS-central prevails until we get off our backsides and do something about it, either by changing MOS-central or MOSNUM.

Can we do something about it, so we don't look like fools? Which one is preferred, please? I've put a link to this section at MOSNUM talk. Tony (talk) 12:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's one of the biggest problems with the proposal. In cases such as this, where MOSNUM (aka WP:DATE) is a part of the MoS of general applicability dealing with the particular section of the MoS, the specific page should control. It's not that I like the rule as stated in MOSNUM; the MoS version is much better in my opinion. But the people most knowledgeable about and most interested in a particular general applicability subpage are going to be following that page. It is different for the various WikiProject and other pages related to a specific topic not of general overall interest. Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To me this is an example of my suggestion that if two guidelines do not line up on a minor issue such as this, then it probably means that the issue is unimportant to article or encyclopedia quality. As it happens, in this case, that is essentially what MoS-central says (it permits either approach). But also MOSNUM only implicitly rules out the other format. If this is the kind of issue that causes problems during FAC discussions, then FAC needs to think seriously about its priorities. Geometry guy 19:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep your dirty hands off the discussion section and this section that needs independent resolution, Geometry. What a hide, thinking you can walk in and do what you like at almost no notice. Tony (talk) 00:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Dirty hands"? Shame on you! Paul August 00:36, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please calm down Tony, and check the edit history more carefully. I did not remove this section. It was moved by Finell to a different place on the page (and, probably, a more sensible place). As for the proposal, SandyGeorgia and Finell, among others, called for it to be closed, and Finell attempted to close it, but did not do it with equanimity in my view, so I attempted to make a better job. Your reversion and personal comment here and on my talk page does not portray you and your relationship to this page in a very good light. Geometry guy 00:30, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Allow me to calm down in my own time. Yes, dirty hands. I don't care who called for what, I'd like to know about a proposal to remove an entire discussion—just two or three days after it was launched, when discussion is still in train—before someone launches in suddenly and removes it. How dare you. Tony (talk) 00:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Tony: As the edit history clearly shows, I moved this to be a sup-topic under the Proposal, not Geometry guy. I moved it because it was titled "Working example of the proposal for MOS coordination", so it seemed to belong under the proposal for which it was an example. If it had been titled without reference to the proposal, I would not have moved it. Please don't be offended. For the record, Geometry guy and I acted independently. If you look at the discussion, you will see I agree with you that all parts of the MoS should be consistent and that conflicts must be reconciled, and disagree with Geometry guy's position that inconsistency is tolerable and with his proposal that what we need is a new master project page. However, it is obvious from the vehement discussion that a new guideline is not the way to achieve consistency, and that argument over the abstract principle is going nowhere and has become counterproductive. Further, MoS internal contradictions can be resolved in the usual way, without a new guideline to which there is substantial opposition. I initially supported your proposal, although I expressed some reservations (my vote on your proposal was Support, but ...). In the face of such strongly expressed opposition by many others (and I don't meant from me), it is obvious that no consensus will be reached (unless you believe that community consensus means a narrow majority vote; I don't). Although well intentioned and offered as a solution to a genuine problem, the proposal should be put to rest for lack of consensus so that continuing non-productive argument over it will stop. Please calm down and don't take it personally. And please don't resort to incivility—do you really want a response-in-kind to "Keep your dirty hands off ..."? Finell (Talk) 01:03, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PS: I wrote the above in direct respone to Tony's post that began "Keep your dirty hands off ...." I did not see the other responses to Tony until I posted mine. Finell (Talk) 01:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's disconcerting to see these conclusions about the proposal, when discussion was dominated by members from one WikiProject. The idea that there is any consensus is premature. A WikiProject would just add another place that needs to be coordinated with all these pages; coordination on the main MoS page is a worthy proposal. The wording might have gotten us off on the wrong foot. Tony, it appears you may need to apologize to Gguy, although I understand how it feels to have your good intentions attacked as they have been in this discussion, along with the denigration of good copyedit skills. Discussion should continue; if nothing else, it's bringing many issues to light. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:09, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Any editors who comment here do so only as editors, not as representatives of any wikiproject. Indeed, this is the general Wikipedia manual of style, not a project-specific one. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • OK, let's try to ignore the off-topic ad-hominem chatter and focus on the issue at hand. Under the proposal, yes, MOS would override MOSNUM; however, the opposite could be made true (e.g. MOSNUM overriding MOS) with the same effect. (Or we could correct one page to say the same thing as the other and forget about the entire argument...) Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 03:10, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's right, and in the meantime, the right- and left-hands say different things. What is important is that one page be the default, until an inconsistency is harmonised by a change in MOS or a sub-page: I don't care which, but I think MOS is the logical one to be the default. So I can see that no one here is at all interested in harmonising the inconsistency I've pointed out here. That's a good illustration of why we need to have a default. It's extraordinary that no one cares about it. AD 1066, or 1066 AD. You're all happy with two MOS guidelines on this, are you? Tony (talk) 05:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it is important for one to be the default. Where there's an inconsistency there's likely to be a dispute, and until consensus is reached to resolve that dispute there's no need to rule in favor of one method. In some cases there may be no consensus and we'll have to live with two or more systems coexisting. Thankfully I think most of our readers are flexible enough to comprehend both 1066 AD and AD 1066. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Likewise, our readers can comprehend articles that disregard all WP typeface conventions, that use American title case for article titles and section headings, that cite a source informally (e.g., "p. 29 of the Selfish Gene by Dawkins"), that use no boldface in the lead, and so on. Whether a WP article remains comprehensible is not the sole criterion of whether there should be an MoS guideline. If there is a guideline, there should be a guideline, not contradictory guidelines within the MoS. If editors on two (or more) MoS pages cannot reach consensus on some point, either the guideline is dropped or the guideline is amended consistently in all instances to reflect the usages that are acceptable on WP; in this instance, I expect that "the year of our Lord" would not be considered a suitable replacement for AD. Or is the proposal to discard the whole MoS? If the MoS is not to be discarded, how can self-contradiction be justified logically? The MoS is not an WP:ESSAY. I do believe it is reasonable to have consistency. I don't think that the present proposal is getting WP any closer to that goal, and that MoS consistency can be achieved through normal editing without a new guideline. That is why I think the proposal should be closed and we should all get back to doing something more productive. Finell (Talk) 06:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dear Tony: As you see, this L2 topic is almost entirely devoted to discussion over the Proposal, not about what the AD guideline should say. Therefore, it really should be moved to a subsection under the Proposal. A new topic should be started solely to address the AD inconsistency, without a title that suggests that it relates to the Proposal. Please do this if you agree. Or I may do this myself when I have the time for the sake of having the entire discussion of the Proposal in one place, a principle of good organization that is one of the bases of your Proposal. Finell (Talk)07:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It looks as though Parnham counts himself as a saboteur of MOS and its sub-pages. He really doesn't mind at all if they're in conflict. It's extraordinary that such people are given any oxygen at all here. Tony (talk) 07:50, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I would certainly prefer conflict to your consistent efforts to railroad changes through without any broad consensus. The fact that your diktat prevails on this one talk page shouldn't permit you to control the appearance of every page on Wikipedia. If opposing your power trip is considered sabotage, then so be it Toby. Christopher Parham (talk) 12:37, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • You poor, deluded person. If I weren't so one-eyed about raising standards on WP, I'd be flattered; but I'm a very different operator from that, and you clearly have no understanding of this. Think what you like. BTW, it's "Tony", not "Toby". Tony (talk) 13:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Christopher Parham, please cease and desist from your personalization of this issue and failure to assume good faith, now; your personalization isn't appropriate here and has sidetracked an important discussion into attacks on Tony's motives and professionalism. You've accused Tony of attempting to "railroad changes without any broad consensus" when exactly what he sought was a consensual discussion. If you have further personal attacks to make on Tony's motives or character, please take them elsewhere; they don't belong on this page. My response to the attacks on Tony is on Tony's talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:36, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Initiated what here? If you're referring to the personalisation of this discussion—bag your head, Parnham, and get your facts right. I was not the first to do so. Tony (talk) 00:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, arguably I was, and I should probably apologize for taking quite such an angry tone. But it was not really meant to be personal in the sense of "about Tony personally". It was more about the entrenched class that frequents this page, which of course includes Tony. It's precisely the entrenchment of that class that makes unacceptable to me the idea that all disputes need to be resolved here, on that class's home turf. That idea is still a non-starter as far as I'm concerned. I do agree that, other things being equal, inconsistencies between different WP style guides are an indication that there's a problem that needs to be solved. --Trovatore (talk) 03:21, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Ah, a "probable apology": is that a real one? As for your claim that what you said about me ("power-grabbing" was one of the epithets, was it?) is not about me personally, that's hard to accept: how stupid do you think I am? Tony (talk) 08:10, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you're stupid, Tony. I don't always like you very much, but I do respect you. But I do see the move as an attempt to consolidate power, not only for you, but partly for you, and I don't apologize for saying so. I do apologize for saying so a bit intemperately. --Trovatore (talk) 08:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So I regard your entries here as pure power grabbing, too, for your very own purposes. Tony (talk) 08:28, 9 February 2008 (UTC) And PS, you might like me sometimes, as you imply, but I don't ever like you. Tony (talk) 08:30, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I rather resent your accusation that here is some kind of an "entrenched class". I am not a regular contributor to the various discussions that take place here, I simply want to stay in touch with the evolving MoS. It seems self-evident that if there are discrepancies between the MoS and and project specific specialisations that those discrepancies should be discussed, agreed upon, and formalised. Why that is so hard to understand? Why try to make it personal? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:41, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Trovatore, if not here (that's fair), where do you propose? For example, do you like GeometryGuy's proposal for a separate Project? We need some means of even knowing when discrepancies exist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:49, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, this discussion is moving more in the right direction -- I'm glad you at least understand my objection. I don't like the idea for a project; I think projects should be to coordinate editors interested in a certain sort of content; I don't see the model generalizing to non-content-based efforts. I'm not sure exactly where discussion should take place. Maybe here would even be OK if the relevant WikiProjects were scrupulously notified, and provided we drop the notion that the central MoS is the one that controls until the discrepancy is resolved. --Trovatore (talk) 04:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Re non-content-based models, I think you need to get out more Trovatore :-) Try WP:WGA, WP:LoCE, WP:WPDAB and WP:WPSPAM for example. Geometry guy 10:55, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At least one of those is effectively inactive, relative to its demands, and I would rank another as a continuing failure, despite GGuy's best efforts; so I must share Trovatore's doubts. However, a Project might give those editors who want hard and well-defined rules a place to relax and do the sort of discussion that our guidelines are supposed to supply, so it might do more good than harm. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:33, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are a whole bunch more such WikiProjects, and even a category for them (Category:Wikipedia WikiProjects). As for WP:WGA, my own efforts have been concentrated on good article reassessment, which is no longer a place where drive-by reviews of the form "Delist. Not enough inlines." are welcome.
However, I think you are confusing the process and the WikiProject. Whatever is one's view of WP:GA, the process is definitely helped by having a WikiProject to support it. Admittedly, WT:GAN continues to be the place where a lot of discussion happens, but I think that illustrates what would happen here too. If we created a MoS WikiProject, WT:MoS will still be a key forum, but there would also be an alternative venue for discussing and coordinating activity between the various pages of MoS.
Some tentative support and an absense of counterproposals suggests to me that this idea is worth further discussion, perhaps in a new thread. Geometry guy 17:17, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Resolving the AD issue itself

I think it's more productive to discuss the contradiction itself than to discuss how to discuss the contradiction. With that aim in mind, let me posit my opinion. I'm surprised that "1066 AD" is deemed acceptable. I had a look at the Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage which says "AD should always be placed—in recognition of what it stands for (anno Domini, in the year of Our Lord)—before the numerals it relates to" (link, probably needs subscription). Is there any style guide which allows writing "1066 AD"? -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 21:50, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, 2000 AD gets 29,800,000 google hits, whereas AD 2000 gets 30,800,000, so a slight win for AD 2000 there, even though it is a redirect. On the other hand, with quotes, "2000 AD" gets 1,110,000 hits, whereas "AD 2000" only manages 319,000. :-) Joking aside, can we conclude anything? Well, both usages are commonplace. What really matters is consistency within each article (one of the best parts of MoS is the final sentence of the first paragraph).
The literal translation of AD is an anachronism: these days, very few people, including those who prefer to AD to CE, use the phrase "in the year of Our Lord". And if the word "year" is read in the sense of "dating system by year", the sentence reads well with the date first anyway. Geometry guy 22:24, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Chicago Manual of Style 14th. ed. in § 8.41 and § 14.27 says that A.D. "properly" and "usually" (respectively) goes before the year. In § 8.42 it says that although expressions such as "the second century A.D." were formerly not accepted in conservative usage, "most scholars and scholarly editors have long since withdrawn their objections to this locution." --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:04, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, and the other authorities? CMOS is good in places, and sucks in others. Tony (talk) 11:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I agree with Tony (at the start of the section) that we need to resolve the inconsistency one way or the other. I don't see any consensus, so I used the general principle that we shouldn't make any rules unless necessary (avoid Wikipedia:Instruction creep). Thus, I changed WP:MOSNUM to read that both "1066 AD" and "AD 1066" are allowed. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:10, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Boats and ships

The names of boats and ships should NOT be italicized. Agreed? Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They should be, they generally are on Wikipedia (and elsewhere), and this is one case where Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting), which says they should be, should be controlling over whatever is said here at Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Gene Nygaard (talk) 18:00, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another example of the need for coordination. This logically could be addressed in at least four different MOS pages: the main MoS, the text-formatting sub-MoS page, and the MilHist and Ship projects. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:15, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I don't agree, and neither do most style manuals (I think — because I haven't checked them), but I will go along until the style is changed. Thanks for the link. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nygaard, allowing any little group of editors on an outlying sub-page to rule over what is here in the central MOS is just as bizarre as Parnham's statement above that it's just fine if our styleguides disagree with each other. Tony (talk) 07:53, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing at all bizarre about it. It is a longstanding rule of legal interpretation, for example: the specific controls over the general. Good grief, you don't think Wikipedia is the first place that has ever had conflicting rules, do you? This should apply primarily to a small group of articles which are identified as the "Main article" for a section of the main MoS page, or otherwise identified in some way. Gene Nygaard (talk) 09:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore,
  • If you want to change the rules about capitalization (even if you spell it capitalisation), you most certainly ought to be discussing such changes, gaining consensus, and changing the rules accordingly on the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters) page. Changes in those rules should not, as a general rule, come from the Wikipedia:Manual of Style page. If such a discussion starts here, it should be moved to the appropriate page, leaving behind a note about the existence of that discussion and where it can be found.
  • If you want to change the rules about dates, you most certainly ought to be discussing such changes, gaining consensus, and changing the rules accordingly on the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) page. Changes in those rules should not, as a general rule, come from the Wikipedia:Manual of Style page.
  • Etc.
People might look to the main MoS page for broad, general rules. When some other page is the main article for a topic, they logically expect that to be the place to find those rules more fleshed out, going into greater detail about specific examples and problems, and areas where there is no consensus and more than one style remains acceptable.
The core MoS pages to which this rule applies, and no others, should be named in the "Wikipedia:Manual of Style (something parenthetical)" format. These should also appear as a "Main article" for a setion of the top MoS page. The topic-specific rules (for which issues of style are only one component) should be in some other format, whether part of a WikiProject or otherwise. The MoS navigation tools should clearly reflect such a breakdown.
A part of the whole discussion has to be what exactly is within the scope of the Manual of Style in the first place. There are many things peripherally related to style which are more appropriately left to the determination of various other sections of Wikipedia space, such as Wikipedia:Naming conventions and Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:Disambiguation and their subpages and the like. In case of conflict, it may well be the MoS whose rule should be thrown out. Gene Nygaard (talk) 10:37, 8 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't care where they're discussed:;just as long as conflicting rules don't both have equal status, and as long as there's inbuilt motivation for prompt identification and resolution. Tony (talk) 00:39, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We do have a system that resolves such differences: if the guidance difference matters in article space, it is discussed on the relevant talk page, and general attention is drawn to the issue. This will include each side appealling to the relevant guidelines. If there is real consensus on the matter, the consensus will ignore or rewrite the guidelines involved; if there is none, they should stay different, as a mark of genuine disagreement. (Ideally, both would mention the disagreement, but we can't expect too much.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that would be just fine if it worked. But it doesn't. There are discrepancies all over the place. Tony (talk) 23:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It does work under two conditions: that the issue actually matters, and that there is actual consensus on the solution. The recent upset on Talk:Brunei dollar and the related guideline page is an example, not quite finished (we have yet to see if the fiercest proponent of the minority view will yield to overwhelming numbers). We ought not be uniform where these conditions do not apply. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is just the kind of attitude I'd expect from the chief flag-flyer for the anarchists. To take your view further, why have outlying specialist sub-pages of MOS, if you encourage them to conflict (where, in your opinion, the issue doesn't "matter" and there's no consensus on a solution). Why have any MOS at all? Why not just let WP's articles fight it out individually on their talk pages, the whole thing, with no guidance on style and formatting, no cohesion, just a jungle? That is where your view would lead us, if you succeeded in gaining traction. Just as well you don't, since people realise where you're trying to take us. PS What is the difference between "consensus" and "actual consensus"? (Serious question.) Tony (talk) 08:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you; I have not yet been called an anarchist. I will add it to my collection of political abuse: although I cannot be an anarchist, because Wikipedia is not a state.
  • Tony's questions are an excellent list. None of them is what Tony appears to think them, a reductio ad absurdum; they will, if seriously considered, lead to what we actually do everywhere but here: Guidelines are collections of useful arguments, most of which consensus holds to be valid. Their only power is that we don't have to type the guidance over again, and the guidance is often better phrased than a spur of the moment recreation of the same point.
  • As WP:Consensus observes, consensus is often claimed where it does not exist, sometimes by both sides in an argument. I meant, and emphasized, actual consensus, as distinguished from this sort of spurious "consensus". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for explaining the third point: it was a stretch to expect that your meaning would be understood without that footnote. As for the preceding two comments, well, I can't make sense of them—they seem to twist and turn and to owe more to the circle than the straight line. Tony (talk) 11:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Order of common sections

There's three sections many articles have. These are the "See also", "External links" and "References" sections. I have two questions concerning this:

  • Is there a MOS recommendation on their order?
  • Why is the current practice to place 'External links' below 'References', instead of the other way around?
  • Why is the current practice to place bibliographies or full references below the footnotes?

Especially the last two are questionable. Several long (academic) publications, at least the ones I just looked in to check when I first came up with these questions, list suggestions for further reading (which is what external links are) either at the end of each chapter, or at the end, before the bibliography. Notes are at the very end, after the bibliography. User:Krator (t c) 14:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That comes under the purview of Wikipedia:Layout, not the Manual of Style. While the header on that page describes it as a "style guideline", it clearly distinguishes itself from the MoS, and provides a basic breakdown for those discussing the heirarchy of various style pages of one sort or another:
Gene Nygaard (talk) 14:53, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is covered in WP:MOS#External links (which says EL are last), WP:GTL#Standard appendices and descriptions and WP:EL#External links section (El at the end). The thinking (which I would like to see strengthened) is that Wiki always prefers Wikified content to external content, to keep readers within Wiki and to encourage Wikification of content. I'd like to see the guidelines strengthened to really encourage See also *always* be first, just as External links are always last. The other problem with ELs is that they can grow into a farm, so putting them earlier on in the order can detract. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:00, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And in this case, generalizing our discussions of heirarchies, the MoS page External links section should be subservient to Wikipedia:Layout; it is primarily in the province of the layout project page, and not the Manual of Style project page. Should the MoS ever disagree with the layout page on this point, layout should prevail. Gene Nygaard (talk) 16:00, 9 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's also worth noting that GTL explicitly states that "it is okay to change the sequence of these appendices"; so if you think that a different order makes more sense, you should not hesitate to use that order. --Rlandmann (talk) 03:38, 11 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's also worth noting that one had better add an invisible comment somewhere in the vicinity when using an order other than the "proper" one, or else it is probable that someone else will later change it back. Waltham, The Duke of 16:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Linking units on infoboxes

Just wondering if there was anything out there, perhaps MOS, that discouraged the linking of units of height or weight in infoboxes.Londo06 14:41, 12 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, there is no rule either way. But I've copied your question over to Wikipedia talk:Infobox Watch to see if anyone else knows otherwise. - 52 Pickup (deal) 16:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In general, links are used then they are likely to be of interest to the reader. What benefit is there in linking to standard units such as pounds and kilograms? — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that they aren't necessary for a small number of the most common units; but it is a WP:MOSNUM (which blindly says: "Link such units to their definitions on first use.") or Wikipedia:WikiProject Infoboxes issue. Gene Nygaard (talk) 19:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think there are many readers, especially those who want to read en.wiki but for whom English is a second language, who are unfamiliar even with common units, such as pounds, and especially with less common units and with symbols, such as lb and kg. If one is already familiar with the unit, one ignores the link. If one is not, the link is useful. What is the harm to the encyclopedia in having the links? - Neparis (talk) 04:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Minimum image size of images with specified sizes

From the image section:

... Cases where a specific image width is appropriate include:
  • ...
  • a lead image that captures the essence of the article (recommended not to be smaller than 300px, as this will make the image smaller for users who have set 300px in their user preferences).

It seems to me that the rational for at least 300px holds with images with specified sizes in general, not just with lead images. Is there a reason this is only mentioned for lead images? Rami R 15:59, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So I'm guessing no one will object if I reword the section so that 300px would be a recommended minimum for all images with a specified size? Rami R 08:40, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, but, uh, no, wah! Your logic makes sense but the end result is that we're stuck with either 180 px or >300 px for every image with nothing in between. I'm not convinced that's the way to go. Haukur (talk) 14:18, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See also at GTL

Proposed change[10] in See also sections discussed at WP:GTL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template:SubArticle

We're trying to reach consensus at Template talk:SubArticle over whether or not Template:SubArticle should appear on the article page or be replaced with a wikilink to the main article in the lead section, like is done in History of Biology and Politics in Futurama. Comments would be appreciated. —Remember the dot (talk) 00:33, 16 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Inputting dashes

The text says "The article on dashes shows common input methods for em dashes on Macintosh and Windows." (and similar text for en dashes). Would it be more helpful to editors if we added, before that sentence:

"A simple way to input an en dash when editing Wikipedia is to use the "Insert:" facility in the edit toolbox, where it is the first character offered." and
"A simple way to input an em dash when editing Wikipedia is to use the "Insert:" facility in the edit toolbox, where it is the second character offered."

or words to that effect? The link to the dash article is not useful for practical editing purposes for the majority of editors: a reminder of the existence of the toolbox (is that what it's called?) may be helpful. Now I've reminded myself of it I might start to use en dashes instead of hyphens in dates in dab pages etc (eg John Smith (1899–1955))! PamD (talk) 09:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pam, I suppose I'd assumed you already did use dashes, which are important elements of style and make the text easier to read, even for those who haven't a clue where to use them. I'd prefer to encourage people to use the proper keystrokes for dashes, and that takes a bit of explaining (it's in the dash article, I hope). Using the toolbox is cumbersome, although is the easiest way on a laptop. I could live with a succinct explanation of how to do the keystrokes in Mac and PC, and mention of the toolbox, I guess, although the clutter aspect needs to be considered. What do others think? Tony (talk) 14:12, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, Tony, I confess to using a vast number of hyphens in date ranges (eg in leads or on dab pages), with a vague hope that some bot or other will pick up on "(1nnn-1nnn) or (1nnn-2nnn)" and convert the errant hyphen to a dash. From the dash article, it seems I need to type alt+0150, or use & and ;. Both are pretty grim. I think the toolbox is probably less cumbersome. Realistically, while we few discuss these things here at Talk:MOS, I wonder what proportion of editors out there are going to (a) know they should use a dash, or (b) if they know, use it, when it's such trouble to do so? And (ducks for cover) ... I can't convince myself it really matters, except to get an article past GAC or FAC! No ambiguity, no effect on screen layout (compared to hard space, say), and the vast majority of readers won't notice a difference... (though a voice-output screen reader might get confused, I suppose). PamD (talk) 14:41, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. If you want to write 1999-2000, use en dash, or if 02-21-1990, hyphen is the proper. Using hyphens and dashes and em dashes keeps the article clean (and professionally written). =) --Efe (talk) 09:44, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Brighterorange (talk · contribs) will run a script if you ask him, but it is still being tested and may miss some, so you need to manually check after he's been through. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:44, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm now cleaning up many of my past errors - running AWB on my contribs list, looking for word "disambiguation", then looking for "-1" and "-2" to change the hyphens in year ranges to endashes, while taking care not to mangle any ISBNs on the way! Whether I'll remember to use it all the time in future is another question.
In the course of this, I've found two categories where the hyphen seems to be the correct thing to use but which are not mentioned under Wikipedia:Mos#Hyphens:
Could I suggest that these two be added to the section on "hyphen"? PamD (talk) 09:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would say yes to this, unless the list is going to grow ridiculously. SamBC(talk) 17:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Used as hyphen Used in range Used as punctuation
Hyphen back-to-front 10-20 Oh - I didn't know that.
En dash back–to–front 10–20 Oh – I didn't know that.
Em dash back—to—front 10—20 Oh—I didn't know that.
  • The top-left–bottom-right diagonal is correct. Now, using hyphens for all three won't stop people understanding it, but they do look less professional and are very noticeable as soon as the reader knows what to expect. Otherwise, things will probably just "feel wrong". SamBC(talk) 14:34, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • What does it matter what I have? Thanks to the Microsoft monopoly, many of our readers must use IE, deplorable though it is.
    • But any printed book not in some bizarre typeface will show that the difference between the hyphen and the endash is much less than the difference between either and the enmdash. So here. But I see that Sam is willing to endorse Tony's pointless two-point crusade here, is anyone else? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • I assume you mean that the difference between them is much less than the difference between either and the emdash... anyway, that aside, would you say that the difference in the table above, between hyphen and ndash, is barely noticable? I tend to notice them, generally, although I don't have the adverse reaction of some typesetting buffs. Furthermore, do you disagree with the essential point of the correctness of using en dashes in ranges and em dashes as mid-sentence punctuation? SamBC(talk) 17:11, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • I see the distinction between the emdash and either of the two short dashes as significant; although if some article were to adopt the occasionally suggested device of using a short dash between spaces as a lighter grade of the emdash, I would not rise up and smite them. But the distinction between the hyphen and the endash still seems to me not worth worrying about.
        • The problem here is, as always, the foolish rule of making every jot and tittle of MOS mandatory at FAC. While FA continues to be worth even the slightest respect, this produces "reviews" which turn down articles for this dashery, without ever considering content. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PMA, that is a needless denigration of the editor who put forward what you cite here. It is not at all bizarre that an editor should standardize the typographic form of a dash, quoted in a part or the whole of a poem, or otherwise. It is done all the time, by all reputable publishers. Those of us who are actually editing material for print publication outside of Wikipedia know this as a matter of their everyday work. If you don't know these things, please don't display your ignorance in quite such a high-handed and dismissive manner.
When Wikipedia's practices should differ from common standards (as sometimes they should, because the context is new and different), it is not because the common standards that you have such limited knowledge of are "bizarre".
– Noetica♬♩Talk 04:24, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[Amended][reply]
Is there a problem with using the xml entities &ndash; (–) and &mdash; (—)? They're what I generally use. SamBC(talk) 14:17, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes there is: readability of our edit page source code. 10&ndash;20 is much harder to read and maintain than either 10–20 or 10-20. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thing is, at least everyone can see that 10&ndash;20 clearly shows that it's not a hyphen. As far as I can tell, it's very hard to tell the difference between all three in a fixed width font, which is what generally appears in the edit box. I haven't tried other OSes or browsers - I'm currently using firefox on MS. Not that it's terribly important in the grand scheme of things, anyway... SamBC(talk) 17:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
True enough; which is why I support letting each article work out its own balance. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Teams and clubs singular or plural pronouns  ?

I have noticed that in articles (some featured) about sports, the team or club is often referred to as "they".e.g."The team won the match then they went on to win the league." Is there any guidance about the use of plural pronouns in this context, please?--Harkey Lodger (talk) 13:33, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Corporations too, sometimes. I think it's pretentious, but people seem to accept either singular or plural. It must be consistent within each article. Tony (talk) 14:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is, however, bad American, although it may be coming in under the wing of the "singular they". In Commonwealth English, it should imply that the team is being regarded as individuals, rather than a singular collective, so the sentence above is embarassing; this may be why Tony sees it as prententious. In Fowler's English, it would alternate, depending on context, but "The team won the match then it went on to win the league. However, the team was sold at a profit and they joined other teams in the same league" is clumsy, however correct. In short, avoid unless you have good reason. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:22, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of a guideline, but in a recent FAC, this Wiki entry on discretionary plurals was pointed out. This has been an issue on two FACs this week, so clarification is needed and welcome. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:25, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Almost all (if not all) English media outlets will use plural for football teams, i.e. Arsenal are, Manchester United are. Whether team or club should then be are or is, I'm not sure. Peanut4 (talk) 18:31, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
English plural#discretionary plurals, and the following section follow Fowler closely, and are, as of this writing, sound guidance. A link to this edit may be helpful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:34, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, that's spot on. Peanut4 (talk) 18:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As an example (relating to previous discussions), ya'll should be aware that I failed a FAC due to an Oppose over this issue, so codifying a guideline would be helpful. Thankfully, the nominator is a gracious editor and didn't bite me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:38, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The Fowler example is a good illustration. A straightforward case of WP:ENGVAR in my view. Use of the discretionary plural is correct in an article like History of Aston Villa F.C. (1961–present) which uses British English, but would be incorrect in an article about an NFL or NBA team. Oldelpaso (talk) 19:26, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The more I think about this, the more I think that it won't achieve anything. Whilst I do think it would be beneficial to codify this, mainly to prevent confusion amongst our readers and writers, I don't think it is workable to enforce a consistent rule for all articles. As Oldelpaso says, it is primarily down to english variants. As discussed previously here, the British media and associated organsiations use plural forms. It is not a matter of consistency, for British English speakers, it is a matter of grammar. We use the form that is most appropriate for the sentence in grammatical terms.
I think a guideline along the lines of: For articles that use British English, the most grammatically form is considered appropriate. If the English variant cannot be determined per the guidlines at WP:ENGVAR then an article-consistent form should be used.
Whilst it is vague, I think it needs to be to accomadate all variances. The milhist and ships project recently had the same issue over ship pronouns; whether ships are female or not. The end result was to simply use common sense and follow the existing guidelines to be consistent and inline with WP:ENGVAR. Woody (talk) 22:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another editor already inserted this; I'm neutral on the entire topic, but Tony and others will probably weigh in later. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am sure the discussion will continue, it always seems to. The edited version seems good though I am sure other editors will have their opinions. As long as the appropriate parties (ie projects that actually have to enforce this) are kept informed, then I am done for the moment. Regards. Woody (talk) 22:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the Guardian style guide (http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/ )says "Teams: sports teams take plural verbs: Wednesday were relegated again, Australia have won by an innings, etc; but note that in a business context, they are singular like other companies, eg Leeds United reported its biggest loss to date." PamD (talk) 23:46, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The working consistent application The Rambling Man and I have tried to apply in British football articles has been to use the singular when referring to the club, and the plural for the team and for ambiguous references. So, "Ipswich Town were relegated in xxxx" vs "The club was relegated in xxxx" vs "The team were relegated in". Glad someone's trying to clear this all up. When a firm decision's been taken, a big fat notice at the football WikiProject talk page would be great. Cheers, --Dweller (talk) 10:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a note on PamD's Guardian usage. This should result in what you've heen doing; it;s all foreign to me. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:04, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Manual of Style

I have promised in a few places to take forward the idea of a WikiProject to coordinate the multiple pages of the Manual of Style and facilitate communication between its editors. I think this is an approach which may work; it is, at the very least, worth trying. For it to be successful, it needs to have its scope clearly defined and to have the support of a wide range of editors involved with Manual of Style issues. Also, although the following is not a requirement for starting a WikiProject, it is common to propose new WikiProjects at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals. I think doing that would be helpful in this case, but I also think that first it would be a good idea to have some discussion here. For information, I would also note that suggestions for starting new WikiProjects can be found here and here.

A first thing to agree on is the name of the proposed WikiProject. I was really hoping to think up an excuse for calling the project MoS DEF, but I see that this joke has already been made, so I suggest instead a straightforward title following the heading of this section. I'm not sure about the capitalization, but think it's best to follow the usage here and elsewhere.

As a tentative scope, I suggest something along the lines of "The purpose of this WikiProject is to coordinate the multiple pages which form part of the Wikipedia Manual of Style and to provide a forum for editors interested in the Manual of Style to resolve discrepancies and discuss related issues", but that is just a starting point to stimulate discussion. I have no wish to play a leadership role in the proposed project, but will be happy to facilitate in a Wikignome-like way and would encourage those who like the idea to do the same. In particular, I think it is very important that the project is as inclusive as possible, and is supported by editors with a wide range of views: it shouldn't, in my view, take a stance in the debate between those who want a more prescriptive Manual of Style, and those who want a more flexible one; instead it should provide a neutral forum for discussing such issues as they apply in each particular case. But these are just my thoughts: many other thoughts are needed! Geometry guy 17:50, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess the priority could be discrepancies and those points having been highlighted as most contentious (?) initially. Not a bad idea I guess as issues seem to crop up from time to time. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:55, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No opinion on Project name, but I hope the Project's scope will include discussion of how pages are added to {{style}} and how discrepancies are identified and discussed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:58, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I supported this above; this should probably be the place where ironing out discrepancies happens. Let's see a draft; it would be nice if it mentioned the princriple on which Jitse settled the AD 1066 matter above: we shouldn't make any rules unless necessary. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:08, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How about "MOS DEFRAG"? Considering all the fragging that arises over this issue, defragging would be a pointer in the right direction. Askari Mark (Talk) —Preceding comment was added at 20:24, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to suggest that the WP:UE be the first addressed in regards to article titles since there is an increasing tendency to use languages other then English in titles based on citation of policies by national governments and international organisations, but not taking into account teaching practices of the English-speaking world. It seems to me that an article begins with a title, and as the Lewis Carroll saying goes "Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop." ;O) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrg3105 (talkcontribs) 23:59, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't be in favor of the Project addressing any particular guideline first; the initial goals in my mind would be to discuss how pages get listed at {{style}}, discover where inconsistencies and overlap may exist between pages, how to streamline and maintain consistency, etc. I don't think the Project should be set up to "police" a given guideline, or it will certainly fail. (Does anyone remember the Extra-Long Article Committee? That is not what we want and hopefully not a goal.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:03, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Having a central place where people can nuke it out regarding MOS issues sounds like a good idea. I'm not sure if that would be better accomplished by a WikiProject or a noticeboard (although the difference would be quite arbitrary). As long as there are no self-appointed rulers with veto powers over whether something is changed or added to the MOS, it should be all right. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 09:33, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I support this move. At the very least, a page where users can point out inconsistencies between the MOS and its sub-pages is required. The project could organise its membership to audit selected sub-pages for inconsistency, overlap, and internal structure (reporting back their findings, and not necessarily taking unilateral action). The project might develop guidelines for how pages might become affiliated with the MOS in the first place. Tony (talk) 14:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Starting with a sound explanation of which there should be any barrier to becoming "affiliated with MOS" in the first place. (Empire-building, of course, is not a sound reason.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:45, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support the move to start a WikiProject to sort out the sprawling and unmanageable hydra that MOS has evolved into. Personally I would like a title with the idea of coordination in it: WP:MOSCOORD or something like that. The terms of reference and the agenda should not be set now, except in the broadest way. There is a great deal that is very general to work out, before we get down to specifics.– Noetica♬♩Talk 06:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Including coordination in the title is setting the terms of reference. We have discussed the idea of having this talk page coordinate all of MOS, and we disagree over that at least as much as anything else; I would prefer not to begin with the assumption that a new page, about which we know nothing, will do so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize for my slowness in following this up, given the general support for the project idea. It seems to me that "WikiProject Manual of Style" is the right title, but several useful shortcuts have been suggested here. I agree with all comments that the mission and/or terms of reference of this WikiProject should not be set in stone. However, we have to start by saying something about why the project is needed and what it will do. Its role will evolve according to perceived needs and benefits. If the project does not have the support of editors of manual of style pages, it will just become a talk shop, so I think we are safely within the grounds of "primum non nocere" here!

I am willing to initiate a proposal/draft taking into account comments made here, but have been distracted by a few other things in the last couple of days. Geometry guy 21:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Style would be shorter, and allow us to discuss more than this unfortunate Manual. Phillip Bard Shearer has long since questioned whether calling this a Manual encourages the bullying tone so characteristic of these pages; and this should certainly be one of the things under consideration. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:09, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've now formally proposed this WikiProject at WP:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Manual of Style and have made a draft project page here. Please feel free to express your views on the draft and tweak it. Please also indicate your interest in the project on the WikiProject Council page, and the draft itself. Thanks, Geometry guy 23:41, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:WikiProject Manual of Style is now up and running, and discussions are beginning at WT:MOSCO on its principles and how it will operate. I encourage editors here to contribute, bearing in mind the coordination issue that the project has been set up to address. Geometry guy 10:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Trivia sections

I would like a fresh consideration of the advice given about trivia sections, namely that they are discouraged. I've raised the matter at Wikipedia talk:Trivia sections. Does anyone support this request? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.28.142 (talk) 18:10, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would also appreciate a look at this "guideline"--and perhaps a fresh look at the process (or lack thereof) by which MOS guidelines gain official acceptance. The problem with this particular guideline--besides the fact that enjoys very little if any consensus by editors--is that it purportedly discourages trivia sections while explicitly allowing them and discouraging their removal. It makes no sense at all.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 18:18, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See section just above this one. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:19, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I hadn't yet bothered to read the rest of the page before posting here. The Fat Man MoS DEFinitely supports this proposal.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back (talk) 18:24, 17 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Latin phrases and abbreviations

In the old days of Wikipedia we believed that articles should be accessible to an average reader rather than just people with a college education. With this in mind, a guideline was created to discourage the use of obscure latin phrases and abbreviations within articles, so that we didn't get sentences like: "A recording of his talk in Cleveland, OH in May of 1959 is available (vide infra xa-speakers)." (Charles R. Jackson). This guideline has been turned on its head and now says that such phrases are perfectly fine in Wikipedia, despite the fact that even most people with a college education these days have no idea what such phrases mean. This does not seem compatible with the original spirit of Wikipedia, which sought to provide free knowledge to everyone on the planet (rather than just those who already have a liberal arts education).

I will admit that perhaps the original wording went too far (by discouraging terms like i.e. and e.g.) and perhaps this is why the guideline was nullified. I would like to propose a compromise, however:

Latin phrases and abbreviations
Latin phrases used in academic writing such as nota bene or vide infra (and their corresponding abbreviations) should generally be avoided and English phrases used instead. Phrases and abbreviations which have passed into common English usage such as circa, etc., i.e., and e.g. are exceptions, however, and should be left as the original author wrote them.

Kaldari (talk) 20:32, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The present phrasing (the reminder that English translations will be "more widely understood") seems about right. Anyone who genuinely cannot understand vide infra will have problems with many of the books we use as sources. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The present phrasing makes no sense at all. Gene Nygaard (talk) 00:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Clearer now? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And even clearer now? I have renamed the subsection, calling it Latin phrases, since that's what it's about, whether these are abbreviated or not; and I've made clear what our existing guidelines require concerning italics. CMOS and New Hart's Rules do not italicise "i.e.", "e.g.", and the like; so this time we are in accord with them and with most current practice (for what that's worth – which is something!).
– Noetica♬♩Talk 03:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Citation please; the CMOS is online. If true, this is another case where they have been less than literate. For example,, i. e. is indeed common; but it is both common and italicized, because it is Latin, not English. Presumably some authors follow this advice, however regrettable; but any phrasing which results in an FA oppose on the grounds that i.e. is italicized and should not be is a disservice to the encyclopedia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:57, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I know CMOS is online, PMA. I use it every day, and the print version too. Here is the reference you burden me with finding for you:

Note that "e.g." and "i.e." are not italicized. (6.44)

I'll leave it to you to check your copy of New Hart's. It's at 10.6, to save you a search. Check SOED while you're at it, and any number of other current major dictionaries.
And, PMA, Fowler's:

It is always written as lower case and in romans. (entry for "i.e.")

But why do I bother, PMA? it is hard to resist the conclusion that you have a doctrinaire attachment to certain fossilised notions that have little to do with facilitating a modern, democratic online encyclopedia. So what if "i.e" and the like are originally Latin? They are also English, just as "Samurai" and "blitz" are originally Japanese and German but are now also English.
Once more you accuse others of being "less than literate" (Fowler's too, I see!), while throwing your own weight around as if you were invested with natural authority in these matters. No one is! I am not, Tony is not, you are not. So we appeal to established sources that distil a sort of consensus of literate opinion, and we take that as giving a reasonable default position. We depart from that default position if there is a demonstrated reason for doing so. You have failed, once more, to demonstrate a need to do so.
Now stop wasting editors' time with your ill-conceived pronouncements.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 21:06, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How amusing. Noetica claims consensus here for a phrasing he they invented today. At least we should include the code word "normally" making this perversity non-binding. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WP:MOS says that it "aims to make the encyclopedia easier to read in English". I think this includes avoiding using Latin phrases which are not commonly known. I don't understand the significance of PMA's comment "Anyone who genuinely cannot understand vide infra will have problems with many of the books we use as sources": we aren't expecting our readers to understand our sources, we are writing Wikipedia for them instead. If they want to follow up the sources they can do so, but they should not be faced with cryptic academic phraseology on Wikipedia. Many of today's educated people do not understand what was previously widely-used terminology - in a university library we regularly had people looking for the journal called ibid. I kid you not! So let's keep Wikipedia readable.

I'd favour a modified version of Kadari's text:

Latin phrases and abbreviations
Latin phrases used in academic writing such as nota bene or vide infra (and their corresponding abbreviations) should generally be avoided and English phrases used instead. Latin words, phrases and abbreviations which have passed into common English usage such as circa, etc., i.e., and e.g. are acceptable, and are not italicised. See WP:MOSNUM#Dates_of_birth_and_death for use of "c." and "fl.". Latin phrases or abbreviations in quotations are always left as the original author wrote them.

Kadari's wording "should be left as the original author wrote them." seems ambiguous: does it refer to quotations, or is the use of latin abbreviations left as an issue of style where the first author of an article makes the rules, as in UK/US English? PamD (talk) 08:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not comfortable with roman type for latin abbreviations. I know it's trendy, though. What do published style guides say about it? I see Noetica says many have switched to recommending roman type. Are there any notable sticks in the mud there? — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:19, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is very plainly a consensus among the most respected sources, such as Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS), New Hart's Rules, Merriam-Webster's guides, SOED and other major dictionaries, and in the practice of nearly all major publishing houses. It is that terms that are common and have passed into the language are not italicised. These specifically and explicitly include "i.e.", "e.g.", "etc.", and the like. I cite sources above in this section.
Narrowing the focus to Wikipedia, we see this well-established guideline (I quote the wording from mid-2005, and add emphasis):

Foreign words or phrases that have passed into the English language, however—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps—should not be italicized. If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in an English language dictionary.

The guideline is continuously present in MOS, and is there right now.
It is sheer counterproductive opinion-mongering to exclude those naturalised Latin abbreviations that all respected current sources plainly want unitalicised. PMAnderson cites Fowler's ad nauseam when it suits his or her latest foible, but refuses to respect its judgement when it is cited against his or her latest obstruction to our giving a plain and simple guideline.
I call on editors to revert his or her latest imposition, and go back to a clear indication of consensus both inside and outside of Wikipedia (see recent edits). We do editors no favour if we tiptoe around, planting arcane and archaic quibbles in MOS. Keep it rational and robust; and keep it in accord with almost universal consensus, when we are blessed with such a thing – as the sources I cite amply show we are.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 23:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In this case, it does look – for better or worse – like there is a consensus among style guides regarding abbreviations of latin words. We might as well follow it. I would agree, actually, to replacing large sections of the MoS with a simple pointer to some fixed style manual or manuals. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like Noetica has nailed it. Where do we stand on et al? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If the standard will be inclusion in English dictionaries, then et al. does not get italics. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:34, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is a rule of thumb; and as such has exceptions. English dictionaries do include some common foreign words that do and should get italics. Webster's Third International says "abbreviated et al.", and all of the OED's quotations italicize (I am consulting a printed copy of the Second Edition.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can we go with that? Diberri's PMID template filler returns et al italicized, so if that is changed, most of the medical FAs will be off. And, becuase it was in line with the old wording, that's what WP:MEDMOS recommends. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What wording would you suggest? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:17, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I try not to wordsmith; that would be frightening. We just need the option for et al in citations to be italicized. Also, I don't know why we have this:
  • Forms like nota bene ("note [well]") and vide infra ("see below") can be useful, especially in footnotes.
since it contradicts this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's a difference between ibid. and nota bene: the first becomes wrong if the text is rearranged; the second doesn't. Which side of this line vide infra and op. cit. fall on depends on what they're doing; both can link safely to the References, which will always be below the text. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:55, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, now I'm confused. What I was hearing from Noetica is that we should recommend all these Latin phrases use a roman font, with the criterion being whether they are included in English dictionaries. That I can live with, although it isn't what I grew up with. But if everyone gets to pick their own pet phrase to use in italics, I'm going to pick i.e.. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just pointing out that if MoS prescribes that et al isn't italicized, which is a change that goes against citations generated for a long time from Diberri's template, every well written and/or FA medical article (also the biology and many others that used Diberri to generate PMID citations) have issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do see the issue there. It will be tomorrow before I can go to a library and look at the CMOS to see exactly what it says on the matter. The wording proposed above seems to break things into two categories: (1) Latin phrases that should be avoided and (2) Latin phrases that are now in common use in English, which should not be italicized. That doesn't leave a lot of middle ground. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:55, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
CBM, here is the main relevant guideline in CMOS:

7.51 Italics

Italics are used for isolated words and phrases in a foreign language if they are likely to be unfamiliar to readers.

At 6.23 CMOS says this:

Note that [et al.] is not italicized and that no period follows et (which is not an abbreviation).

Similar guidelines are found in New Hart's Rules 10.6, saying explicitly that "et al." is not italicised, except "sometimes italicised in bibliographic use".
For the record, Webster's Third International [W3I] does not recommend italicising "et al." or the other abbreviations we have discussed. It simply italicises for mention and for exhibiting the word, and it does that in all its entries – for abbreviations or any word at all. The M-W Collegiate, an updated shortening of W3I that is appealed to by CMOS, does not italicise these either.
Again for the record, OED does not explicitly recommend italics for "et al.", and does not italicise in its own citation practice (see current online edition). The examples it gives in its article for "et al." are all over 45 years old!
Note the wording I have recently introduced for the MOS main rule that I cite earlier:

Loanwords and borrowed phrases that have common usage in English—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, vice versa, esprit de corps—do not require italics. A rule of thumb is not to italicize words that appear unitalicized in major English-language dictionaries.

This is simply a clarification of what has been there for years. For terms that are not assimilated (which can again be judged by absence from dictionaries, or italicising in dictionaries), see what precedes that. There is in fact a duplication that needs to be attended to in MOS:

Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have every day use in non-specialised English.

That replicates the content of what precedes the excerpt I quote, and occurs much earlier in MOS.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 03:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[As later amended][reply]
Thanks for copying those quotes here; it will save me a trip to the library, and help others too. I was concerned whether there was a specific exception for et al. As I said, I'm not averse in any way to simply following the recommendations of the CMOS (or any other established style guide). — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:56, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, CBM. It is important to see what these sources really say, isn't it?
My recommendation, based on the broad modern consensus as I have demonstrated it above, is that we should not italicise "et al." This makes for a simpler and more consistent practice. It would be an easy matter for templates that do not conform to be altered, and that ought to be done when we agreement on this consistent and standard usage.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 03:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Diberri can re-do his template filler, but that won't solve all the citations already generated. It's a template filler, not a template; it's a one-shot deal. Changing it will only affect citations generated from that point forward. New Hart allows for et al in bibliographic use, which is what we're talking about. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Pick your battles. Elect the most flexible wording, recognizing New Hart's Rules. Think of the editors when making a small change that has large reprecussions. Can anyone guess how many citations have been generated with Diberri, italicizing et al, and is it *really* worth it to have individual editors changing them all? I'll accept whichever way the grammarians go, but remember that it's the little nitpicking and constant changing that turns people against MoS. We want editors to embrace a flexible MoS, not reject a rigid one. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy, I don't want to nitpick on this! It doesn't matter if there is a legacy of old text that has, for example, "et al." where newer text has "et al." It's the present and the future that matter. If editors cared, they could amend things when they spot them; or a bot could easily fix such a thing. Go with a simple modern way that fits universal best practice – and is easy to remember for its simplicity.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 03:08, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And New Hart's describes an exceptional practice of italicising; its recommendation is not to italicise "et al."; CMOS agrees, so do other major sources. A solid consensus.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 03:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At the moment we say nothing on fonts. It is not necessary to rule on this point; so half-a-dozen editors should not rule on it. I would regret seeing any article refused FA because it followed the usage preferred by the OED; beyond that, MOS doesn't matter a bit. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do not have the patience, interest, or fortitude to spend one more second worrying about whether et al should be italicized in citations. I'll change whatever I have to change in any article I work on, but the point is, people get sick of MoS over stuff like this, and give up, and stop paying attention. We should try to keep the forest before the trees, and keep guidelines as flexible as possible, particularly when past practices have been entrenched for a long time, even in script and codes written to assist editors using past practice. That's my only point. The verbosity on this page will wear down the most dedicated adherent to manual of style concerns. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think "et al." whilst in common usage (I certainly understood it in high school) is clearly less familarly to our readers that etc, i.e. & eg. There is though a legibility issue in that the italics does help visually distinugish the main authors from the title of a paper.
Hence compare Ng A, Smith P, Org A; et al. "Musings on latinisation". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) from Ng A, Smith P, Org A; et al. "Musings on latinisation". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) The run of "... A et al" needs, IMHO, more concentration on scan-reading than "A et al". David Ruben Talk 04:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And my experience is that journals do in fact italicize; so do the majority of books which exist in print. If there is a recent trend to Romanize books, following the CMOS, I don't see it, and the periodical literature has escaped it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have shortened as far as I think this can be, while still saying something; nothing would be a possibility. If we retain this section, we should probably include the ban on ibid, with an explanation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:47, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, PMA. You have unilaterally shortened the section to your taste, and silently removed the dispute tag – as if your version must be the consensus one. I have restored that tag, until we have consensus. I have noted that there is no consensus, because editors need to be informed of that. I have also fixed an error you introduced, which had "nota bene" an abbreviation, and I fixed the styling to make it uniform. If you want to make all of the so-called "Latin" italicised in the subsection for uniformity instead, then I think that would be fine. Any other change needs to be discussed, of course.
Why do you continue to claim OED endorses your view? It does not, as I have pointed out. Again, why do I bother? I have adduced a great deal of detailed evidence that counters what you have said, including about OED, and Webster's Third International, and Fowler's. You do not answer what I take the trouble to find and report here; you simply continue to mislead people.
Don't inveigh against people imposing their own view here, when you are a prime offender. Not only do you appear opposed to MOS itself, you now seem to treat the associated discussion page with contempt. I give hard and verifiable evidence; you do not.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 23:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the dispute tag because I placed it; upon reflection, I don't dispute that wording. I don't dispute Noetica's, except in being much wordier than necessary; there was no need for a lengthy distinction between terms and abbreviations. Does Noetica? Is there a dispute?
I also see no need to state we are not in consensus about italics, but it is harmless.
I said, and I believe I repeated, that all the OED's quotations of et. al. are italicized, because they are. The same is true of some of their quotations for "et cetera", and none of their quotations of "etch", to pick words close at hand.
Please at least pretend to be civil; that is policy, this is merely a guideline. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:29, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Although you are not civil enough to respond point by point, PMA, I will accord you that courtesy:

I removed the dispute tag because I placed it; upon reflection, I don't dispute that wording. [...] Does Noetica? Is there a dispute?

You silently removed the dispute tag once you had amended things to please yourself, as if that resolved the dispute. The discussion had in fact pretty well converged on a consensus for "e.g." and "i.e.", and was working towards one for "et al." But that was nothing to you, it seems. You ignored it in your editing. Since you ask, yes: I do dispute the present content. I edited, but did not impose my own view.

I said, and I believe I repeated, that all the OED's quotations of et. al. are italicized, because they are.

I answered that! But you did not respond. I said that all of OED's citations were over 45 years old. We are interested in current practice, remember? OED reflects current practice in its own citations: it does not italicise "et al." I pointed this out; you ignored the point, because it did not fit with your utterly inflexible stance. (I set aside your illiterate full stop after "et", in your "et. al.")

The same is true of some of their quotations for "et cetera", [...]

No, it is not true, PMA. You are attempting to mislead us, it seems. Either that, or you have simply not understood the OED entry. Every instance of "et cetera", "etc." and variants is in plain roman, not italics – except where italics are applied for mention, or as part of an italicised title. Only one instance of etc. is so italicised: "Also Yours etc., used as an ending in letters." Of course in most of its articles OED does not italicise the headword, since it is rarely mentioned as "etc." often needs to be. And yet again, the practice of OED shows that current practice is against you: in its own usage, OED does not italicise "etc."

Please at least pretend to be civil; [...]

I am civil to you, and to everyone. Don't take my robust response to your incivility as incivility on my part. It is provocative and rude of you to ignore the evidence accumulated against you, and to pretend to be taking part in a discussion when in fact you are merely obstructing, and sabotaging approaches to consensus that the rest of us here are working hard to achieve. If you are immune to correction, go away. Find a forum where your partial truths and manifest partiality will be politely ignored.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 01:43, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am unconvinced by Noetica's arguments.

  • Of course the OED uses 45-year-old quotations. Their interest is in the oldest attestations of a usage; they include newer quotations when they differ. The absence of quotations since 1962, in a definition printed in 1989, means (if anything) that et al. is obsolete, or that its usage has not changed.
  • I had not consulted their own list of sources (for those with subscriptions, it is here. It does italicize titles and very little else (names are in caps); if we had a similar list, in which we were only really interested in author, work, and date, we might do likewise. They do, however, italicize c for circa: ÆLFRED, "Orosius tr. c 893 (E.E.T.S. 1883)".
  • I see the Second Edition retains the quotations: " I thought our Author had been such an enemy to all etcæteras, because of the mysterious import..which they carry with them." and "An oath which contained an et cætera in the midst of it." These are not current quotations; but they were only meant to show that the OED reproduces the typography in the originals.

As for civility:

There are now three sentences. Which of them does Noetica dispute?

The choice of tone between "i.e." and "that is", and similar phrases, depends on the context; articles intended for a general audience will be more widely understood if the English terms are used instead.

This seems clearly true; others wish to go further.

There is no consensus on which Latin phrases and abbreviations should be italicized.

Noetica wrote this, and it is the case. Does xe now dispute it? To go much further would be without consensus.

In quotations, all Latin terms and abbreviations ("nota bene", "videlicet", "passim"; "i.e.", "n.b.", "s.v.", and "sc.") should be spelled out or not, and italicized or not, as the original author wrote them.

This is Present quotations as they were written, and as such is consensus. In fact, it is redundant with our general edict, and should probably be removed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Selected points from PMA, conscientiously answered:

I am unconvinced by Noetica's arguments.

Why am I not surprised? :) Argument and evidence, even of high quality, seem to little effect on you. Others like Sandy can feel the persuasive force of what I laid out copiously above. You do not. As I say, you seem to be immune to correction, even when you are demonstrably and factually wrong. I show this above, more that once. But I might as well not have.

Of course the OED uses 45-year-old quotations. Their interest is in the oldest attestations of a usage; they include newer quotations when they differ. The absence of quotations since 1962, in a definition printed in 1989, means (if anything) that et al. is obsolete, or that its usage has not changed.

Whistling in the dark. OED does not even address the matter of italics for these items. If italicising practice changes for them (as OED's own usage shows that it does), OED does not record this with new examples.

I had not consulted their own list of sources (for those with subscriptions, it is here. It does italicize titles and very little else [...]

And your conclusion from that, combined with the weight of evidence from all other major dictionaries, and all major style guides?

I see the Second Edition retains the quotations: " I thought our Author had been such an enemy to all etcæteras, because of the mysterious import..which they carry with them." and "An oath which contained an et cætera in the midst of it." These are not current quotations; but they were only meant to show that the OED reproduces the typography in the originals.

Your point? Your response to my point, that OED has no authentic examples of "etc." and the like being italicised, in anything resembling standard use?

I do not regard

you have a doctrinaire attachment to certain fossilised notions, stop sabotaging MOS and rational discussion (edit summary), sheer counterproductive opinionmongering, or attempting to mislead us as civility. What does Noetica say when xe is not being civil?

They are examples of my robust response to your rude and uncivil refusal to engage in genuine discussion here, and your avoiding all evidence that others can plainly see refutes your unsupported assertions – some of which evidence comes from sources you yourself claim as authoritative. If my pointing out your incivility looks uncivil, reflect on what occasions it.

I hope I have said nothing of the kind about any editor in this discussion. I thought, and think, that CMOS is unwise and perverse in choosing to romanize; Tony has said as bad about it on other issues; but if anyone here works for CMOS, I would certainly retract.

No, you have not been provoked by stonewalling stubbornness in the face of clear argument and evidence, so you have no call to say such things. I, however, do. Why not simply "retract" your failures to engage flexibly in meaningful dialogue?

There are now three sentences. Which of them does Noetica dispute?

I am unhappy with all three:

The choice of tone between "i.e." and "that is", and similar phrases, depends on the context; articles intended for a general audience will be more widely understood if the English terms are used instead.

This is unsatisfactory because it gives little real guidance. What are "similar phrases", when we have just one example? Why is there no distinction between abbreviations and full forms, for which editors might well consult MOS?

There is no consensus on which Latin phrases and abbreviations should be italicized.

As you point out, PMA, I wrote that. As I told you above, I did not write according to my own take on things. It is unsatisfactory that no such consensus is expressed. Of course we need one! We were so close to one, but you refused to move an inch. I wrote it because it needs to be explicit that we have so far failed to give clear guidance on this simple point.

In quotations, all Latin terms and abbreviations ("nota bene", "videlicet", "passim"; "i.e.", "n.b.", "s.v.", and "sc.") should be spelled out or not, and italicized or not, as the original author wrote them.

Your comment on this:

This is Present quotations as they were written, and as such is consensus. In fact, it is redundant with our general edict, and should probably be removed.

No, in fact. It has been questioned before. I questioned it. But because we have no adequate system for recording earlier discussions, let alone the few durable consensus decisions taken here, it is all lost in the uncoordinated dross of earlier futile discussions, as opposed to the current futile discussion. That's what happens, PMA, when you stand against order and structure, and coordination.
In fact, it is common practice, long enshrined in the ways of publishing houses and style guides, to alter the styling (italics, underlining, bolding, punctuation, etc.) for such "small deer" (Coleridge's phrase for the incidentals of language) as "etc.", "videlicet", and so on. Similarly, it is common practice to impose a house style even for quoted dashes, but you have already shown that you are oblivious to these things.
In the earlier discussion, I let it pass. I conceded that, for practical reasons, it was better to keep things simple. But that was provisional, and I am not happy with this ruling. What do we do in citing someone's persistent misspelling of "etc." ("et.c.", "etc"), or the rather common (!) faulty punctuation of "et. al."?
However, to sum up, this is all very wearying. My suspicion that there is really no point at all to this sort of wrangle grows stronger. PMA, you are against coordination; you are against guidelines that look like rules; you subvert discussion based on careful and rational argument, from sound interpretation of evidence. I think I can no longer do anything useful here, if you continue this way.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 07:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Noetica has a high opinion of xer own arguments; xe need not repeat this self-praise; we understand that.
  • As for et cetera: I only brought it up to show that the OED does reproduce original font in their quotations. It is likely to be the most assimilated, and so the most often romanized, of these phrases.
  • The OED does italicize c even in their own list of sources.
  • Our guidelines are not rules; see WP:Policies and guidelines.
  • Noetica disgrees, then, with all three of the present sentences. As far as I can see, the only virtue in any of them is the advice that English phrases may be more widely understood. It would be a shame to lose the advice, but it may be that this page is simply constitutionally incapable of mere advice. Is there support for getting rid of the disputed section altogether? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Anderson, before you accuse others of incivility (you tend to fling it about rather liberally, like holy water), please recall that you've been so rude to me that you voluntarily struck it out when challenged by a third party. Was this once or twice? Tony (talk) 12:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • My personal preference is for italics to be used, but I will go along with whatever is the consensus. Some foreign-origin words can be ambiguous without italics because they can be mistaken as being part of ordinary English phrases instead of as part of foreign-origin phrases. Using italics helps the reader scan the text more quickly by reducing the risk of mis-parsing of word groupings.

    "It is quicker to use in situ replacement, but if in situ restoration is cheaper it may be used instead."

    Italics help the reader to identify the intended word groupings more quickly. As far as I am aware, it still is common practice in many popular and technical publications to put foreign-origin words and abbreviations in italics. - Neparis (talk) 15:10, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, the new wording is even worse than what we started with and is not in line with other Wikipedia policies and guidelines. First of all I would like to state that ideally all wikipedia articles should be accessible to a general audience, thus it makes no sense to say that latin phrases are fine, but you might want to use English if your article is for a general audience. That is nonsense. Please read Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible (especially Septentrionalis). Wikipedia articles "should be accessible to the widest possible audience... Every reasonable attempt should be made to ensure that material is presented in the most widely accessible manner possible." Also, why are you guys so religiously concerned with what other style guides say. Please realize that Wikipedia is a unique project and requires its own style guide. That's why we have a style guide rather than just redirecting to the Chicago Manual of Style. There doesn't seem to be consensus on the italics issue so I don't believe we should say anything about it. After reading through all of this debate, I still believe my original wording is the best:

Latin phrases and abbreviations
Latin phrases used in academic writing such as nota bene or vide infra (and their corresponding abbreviations) should generally be avoided and English phrases used instead. Phrases and abbreviations which have passed into common English usage such as circa, etc., i.e., and e.g. are exceptions, however, and should be left as the original author wrote them.

Kaldari (talk) 21:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One fourth/one quarter

Is there/should there be a recommended one to use? Obviously one should use one of them consistantly throughout an article... Also, it is my understanding hat the usage of one fourth is limited to the US (possibly Canada too). Is this becaues of the Quarter (25cent piece)? PS. I really hate it when people use it, it sounds ugly...Shniken1 (talk) 03:10, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, there should not be. See WP:CREEP; our rule in such cases is: do as seems best to you, be consistent, and leave other peoples' writing alone unless it needs changing. The OED gives no indication that this is a North American usage, and does give examples going back to Anglo-Saxon; the following quotation is from the Law Times of 1892: The cases requiring pleadings are not more at the outside than a fourth of the contested cases. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You need to know that Anderson's clear aim is to weaken the authority of the MoS. Take his "creep" thing with the contempt it deserves, please. However, I agree with him/her in this specific case, that it's unnecessary to prescribe one or the other. Personally, I'd deprecate the use of "one quarter". Tony (talk) 08:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It would be clear instruction creep, and Tony's aim to wipe out usage that doesn't suit his personal preferences, in an all-powerful MoS page where people already let him get away with too much, has been made explicitly clear numerous times. Gene Nygaard (talk) 14:08, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Um, didn't Tony just say that it is unnecessary to specify one usage over the other? Easy, tiger. Either is fine with me, although to me it's always been "one quarter", but I wouldn't go around changing instances of "one fourth" just for the hell of it. And, as the original poster states, they should be used consistently throughout the article. - 52 Pickup (deal) 14:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While I don't agree with the railing against Tony (nor railing against PMAnderson), it does seem odd to express a preference immediately after saying that we don't need to specify one. And telling people not to use "one quarter", or even recommending it, would upset a lot of people, I reckon. SamBC(talk) 14:23, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, there seems to be a basic misunderstanding here; who expects to get their way automatically at MOS? I certainly don't, despite the appalling accusation of this Nygaard person above. I was pointing out my personal view, and also declaring that I don't think it's an issue on which MOS should prescribe a preference. What is "odd" about that? Tony (talk) 12:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Shniken1's point about the quarter dollar, I'd think "quarter" is even more common among those people who think "hundred" is written in digits as "112". People in the USA and Canada don't use quarters for weight, but if we did they'd be 25 lb, not 28 lb. Gene Nygaard (talk) 16:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I (native speaker of UK English) would never use "fourth" to mean 0.25! It's a quarter, always. A quick Google search reveals:

"a quarter of the" - 1,156k
"one quarter of the" - 1,154k
"a fourth of the" - 262k
"one fourth of the" - 1,570k

which was the best phrase I could come up with which was likely to be fractions rather than order. Not very conclusive, but favours quarters. Also:

"three quarters" - 5,900k (but is there a sports term which comes into this?)
"three fourths" - 1,510k

Let's just leave it as an item which requires internal consistency within any one article but enriches the variety of multi-edited Wikipedia otherwise. PamD (talk) 16:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Diacritics and accurate proununciation

I see that the same edit has restored our preference for naive (I agree, but think role a more likely dispute on the same issue), while declaring that we must use diacritics when needed to clarify the pronunciation, with cliché as exemplar. This is incoherent: The reasons for naïve are that it is the French spelling, and that it indicates the pronunciation; cliché has both advantages. The difference between them is that naïve is obsolete. We should draw that line, and so recommend one and deprecate the other. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How is "naïve" obsolete? Cite? —Random832 20:12, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just pay attention to what you read. I almost never see naïve. Furthermore, cliche works just fine, too, and is in common use, even if not as overwhelming as naive is. Gene Nygaard (talk) 22:33, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It may be a US/UK thing. I've seen British newspapers using naïve instead of naive. I don't think it's a globally fair view to say one or other is almost never used. - Neparis (talk) 15:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/naive
naive
One entry found.
naive
Main Entry:
na·ive Listen to the pronunciation of naive
Variant(s): or na·ïve Listen to the pronunciation of naïve \nä-ˈēv, nī-\
Then there is
cliche
Main Entry:
cli·ché Listen to the pronunciation of cliché
Variant(s): also cli·che Listen to the pronunciation of cliche \klē-ˈshā, ˈklē-ˌ, kli-ˈ\
Where the cliché spelling is listed first, but let's not be claiming that it is in any way necessary. Gene Nygaard (talk) 22:43, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still see naïve and cliché fairly frequently, although I'd rather that Wikipedia use naive and cliche for the simple reason that the diacritics are unnecessary and (to me) distracting. Rôle is just stupid, though, since there's no qualitative difference between rôle and role. Strad (talk) 02:08, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I put café, which may be clearer. If we can't come up with a consensus example, we should rethink the sentence. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:57, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Clearer? More like jumping from the fat into the fire. In American English at least, it is now "cafe" in almost all contexts other than proper names, and in most proper names as well. Furthermore, the other example is a lousy one as well, especially with the two diacritics. Not only is it often written "resume", but I think, without looking into it in detail, that in modern writing I see the intermediate option "resumé" more often than "résumé". Gene Nygaard (talk) 14:40, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My favourite Guardian style guide specifies cliche, naive, role and résumé. Personally I use cliché, naive, rôle ... and CV. Can we not just stick to being consistent within any one article? Wikipedia is written by a multitude of editors, native speakers of UK English, US English, other varieties of English, and of many other languages. Let's concentrate on getting rid of the "should of", the "wonderfull", and the totally incomprehensible (more difficult, if one can't actually work out what the sentence is supposed to mean!). PamD (talk) 14:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea what that section is saying. I can't even decipher where to start, since I can't figure out what it thinks it's saying or what it wants to be saying. We need to write this page in English. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've sorted it. I have left the sentences alone, except for one connective. Is that clearer?
It's variations on the theme of Use English; the stress differs from sentence to sentence between You have a choice and Do what English does because we disagree on what the stress should be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:25, 21 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Time for archiving?

This talk page is awfully long, and many of the discussions at the top seem to be stale with no new comments posted since January. Would anybody object to them being archived? - Neparis (talk) 04:24, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Leave them until March; they may be useful in showing the record of this page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:34, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Please" would have been civil. Why must the whole page remain? It's particularly difficult for users on dial-up. Which bits are you attached to, Anderson? Tony (talk) 12:43, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This page is currently over 600 kilobytes, which is ridiculously long for people on dialup, with completely stale discussions from early to mid January at the top. What exactly is the problem here with archiving? I think an archive is a useful record of this page. Are you saying it isn't? Who benefits from keeping a really stale discussion from early January on this page until March? Nobody is going to add to the discussion, and once it is archived, people will still be able to look it up if they want to. It won't be deleted or somehow lost if that is what you are worrying about. - Neparis (talk) 15:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we should set up automatic archiving of old threads: same has been done at WP:MOSNUM. Keeping something on the page because "they may be useful in showing the record" is strange; the record is shown the same whether in archives or on this page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. I do hope that crazy, labour-intensive new-fangled thematic structure has been ditched in the archives. Can't find anything now. Tony (talk) 11:47, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right-facing images and {{Toc right}}

The current text of MOS includes suggestions to place right-facing portraits on the left, even at the beginning of the article, and suggest using {{Toc right}} if that interferes with "navigation elements". IMO, this is unacceptable. Wikipedia articles aren't stand-alone works, they're a part of a wider work, i.e. the encyclopedia. It is important for all articles to have the same basic visual structure and placement of the TOC. Aesthetics are an entirely secondary concern. Unless somebody provides a good reason for these suggestions to stay in the guideline, I will remove them. Zocky | picture popups 03:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Go ahead, they are taken far too prescriptively. However, I cannot agree that the same placement of the TOC is essential; some articles develop large areas of white space which can most easily be resolved by moving the TOC. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:03, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict) I strongly suggest that this exception remain in the MOS - without the exception, the MOS will dictate that all articles begin with an image on the right. Aesthetic principles dictate that right-facing portraits do not "look off the page" (in this case, the screen) as it leads readers' eyes away from the page. It is a principle followed in the layout of art books which we would do well to follow as well. Aesthetic concerns such as these are important as they keep readers' attention focused on our articles. Such exceptions have already been debated and consensus achieved for FA articles such as Joseph Priestley (both before the FAC and at the FAC), if that is any indication of community support. My personal experience with this issue has been that primary article contributors tend to endorse left-alignment as they are working daily with the article layout and thinking about it while it is gnomes and other editors who make small clean-up changes who endorse right-alignment. Clearly the needs of consistency need to be balanced with those of aesthetics, but I don't think that an image, a lead, and a TOC in various arrangements is so very confusing. It is those three elements that we like to have at the top of all of articles for our readers. Achieving the best balance between those three elements for each article is the goal - sometimes this means restricting the TOC, sometimes this means shifting the image to the left, and sometimes this means granting extra room for the lead. We need to be flexible to allow for each article's individual needs. Awadewit | talk 04:07, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, as far as I can see, we have the following arguments:

The layout should be kept standard
  • It makes finding standard pieces of information easier
  • It makes it easier for bots to maintain articles and extract information from them
The layout should be customized to the article
  • It makes prettier articles
  • It can save space
  • We shouldn't follow arbitrary rules
  • We should follow an arbitrary rule of aesthetics

AFAICS, the reasons for customizing the layout are either subjective (the prettiness), irrelevant (Wikipedia is not paper, and saving space is not essential), or contradictory (we should ignore our arbitrary rule in favor of another (at least as) arbitrary rule, i.e. an "aesthetic principle". Am I missing anything? Zocky | picture popups 04:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I came here via the Jane Austen talk page, so forgive me for intruding. Zocky, I think you're taking Awadewit's fairly valid points and twisting them to fit your own agenda. I do not think that ensuring that an article fulfills clearly established and precedented aesthetic values is merely a matter of making the article "prettier". It's a matter of academia, which is what Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, should aspire to above all things. All articles are different, not only in quality but in substance, and should be considered on a case by case basis. This is why stringent rules regarding infoboxes and image placement simply cannot apply to each and every article. For examples, articles as broad as Austen's tend to attract crufty infoboxes in which original research by way of synthesis (influences and influenced fields) and other un-encyclopedic entries often find a home. In a well written article all important information will be listed in the lead section; the reader won't even have to scroll.
I agree with the idea that Wikipedia is not paper, but integrity should outweigh conformity. One article is different than the next; all images simply do not belong on the right side and all articles do not necessitate an infobox -- because of these reasons, you will find it highly difficult to reach a consensus on both of these matters. I for one support the optional placement of infoboxes and the choice to put a right-facing image on the left side of the lead. Bots are not readers and are therefore not our priority, readers are capable of reading through an article if they are dying to find important and key facts about a subject, and strict standardization on these issues will never reach a consensus. María (habla conmigo) 05:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, I have no strong feelings on the infobox issue. I can see how it can be useful, and I can see how it can be annoying. But let's not mystify the "aesthetic issue" of the right-facing pictures having to go to the left. It's a more-or-less arbitrary rule intended for paper books. The likelyhood of a reader's eyes being drawn to the right of the article on a computer screen is minimal and in all likelyhood entirely irrelevant for our purposes.
Oh, and a thought about bots: Our mission is to collect and arrange information, so that the free knowledge can be used by people. One way that the people need to use the knowledge is for creating more free knowledge by extracting bits and pieces from hundreds or thousands of articles. Examples include Google Earth layers with markers representing Wikipedia articles, computer-generated lists of people from a certain profession, etc. Enabling these uses is a part of our core mission, and standard layout and infoboxes are among the ways that we accomplish that. The need to have information about Jane Austen included in those computer-generated compilations of knowledge should obviously trump the need to have her portrait face into the article. Zocky | picture popups 05:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I understand it, bots are not affected by the visuals of the article as they run on the "code". Please explain which bots you think this would affect and how. Usually bots are not affected by such things. If they are, they should be fixed. Awadewit | talk 06:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You achieve the visual changes by changing the code. A bot that extracts information from intros may not be aware that you're using non-standard (for articles) ways of displaying the TOC and may thing that the code for it is a part of the article text. That can be fixed in the bot code, of course, but the more variations, the harder it becomes to do. OTOH, information that could be extracted from a template call (i.e. an infobox) can't be extracted from text by a program at all. Zocky | picture popups 06:09, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This doesn't really make sense because many articles (such as stubs) don't even have introductions. In fact, the majority of articles are "non-standard". Please give examples of bots that would be affected so we can see the real ramifications of this. Your speculation might indeed be pointing to a serious problem, but the problem is hard to see right now. I am not inclined to endorse to change a policy for bots over readers when we haven't even pointed to specific examples yet. Awadewit | talk 06:13, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The question is not whether such a bot exists at this moment or not, the question is, are we enabling it to potentially exist. The bot that scrapes geographical articles for coordinates to produce the Google Earth layers didn't exist before we standardized the information, because there was nothing for it to scrape. The added information that can be produced by scraping data from multiple articles emerges from the standardization. This makes the standardization of data a good thing in itself, regardless of how it's currently used. Plus, what Stradivarius said below. Zocky | picture popups 06:26, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that it is a good idea to design policy around a yet-to-be-designed bot. Policy should think of readers first, editors second, and everything else third. We can design bots to do whatever we want. Awadewit | talk 06:42, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Policy should think of encyclopedia first, encyclopedia second, and encyclopedia third. The goal of the project is to write an encyclopedia and to produce free knowledge, not to please readers. Zocky | picture popups 06:51, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But the encyclopedia is for readers - not for bots. We need to think about their needs. Awadewit | talk 07:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
More than my eyes being "led off the page" by a right-facing, right-aligned portait, my eyes have an initial difficulty locating the beginning of the text block if it doesn't start at the top left corner of the article frame. If keeping right-facing portraits on the left side of the page is really that important, I suggest that they be coded to appear a bit lower, so that there are at least a few lines of text that start flush left. Strad (talk) 06:21, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind having text above left-aligned portraits, however I don't know if it is really necessary. Readers are already used to having adjust right to find text because of the menu bar on wikipedia (and most websites). It is not a big adjustment to keep looking a little further right. Awadewit | talk 06:44, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, I think we need a clarification here. Awadewit says that the majority of articles are non-standard, but this is incorrect. The standard, as far as humans are concerned, is to have the text start in the top left corner, and for the TOC to follow the intro section, flushed left. The standard, as far as bots are concerned, is for the article text to begin in the first P tag in HTML, and for the TOC to be included in the DIV tag right before the first section break, (i.e. a H2 tag). The vast majority of articles follow this standard, simply because it's the default behaviour. Only a tiny share of articles, probably well under 1%, uses non-standard layouts. Zocky | picture popups 06:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • That's not what I meant. When I said "non-standard", I meant that most articles don't have an image, a lead, and a TOC. Because most articles are stubs, most don't have a lead and a TOC, for example. Awadewit | talk 06:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, they do have a lead, they just don't have the article body ;) But, most articles aren't stubs. The vast majority of articles (clicking on the random article link suggests 90-95%) have at least one section header, and the majority (70-80%) have a picture or an infobox. Whether the TOC gets shown for articles with at least one or at least four section headers depends on your user preferences. (BTW, user preferences and personal CSS styles are another reason not to mess too much with the layout.) Zocky | picture popups 06:49, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • But it is still not clear to me why left and right-alignment would mess up any of these things. Please provide evidence of that. Thanks. Awadewit | talk 07:00, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • No, I'm arguing for the standard way of doing things. The claim that it's easier to work with standardized information, whether for readers, bots or CSS is self-obvious and doesn't need proof. What you need to do is argue that deviating from that established standard in the case of right-facing portraits brings net benefit. Your argument so far seems to be based purely on aesthetics, and that is simply not enough. Zocky | picture popups 07:05, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • But standardization isn't necessarily the best way to present information and that is the primary goal of the encyclopedia. Articles should be laid out in the way that best presents information on that particular topic. I would also like to point out that I am not arguing that we deviate from an established standard. I am arguing that we keep the current wording of the MOS, which agrees with established artistic principles, which is indeed important. I'm asking you to demonstrate how the current MOS regulations are harmful. You want to change them because you say without standardization bots will not be able to function. That is a claim that needs to be proven. 07:50, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
        • P.S.: As for aesthetics: are you aware that different users use different skins? When you change the layout of an article, do you check that it looks right in all skins? Do you expect other editors to do that? Zocky | picture popups 07:08, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yes, I do know about different skins. However, this is a minor percentage of users - most users come to us from something like google search and see the "classic skin" so I tend to check layouts in that skin. I was also under the impression that skins only changed the colors and design of the space surrounding the article. I did not think that skins changed the articles themselves. Awadewit | talk 07:42, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(de-indenting). I concur with those who support flexibility here. "Aesthetic principles" are hardly "arbitrary rules", but rather is a fancy way of saying "We should design the encyclopedia in such a way that it is readable," which is indisputable. I disagree that we should promulgate a rule that will require making our pages uglier for the benefit of some hypothetical, poorly-written bot. As with article content, this is an area where we have to rely on our editors to use their judgment. If a picture on the left looks better on a given article, then the editors should be able to put it there. Nandesuka (talk) 08:48, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Standardization" on wikipedia is only meaningful when speaking about humans. Wikipedia articles are not created in a parseable markup language. While there are still many bits of information that might be parsed from them by a "bot", articles are designed for people. Whether or not the MOS guidelines under discussion affect bots is a red herring, and doesn't need to be proven, because it doesn't matter. The human argument seems to come down to aesthetics on both sides, and I don't doubt someone can find a vague reason that left-aligned portraits affect accessibility or usability. Examples would be good. (After learning from the MOS that left-aligned images in the article body should be placed before headers, so the header indents with the paragraph below it, I later saw someone change this based on accessibility.) It's a wiki. Not everything is going to be the same everywhere, and few people but the self-selecting wiki editor niche even notice these differences. This is what no one gets. So if we're going to consider "the reader" (a good idea), such alignment issues should perhaps be scheduled for their eighth discussion on behalf of the reader sometime after wikipedia has 50,000 featured articles on major subjects of human interest. –Outriggr § 10:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course articles in Wikipedia are created in a parseable markup language. I'm not sure what that argument is supposed to mean, anyway.
And you talk as if bots work for themselves. They don't. They work for humans. When a bot parses a page to extract information, it's a human using the information with a bot. Thus the argument that standardization to facilitate data extraction is not human-oriented is simply wrong. We're creating a volume of free knowledge. The fact that most of the time most of us access that knowledge through a web site and a web browser is coincidental. Standard formatting of information is information in itself.
In effect, varying the layout of the standard pieces of information reduces the total amount of information for users, readers and data-extractors alike. It should be done only for good reasons, and this particular aesthetic principle (which is also somewhat dubious in our setting) doesn't seem to be one. Zocky | picture popups 01:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As right-aligned TOC have problem with printing and you can see it if you try to print Jane Austen article on A5 pages. And as I tested and I feel it's not much different wethere to right-align or left-align a right faced picture. I think it's a good idea to try to have TOCs left aligned as much as possible. however i believe it depends on the article and shouldn't be discussed totally. Moreover I believe bots aren't important in right-aligning or left-aligning images or TOCs and for machine readable contentes another way except than wikipedia articles should be used. only a few visitors are such those bots and its bot's problem in that case.--Soroush83 (talk) 14:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Centuries and millennia

This sub-section is rather strange and unnecessarily prescriptive, especially as the academic jury is out on the subject. CMOS says particular centuries are spelled out and lowercased. Oxford and Fowler prefer figures (but use words as well). The current text follows:

  • Centuries and millennia
  • Use figures to name centuries, not words (the 9th century; not the ninth century).
  • Do not capitalize century.

Suggested replacement text: Heading: Centuries and millenniums

  • Do not capitalize century or millennium.
  • Use either figures (9th century, 3rd millennium) or words (ninth century, third millennium) consistently throughout the article.
  • Avoid opening sentences with centuries or millenniums expressed in figures.

Comments? --ROGER DAVIES talk 09:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The Manual of Style has always allowed both. An edit with a plainly mistaken edit summary was made in August, [11], on the premise that the previous standard was to disallow spelled out century numbers, which is incorrect. No where else does the Manual of Style prohibit a plainly normal and acceptable style. See also WT:MOSNUM#Ordinal centuries in WP:MOSNUM. —Centrxtalk • 09:31, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad you raised the matter with me at my talkpage, Centrx. It's good to have the discussion transferred to here.
I do not agree that there has always been a clear guideline, given at both WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM, allowing for either figures or words to name centuries. As I recall, from time to time there have been no obvious guidelines, vague guidelines, complex guidelines making exceptions for single-digit cases, implicit guidelines but nothing in black letters, and so on.
The best way to deal with this is to have the discussion now. If both ways are to be allowed, let's say so clearly: in one place, without the slightest appearance of contradiction. If we say one way is allowed, it is not clear whether the other way is. There is an implicature, in fact, that the other way is not permitted.
So, disregarding the confused state of past "decisions" (I want to use that term advisedly!), what do we now say the guideline should be?
For my part, I like the way Roger Davies has handled this so far. I prefer naming with figures, myself: but we are not going to get agreement on that, obviously – nor on naming with words.
I therefore support allowing either, so long as there is consistency within an article.
I will convert this to strong support for naming with figures only if there is a push for that (and I have pushed for it in the past).
Reflecting on this, I now think that most editors have gone for figures, over the last few years. And most have interpreted our guidelines as requiring that: whether rightly or wrongly. Since I also favour using figures alone, I now support that option. Naturally I will accept the option of allowing either, provided it is clearly expressed and has consensus in its favour – which I hope it will not! We have to bear in mind the problems and uncertainties introduced by being too undirective, especially for featured-article candidates.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 09:42, 24 February 2008 (UTC)– Noetica♬♩Talk 10:01, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[Amended][reply]
Oops, I have no position one way or another, but the pages (WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM) were out of sync, so I just made them agree. Please try to keep them in sync. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:04, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have no position one way or the other, but I don't agree with Centrx's approach of allowing any normal and accepted style. If that were to be our approach, the first paragraph of our MOS should read something like "Use any style that you find in the Chicago Manual of Style, Associated Press Style Book, . . . . Listed below are some specific rules for using the markup available in the WikiMedia software." Notice that style manuals that are associated with a specific publisher actually make choices among acceptable options (as opposed to style manuals that are intended as instruction manuals for the general writing population, regardless of which publication they are writing for). --Gerry Ashton (talk) 18:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But we're not being as laissez-faire as that: the proposal acknowledges that the publishing world has two ways of dealing with the issue and invites individual editors to choose the most appropriate for their article. For instance, I might use figures for an article than uses century ranges (e.g. with the increasing use of gunpowder in the 14th–16th centuries...) but words for one with sentences that frequently open with date statements (e.g. Nineteenth-century theatre critics...). I see no advantage in having a "one size fits all" system. --ROGER DAVIES talk 18:58, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My statement of "normal and acceptable" was vague and overly generous to the opposite argument. Spelled-out centuries is the standard for all literature, and no where else does the Manual of Style prohibit the professional standard. However, I do venture that no where does the Manual of Style explicitly prohibit any normal and acceptable usage in literature; all the do nots I can find are about blatantly erroneous formats used no where in literature. —Centrxtalk • 22:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
From September 2003, WP:MOS allowed both words or numerals to represent numbers, at first with a default of recommending words and at other times some disputation in favor of recommending only words, and substantial discussion from time to time; for centuries, the examples had numerals without comment or any prohibition on words. From February 2006, the examples included spelled-out ordinals, after a brief discussion. In August 2007, the change was added without discussion under a false premise in the edit summary, [12]. —Centrxtalk • 22:59, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is a drastically oversimplified and misleading account of the history, Centrx. Even if there had been clear and non-contradictory guidelines affecting this issue (which I would dispute), the fact that you yourself acknowledge is that the guideline favouring figures has been in place, and unchallenged, for at least six months. That guideline has been read, respected, and acted upon (in featured-article candidates, for example). Earlier history is not worth the trouble to investigate.
Leave the current guideline in place until there is consensus for change, please. Nothing is gained by impatience, or by appeals to earlier guidelines that are no longer active.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 23:33, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, my account is quite accurate. Do you have any reason to believe that many people have read this single sentence buried in a subsection of the style guide? Most people don't re-read the style guide every three months. Certainly the dozens of people in the past who objected to this change, and proposed the opposite, have not read it. Do you have any actual substantive reason why this prohibition, unlike anything else in the style guide, belongs in the style guide? —Centrxtalk • 23:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have used the figures form in at least two featured articles not because I agreed with it but because FAC requires MOS-compliance and I believed it had been incorporated into MOS after due process and therefore reflected consensus. --ROGER DAVIES talk 23:53, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Centrx, you ask me: "Do you have any actual substantive reason why this prohibition, unlike anything else in the style guide, belongs in the style guide?"
In fact, I use both styles outside of Wikipedia, depending on the context in which I write or edit. I generally like words for such things, and I generally advocate using words for all numbers lower than 100 (again, conditioned by context). That is another discussion we need to get back to.
Here at Wikipedia it is not so much a matter of substance in the abstract as of practicalities. As the evidence below shows, calling for figures rather than words offers the best chance of achieving a proper uniformity, and a clear brief for editors to work with. It is easier to do, and less prone to errors in hyphenation and the like.
That said, I am not pushing militantly for figures only. I just want a proper, well-discussed, consensual, and uncontradicted guideline that will work towards consistency within articles. Above all, let it be a stable guideline, so we don't have to revisit it.
It is for just this sort of reason that we need better procedures for discussion, for centralised registration of changes, and for coordination between all parts of MOS. It is disappointing that people are not joining the current push for that.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 00:22, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The guideline which will achieve consistency within articles is fairly simple, more or less like this: Within each article, treat centuries consistently; if a given century is spelled out in one place, spell it out in another. Apply some reasonable line as to which centuries are spelled out, and which are in figures, and apply it to all dates in the article. Even that omits the occasionally useful practice of saying "eighteenth century" in text and "18th C." in a table, but that comes under WP:IAR. We will never have to revisit it, and the only cases it will come up in FA is when we do use sixteenth, 18th, and twentieth in the same article, which is an embarassment (although we've promoted worse). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:35, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We could easily use a bot to ensure uniformity, but that would require a strong, actual consensus to use only one format and prohibit the other. There is no such consensus, therefore we do not use a bot. Uniformity is not the issue. —Centrxtalk • 00:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) The draft wording above has strong consensus with no outright objections to it and much explicit support. Is this accurate? --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:06, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. See below.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 08:32, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) The draft wording above already has strong consensus with outright opposition from very few editors and very much more explicit support. To avoid hastiness, unless a great deal many more editors express their opposition within the next twenty-four hours, it seems reasonable to implement the proposed draft tomorrow afternoon. In determining that practical consensus already exists, I note that even the most vocal opponent of this change writes: "Naturally I will accept the option of allowing either, provided it is clearly expressed and has consensus in its favour". --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is perhaps unfair to invoke my explicit readiness to abide by a consensus against the case that I make: strenuously, and with detailed argument and evidence. Everybody should be willing to abide by a consensus; I am just the only one to say that I would!
The way I count people in this discussion, we have
6 supporting [But see strong qualification discussed several paragraphs down, added some minutes ago; these are not supporting the current wording. I have been generous in my interpretation.]– Noetica♬♩Talk 20:58, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
3 opposing
5 disagreeing with some details, or explicitly uncommitted
Do we think that amounts to a strong consensus? I don't! As I wrote, "I just want a proper, well-discussed, consensual, and uncontradicted guideline that will work towards consistency within articles. Above all, let it be a stable guideline, so we don't have to revisit it."
I note that several of the points I have made went undiscussed. What about the guideline against figures at the start of a sentence? The third element of the proposal as it stands is insufficient. What if we were reporting part of a radio presentation? We could not refashion the sentence to avoid opening a sentence with figures; and if we avoid figures by resorting to words just once, in an article that otherwise uses figures to name centuries, we contradict the second element of the proposal. Such a restriction is a needless imposition, and I am surprised that the Wikilibertarians among us have not picked it up and objected.
I maintain my opposition to the proposal, but I suggest that, if is adopted, the text should except the case of centuries and millennia from that more general guideline. I further suggest that we use the more accepted plural millennia. We need to show hyphenated cases also, so that editors get guidance on the more complex cases. If the following amended text is adopted, I will raise no further objections, for the time being:
Centuries and millennia
  • Do not capitalize century or millennium.
  • Use either figures (9th century, 21st-century music, 3rd millennium) or words (ninth century, twenty-first-century music, third millennium) consistently throughout the article.
  • If figures are used, they should be used even at the start of a sentence, despite the guideline against this practice in general.
I may well want an RFC on this issue in future. This is important matter, and has not been analysed sufficiently. Nor does the proposal have wide support.
One last thing: please don't speak of "tomorrow afternoon", as if we all are in the same timezone. Such an assumption could reasonably be taken as insular, and a slight on many editors here – though I am confident that Roger did not intend it that way.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 09:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The general prohibition against using numerals at the beginning of a sentence is a uniform standard for all written English--you would be hard-pressed to find even a high-school newspaper that starts a sentence with numerals--whereas what you want to prohibit--using words for century numbers is the standard--is the standard in this case, though not nearly as uniform. The usage with quotations is well-defined everywhere, that a quotation retains its internal style, and the Manual of Style is irrelevant to that internal style. —Centrxtalk • 01:14, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Usage data

Publisher Country Usage
Sydney Morning Herald (Aus) Numerals
The Australian (Aus) Numerals
The Globe and Mail (CAN) Numerals
Times of India (IND) Numerals
Times (UK) Numerals
Guardian (UK) Numerals
Independent (UK) Numerals
New York Times (USA) Numerals
Washington Post (USA) Numerals
Oxford University Press (UK) Words
Cambridge University Press (UK) Words
Harvard University Press (US) Words
Yale University Press (US) Words
University of Chicago Press (US) Words
It seems that news publishers use numerals and academic publishers prefer words.
--ROGER DAVIES talk 11:30, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Newspapers tend to go for the option with least characters; they're usually against the serial comma too. Space saving shouldn't be a consideration for us, though; I always see centuries written in words in history books. qp10qp (talk) 15:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I assume that the reason academic publishers prefer words is because style guides like the Chicago Manual of Style instruct us to write out centuries in words. That is what I am familiar with. I would vote for words over numerals because forms such "18th-century novel" are harder to read than "eighteenth-century novel". Awadewit | talk 15:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's the opposite: The style guides reflect or codify what is already done in publications; the style guide is not simply created out of thin air after which authors follow it. —Centrxtalk • 22:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's both, really. Many publishing houses and academic journals also demand that authors follow already-established style guides. Awadewit | talk 22:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but the usage was not invented by the style guide. The format is commonly used and is recommended by the style guide because it is better. —Centrxtalk • 23:16, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is a personal view, and many feel the opposite. Words get very unwieldy when ranges are needed, or several centuries, or centuries and decades, are mentioned close together. But I think both should be allowed. Johnbod (talk) 17:40, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Both were allowed. —Centrxtalk • 22:03, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What we've got in Wikipedia

Results from googling on ""ninth century" -inurl:wiki-User -intitle:Talk -inurl:wiki-Wikipedia -inurl:wiki-WP -redirected-from site:en.wikipedia.org" and similar searches (ie Wikipediea article space, as far as can be done)

"9th century" - 39k
"ninth century" - 11k
"17th century" - 168k
"seventeenth century" - 32k

So the editors out there who are writing stuff, whether or not they read (or know about) WP:MOS, are predominantly choosing numbers, though about 20% use words. As long as we're consistent within any one article, that's fine by me. I would strongly resist any suggestion that we should be required to use words for centuries. PamD (talk) 16:24, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I still have no position, but looking at what is "out there" is a flawed analysis, since there's so much garbage out there. A similar analysis of featured articles would be more telling. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:35, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You may think it irrelevant, but I don't think my analysis is flawed. PamD (talk) 17:42, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PS Is there a way to Google FAs only? PamD (talk) 17:43, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at any element of MoS vis-a-vis what most Wiki articles have, you'll probably find same (that most articles out there don't comply with most of MoS and aren't even aware of it: there's a ton of junk "out there"). Looking at the 2 million articles, of which 1.5 are junk, is not instructive about good MoS guidelines. Good writing on Wiki isn't common (the current FA percentage is: 0.08479%). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What's important is not what is most common but what is the most sensible wording for the manual. I agree with Roger that the most sensible wording would give a choice. Consistency within individual articles is what really matters. qp10qp (talk) 17:53, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would not endorse surveying FAs because, for example, I have been using numerals recently since that is what is dictated by the MOS, even though that is not what I would personally choose to use or what I think is best. Hopefully all recent FAs would have numerals (they are supposed to adhere to the MOS). Even though I think that words are best, I do think that such minutiae are not worth the trouble of a large debate. Let's leave it up to editors. As Qp and Roger rightly point out, consistency within articles is what we are really aiming for. Awadewit | talk 19:13, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Let's take it out. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:57, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, FAs often get a post-FAC copyedit before appearing on the main page. While it depends on who does it, spelled-out centuries have been converted to numerals for quite a while, even when MOSDATE allowed either. Gimmetrow 00:39, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the advice to use numerals should remain. It's easier to read, simpler, more identifiable, and shorter. Roger, I have OUP's guide to house style issued to authors of scholastic texts, which demands numerals for 10 and above, no mention of centuries. That's what we gave them in the MS. 12:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talkcontribs)
  • As I remarked in the opening sentence Oxford prefers figures but uses words too, which was a simplification:
  • Shorter Oxford Dictionary: M18 = middle 18th century in SOED; 19c = 19th century.
  • Oxford Dictionary of English (2003): Uses figures (20th century and 20th cent.) in narrative but words (twentieth century) in style examples.
  • The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary (2004) uses words in narrative, ie twentieth century = 1901–2000; fifth century BC = 500–401 BC ....
  • The Australian Oxford Dictionary (2004) uses words, per NZOD.
  • The Oxford American Dictionary of Current English uses words, per NZOD.
  • The Oxford Companion to American Law (2002) uses words.
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs (2003) uses words.
  • The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar (1998) uses words.
  • The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English (1999) uses words.
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Idioms (2005 ed.) uses words.
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction (2007) uses words.
  • The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (2003 ed.) Words in headings, numerals in body.
  • The OUP catalogue uses words.
  • OUP titles use words.
--ROGER DAVIES talk 15:45, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Roger, first of all: where do you want the general discussion of the proposed change to continue? Here, or before "Usage data"? As the originator of this thread, you would be justified in collecting expressions for or against in one place.
Now, I do not think we have a consensus yet. Myself, I firmly believe that the best policy to adopt (if it were practicable) is figures only. They have strong de facto majority support at WP; a clear guideline has been in place for them for months (at least), and editors have followed that guideline. If we look for comparable environments, we should look to Britannica Online. Have a look at a random example, which shows this heading: Russia[:] The 19th century, and this text also: ...no great Russian painters emerged in the 18th and early 19th centuries.. This is clear and definite; it fits well on a heavily populated screen; it looks quite natural in a web environment, and is accepted by readers as standard presentation.
Our guideline needs to be chosen with care and with wider consultation (an RFC, perhaps?); and it needs to fit well with other guidelines currently in place. For example, we have this text, right now:

Numbers that begin a sentence are spelled out as words; alternatively, the sentence can be recast so that the number does not the begin the sentence.

That is independently problematic, and needs separate discussion. For now, just note that it clashes with both of the proposed guidelines for centuries. In an article that names them with figures, there is a conflict of guidelines:

...by the old masters. 19th-century painters, however, and French painters of the early 20th century,...

The best solution is just that, I think: don't be constrained either to re-fashion the sentence or to resort to words, or a gruesome mixture of figures and words. Britannica, in fact, follows the words-to-begin-a -sentence rule, and would have this:

...by the old masters. Nineteenth-century painters, however, and French painters of the early 20th century,...

That is not good to emulate. It makes searching awkward, since you have to search on both 19th century and nineteenth century to be sure of catching everything you want. (Hyphens are ignored in some sorts of searching, mercifully.) That applies to us too, by the way: two searches for every century, as things stand and as they will stand if we have both styles in future.
Let's broaden the discussion to take into account those other guidelines, and to include more editors. These things have never been represented well in MOS; let's do it properly now.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 23:02, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[Amended– Noetica♬♩Talk 08:21, 26 February 2008 (UTC)][reply]
If "searching" were a prime consideration on Wikipedia, we'd be using English spellings, without diacritics, as much as possible, and we most certainly wouldn't be using macrons on letters and several other uncommon letters. Try to find the Wikipedia article which mentions Ichijodani and chess; you ought to be able to do so, but only because it has been mentioned on talk pages before. Gene Nygaard (talk) 09:27, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore, having to consider a mere two known alternatives does not make a difficult search in any case. As I pointed out above, the situation is different when the alternatives are not known. Gene Nygaard (talk) 09:47, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Whether or not searching is a prime concern, it is obviously a concern, to add to the heady mix of concerns we already have. Surely people use encyclopedias to search for information – in ways that we cannot predict. Whatever the story is with diacritics (and there is a important story to sort through there too), centuries are ubiquitous in our articles.
Suppose someone Google's Wikipedia looking for material on 7th-century Spain. A simple example. Here are the results with two search strings:

site:http://en.wikipedia.org "seventh-century Spain"

One hit, in Ildephonsus of Toledo.

site:http://en.wikipedia.org "7th-century Spain"

One hit, in Filioque clause.

The topics at the two hits are quite different, and a link would not be found from one to the other.
Imagine how you would go searching for everything in a more general domain, for the 18th century. This is bad enough when you don't know what standard the site uses, but it's paradoxically worse if the site has consistency within any given article. If only 18th century occurred on some articles, and only eighteenth century in others, two single standard Google searches on these terms respectively would find all of one set, or all of the other set, with no hits in common. Often that might be useful; very often it would be utterly misleading.
Gene, you write that "having to consider a mere two known alternatives does not make a difficult search". But such cases as I present here are simplifications. People do all sorts of searches, with many terms. Some are well-chosen terms, some are not. Even with sophisticated searching, if the practice at a site is not known or not consistent, several terms in a search would have to be doubled. With three such doublings, you multiply either the number of searches or the complexity by eight!
And remember: Google's limit for the search terms is ten words.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 10:35, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And rather than arguing for unnecessary instruction creep, and the minor difficulties of having to search for "petrol/gasoline" or "aluminum/aluminium" or "19th century/nineteenth century" and minor things like that, you'd be better off putting your time to productive use by going through Wikipedia and changing, for example, these Google results:
  • Spain "VII. century" site:en.wikipedia.org [13][5 hits (three of them articles), note that in my search Spain is outside the exact phrase]
  • Spain "7th cent" site:en.wikipedia.org [14] [9 hits, three of them articles]
  • "7. century" site:en.wikipedia.org ["7. century" site:en.wikipedia.org] [12 hits, three of which are with the 7th century meaning and in articles]
Gene Nygaard (talk) 14:17, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I respond in detail to what you say, and you suggest that I'm wasting my time? My call for a simple uniform guideline that anyone can follow is denigrated as "instruction creep"? Remember that for months we have already had the very guideline in question.
Once again, I find that I am wasting my time answering you. Go away and think about that. Meanwhile, others will read the content and make less partial judgements.
The fact that we have all manner of anomalies in our articles does not argue against clear and decisive guidelines at MOS; it weighs in favour of them, since only such lean, sparse, and well-founded guidelines are respected, and therefore yield greater uniformity. The present mess is not respected.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 21:48, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[Amended][reply]
The present mess is not respected, largely because it is overprescriptive.
Furthermore, it is not worthy of respect as long as Wikipedia:Manual of Style continues to deliberately flout, through the efforts of editors of the ilk of User:Noetica in this edit, the universal rule that symbols for units of measure are never italicized. This is most definitely not a case where different parts of the MoS are in conflict. It is the rule common to
  1. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Do not use italics for
  2. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)#Font formatting
  3. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Unit symbols and abbreviations
You don't respect the MoS. Why do you expect others to do so? Gene Nygaard (talk) 23:29, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wild and unsubstantiated accusations. I suggested that you go away and think; it's a real pity that you didn't. That matter of not italicising symbols for units was one that you struggled with big-time, Gene. You relentlessly misunderstood the points that several experienced editors made in an attempt to enlighten you. Your raising it here, in a section on another topic entirely, is a desperate act that I refuse to be drawn by. I simply point out that the record shows just how wrong you were, and (much worse!) remain.
I am not arguing for more guidelines, but for rationality, clarity, and consensus.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 00:00, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, you most clearly are not. That is abundantly evident on your insistence on retaining rules which have no consensus, when you have admitted above "I prefer naming with figures, myself: but we are not going to get agreement on that, obviously".
So you do not seek clarity either in trying to get rules you personally disagree with changed (you have made no attempt to change the explicit rules of any one of those three MoS pages, but rather choose to just deliberately flout those rules, and you insist on keeping rules you want even when you admit you do not have consensus for them. Gene Nygaard (talk) 00:22, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For your proposed style to significantly improve search efficiency, (1) readers would have to be aware of our style choice in this matter and (2) the MoS rule would need to be applied consistently throughout the large majority of Wikipedia. I don't see a reason to believe that either will be the case in the near future. As it happens I believe that it is best to allow editors either option; a mandate in either direction would be a no-value-added rule. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:25, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For those who care about what we actually have on Wikipedia:

site:en.wikipedia.org
Google hits
"V. century" 15
"VI. century" 22
"VII. century" 18
"VIII. century" 23
"IX. century" 37
"X. century" 47
"XI. century" 59
"XII. century" 62
"XIII. century" 92
"XIV. century" 132
"XV. century" 156
"XVI. century" 242
"XVII. century" 197
"XVIII. century" 218
"XIX. century" 438
"XX. century" 366
"XXI. century" 77

Gene Nygaard (talk) 00:38, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What is the point of all that, except to show that Wikipedia is less uniform, less useful, less searchable, less readable, and less respectable as a serious encyclopedia than we want it to be? Clear, simple, sparse, memorable guidelines can help remedy that.
My recent edit that you point to is one that undoes removal of an existing guideline. Here is my edit summary:

Reverted to the guideline that's been in place for six months at least; please do not remove that guideline until we have consensus for change; applied dispute tag; please all: support this & discuss!

Can we set personal difficulties aside, please? Let's discuss, towards a rational and durable consensus.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 00:49, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The point is, what we really have consensus for is that centuries should be written either in Arabic numerals or in English words, either of which written with appropriate English-language ordinal indicators (-th and the like, not dots or masculine or feminine ordinals or whatever). Possibly also that "century" is generally lowercase and not abbreviated. And, as already specified in a more general sense elsewhere in the MoS, that the ordinal "th" and "st" and the like are not superscripted.
What we do not have consensus for, as you yourself have admitted, is that wording which you keep edit-warring to keep in the MoS.
The MoS should be changed to reflect what we currently have consensus for. Then you can argue for further refinement and appropriate tweaking from that starting point, rather than having to do so from a starting point not supported by consensus. 69.57.89.171 (talk) 13:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)Gene Nygaard (talk) 13:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That was me; forgot the most important thing: I'm suggesting that we can claim consensus not to have them in Roman numerals. This is a significant problem on Wikipedia because that format is common in several other languages, and many of the English Wikipedia articles are originally imported from other Wikipedias. In other cases, it is just added by editors familiar with that usage which is more common in languages other than English. In case my mere showing that this usage is common on English Wikipedia didn't suggest to you the obvious reason why this is the case, and why it might be helpful to specifically address it.Gene Nygaard (talk) 13:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know where you got the idea that there's no consensus for the current wording ... Tony (talk) 14:16, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Must be because you think your opinion is the only one that counts. Gene Nygaard (talk) 15:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is
  1. Me
  2. User:Roger Davies (obvious from proposal here)
  3. User:Qp10qp "Space saving shouldn't be a consideration for us, though; I always see centuries written in words in history books." and "I agree with Roger that the most sensible wording would give a choice."
  4. User:Awadewit: "Let's leave it up to editors."
  5. User:Centrx: "Spelled-out centuries is the standard for all literature, and no where else does the Manual of Style prohibit the professional standard." and more
    • Centrx also claims that the current wording was added without consensus: "In August 2007, the change was added without discussion under a false premise in the edit summary,[15]."
  6. User:PamD: "As long as we're consistent within any one article, that's fine by me"
  7. User:Johnbod: "But I think both should be allowed."
  8. User:Pmanderson/Septrionalis: "I agree. Let's take it out."
  9. and even User:Noetica concedes lack of consensus: "I prefer naming with figures, myself: but we are not going to get agreement on that, obviously"
My apologies to anybody I overlooked, and especially if I misinterpreted anyone's comments or if I have overlooked any changes in opinion by these users after the comments I have quoted. The latest I can find from User:SandyGeorgia is "I still have no position" and from User:Gerry Ashton: "I have no position one way or the other,"
Is there anybody other than you, User:Tony1, and Neotica (who admits lack of consensus, but doesn't act accordingly), arguing in favor of the current wording? Maybe User:Gimmetrow, with a brief comment here?
There is one thing that is abundantly clear in this discussion. Lack of consensus for the current wording is patently obvious, to anyone who doesn't concur with your view that Tony1 is the only one whose opinion counts. Eight people clearly opposed is a landslide against the current wording in the context of MoS discussions (even if it were not also a much larger number than those supporting it). Rarely do we get that many people chiming in on an issue. Gene Nygaard (talk) 17:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Nygaard, I treat your entries with contempt, since you are continually abusive towards me. Try to be just a little like an adult, by not indulging yourself in these personal comments. Tony (talk) 08:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is not an unequivocal show of support for the current proposal to change the guideline. The list above takes selected remarks only, and does not show that anyone other than Roger is supporting the proposed change as it is worded. Some of those selected remarks can easily be construed against elements of the proposed change. Let me remind people of the exact wording:
Heading: Centuries and millenniums
  • Do not capitalize century or millennium.
  • Use either figures (9th century, 3rd millennium) or words (ninth century, third millennium) consistently throughout the article.
  • Avoid opening sentences with centuries or millenniums expressed in figures.
Given that editors are not endorsing the proposal explicitly, but voicing particular opinions, we should note this: Not one editor has commented on, let alone endorsed, the third of these provisions. Except me. Twice, with suggested amendments. There is therefore nothing resembling consensus for that provision.
Until those changes I suggest are addressed, and until a particular wording does have wide endorsement, there is no consensus. Here, once more, is the wording that I would not argue against:
Centuries and millennia
  • Do not capitalize century or millennium.
  • Use either figures (9th century, 21st-century music, 3rd millennium) or words (ninth century, twenty-first-century music, third millennium) consistently throughout the article.
  • If figures are used, they should be used even at the start of a sentence, despite the guideline against this practice in general.
(See my reasons above, before the heading Usage data.) I could cogently argue that voices in support of consistency in an article conjoined with freedom to choose figures or words are voices in favour of this amended suggestion. There are no voices in favour of Roger's exact wording
Can we now address these suggested alterations? Without such focused discussion, this has been a mere amorphous mass of assertions, and no consensus can properly be claimed for any guideline here at all.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 20:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • If there were no consensus on any guideline, then we should not have any, including the present text.
  • There does appear to be consensus on being consistent within an article.
  • If we have any broader guideline, I see no reason to encourage figures at the beginning of sentences here; it is better advice to recast. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:20, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Focus, PMA. There is no consensus for consistency in an article, even. The third provision, which I have suggested we revise, contradicts the second provision at least implicitly. It may be invoked to allow for words at the start of a sentence, where figures are used everywhere else in the article. Is that consistency in an article? How about sentence fragments, by the way? May they start with figures? In which contexts? In running text? In captions? In headings? I was going to raise that next, when we had clarity concerning sentences. But we never seem to get that clarity.
Don't pretend these matters are simple. They exercise the best minds in editing, and established style guides have difficulty with them.
As for the imposition that we recast sentences, you do not address my objection to that.
Focus. Attend to the details, because this is an important matter involving very many articles. If we don't work through it thoroughly, we fail to guide editors, and we fail to improve articles. We also fail to make a guidleline is stable.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 22:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The requirement for consistency within articles is repeated throughout the Manual of Style. You should at least read the introduction; consistency within articles is an overarching principle. —Centrxtalk • 04:23, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, this page has a perfectly simple task before it:
  • I see no case that articles need to use the same rule. Articles do differ; and "Tolkien called Lewis' suggestion horrid eighteenth-century versification" may reasonably be put differently from "In the early 18th century, the finances of China were..."
  • There is no consensus on what the rule should be if we were to impose one. I think consistency would be a good thing, within the bounds of reason, but Noetica disputes even that.
  • Therefore we should not make a rule. The complexities of the matter should, rightly, be dealt with on individual articles, article by article.
    • We could usefully say something about the advantages of figures and the advantages of spelling out; but there seems to be little hope that this page will actually serve mere editors.
Therefore the logical conclusion would be to say nothing whatever, and to mark the passage disputed until we remove it. I will now do the latterIt has already been marked; how much objection is there to the removal? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again, uniformity is irrelevant to this discussion. We can easily decide to uniformly use words for century numbers and enforce it through a bot--but we would not do that because there would apparently be substantial opposition to enforcing either usage. —Centrxtalk • 01:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I respond here to Centrx's remarks. Centrx, you wrote (way above):

The general prohibition against using numerals at the beginning of a sentence is a uniform standard for all written English--you would be hard-pressed to find even a high-school newspaper that starts a sentence with numerals--whereas what you want to prohibit--using words for century numbers is the standard--is the standard in this case, though not nearly as uniform. The usage with quotations is well-defined everywhere, that a quotation retains its internal style, and the Manual of Style is irrelevant to that internal style.

It is widespread, yes. But it is not universal by any means. Frequently people don't notice exceptions, but believe that practice is uniform and conforms to expectations. Frequently style guides are vague or mixed on these matters; some allow that usage in technical contexts and online is different from general usage. Excerpts from two major style guides (emphasis added):

New Hart's Rules (11.1.2): ... On the Internet different rules may apply: figures tend to be used more than words. / ... / It is customary, though not obligatory, to use words for numbers that fall at the beginnings of sentences: ... In such contexts, to avoid spelling out cumbersome numbers, recast the sentence. [No special ruling for centuries at the start of sentences.]

M–W Manual for Writer's and Editors (p. 98): Year numbers are written as figures. If a year number begins a sentence, it may be left as a figure but more often is spelled out ... [No special ruling in the case of centuries.]

As for usage in quotations, I don't know why you mention it here, Centrx. But in fact it is not as clear as MOS-editors assume, by any means. Both New Hart's and CMOS call for typographic changes and various "fixes" in quoted material. The matter is ill understood here, and needs to be addressed separately.
Later you write, Centrx:

Again, uniformity is irrelevant to this discussion.

Please explain why you keep saying that!
PMA, you write: "I think consistency would be a good thing, within the bounds of reason, but Noetica disputes even that." Please explain why you say that. Where do I say or suggest that consistency is not a good thing? I continually call for uniformity and consistency. Read again, and respond. It is not reasonable to attribute such things to me without evidence.
Once more, I point out that the proposal before us (and which I alone appear to be addressing!) is itself inconsistent. That is why I suggest amendments, which also no one has addressed.
Please focus on specifics. What is your concrete proposal for this guideline, people? Is it Roger's? My proposed modification of Roger's (as a compromise, moving away from my preference for figures only)? No guideline (PMA's suggestion)?
And what about sentence fragments, in running text, captions, and headings?
Focus!
– Noetica♬♩Talk 04:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Centrx's recent remark (see way above):

The requirement for consistency within articles is repeated throughout the Manual of Style. You should at least read the introduction; consistency within articles is an overarching principle.

That seems to be addressed to me; but I don't know why! Both Roger's proposal and my suggested re-working of it share the wording concerning consistency. In any case, editors in general (as opposed to us MOS-editors) may well not read the general guidelines near the beginning, and often consult MOS quickly for an opinion on an isolated matter. So some redundancy is good.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 04:38, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disallowing numerals at the start of sentences is far more standard than disallowing words for numerals. A rule analogous to the rule you keep inserting would be requiring only numerals at the beginning of sentences.
  • If some stylists advocate the alteration of quotations, the fact remains that the Manual of Style does not. Regardless, you are not repeatedly replacing a rule to preserve quotations, you are repeatedly replacing a rule to prohibit numerals, a rule without any reference to quotations. You are free to add a separate line noting that the style in a quotation be preserved, but it is unnecessary.
  • Uniformity is not a reason by which either style would be better. Uniformity can be instituted on Wikipedia by the use of an automated software robot that replaces all instances of "9th century" with "ninth century". So, the guideline can be decided on the merits of each style itself, or in default as it has always been that both styles are acceptable, as there is no consensus to require one and prohibit the other.
  • My concrete proposal is simply to delete any prohibition on the use of words to represent centuries, which exceeds the pre-existing rule for numbers in general. Such a rule contradicts the standard literary style; it contradicts the long-standing specific wording in the Manual of Style; and it contradicts the style guide's general principle that the style guide is not a hammer with which to enforce one acceptable style over another acceptable style. A wiki is not conducive to plenary legislation. Any such legislation would be ignored, such that the MoS would be a lie, or it would produce conflict, which it has in the past. The side issues about quotations are side issues and are irrelevant the replacement of the prohibition on spelled-out numbers with centuries. —Centrxtalk • 05:00, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Centrx, I still don't know why you are talking about quotations in the present discussion. Where does that matter come up, in connection with naming centuries?
You write:

If some stylists advocate the alteration of quotations, the fact remains that the Manual of Style does not. Regardless, you are not repeatedly replacing a rule to preserve quotations, you are repeatedly replacing a rule to prohibit numerals, a rule without any reference to quotations. You are free to add a separate line noting that the style in a quotation be preserved, but it is unnecessary.

I'm sorry: I don't understand what you're driving at. Where am I "repeatedly replacing a rule to prohibit numerals"? And what have quotations got to do with this?
You write:

A rule analogous to the rule you keep inserting would be requiring only numerals at the beginning of sentences.

What? Excuse me: the only guideline that imposes on editors a rule about what may occur at the start of sentence is one that entirely prohibits numbers at the start. I do not prohibit words; nor do I prohibit numbers, in certain cases.
For the rest, you appear not to have registered the fact that I have repeatedly laid out here: that I am willing to compromise! I have laid out a definite proposal, based on Roger's. Could you please now focus on Roger's proposal, and on my suggested alterations? Alternatively, don't describe your own proposal: make it, in concrete terms.
Meanwhile, the other major encyclopedia online, Britannica, uses figures – and it actually conforms to Roger's guideline, but without the re-structuring of sentences; it uses words at the start of sentences and sentence fragments. No one has taken up this point! Why do I make points, if they are not noticed or addressed? What about those sentence fragments, hmmm?
You say there was no consensus for the existing wording. Yet it stood and was respected and consulted for at least six months. Why do I have to repeat that?
Finally, who is suggesting that MOS be used as a "hammer"? Not me! The question of the standing of MOS is a separate one, and beyond discussion of particular guidelines. And anyway: how does a prohibition on figures at the start of sentences not "hammer" editors, as you put it?
Work on clearing up your confusion, Centrx. It isn't helping. Focus on concrete details, backed up by the sort of direct appeal to practice and sources that I have been able to adduce.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 05:37, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Work on clearing up your own confusion. In particular: this edit, by Noetica, is the first and only post in this discussion to claim any objection to consistency whatsoever - by claiming that consistency is not consensus. If Noetica does not object to consistency, this is false; if xe does, then the statement above, that xe does not, is false. Enough of this; let Noetica make up xer mind. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:13, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Impotent hand-waving, PMA. I did not object to consistency. I fervently wish there were a consensual commitment to consistency, within and even beyond articles. Isn't that clear, from all that I have said? Where you point to, I wrote this (with emphasis now added):

Focus, PMA. There is no consensus for consistency in an article, even. The third provision, which I have suggested we revise, contradicts the second provision at least implicitly. It may be invoked to allow for words at the start of a sentence, where figures are used everywhere else in the article. Is that consistency in an article?

I regret that the suggestion from Roger is both inconsistent itself, and recommends inconsistency in articles! If you were paying due attention, you would see that my suggested amendments counter inconsistency in articles. I want there to be consistency in articles, as I continually say, without ever contradicting myself. Of the proposals mooted so far, mine is the only one that provides for such consistency.
The only seeming exception to this in my opinions conforms with those major style guides of which I have cited chapter and verse. They see that, in some contexts, figures are allowable at the start of a sentence. We do not acknowledge that, so far; we are not so flexible, so far. We, so far, have guidelines that "hammer" our editors with a simplistic rule.
Strange, that people should appeal to a "universal practice", when they have not studied these things and cannot support their assertions with facts or sources. We would do well to allow figures at the start of a sentence, in many circumstances. I have never written in support of the guideline that forbids that.
A pity you did not heed my suggestion that you focus, PMA. You might then have understood what is plainly before your eyes.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 06:39, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Where am I "repeatedly replacing a rule to prohibit numerals"?": [16], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23], [24]. If you really have this bad of a memory, you shouldn't be editing at all; and don't patronize everyone about "focus" when your own long-winded statements are the most dissipate and confused out of everyone's. —Centrxtalk • 03:07, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Centrx, I am at a loss to see you are trying to say. First you went on about quotations: but the current section has nothing to do with quotations. I have not said anything about them in this section, nor edited the guideline concerning centuries with anything relevant to quotations. I asked you to explain, above; but you did not.
Now what's this latest ramble all about? What's this "rule to prohibit numerals", which you claim I was "repeatedly replacing"? Do you understand what replacing means? Do you understand what numerals means? If your vocabulary is really that deficient, perhaps you should not be editing at all.
What I did was restore a guideline that you continually removed, that had been in place for months, and that was under discussion. No guideline that I ever put in place "prohibits numerals"; nor any guideline that I removed. What could you possibly be saying?
I should remind you, yet again, that I am the only editor to have focused on Roger's specific suggestion. I took it seriously, critiqued it, made suggestions to improve it (not just concerning figures at the start of sentences), and compromised (another word for you to look up, perhaps) away from my own favoured position. I proceeded with clear reasons, citing evidence from the most respected sources – sources flatly contradicting what you had said, and to which you gave no adequate answer.
Where is your readiness to compromise, Centrx? Where is your lucid and concrete contribution, backed up with citations?
Did you perhaps wonder why I write at length, and repeat myself? Whenever an editor does not understand plain statements the first time, nor answer questions the first time, I repeat and elaborate. If you don't address the topic to hand, nor the proposal to hand, I call you back to it. And if you attack me, of course I defend myself. That is ridiculously easy to do, with such inept attempts; but it may require many words.
Now will you focus on Roger's proposal, and all of my suggested alterations to it? That's what we're here for, in this section.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 07:08, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Quite obviously, I miswrote "numerals" for "words". Where is your intelligence and sanity? —Centrxtalk • 17:12, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
O, now I understand! You have several times mixed up your words, so that no one could make sense of them. I quoted them back to you, for you to clarify. At last you reveal that you have "quite obviously" made an elementary error, writing numerals where you meant words (every time!). And this is somehow my fault? My intelligence and sanity are to be questioned?
I'll let others make a judgement on whose intelligence and sanity are brought into question by that little episode, if anyone's.
It was mysterious what you think the word replace means. You say I was "repeatedly replacing a rule to prohibit [words]". But replacing is ambiguous. I was not substituting something for a guideline against naming centuries with words; I was restoring it (when it had been in place for six months at least, and you had removed it). Please in future formulate your sentences more carefully, and don't leave it to others to wrestle sense out of what you write. If you must do so, don't impugn the intelligence of those with demonstrated superiority in that department, who must come to your aid.
Obviously there is no sense at all to be squeezed out of your remarks about quotations, which explains why you do not answer my questions about them.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 21:53, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, that is the only instance where I used "numerals" but meant "words". Also, there is only one text that you have been repeatedly replacing and only one prohibition we have been discussion, so even a sentence like "you have been repeatedly replacing the prohibition on bananas" in the context of this discussion is understandable by the substitution of one word; and the content of the diffs is unequivocally obvious.
  • Replace: "1. trans. To restore to a previous place or position; to put back again in (or {dag}into) a place." Also, "restore" carries some implication that the text restored had been lost to some detriment rather than merely removed, so my use of that word would not have been as accurate.
Centrxtalk • 03:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Pretty desperate, Centrx. First, forms of the word replace, including replacement, occur a dozen times in exchanges between you and me above, before you finally say what you had in mind. You repeat your original uses, and I repeat them back to you, asking what you mean. Sometimes you use replace with its object being a thing restored (replace X = restore X) , and sometimes a thing usurped (replace X with Y: you write "replaces all instances of '9th century' with 'ninth century' "). Since your usage is inconsistent, and the object you explicitly give is numerals instead of words (wrongly and repeatedly: about eight times in your statements and my querying of them), your meaning was utterly unclear. Of course I am aware of the less common dictionary meaning that you reproduce above (without citation); I pointed out that the word was ambiguous, not that it had only the other much more common meaning. I, eventually, diagnosed that problem with your wayward and inconsistent use of replace, not you. (See my last posting, above. It's undeniable: "But replacing is ambiguous.")
Will you please take some responsibility? And while you're at it, will you please learn to count? Better though, will you stop this time-wasting, and address the original topic of this section, which has been raised freshly in a new subsection below, for better or for worse?
– Noetica♬♩Talk 06:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have now read through this interminable discussion, including this latest post.

  • I see only one reason presented for having consistency between articles at all: use of "7th century" and so on as a search term.
    • This seems an insufficient good to justify a universal rule against all local considerations of euphony and space. "7th century" is a lousy search term; it's too common, and the same content will too often be expressed by "In the next century", "in the Dark Ages", "under the Tang Dynasty".
  • Roger's original proposal seems reasonable, although there may be reasons for inconsistency within an article: Table headers may require figures, and "in the 18th century" and "eighteenth-century prose" may be natural in different paragraphs. If I thought that this page would be treated as a guideline, and with common sense, this would not be serious.
    • If there were consensus for it, I would join, but there is not.
  • All Noetica's "compromises" seem to have these same defects in more acute forms.

Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:04, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PMA, there is no genuine discussion here any more, interminable or otherwise. There is a fragmented nest of confusions, breeding ever more confusions.
The fact you can't see reasons does not mean they are absent. You have not addressed the detail of Roger's proposal, in all of its parts; only I have done that. We need analysis, but analysis is impossible unless we agree to focus on concrete detail, in a disciplined way. As I point out below, in a section you started and which fragments things even further, I have indeed offered a compromise. You scare-quote it ("compromise") as if it were not a genuine compromise; but you give no evidence against its being a perfectly workable solution. It is simple; it yields perfect consistency within any article that respects it; it is not radically against any established guideline in style guides (as I have shown, with no response in discussion here), and already we have precedent for exceptions to our draconian edict that figures should not appear at the start of a sentence.
We need to look at this in a new disussion, because this one has failed. Call an RFC, I say. Later, when things have calmed down. The issue is too important to bumble through like this.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 22:09, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

All personal attacks aside...

I don’t know why MOS-related discussions seem to so often quickly degenerate into personal attacks, but it’s a shame. If we can re-don our coats of respectfulness and cordiality over an issue that is far from the most pressing of the world’s – or Wikipedia’s – problems, then perhaps an RfC is unnecessary and we can once more rationally discuss Roger Davies’ fair-minded and well-intentioned proposal. For the benefit of those who may have forgotten, his suggested replacement text is

Heading: Centuries and millenniums
  • Do not capitalize century or millennium.
  • Use either figures (9th century, 3rd millennium) or words (ninth century, third millennium) consistently throughout the article.
  • Avoid opening sentences with centuries or millenniums expressed in figures.

For my part, I generally support this phrasing: it is consistent with the consensus extant before the inadvertent change; it is consistent with an enduring modus vivendi native to Wikipedia to permit variation between articles but consistency within an article, and the third bullet is consistent with the most common general usage. The one change I would recommend is to clarification of whether the second bullet’s “consistently throughout the article” also applies to article titles and section headers.

We can play the “Yes, but this style guide says …” game all day long, but why bother? There’s no general agreement among the leading guides, anyway. There are only two circumstances for which I can see where it might be preferable to force acceptance of one style over another. One would be for category names since a shorthand form is more utilitarian – but that’s not a MOS issue. The other might be for article names. No, not for searching – since redirects for the other stylings should make the issue moot – but rather for sorting, since “18th” and “Eighteenth” go to very different places. Askari Mark (Talk) 23:33, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You really want to pursue this now, and not wait till things cool down, when we can have a fresh discussion with wider participation? If so, here is my suggested amendment of the original proposal, once again. It is a compromise, since the removed guideline (not an inadvertent guideline, in fact) called for figures only, while this version allows both, but with complete consistency in any article:
Centuries and millennia
  • Do not capitalize century or millennium.
  • Use either figures (9th century, 21st-century music, 3rd millennium) or words (ninth century, twenty-first-century music, third millennium) consistently throughout the article.
  • If figures are used, they should be used even at the start of a sentence, despite the guideline against this practice in general.
Some notes on the suggested changes:
  • 1. Millennia is much closer to being standard usage than millenniums is.
  • 2. The examples should show hyphenated cases, since these are quite common and should be done in the way that is universally accepted. Twenty-first-century music is especially good to include, because it is especially subject to uncertainty. Editors might appreciate guidance with it.
  • 3. The only cases that are at all likely to turn up at the start of a sentence are hyphenated ones. (Try to make a sentence with an unhyphenated one: it's quite hard.) The numbers are therefore attached with a hyphen to what follows. They are also very simple ordinal numbers: they will nearly always range from 1st to 21st (for CE centuries, anyway). Let's not follow blindly what we mistakenly take as "universal principles". The rationale for prohibiting figures at the start of a sentence was always a matter of possible confusions arising from the role of the full stop, and the like. (In fact, this is more of a problem with figures at the end of a sentence, for obvious reasons. But rarely is the end mentioned in these MOS discussions.) There is no risk at all of such confusion with 20th-century art at the start of a sentence. If you think there is, say how it could arise. Rather, inconsistency leads to difficulties in scanning a sentence: "Nineteenth- and 20th-century art...". Do we really want that? Must we be compelled to recast such a sentence in order to avoid such an atrocity? Why? I have cited style guides that are more permissive, for the sake of readability. We ourselves make exceptions in our guidelines, allowing figures at the start of sentences. Naming centuries should be such a case, allowing editors the freedom to write in a natural style, while at the same time keeping an article perfectly consistent.
Askari Mark, you say that there is an issue with headings. I agree. They are sentence fragments; so are many captions. These should all be discussed too, as I (alone!) sought to discuss above. But setting them aside just for the moment may be preferable.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 00:57, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Twenty-first-century music is a bad idea; we should not enforce it on those who do not like it. Fowler's twenty=first-century would be better advice for those who must hyphenate in both places.
  • But that is my own view. This page should permit either, or twenty-first century, and let usage reach its own level.
    • If indeed one is found to prevail throughout Wikipedia (through, of course, the independent decisions of editors, not the meddling of some bot), well and good. We have consensus of the encyclopedia as a whole, which will enforce itself; we can note it here for convenience, or not; it won't matter.
    • If none does, as is likely, so be it. We are large; we contain multitudes.
  • I still hold, as I did eight hours ago, that there are obvious reasons why absolute consistency may not be desirable in every article. Where such reasons do not exist, it should be encouraged; but we should do that with a general be consistent clause, not repeat it twenty times.
  • If only one editor discusses something in exhaustive detail, humility might suggest that the detail doesn't matter to anyone else, which might in turn suggest that there is no consensus for a rule about it. This page does not have to, and should not, rule on everything; it contains too much already. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Focus, PMA. And take care to write accurately. What is twenty=first-century, I wonder? However that is worked out, the case is more complex than any other, and has to be confronted. Many style guides make the mistake of showing examples only for simple cases. That is a refusal to give guidance where it is most needed.
I propose an amendment that effortlessly allows for perfect consistency in any article, and freedom to write natural sentences. The fact that we need not always aspire to perfect consistency does not count against the version I offer! It just so happens that we can achieve perfect consistency, this time.
Address the reasons I give in tightly argued detail, or we'll descend into the same time-wasting futility yet again.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 01:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly shall not use the "imperative voice", if only because there is no such thing. The imperative is a mood, not a voice. A pity that you perennially want to discuss WP:CREEP, when the compromise suggestion I offer is among the simplest and most permissive we could formulate. It has the bonus of permitting complete consistency with the use of figures or words in an article. No other suggestion does that. Why is it not "instruction creep" to prohibit naming centuries with figures at the start of a sentence? Look (for once) at the reasons I bring to the table, for my eminently rational suggestion to allow such a perfectly natural practice.
Will you now focus, PMA?
– Noetica♬♩Talk 02:35, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Poor example of subset terms

Section "# 14.5 Avoid contested vocabulary" presents this rule for "subset terms": "Do not use two subset terms ('Among the most well-known members of the fraternity include ...')." This is a poor example on several counts. First, it's an imperative sentence, which isn't necessary to demonstrate the principle; a simple declaratory sentence would suffice and is more appropriate for an encyclopedia. Second, it should have a comma after "fraternity." Third, and crucially important, it's a case which actually contradicts the rule, because continuing the sentence logically would lead to something like this: "Among the most well-known members of the fraternity, include Albert Einstein." Note that two "subset terms" appear in the sentence, and quite properly. Unfree (talk) 19:25, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unfree, I also dislike that example. But I think you misread it. That it can be misread adds another reason for concern.
If it is taken as an imperative it is grammatically and stylistically fine, except perhaps for the comma you mention. But I think it was intended as an ungrammatical splicing of these two:

Among the most well-known members of the fraternity are...

The most well-known members of the fraternity include...

If the editor responsible intended this, it is not very apt. People do speak like that on the hop, but it is an unlikely error in moderately literate written text. I think we could simply leave it out, since the point is made well enough without it.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 22:39, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Experience leads me to suspect that
    • This was a real example.
    • In the original, include was declarative, and therefore simply wrong.
It is easy to underestimate the diversity of our editors; this includes overestimating their lower bound. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:50, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Unfree, I think your take is wrong on all counts. WRT the comma, you may be confusing expressions such as "... She bought two suits, including one of wool." Now, what is so hard about the notion of doubling up subset items in this example? We could have "The most well-known members of the fraternity include Albert Einstein" (note no comma, in any case); or "Among the most well-known members of the fraternity was Albert Einstein." Tony (talk) 12:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I won't comment more on the comma, since it is hardly relevant. But the example is not good, even if it occurred naturally and is to be taken as non-imperative. The intended parsing is unclear, so the example is not helpful.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 08:27, 26 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Years and commas

See this article: Mark Victor Hansen.

There's a list of things that happened. Should the years be followed by a comma, like this?

  • In 2005, he co-wrote,
  • In 2004, Hansen was
  • In 2002, The University
  • In 2000, The
  1. Or not, like this?
  • In 2005 he co-wrote,
  • In 2004 Hansen was
  • In 2002 The University
  • In 2000 The
  1. There's quite a lot of cleanup needed on that article anyway. Dan Beale-Cocks 21:18, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I would use the comma, although I believe omitting it to be defensible; but repeating the same construction in this manner is bad (because monotonous) writing, comma or no comma. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:44, 24 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. I agree with PMA, but add that the more formal the register and the longer the sentence, the more likely such a comma is appropriate. WP scores well on both accounts. Tony (talk) 08:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  4. I think people here forget that comma is supposed to represent something; am I the only one who makes this slight pause after saying "in 1989"? Waltham, The Duke of 13:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I do pause, and would use the comma myself, but its importance varies with the length of the phrase being divided off. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:40, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Referencing style

I know its not here, but the guideline on use of Harvard system for referencing also kind of falls within style because of external links. It seems that editors are unaware that the Harvard system recommended for use in Wikipedia (and other similar systems like Chicago), also applies to the referencing of online sources.--mrg3105 (comms) ♠07:35, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Calendars

Should calendars be drawn using Sunday or Monday as the first day? There are templates that do it one way or the other and it seems reasonable that there should be a standard. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 17:46, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's certainly no standard in the real world - I make a conscious choice between two leading brands of looseleaf diary pages because one starts the week on Sunday, one on Monday! Are there that many calendars in WP, enough to make consistency matter? PamD (talk) 18:50, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The issue comes up in the effort to consolidate templates. There is a template that I want to use to update the calendars that are on the date articles, but the current template has Monday first. I want to change it to Sunday first, but I don't want to get in trouble if there is some sensitivity to having Monday first. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 19:05, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is a standard and it is followed widely, at least in international contexts (of which WP is one): secular weeks start on Monday. — Christoph Päper 15:56, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The usual American, and I believe Commonwealth, usage is Sunday through Saturday. In Quaker English, Sunday is the "first day" of the week. But this, again, is a matter on which it is not normally necessary to legislate; in contexts, such as this template, where we must decide, it would be more appropriate to follow English-language practice than an international standard; Continental usage should be decisive on other Wikipedias. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:48, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if this helps, but according to this article, "Most business and social calendars in English speaking countries mark Sunday as the first day of the week." I would think that it would come down to what is the common practice. Regardless of the ISO standard, what do calendars look like for the most part in English speaking countries? -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 04:10, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the UK, I can't recall ever NOT seeing the week start on Monday. The article quoted above seems plainly wrong (now changed as othwers on the talk page had pointed this out - always Monday in Australia too it seems). Johnbod (talk) 04:15, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PS See Start the Week - 9.02 am Every Monday. Johnbod (talk) 04:36, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[←] Look in either Chambers, or the OED – Sunday is the first day of the week. It's all biblical, of course: "... and He rested on the seventh day" (Genesis 2:2). Then people come along and say "ahh, but the day of rest is Sunday, so Sunday's the seventh day", forgetting that Genesis is Judaic in origin, and the Jewish Shabbat is Friday/Saturday.

Apparently the British Standards Institute agrees with ISO 8601, but I haven't found the relevant standard (not that I looked hard). Carré (talk) 11:39, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But the Christian Sabbath is Sunday! I am surprised to see the OED does indeed say what you say, but I can assure you it is not possible to buy a week-per page/view diary reflecting this arrangement in a normal UK store. Johnbod (talk) 12:52, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So how can this be handled in this environment if it is clearly different in the UK and the US? The majority of pages here with calendars on them have Sunday first. No one has complained about that and the pages with calendars starting on Monday are (I believe) much lower traffic pages. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 16:59, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What sort of pages have calendars? Johnbod (talk) 17:30, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All of the date articles January 1, etc. Month articles January 2007, etc. Year articles 2007, etc. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 17:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What the Christian Sabbath is is largely irrelevant for that side of things, since the whole concept of the day of rest comes from Judaism. However, historically Christians have always met for worship on the first day of the week... Sunday (see this sermon from Durham cathedral). For what it's worth, Britannica also has Sunday as the first day of the week. More (non-UK) evidence? German for Wednesday: Mittwoch, midweek; Portuguese: quarta-feira, fourth day.
I've been editing Sunday (and have several pages of stuff which I've omitted from it), and there it already says that in the Judeo-Christian tradition Sunday is the first and in some cases also considered the last day of the week (it's a theological argument so you go find who to argue it with), while Monday is also considered first by some. Details among all the days probably belong in already mentioned Week. -- SEWilco (talk) 18:32, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As to what to do about it? That's much harder – all of the Judaic faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) have Sunday as day 1, but the secular world appears to use Monday (ISO and BSI). Once upon a time I found some official UK government website that specified Sunday, but that was a good 5 years ago now, and since then gov.uk has been redesigning their websites to make it easier for them to gather all sorts of personal data, to which they have no right, to burn onto CDs and lose in the post... I mean easier for us voters to use. Carré (talk) 18:13, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Most calendars seem to have Sunday in the first column. Is that common enough usage to follow until that changes? -- SEWilco (talk) 18:32, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be acceptable to standardize based on most common usage (if not in the world, on the English Wikipedia)? If there hasn't been any dispute over predominantly using Sunday first, it seems reasonable that standardizing on Sunday first would not cause many waves. -- Mufka (u) (t) (c) 22:37, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That is a matter to be discussed at the various templates you have in mind, not here. If I were discussing there, I might prefer Sunday, as what I am used to (Johnbod would differ, it seems); but I do not see any great value to a ruling here. Where templates already exist, I would not alter them: that would appear to be a matter of divergent national usage. Let sleeping dogs lie. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:55, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If we are talking about every date page, I believe they should stay with the existing variety that the existing templates on those pages currently have. It is because they list every event regardless of national variety, plus I do not see a current consensus here to change it. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 06:56, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cast Listing - Film, TV, Novels

Is there a place in the MoS for "CAST LISTING"?

I have seen bolding:

I have seen italics:

I have seen neither:

I have seen quotes:

With a dash:

There needs to be a consensus for Film, Television, Novels, etc. Please point us in the right direction...

WikiDon (talk) 20:42, 27 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Providing a non-English name

Under what conditions should a non-English name be provided for a person, place, or thing. For example, it is clear that Chinese dictator Chiang Kai-shek should have his Chinese name provided next to the commonly used English transliteration. The novel War and Peace should have it's original name next to it as well. What about an American actress such as Ming-na Wen or Shannon Lee? Is this the right place for addressing such an issue, or is it already addressed elsewhere?Readin (talk) 02:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The question is covered by Wikipedia:Naming conventions--mrg3105 (comms) ♠03:53, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not entirely, although some of the naming conventions do discuss it. WP:NCGN rules, within its field, that a name used by 10% of the English sources should be mentioned; this is probably a reasonable rule of thumb. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:52, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In the first case mentioned there is no single Chinese form of the name, nor of the name Sun Yat-sen. Neither is a Mandarin (Pǔtōnghuà) form.
Bu the way, Chinese names do not have transliterations. They have romanisations.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 08:24, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

mr3105 said this topic is covered by Wikipedia:Naming conventions, which section covers it?Readin (talk) 15:11, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any support for saying this?

The following text has been restored by Noetica with an edit summary stating that xe disagrees with it, and that the section is therefore tagged.

In quotations, all Latin terms and abbreviations ("nota bene", "videlicet", "passim"; "i.e.", "n.b.", "s.v.", and "sc.") should be spelled out or not, and italicized or not, as the original author wrote them.
  • Some editors will support the rule on the grounds that all quoted text should be presented exactly as given; they should regard this as redundant with our guidance on quotations.
  • Noetica disagrees with our guidance on quotations, and therefore with this sentence; but why is this exception useful? The section on quotation is what is disputed and should be tagged, unless Latin phrases are the most important exception to the general rule. There's something to be said for making such an exception, but why on this issue, and why here?

Neither side, in short, has a coherent reason for including this sentence: either it is redundant or it is wrong, and neither should be in MOS. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:01, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As you know, PMA, I have objected to the whole section, in several of its recent permutations. Why single this sentence out for discussion, when the whole question of italicising so-called Latin phrases needs to be settled? We were close to a consensus on a few points before, but you dissented. You are welcome to, of course. We all are! But I think we need to take a fresh look at the whole matter, when we are ready for that. I'm not sure that we are ready yet.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 08:19, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't need to be "settled". It needs to be left alone. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:06, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Time to reflect

I'm appalled by the way the current discussion in WT:MOS#Centuries and millennia has gone. If a simple and minor change cannot be rationally discussed without edit-warring and filibustering, there is no longterm hope for MoS. The shenanigans over non-breaking spaces did MoS a great deal of harm and the discussion about MainMoS supremacy over Project MoS exacerbated it. Ominously, in several recent discussions in Milhist, editors expressed the view that MoS process was remote, out-of-touch and prescriptive. In short, to personify MoS, it is bossy and overbearing. All this is bad news indeed as MoS's only authority comes from the wider editing world and, broadly, they either ignore or are indifferent it. The only area where MoS has any real authority is in FAs, where articles are required to comply with it. Perhaps the time has come to consider the nuclear option of uncoupling MoS from FAC. --ROGER DAVIES talk 07:51, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very much in sympathy with that view, Roger. MOS is in a shocking state, and always has been. There have been improvements in clarity and consistency over the last twelve months, I think. But the difficulty in having a rational discussion towards a fair and durable policy for hard spaces does indeed highlight the deep faults in the current system. As things stand, there is now a guideline that can quite naturally be interpreted to require very many hard spaces. If we want exceptions, they are not made explicit. A shame, really: after all that talk.
But the whole MOS idea needs rethinking. I have said again and again that we need to review procedures and structures, and just about everything else concerning MOS; and I'm very glad that more people can see that now.
There is an opportunity to fix things! Let's put our effort into Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Manual of Style. That seems to be the best hope for reform. For too long we have staggered along in the dark.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 08:08, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, the MoS has deteriorated sharply is the past twelve months. Some of the worst examples, in my opinion, are the various changes sneaked in under the guise of various "consolidation" attempts.
A lot of the problems are based on Noetica's views that we ought to be prescribing every minute little detail, and refusal to accept what consensus we do have, and most of all, refusal to accept and edit-warring over it when things we do not have consensus for are removed.
Refusal to follow the rules of the MoS on the main MoS page itself doesn't help, either. We do in part lead by our example. Gene Nygaard (talk) 08:21, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Making the MoS work is a colossal and probably doomed labour. People like Fowler and Follett spent lifetimes working on their guides to usage; and manuals of technical style like Chicago have to be updated regularly and exhaustively. It is asking too much for us to reinvent the wheel, though it is a worthy challenge.
I know there's a school of thought that it would be a good thing if all pages in Wikipedia followed the same conventions; in my opinion, that is publishing-house thinking. Wikipedia isn't like that: it's a huge, decentralised mass of volunteer efforts by people of all backgrounds and nationalities; in this lies the reason for its success, and I am convinced that over-regulation would kill the goose. I therefore believe that the MoS should be as unprescriptive as possible (in other words, rather than attempt to enforce one style, it should be the mother of styles—informing Wikipedians about good practice in non-Wikipedia publishing, and endorsing any valid alternative usage). The only style disputes I have been in on Wikipedia have been against people who wanted to change an existing style because of something they'd read in the MoS: it's divisive. Far better if editors concentrate on consistency within articles. Though I largely try to conform to the MoS, I actually take the CMS (and its sister, Turabian) as my guide, because I know it is more authoritative and reliable (and our MoS sanctions the use of other guides). Where our MoS becomes more prescriptive than CMS, I'm afraid I go with the latter. So in this case, I will ignore any wording that tells me not to write centuries in words, but I will mind my own business about pages that use the other style and will conform to it if I edit them. qp10qp (talk) 13:18, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't agree more with the first three sentences of your second paragraph. I would note that in addition to alienating people for no good reason, MoS prescriptiveness results in editors wasting time making edits that don't meaningfully improve the encyclopedia. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:40, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One of the worst features of things as they stand is the supremacist attitude held by some that whatever's in the MoS somehow necessarily trumps whatever's going on anywhere else in Wikipedia. I sympathise with and share the desire to standardise style and layout (when it's not taken to extremes), but when contradictions are discovered, they need to be discussed and a consensus sought - which might indeed be that no standardisation is needed on this particular point, or that (heavens above!) a project page might provide a standard that can be incorporated into MoS.
MoS must be able to take advice from the community (particularly the projects) as well as dish it out. That's my greatest hope for the new Wikiproject:MoS - that it will discover or create the feedback mechanisms that will steer MoS back away from unilateralism. --Rlandmann (talk) 19:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Gene Nygaard writes:

A lot of the problems are based on Noetica's views that we ought to be prescribing every minute little detail, and refusal to accept what consensus we do have, and most of all, refusal to accept and edit-warring over it when things we do not have consensus for are removed.

O, I don't think we should be prescribing every minute detail. Far from it! Several times I have called for, and fought for, tolerance: so long as we have consistency within an article, and clarity and consistency in our guidelines. For example, I like spaced en dashes: but I have always respected the alternative em dashes, and very often replace ens with ems in articles for consistency.
As for hard spaces, I pointed out a consequence of the guideline that we had, and still have. Without such a consequence being pointed out, people may not be able to give it a consistent interpretation.
I have called for sparse, clear, simple, guidelines, and I still do. It's hard to achieve, of course. All sorts of people have got their own agendas to push. Countering that is really hard work. Remember the campaign for curly quotes and apostrophes, and how hard we had to work against that? Remember the silly prohibition against ever italicising names of units, even in mentioning them, or where they occur in italicised titles?
And even now we have mindless prohibitions against ever putting figures at the start of a sentence, and other draconian rulings. O, except where there is an address or similar at the start of a sentence. (Explain that exception, someone! We can write "10 Downing Street is the PM's residence", but not "1066 was the year the Normans expanded into England". Go figure, as they say.)
What standing any of these guidelines have in Wikipedia is a completely separate issue – one that I am pleased we can now address at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Manual of Style.
And do I edit-war? No. I may defend existing guidelines when they are removed while discussion is still underway. Check my record, since you seem to care so much. My style is predominantly in favour of long consultation. There are several article in which I have discussed at great length without ever editing in them, except to protect them from vandals and to point out a need for discussion or citation. And I will defend myself if you attack me. At length, if necessary.
People come in here thinking they can easily "fix things". They can't. Meanwhile, it does them no credit if they scapegoat the most vocal and conscientious critics of the present chaos.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 08:15, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your good work is much appreciated; this page is always a hot kitchen.
On the question of words for numbers at the beginning of sentences, I think it good practice but that it shouldn't be made compulsory. We should leave editors room to manoeuvre on it. qp10qp (talk) 12:02, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

acronyms (when they have become nouns in their own right)

When is it sensible to stop writing in full acronyms on first occurence? An example I saw quoted was laser, which is now a generally accepted word on common usage. Yet it is an acronym light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation (LASER), but it is rather stupid to say this when first using it.

My immediate concern was G8 and NATO, both of which are normally used conversationally in their abbreviated form, and indeed are used this way as the titles of their respective wiki articles. The long form title is largely meaningless both in the sense that the actual words convey no useful meaning, and in the sense that they would not be recognised so do not help explain what is being referred to. The correct proper name is therefore the acronym letters, not the long form. Sandpiper (talk) 09:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It’s never necessary to expand acronyms, otherwise they wouldn’t be acronyms. If it’s important at all, link them to their article instead – this is hypertext after all. — Christoph Päper 16:05, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I find that reply comforting but confusing. the text on the article page says:
Write out both the full version and the abbreviation at first occurrence. Readers are not necessarily familiar with any particular acronym such as NASA (pronounced as a word) or initialism such as PBS (pronounced by saying the letters themselves). The standard practice is to name the item in full on its first occurrence, followed by the abbreviation in parentheses, which seem to contradict your comment. Presumably someone here must support the article wording as it stands, so can explain, or perhaps some rewrite is needed? Sandpiper (talk) 09:24, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You would only expand it, if you need to explain it and the expansion provided a satisfactory explanation. If you need to explain it, you can as well link to its article. In the lead of those articles, standard practice is indeed expansion first with acronym in brackets (and this would also be done for acronyms that don’t have a separate article).
The current guideline is blindly copied from style guides targeted at printed texts that are not encyclopaedias. — Christoph Päper 13:23, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On the contrary, expanding them can often obviate the need to go somewhere else to figure out what it means. A link to ERP isn't half as helpful as a link to effective radiated power, a term that people might well understand as much as they want to without having to follow any links, if it is spelled out on first use. A blind insistence that having a link obviates the advantages of spelling out of first use is downright foolish. Gene Nygaard (talk) 20:35, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was obvious that one would link the acronym to the article describing the actual meaning in context, not to the disambiguation page (if one exists, which is quite likely for two- and three-letter acronyms). — Christoph Päper 00:31, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Look in a dictionary. I don't have the most recent dictionary, but mine has laser and scuba, does not have G8 or NATO. Adding three words in parentheses – G8 (Group of Eight), or Group of Eight (G8) – is not a burden on our readers or our editors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well mine has NATO, though not G8. It may be too old to have recognised G8. For a moment when I saw ERP, I thought EPR, which certainly illustrates a difficulty with initials. However, we still have some contradictory views here. While North atlantic treaty organisation imparts some meaning (without really explaining anything), group of eight hardly helps at all. The issue would be whether inserting explanatory expansions really is a trivial increase in size of an article worth the added information, or confusing clutter which may be completely irrelevant to the context in which the letters are being used. both EPR and ERP impart something when expanded, ERP being much more useful because it really is self-explanatory (at least in the technical context it is likely to occur), but group of eight? I get an image of a parrot saying 'pieces of eight'. Normal usage is to say G8. (as indeed NATO)Sandpiper (talk) 00:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Consistency within articles WP:ENGVAR

Shouldn't it be possible to allow spellings that may be minority spellings for the variant of English an article is written in so long as those minority spellings are in fact used in that variant and so long as they have overlap with other variants of English? For instance when in the US I've noticed "grey" and "centre" and "axe" used fairly frequently while -ize endings are still used by some publishers outside of north america. Do we really need to revert such universally recognised spellings just to reinforce the contrast between variations in spelling? I can certainly understand the need to avoid words like "tyre" in a north american english article or "color" in a british english article but why crack down on the minor variants that get used in multiple english orthographies?Zebulin (talk) 18:55, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You make a very good point. British English and American English have a huge amount of overlap and, in reality - the signal words apart - it's very difficult to say where one starts and the other begins. Featured articles tend to use primary spellings partly to make it absolutely obvious that the spellings are not typos or spelling of the wrong variety that have crept in. --ROGER DAVIES talk 19:17, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I generally agree with Driftwoodzebulin, with one proviso. In the U.S. companies and places that want to seem old or a bit exotic sometimes use U.K. spellings in the name of their business or place. I think "centre" would be an example of that. I don't think such usage should be considered evidence of how the word is normally spelled in the U.S. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:41, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. In AmE centre is "awful, pompous, and artificial"; grey is merely foreign — it is perhaps most common in the trademark of a prestige mustard. But, as elsewhere, this is intended only to resolve disputes when they arise; if nobody objects to axe, it's harmless.
If British editors do not feel comfortable writing in a foreign tongue, they need not; but they should not object to having their usage regularized. American editors writing on, say, Lord Dunsany should accept the same constraint. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:22, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This from someone who until now has appeared to object to any kind of regularisation. Is it only when it suits you? Tony (talk) 08:44, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Tony: Your frequent personal aspersions, which are personal attacks and fail to assume good faith, are uncivil and also counterproductive (that is, they are the opposite of persuasive). Please examine your behavior. Thank you. Finell (Talk) 15:24, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Finell, I do examine my behaviour, every day — as I do my stools. Both are fine, thanks for asking. Tony (talk) 13:06, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, Finell. As for the substantive point: no, I support consistency within articles, and always have; varying between British and American English is normally a pointless distraction, and I have yet to see a good reason to do it. (There may be good reasons to be inconsistent on other stylistic features, but that's for other sections.) Varying between fourth and quarter, which either a Briton or an American may choose to do (for example, if one paragraph uses "fiscal quarter"), is another matter. I trust Tony will read this carefully, and attempt to reply without invective. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:14, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Disputed tag

I find this tagging curious: as far as I can tell, Noetica does not dispute any of the text actually present, but instead would like specific additional text, to which Centrex objects in detail and Roger Davies and I object in general.

This really will not do. But there may be a radical solution: much of the section in question says that we do not impose a single solution on such points as AD 1066 vs. 1066 AD; some of it contains useful advice on such things as the exact meaning of BP.

Most of this is worth saying, but does it need to be said here? Almost all of it is WP:MOS (dates and numbers); the rest of it can be merged. If the dispute tag stays, we can most simply resolve the dispute by replacing the section with a link. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find it curious that you unilaterally removed the entire disputed subsection, PMA, and thought that this would warrant removal of the dispute tag annexed to it – even while discussion of its content was underway.
I suggest we leave the tag in place until we have a resolution. The question of simply linking or merging this section with WP:MOS is separate; and it is independently controversial. It has nothing to do with achieving a rational and helpful guideline for naming centuries. I suggest we continue working towards an acceptable compromise solution on this question. I have proposed a compromise; see earlier discussion.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 21:11, 29 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is no consensus on it; Noetica's view (including xer "compromise") appears to be the minority, and to have no hope of being consensus. When, and if, we attain consensus, we can put in what we agree on. In the meantime, the tag is misleading, since Noetica does not, as far as I can tell, dispute the remaining matter. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:24, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nice try, PMA. But in the end, still empty rhetoric. Enclosing the word "compromise" in scare quotes (as shown) is a particularly cheap trick. In what way is my amended suggestion not a genuine compromise? I repeat (as it seems I must): I am the only editor to have engaged fully with Roger's proposal. Even Roger has not addressed the detail as I have. My favoured position is to use numerals only for naming centuries. I argue cogently for that, citing evidence and sources. But I put forward a compromise! I have sought to keep the discussion focused on concrete matters, including precise wording. I have sought to keep the discussion focused in one place. You are among those who have fragmented it, by raising it here instead of in its section (above). You have been vague and inaccurate in the discussion, as I have shown in that section. And now, what do you mean by it, in "there is no consensus on it"? If the tag, then that's the nature of tags indicating a dispute! If the original proposal, or if my compromise proposal, then of course there is no consensus! That's why the dispute tag is there, and that's why we need to discuss – until we have a clear consensual guideline on this important issue of naming centuries. Your unilateral deletion of the disputed subsection serves no good purpose.
The tag says this: "The following section's wording or inclusion in this policy or guideline is disputed." The omission of the words that you have removed is disputed; so, therefore, is the wording of the section.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 21:13, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This [tagging], of the section on Latin phrases, however, is even closer to misrepresentation. The dispute, which has been thoroughly discussed on this page, is not over the sentence tagged; it is over other material, which Noetica, apparently alone, would like to add, and which is quite thoroughly controverted. Since, however, the topic was raised by other editors actually disputing the sentence, it seems simplest to remove it also; there is no consensus for it — one would require coming up with a general policy on the use of Latin phrases at all, and no case has been made that we need one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:38, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Whistling in the dark again, PMA. And again fragmenting discussion of an issue. Misquoting (and misunderstanding) Wittgenstein in your edit summary is another cheap flourish that has little bearing on what's going on. The facts: we had a guideline concerning phrases borrowed from Latin. It had two or three provisions, in its various forms. Some details were disputed. There was discussion, and we were close to consensus. You disrupted the process, claiming that there were too few editors involved to settle the matter. (Curious how you use that argument when the drift of opinion is against you!) I adduced compelling evidence that you were wrong, and that you had read and reported sources inaccurately. And then you started deleting the relevant content. Now nothing of it remains. Great! No guideline, even where the case was practically settled, for some it at least. Congratulations: I will not revert you.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 21:24, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Misquotation? Of a phrase which is not English, and has been variously translated? What does that mean? Misapplication, perhaps; I do not claim that this Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen is logical, or theological, necessity; but the translation was fairly literal, more literal than some published versions.
  • Let others judge whether Noetica's account jibes with the actual discussion, which is here. For my part, xer "compelling" reasons do not compel; and they do not seem to have compelled others. A Germanist may recall another cliche, this one concerning Eigenlob.

Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:48, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Amusing, if not particularly useful, PMA. Your translation with should is inept enough to count as misquotation, with its ethical or prudential connotations. More literal and less misleading is must.
Let others judge whether complete removal of a long-standing guideline on which we were having fruitful discussion is a useful contribution. I am never surprised that you never find my reasons compelling: I intended by that term rationally compelling, not compelling to those who work to a fixed agenda, and refuse focused discussion.
But in fact, PMA, others want to move on. So do I. Let's stop all this. Don't provoke me by obdurately ignoring all evidence that I lead against your assertions, and I will not "jibe" against you in return. But if you continue, I have a right to call you to account. If reasonable discussion cannot achieve that in your case, I will resort to other means. As do you, narcissistically conceiving of yourself as right no matter what any editor or any acknowledged style guide or major dictionary says to the contrary.
– Noetica♬♩Talk 01:21, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I see that the OED regards "jibe with" as chiefly American; but the definition is To chime in (with); to be in harmony or accord; to agree., as a footrule with the foot measured, or the melody with the descant. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:29, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Conveniently, as usual, passing over in silence OED's other meanings for that verb, PMA?
– Noetica♬♩Talk 02:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Permil (‰)

Presumably permil (‰) is treated in the same fashion as percent (%)?

Could the page mention this if so?

Thanks. Verisimilus T 17:01, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It should be; but permil should be explained at first usage, and avoided if at all convenient: it is approaching obsolescence.
Until it becomes practical for this page to provide mere guidance, we should not worry about it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:07, 1 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

New prohibition against regionally variant terms in articles

See the archived discussion Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 92#"Press up" and "Push up:" Are articles limited to one country's term?. In a long duration sub-3RR edit war at Press up there has been disagreement about whether it is permissable to use at all (other than mentioning it in the introduction) any term which is a regional variant for the term used in the article's title, or the main term used in the article, where there is variation between English-speaking countries. See the talk page of Press up, in the section "Sub-3rr edit war." The North American term "Push up" has been repeatedly removed and replaced by the British term "Press up" in photo captions of a U.S. Marine doing the exercise with the argument that WP:ENGVAR does not allow any variation of terminology. The WP:ENGVAR section of the manual of style had been cited to justify the numerous reversions in Press up which removed any use of "push up." I pointed out the WP:ENGVAR section of MOS does not prohibit use of a variant regional term, that it only disallows variation of grammar or spelling. Matt Crypto recently changed the Manual of style [25] to disallow such variation of terminology, in addition to these previously disallowed variations of grammar and spelling. I reverted to the previous version of the MOS because I feel such a restriction should first arrive at consensus here on its talk page. The archived discussion cited above did not support the recent change. In a number of articles, one country's term has gained the title, and is the main term because of priority in editing the article, or for other good reasons, but the other country's term is allowed to occasionally appear where appropriate. Examples where Matt's new rule would allow large changes in the form of purging all but the main term are the article [[Rooster} (U.S. term) where the British term "cock" appears many times, the article Eggplant (U.S. term) where the British term "aubergine" appears many times, the article Elevator (North American term) where the British term "lift" appears many times, the article Windshield (U.S. term) where the British term "windscreen" appears numerous times, and the article Wrench (North American term) where the British term "spanner" appears several times. I expect there are other articles where the British term is the main one for the article but other regions' terms are also allowed to appear , such as Maize (term used in Britain) where the U.S, Canadian and Australian term "corn" appears several times. This change to the Manual of Style would indeed make it easier to keep "push up" from being used in a photo caption showing a U.S. Marine doing the exercise in the Press up article, but it might be a license to similarly purge regionally variant terms from numerous other articles, and therefore deserves a careful examination here. Edison (talk) 08:09, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I for one feel that the situation has become silly. However, it is complex. For consistency and style, an article shouldn't mix up equivalent terms willy-nilly, whether they're regional variations or general synonyms. However, in a caption or section which clearly applies more closely to one term, it's sensible to switch for that section or caption (or whatever). This is especially obvious if there's a quote using that variation. SamBC(talk) 12:30, 2 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]