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Undid revision 338125433 by Darkfrog24 (talk). rv. Agree that "Consensus is that..." statements are not needed.
Undid revision 338126699 by HWV258 (talk) I've started a new conversation on the talk page on this matter. How do you feelabout this?
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{{FAQ row
{{FAQ row
|q=Why does the Manual of Style call for the use of logical quotation?
|q=Why does the Manual of Style call for the use of logical quotation?
|a=While this is a point of frequent and heated contention on the MoS, there is a current and long-standing consensus preferring "[[Logical quotation|logical quotation]]" or "datasafe quotes" to American and British forms. While this system more closely resembles British than American standards, it does have supporters in the U.S.
|a=[[Logical quotation|This system]] preserves the quoted text better than other systems do.
}}
}}


{{FAQ row
{{FAQ row
|q=Why does the Manual of Style distinguish between hyphens ({{xt|-}}), en dashes ({{xt|–}}), em dashes ({{xt|—}}), and minus signs ({{xt|−}})?
|q=Why does the Manual of Style distinguish between hyphens ({{xt|-}}), en dashes ({{xt|–}}), em dashes ({{xt|—}}), and minus signs ({{xt|−}})?
|a=Using different glyphs for different purposes improves readability. Using hyphens everywhere would make certain constructions ambiguous (for example, an em dash meant to set off a short bit of text from the surrounding text could be confused with a compound adjective) or illegible (for example, a minus sign in a superscript is legible, but some fonts render hyphens so small that they become hard to read).
|a=Consensus is that using different glyphs for different purposes improves readability. Using hyphens everywhere would make certain constructions ambiguous (for example, an em dash meant to set off a short bit of text from the surrounding text could be confused with a compound adjective) or illegible (for example, a minus sign in a superscript is legible, but some fonts render hyphens so small that they become hard to read).
}}
}}

Revision as of 05:15, 16 January 2010

Wikipedia's Manual of Style sometimes has conventions that differ from other well-known style manuals and from what is often taught in schools. These differences are usually deliberate. Wikipedia's editors have discussed them in great detail and have reached consensus that these conventions serve our purposes better than those of other style manuals. New contributors are advised to check the FAQ and the archives to see if their concern has already been discussed.

To view an explanation to the answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question.

Why does the Manual of Style forbid the use of curly or typographic quotes and apostrophes (the characters , , , and )?
Readers may only know how to type in straight quotes (such as " and ') when searching for text within a page, and Web browsers do not currently find curly quotes when users type straight quotes.
Why does the Manual of Style call for the use of logical quotation?
While this is a point of frequent and heated contention on the MoS, there is a current and long-standing consensus preferring "logical quotation" or "datasafe quotes" to American and British forms. While this system more closely resembles British than American standards, it does have supporters in the U.S.
Why does the Manual of Style distinguish between hyphens (-), en dashes (), em dashes (), and minus signs ()?
Consensus is that using different glyphs for different purposes improves readability. Using hyphens everywhere would make certain constructions ambiguous (for example, an em dash meant to set off a short bit of text from the surrounding text could be confused with a compound adjective) or illegible (for example, a minus sign in a superscript is legible, but some fonts render hyphens so small that they become hard to read).