Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography

Jr./Sr. double comma in lede

I'm curious how to use the double comma around the life range in the opening sentences of biographies. Example: "Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an ..." Should the latter comma for Jr. be before or after the parenthetical dates? Thanks for any guidance. Fdssdf (talk) 00:23, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

The dates are not referring to the Jr., so should not be between the commas. Logically, should be "Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an ...". I think that it would be in the spirit of WP style to use punctuation logically, though you'll find it both ways in sources (along with the omission of the comma, which all style guides point out is an error). I have been fixing a few articles this way, and haven't encountered any pushback. Dicklyon (talk) 17:57, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Right. The sentence structure is [Name], [more info including [birth/death dates] [is/was] [descriptive noun phrase(s) relating to notability] [additional clarification as needed]]. The birth date is squarely a part of the more info, not the name, so it goes after the comma. The only style guides anywhere that would drop the comma in such a construction are journalism/PR ones, which are entirely about maximum textual efficiency in tights spaces, including at the expense of clarity. It's impermissibly sloppy, confusing, and illogical to do "Martin Luther King, Jr. (b. ...), ...." clumping the birth/death material as part of the name, and still sloppy, confusing, and illogical to do "Martin Lutehr King, Jr. (b. ...) ...." without ever closing the comma construction.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:56, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Section merge

Propose merging Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Initials into Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies#Names, and just leaving a cross-reference behind. It's frankly bizarre that we're covering a human naming matter outside the guideline for it, and buried in another one that is almost entirely about non-sentient things. (See also WT:MOS#Section merges for additional MoS cleanup merges).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:41, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

If you look in this page's history in December 2013, the section was essentially a link back then. It has since been expanded. I don't know if there was discussion that resulted in that expansion. It may be worth perusing the history of this page and the talk page.

Have you considered placing a second section merge tag on WP:INITS? It seems to me that we have three sections that say roughly the same thing, which usually leads to problems. – Jonesey95 (talk) 23:19, 7 March 2016 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: Re: "in December 2013, the section was essentially a link ... It has since been expanded – Yeah, that's how WP:CONTENTFORKing tends to happen in guidelines. People don't bother to read the parent section, they just add stuff to the derived one in a "drive-by" manner, and often no one notices for a long time that it's redundant or divergent (we can probably forestall some of that by adding HTML comments that say something like "Please do not add advice to this section, but seek consensus to add it to the parent section at WP:Whatever#Foobar"). Periodically we have to merge and normalize. There hasn't been a concerted effort to do this (except for MOS:LIFE) since around 2012, so the cleanup is long overdue.

Re: WP:INITS – Not sure I detect a problem there; it's only addressing use of initials and middle names in the context of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:DAB, so I'm not sure I see anything to merge out. It's not giving instructions on how to format initials, or other style-but-not-titles advice, that I noticed, but I have to get out the door to my pool league match, and maybe didn't read it very closely. Is there a specific part you'd merge? I'm actually all for merging all style material out of AT and NC pages to stop these constant confusions and (often imaginary) conflicts, so if you can devise a way to reduce the verbiage at WP:INITS, and at that entire NC page, I'd be supportive, and the thread at WT:AT indicates a lot of others would be too. I think that most of the style-masquerading-as-naming advice is actually in the topical NC pages, however, as well as in WP:AT itself.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:56, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Support merging. Seems like a good idea to put related topics together. LK (talk) 03:49, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

Implementing the "Jr." RfC

WP:VPP#RfC: Amending MOS:JR on comma usage has closed and people are already disputing how to implement it. Three points:

• Whether the closer bothered to mention the BLP matter or not, we clearly have to make an exception for self-identify of living bio subjects, per WP:BLP, WP:NAMECHANGES, WP:ABOUTSELF, and MOS:IDENTITY, as various RfC respondents noted. We can interpret the consensus of any RfC or other discussion by looking at the actual discussion, not just by the wording of the close (per WP:BUREAUCRACY; closes are an optional formality, and many discussions do not have them, yet reach a consensus we can rely on).
• Whether old sources use the "." or not is irrelevant. The entire point of the RfC was that usage has changed (its poster can correct me if I'm wrong). Formerly the "." was common in American sources, now it no longer is (in any genre or register, from academic, to journalistic, to Web posts). The only sensible phrasing will refer to current (or modern, or whatever) sources, not all sources, or it's as if the RfC never happened, because the combined mass of all RS published before ca. 1995 will outnumber RS published since then, for generations.
• As a consequence of the above, what the preference was of a dead subject is no longer relevant; BLP concerns are not present, and the longer ago they died, the less relevant their own ABOUTSELF primary sourcing is, and the less relevant then-contemporary sources about them are, for a current-English-usage matter like this. By the same reasoning as "use the 'Jr.' spelling he used when we was alive", we'd be referring to Thomas Malory as Thomas Malleorre, and Julius Caesar as JVLIUS.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:34, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

At the moment, there's not much to implement. Both styles (with comma and without) are still acceptable. If an article has one or the other, it should remain as is, as long as each article is consistent. This is what the main WP:MOS page tells us right up front: "Style and formatting should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia. Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason. Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable." Dohn joe (talk) 20:16, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

"Both styles (with comma and without) are still acceptable" is not what the conclusion was, either in the discussion or in the closer's summary of it: "the discussion concludes that our MOS should express a preference toward not using commas". When MoS expresses "a preference toward" [sic] something, i.e. a preference for something, it says "use this, not that". The closer continues: "Grandfathering older articles, FAs, etc., is recommended"; that has nothing to do with MoS, but is up to venues like WP:GAN and WP:FAC if they want to push compliance at articles that were using the old style for a long time. I think we all know that eventually what MoS recommends is what gets done (either by people conscientiously complying, or gnomes fixing later), even if take 5 years to work its way through all the articles (often less; date delinking and species common name lowercasing only took about a year each, despite affecting many, many more articles). The rest of the close is just statement of the obvious (a guideline is a guideline, etc.), and opinional observation, and editorializing that a closer should avoid. We can determine from the rest of the discussion that another point was clear, like respecting BLP's preferences. There were only three opposers. The first asserted that sources show MLK is an exception because sources still mostly use the comma for him. I extensively proved that wrong; the only argument I got on that was from one of the supporters, for whom I did most of that proving. The second just made a sort of drive-by comment about WP:CREEP, but we already had a (wishy-washy) rule about "Jr.", and having a less wishy-washy one is not instruction creep, but actually reduces complication and conflict. The third claimed that American publications still favor the comma, and I disproved that too. So, there's really not a lot of room for doubt about any of this. Mandruss put it best: "the less time we spend debating whether to use the commas or not in a given article, the more time we have to spend on content. The common sense thing to do is to choose a house style and use it." We're on the way to doing that, just allowing for a BLP/IDENTITY/ABOUTSELF variance, as we would for just about anything as long as RS consistently go along with it (see, e.g. k.d. lang and Dadmau5). We could actually drop the BLP exception, because if you do that research, you find that the RS do not in fact go along with it; virtually all of them consistently apply their own house style, mostly without not with commas, to everyone, regardless of the subject's own preference. SMcCandlish 21:29, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

No... A "preference" does not mean "do this, don't do that". It means "we recommend you to do this, but that is allowed". Blueboar (talk) 23:11, 16 March 2016 (UTC)

In a guideline giving advice, every single word of it is a preference, and MoS's standard operating procedure is to firmly advise one thing or another, not say "maybe", except in the rare case (and usually temporary, cf. the bird capitalization waffling that was in MOS:LIFE in 2013) that consensus cannot be established for anything other than to affirmatively state that consensus has not been established, (It really is rare; usually we're simply silent on the matter, and leave it up to editorial discretion; this is why we have no line-item about aesthetic vs. esthetic, indexes vs. indices, etc., etc., etc., nor any note that there's not consensus about such matters, or any note about them at all). There is nothing inconclusive about "the discussion concludes that our MOS should express a preference toward not using commas". Quite notably it was closed that way by an admin who actually opposed the consensus viewpoint, just as in the species common name lowercase RfC. So, please stop trying to re-legislate the already and recently closed proposal. It's pointless and redundant for MoS or any guideline to say anything like "we recommend you do this, but that is allowed". Every single line-item in MoS could equally have such disclaimer wording, since all guidelines are essentially optional, not being policies. The fact that we're recommending something but the recommendation can be chucked in favor of some alternative is implicit in what a guideline is. Despite a now-banned editor's frequent histrionic and prevaricating claims to have been "punished" at WP:ANI for not following MoS (it was actually for editwarring to revert others complying with MoS) no one is punished for entirely ignoring this guideline when they write here; we know most new editors don't know it (or any other policy or guideline) exists, and that many long-term editors ignore it and any other rules or "rules" people don't badger them into compliance with. Someone created bogus WP:UWT "warning" templates about MoS compliance failure, and I TfD'd them yesterday myself.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:07, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

Dohn, given the wide agreement on the preferred style among editors and among modern grammar and style guides (back to what we had preferred for several years until it got changed nearly a year ago), it seems odd that you want to interfere in implementation now. Nobody is suggesting that you have to adopt, use, or prefer this style; just ignore it, rather than interfering with those who want to move a few articles toward the preferred style. A year ago, I fixed a bunch of article to the no-comma style that the MOS said was preferred at that time; when you got it flipped to say no preference, you undid many of those, which seemed like an odd move given that the MOS said no preference when you did that. Now that the preference is clear again, there's even less reason for you to be interfering with those who want to clean up WP style. Of course, if I ever do move one where the person or their biographers consistently use the comma, I do want to hear about that; we need a good example, and I haven't been able to find one. Certainly it's not MLK Jr nor any of these guys whose pages you've moved recently. Dicklyon (talk) 22:41, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

The example Neil Brown, Jr. for "someone who is living and whose official website tells us he uses that spelling" is not good here. The referenced official page has his name both with and without the comma on the same page (2 times with, 4 without). Like most people, he probably doesn't care if we omit the comma. Let's see if we can find someone who says they care, or at least someone who is consistent. Dicklyon (talk) 00:59, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

I am not seeing the broad requirement to move all articles (eg Harry K. Daghlian Jr.) under this RfC. Hawkeye7 (talk) 23:57, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. MOS recommendations are not requirements. I moved that article since it made it more in agreeement with our recommended style, and because modern sources do it that way (e.g. this nonfiction book and this one and this one and this novel). But I don't understand why you put commas back into it. What's requiring or recommending that? Dicklyon (talk) 00:08, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Also, in this edit your summary seems to accuse me of "mass changes". As fas as I can tell, I've moved exactly only 4 articles to do away with the comma in the last week; is this too much for you? In what sense is this more than what's "allowed" by the MOS recommendation? Are any of these moves questionable in light of modern usage? Let me know. Dicklyon (talk) 00:15, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

As I mentioned on my talkpage, moving from one accepted style to another is against MOS and WP's ethos. From WP:MOS: "Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason." WP:JR still explicitly allows for both styles. Moving/editing because of one's preference is also against Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Sortan#Preferred_styles and Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Jguk#Optional_styles. Moreover, modern sources use the comma all the time. Dohn joe (talk) 00:20, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Moot point: "the discussion concludes that our MOS should express a preference toward not using commas". So, more than one style is not acceptable. Though the closer didn't note it, the discussion did, that we need to permit an exception for BLPs with a clearly proven preference for the commas. That's all. As I said to Blueboar above, I'm pretty sure you know better than to try to re-legislate an RfC that just close; that's forumshopping. If you actually want to challenge the close as invalid, or unclear, you now where WP:AN is. I'm confident that it would be upheld on validity grounds, and that if clarified it will be to not use vague and ungrammatical language like "express a preference toward", but simply "state a preference for". I'm of a mind to go file a clarification request myself simply to put an end to the present wave of wikilawyering.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:57, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Not moot at all. The close also clarifies that "Grandfathering older articles, FAs, etc., is recommended, and one should remember that the MOS is a guideline, not a policy." The page on Harry_K._Daghlian, Jr. could very well be grandfathered, and if there are people who think it is best to do so, then that seems to be the preferred style. On pages going forward it seems fair to remove the commas, but not on older pages which apparently are going to become a consistent disagreement, which is likely why the closer, in a wise close, put that line in. The Daghlian page, by the way, is quite an interesting read. Randy Kryn 3:14, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

There was one guy who suggested grandfathering Good Articles and Featured Articles, but this is not about that. Older articles, nobody brought up, because that would be silly, sort of like saying we don't care about improving style at all. Dicklyon (talk) 04:27, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

That quote came from the close, and says that grandfathering older articles, feature articles, etc. is "recommended" (see Grandfather clause). Randy Kryn 13:32, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

The closer's note that "Grandfathering older articles, FAs, etc., is recommended" is just an irrelevant restatement that one editor recommended something like that (nobody actually said anything about "older articles", that's just the closer's hallucination). I think we can ignore that; closer admitted his bias in the close ("based on that evidence I would have spoken out against the proposal" – indicating that he probably didn't actually look at the evidence, even – or if he did, and formed a negative opinion, why does he think he's still neutral enough to do this close of a potentially somewhat problematic RFC?). Dicklyon (talk) 23:18, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

No, it is not irrelevant. The inclusion of "Grandfathering older articles, FAs, etc., is recommended, and one should remember that the MOS is a guideline, not a policy" is a major and directly stated part of the close. You might like it to be irrelevant, or, as you say, "I think we can ignore that" (??), yet grandfathering is a very real concept. Randy Kryn 23:18, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

Closers don't get to invent new rules that don't reflect the actual consensus in the discussion. There is no provision, anywhere in policy at all, for any reason, for treating older articles as exempt from from guidelines simply by virtue of being old. WP does not work that way. The closest thing to any "grandfathering" that can happen under our editorial policy system is that independent processes like WP:GAN and WP:FAC can choose whether to require compliance with particular guidelines or not when it comes to handing out GA/FA badges. I've decided not to challenge Drmies's close at AN, and I've made peace with him, but there simply isn't any operable interpretation of that close that permits a magical "my article doesn't have to comply with guidelines because it's a day older than yours" WP:GAMING loophole.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:21, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Back to Neil Brown, Jr. This is not an example of "someone who is living and whose official website tells us he uses that spelling". This illustrates one reason we took out the personal preference exception a year ago: nobody has been able to find any evidence of a personal preference for what style should be used with respect to comma in their own names. If I'm wrong, I'm hoping someone will provide at least one example that we can use to sensibly illustrate why we again have such an exception. Dicklyon (talk) 23:22, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

• I too dismiss the personal preference argument... That is simply a variation of WP:Official name... However, I don't dismiss the WP:COMMONNAME argument. When the majority of sources that are independent of the subject present the name with a comma, so should we... As that is the most recognizable variation. Blueboar (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

It seems unlikely that this comma will affect recognizability, and there's no other case where we turn over style decision for an outside vote. That would not be consistent with having a preferred wikipedia style. Dicklyon (talk) 01:26, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

I have no objections to removing the BLP thing if we don't think it's a real BLP matter. I argued for it as consistent with MOS:IDENTITY and WP:ABOUTSELF, and with our approach to stylized names, within reason, at MOS:TM that are both preferred by the subject and accepted by the vast majority of independent RS (e.g. it's Deadmau5 not "Deadmaus", but it's "Pink" (the singer) not "P!nk" despite her marketing efforts). I don't feel strongly about it. I was mostly trying to provide what Drmies wants to call a "grandfathering" path for subjects with a proven preference for the comma spelling, and I really don't feel strongly about it. There's no point in throwning a bone that's not wanted.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:21, 2 April 2016 (UTC)
Changed my mind; this relates too strongly to too many other naming conventions.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:09, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

And I have no objection to keeping it if we can find a genuine example of a person with evidence of having a preference. Not just that they write or sign their name with the comma, but that they actually object to leaving it out, or state that they prefer it in, or something sort of explicit like that. I doubt we'll find it. Dicklyon (talk) 05:38, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Wouldn't just consistent personal usage be sufficient? We don't require of Micheal Haley a statement by him that yes, he really, really does spell it that way and gets mad if people spell it Michael. I'm also thinking of other parallel cases, like Asian name order for Asians and Asian-hyphenateds who prefer it, e.g. the recent RM at Utada Hikaru, based on subject's consistent usage in their own materials, without any statement "By the way, don't spell my name 'Hikaru Utada'." (In fact, for a brief span in the 2000s, the singer actually did insist on that spelling in Western media, and then reversed herself, making the WP:COMMONNAME kind of hard to figure out. Anyway, I would just like to see us approach all these matters consistently. Either we respect that people determine their own names (k.d. lang, Jennifer 8. Lee, Genesis P-Orridge) or we don't. This also has implications for diacritics. The fact that Neil Brown, Jr. (or maybe it was another case I found, I forget) has been consistently using the comma spelling would seem to be good enough. If they're not, then it's not good enough, especially given that many of them are likely to change their preference on this over the next 1–10 years, as virtually all the remaining publishers abandon the comma.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:09, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

We respect those name styles based on consistent use in reliable sources, because we don't have spies to go see how they write their name, or to ask them how they prefer to see it in print. I agree that it's a potentially useful exception, but I'm going to remove the example name for now, since it's not a valid one. Dicklyon (talk) 17:04, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Recent RM discussions at Talk:Larry Mullen Jr.#Requested move 20 March 2016 and Talk:Desi Arnaz Jr.#Requested move 20 March 2016 seem to put an end to Dohn joe's objections based on claiming that both styles are still "acceptable". Yes? I have moved a few more articles, mostly racing drivers who seldom use the comma themselves or in news coverage of them, but if anyone sees a case among them that seems to over-reach and remove a common where there's evidence that it would really be preferred, please do bring it up and let's look at it. Still looking for a good example... Dicklyon (talk) 05:54, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

I would look in categories of American and Canadian actors, singers, authors, etc., and look for living subjects under 40. That's how I scared up a few test cases in a few minutes. They're liable to have personal websites and other online media we can check, either directly managed by them or by their staff with direct input from the subject. Maybe even just googling "my name has a comma in it". Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:09, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

I've spent considerable time looking, with such strategies; I do find articles titled with comma where the ELs and sources have nothing but comma-free. And I notice that IMDB never uses commas (though I can't search deep enough to see if they make an exception for anyone; just like findagrave always uses comma; having a house style is a good thing). Dicklyon (talk) 16:49, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Of course both styles are still acceptable, not everyone objected or commented on the Arnez change, etc. If someone objects to a change in long-standing pages then the comma style has been grandfathered in. Randy Kryn 21:46, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

"If somebody objects" might be a good reason to talk about it, but is not the threshold condition for keeping the non-preferred style, I think. Dicklyon (talk) 22:29, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

What's all this about grandfathering? Randy Kryn has advanced some theories about it at Talk:Robert_Downey_Jr.#Requested_move_04_April_2016 and at Talk:Arthur_Ochs_Sulzberger,_Jr.#Requested_move_2_April_2016, but I must admit I do not get his point, and can't see why he'd want to grandfather a comma into the name of the one person who most exemplifies never using a comma, Robert Downey Jr. Any other ideas for when it would be a good idea to leave a comma? Is what we say in WP:JR not adequate? We'd still like to find a suitable example of a name that's usually done with a comma. Dicklyon (talk) 02:30, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

We may have found an example of a living person who (usually?) prefers the comma: RFK Jr. Please comment on this and the other Kennedy Jr and Sr titles at Talk:Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Sr.#Requested_move_6_April_2016. Dicklyon (talk) 21:48, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Progress implementing WP:JR

A few categories have a lot of Jrs. and no commas now, like Category:Mexican male professional wrestlers. This one should have been easy; shouldn't even have been necessary, actually, since most of the articles had been made without commas in the first place, but someone had gone in and added them, thinking commas were standard (in Mexican wresters, comma-free is more standard than almost any other group I've seen). Some were still fixed from when I worked on them a year ago, and some had to be re-done thanks to some intervening comma enthusiasts. But now it's good.

Most categories have many fewer Jrs. Racing drivers such as Category:American Speed Association drivers and Category:20th-century American racing drivers have quite a few Jrs, and I've fixed a lot of those, but a few need work (i.e. either a technical move or an RM discussion). Most NASCAR-related sites and driver sites don't use commas, but most editors still don't know that, so it's some work. Politicians tend to have dynasties, too, so I've been doing some of those. Other than these areas, names with Jr. and Sr. are pretty sparsely spread.

I've moved an average of about 2 per day for the last month (higher in the last few days). Every now and then there's isolated pushback from an editor surprised to learn about WP:JR. That slows things down, but is part of making progress. So far, no RM or other action has found us a name for which there is a consensus to include a comma. I look at every name before moving it, to see if it's consistently done with comma in sources. None are, so far. Still looking...

By the way, Randy, I notice that MLK Jr. doesn't use a comma in his signature. I'm wondering still where people got the idea that he needs a comma. Another like that is Harry Connick, Jr.; about a half dozen of his album covers show his name without a comma, so it's obviously not a hangup that comes from him. Should we try an RM there? Dicklyon (talk) 04:58, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

That would make sense, yes. Tony (talk) 06:06, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

• A few categories have a lot of Jrs. and no commas now - yeah, no kidding. You've been going around removing them all. - ^theWOLFchild 07:53, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Consensus...?

@SMcCandlish, Dohn joe, Blueboar, Hawkeye7, Randy Kryn, and Tony1:
Dicklyon has repeatedly claimed that all the page-moves, the comma-removals, the re-writing of WP:JR of MOS:BLP, and all his... persistent... behaviour in repeatedly enforcing these actions is supported by a "broad consensus" at this discussion. From what I can see, only the 7 editors I have pinged here have participated in this discussion and the "broad consensus" isn't quite as clear as Dicklyon made it out to be. I propose that all the editors who participated here take part in a straw poll, indicating whether you "support" or "oppose" Dicklyon's actions; all the edits and page-moves to remove commas from articles when found preceding "Jr." or "Sr.", and any other actions in furtherance of these goals. Of course, I would like to see others participate as well, to achieve the "broadest consensus" possible. Thanks - ^theWOLFchild 22:29, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Straw poll

• Oppose - as proposer - ^theWOLFchild 22:29, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
• Can not comment... At least not without more information. My view has consistently been that we should adopt a similar standard to COMMONNAME when it comes to issues like this. Our usage should be based on source usage. This will mean that some names will use a comma before Jr. and others won't. What I don't know is whether Dick based his actions on source usage or not. If he did, then I support his actions... If not, then I don't support. Blueboar (talk) 23:12, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

In other words, you are not part of this so-called "broad consensus". - ^theWOLFchild 00:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

When sources are mixed, I go with the recommendations of the MOS, as with caps, dashes, and other things where the MOS shows a preference. On the particular case that got Thewolfchild ticked off, the USS Frank E. Petersen Jr., there are only two known sources that mention the new name of this ship; neither uses a comma, but Thewolfchild asserts that those are "misspelled". Dicklyon (talk) 23:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

"Asserts"...? They both spell his name as "Peterson". If you read the sources, as you claim, you should know that. (oops!) - ^theWOLFchild 00:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for that clarification. Where you said misspelled before, I thought you meant by leaving out the comma. Sorry I misinterpreted you. So this leaves us with exactly zero sources for the name of the ship? Dicklyon (talk) 00:10, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Again, it is a stub for a newly announced, not-yet-constructed ship. What. part. of. that. don't. you. get? Prior to the announcement just a few days ago, there was no such thing as the "USS Frank E. Petersen, Jr.", so how many sources are you expecting? More will come in time. If indeed there is no comma, then the page can be moved back... then. For now, the guidelines support it remaining at the original title. - ^theWOLFchild 00:38, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

The guidelines at WP:JR say to prefer without the comma. And the sources don't use commas (now the news has spread to at least 5 copies of the same misspelled comma-free name). And the article at Frank E. Petersen has never used commas (it has the Jr in the article, just not in the title). No guideline says to insert a comma where no source uses a comma, nor to turn over style decisions to the stub creator. Dicklyon (talk) 04:17, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

However, Dick, the guidelines do say that commas can still be used, they say that pages should not be moved from one acceptable style to another, and they that when page-moves are contested, they go back to original title. Oh, and Dick, almost every article here was created by a "stub creator". - ^theWOLFchild 22:43, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

• Comment – This page isn't really for complaining about people; let's talk process and guidelines instead. Thewolfchild didn't get a lot of traction at his ANI complaint, so he's trying here. His very unbalanced canvassing there did bring in a couple of dissenters, and his new ping is not much better. Dicklyon (talk) 23:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

You're the one that introduced this discussion to the ANI, claiming there was a "broad consensus" here to support your actions. As usual, that turned out be not quite the truth. Don't start attacking me just because you got caught in another lie. The only people I pinged were editors that already contributed here. So you're "canvassing" claim is just another falsehood. - ^theWOLFchild 00:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

You missed about a dozen from the WP:VPP RFC, and at least one or two from this section. Dicklyon (talk) 00:11, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

One is not a "dozen". He's been added, but if I missed any other contributors to this discussion; Implementing the "Jr." RfC, then by all means, feel free to list them here. - ^theWOLFchild 00:38, 8 April 2016 (UTC).

The relevant RFC is now archived at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_125#RfC:_Amending_MOS:JR_on_comma_usage. You might want to balance your canvassing by inviting RGoucester, Mandruss, Masem, Graeme Bartlett, AgnosticAphid, Aoziwe, Checkingfax, Nyttend, Ironholds, Tony1, DGG, and Fdssdf; and maybe previous supporters of this idea in Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Biographies/2015_archive#RfC:_Comma_or_no_comma_before_Jr._and_Sr., such as sroc, Herostratus, Atsme, FactStraight, and Collect. I can understand why you wouldn't, but then you shouldn't be canvassing just the dissenters, either, like you did at ANI. Dicklyon (talk) 04:02, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Support Dicklyon's comma-removals, including the the page-moves. Reject the notion that when Wolfchild and Dicklyon fight over commas only one of them is at fault. Evidence, please regarding the claim that Dicklyon re-wrote WP:JR and MOS:BLP to support his position -- I want to see diffs. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:46, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I'm mainly trying to determine if there was already a consensus among the editors in the discussion above. I see you're not one, but thank you for participating. The sooner we have true consensus on this the better, (either way). Dicklyons contributions to WP:JR/MOS:BLP can be seen here. I'm not sure is you've completely grasped the entire situation, but it would take a lot of reading for that. For me. I believe Dicklyon made an improper page move (which the guidelines say he did). I quickly found out that he has made dozens and dozens (hundreds even?) of such moves and many more edits, resulting in numerous complaints and conflicts. He claimed there was a consensus to support these actions, but as it turns out, there isn't. One might think Dicklyon would stop his behaviour and allow for the situation to be sorted and a true consensus determined, but he has continued on anyway. He's not new this behaviour, just coming off a recent on page-move-ban and an indef block by way of standard offer. Like I said, there's a lot to this. Have a nice day. - ^theWOLFchild 01:23, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Not a hundred yet, but as I said above, "I've moved an average of about 2 per day for the last month (higher in the last few days)." There have been very few that attracted any pushback. Perhaps you'd like to list them and we can talk about those. Or find any that you think were improper. I don't think my quantity of editing is itself a problem, so be specific. Dicklyon (talk) 03:50, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 

(edit conflict) Everyone is free to move pages that can be moved if they believe it will not be controversial and they have a cogent rationale for doing it. A couple of "never stop, never surrender" die-hards about keeping the comma, who keep recycling arguments that have already been refuted into the ground, and who keep playing the WP:IDHT game, forum-shopping the same "proof by assertion" in RM after RM – and getting nowhere at any of them because the refutations have not magically disappeared – does not constitute actual controversy, but tendentious battlegrounding. WP has thousands of editors, and they just do not believe that the commas are better. Consensus does not have to be unanimous. Massive tacit acceptance, and consistent explicit support at ongoing RMs, of Wikipedia using the style we all see when we read modern off-WP source material, is orders of magnitude more evidence of consensus that a few WP:IDONTLIKEIT-style dissenters are any kind of evidence that there's no consensus.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:33, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: Wolf, you speak about "broad consensus", which, of course, is the bedrock of most, if not all, Wikipedia policies and guidelines. However, what is the threshold for when consensus goes from "local" (?) to "broad"? The requests for comment ping all the editors who want to be pinged about those topics, which, here, are about style rules. The initial RfC, in 2014, resulted in an impromptu tally, with seven editors participating. The RfC in February drew votes from 16 editors. In my mind, neither qualifies as "broad consensus", but what would, if not the editors who are pinged about style RfCs? This may speak to the idea that the subject at hand isn't interesting enough to draw support for its RfCs, but that is a corollary topic. I support Dicklyon's efforts because I am a proponent of the no-comma style. I wish to reproduce an argument from sroc from the 2014 RfC, which was echoed at the time by another editor, in lieu of my own (I hope sroc does not mind):

Why should a subject's consideration be taken into account on a question of style? Do you think other encyclopedias, newspapers and publications consult the subject's preferences? Making allowance for the subject's preference (if they have one) or a preponderance of sources (which likely use their own style rules regardless of the subject's views):

• is irrelevant, as the subject's style (or sources' styles) should not determine Wikipedia's style;
• needlessly takes up editors' time checking sources and debating preferences;
• can only lead to arguments over which style should apply in individual cases;
• makes the guideline more involved than it needs to be;
• lends to inconsistency if different subjects are formatted differently and discussed together, say, in a list of famous Americans that mentions "Sammy Davis, Jr." and "John F. Kennedy Jr.";
• leads to arguments amongst editors over whether a comma should also appear after the "Jr." (it most definitely should, although some editors find this hard to believe).

Option 2 is a bad idea. Option 1 is a simple solution that avoids all these issues. —sroc 💬 09:00, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I apologize if it seems like I'm re-litigating the issue here. Wolf, you are right that the manual of style allows multiple acceptable styles — there is no doubt. I just wish the comma would disappear. Hell, if it meant never wasting another second on this topic, I would reluctantly embrace the commas (both of them). Fdssdf (talk) 05:14, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Fdssdf: Um... thanks for your reply, but it was Dicklyon who spoke of "broad consensus", not me. He claimed he already had broad consensus here in this discussion, to defend his page-move-warring, edit-warring and general disruptive behaviour. I looked here to verify that and found that it wasn't true. The discussion wasn't even closed, only 7 editors had participated and there was nothing close to consensus. Look, if you want to remove commas, that's one thing. But we have guidelines here; if your moving a page, simply to remove a comma and that page move is contested, you stop and discuss. You don't keep warring-on. And WP:MOS clearly states if the page move is contested, then the original title stays. Some of you anti-comma people are conveniently over-looking these facts. This comma nonsense has been going on for over a year. There needs to be a clear, widely-participated debate, with an equally clear consensus and a clearly written guideline. Until that happens, Dicklyon and Co. need to stop the disruptive behaviour, and the anti-comma faction need to stop cheering him. You're not doing the project any favours here. - ^theWOLFchild 06:44, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I didn't mean for that to sound even remotely inflammatory (I'm not certain you perceived it as such), but labeling someone as a seeker of "broad consensus" is not a bad thing at all. Back to the topic: You said, "There needs to be a clear, widely-participated debate, with an equally clear consensus and a clearly written guideline." This was my point entirely: What qualifies as "broad consensus", if not the participation of the February RfC? I think this is what Dicklyon points to when he says there is a "broad consensus" — that is, broad enough given the audience who cares at all about minutiae of style. Aside from that, Wolf, just what type of Wiki venue exists that would capture a larger audience than an RfC? (I am genuinely curious if one exists.) Would it be something like Wiki-wide poll, as done for stewards and other high-level overseers? I would love that, but I don't think it would garner too much attention; likely, it probably would draw scorn from those who viewed it as too trivial for a major site-wide poll (if one exists). I don't know. However, I do agree that it will be more helpful once the MoS has an "X, not Y" statute, whichever style it favors. To your final point, "Dicklyon and Co." must feel the need to spur debate through BOLD edits and the BRD process, and it sure is working. Wolf, you say it's a detriment to the project, but I disagree, at least for now. As to the overall tone of this Jr./Sr. comma spat, in multiple venues, I don't think it's helpful. There needs to be more good will on both sides of the discussion because, after all, we're all in this together. Fdssdf (talk) 07:13, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

"Broad consensus" doesn't mean "873 editors voted for it", it means it was very broadly advertised in an RfC (Village Pump, with notices elsewhere, and it was on WP:CENT, too), and the consensus that emerged was clear (it was in fact much more clear than the supervoting closer made it out to be). Breadth is of the number of editor made aware of the discussion so they could comment on if it they wanted to it. It doesn't means diversity of opinions provided, or head-count of posts.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:33, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I see. So you hold that "broad", here, represents the number of people alerted and not necessarily to the number of people who participate? I had not thought of it that way (correct me, if I misinterpreted your meaning). It's intriguing. Fdssdf (talk) 17:29, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Fdssdf: It's the only thing it could mean in a system in which RfC participation is not compulsory. If you launch an RfC to turn all WP pages pink, and post notices about it on 100 major pages, and almost everyone ignores it as pointless noise, except a handful, and consensus closes against your proposal, you can't later claim with a straight face that there is no consensus against your making pages pink because the RfC wasn't broad enough WP doesn't work that way. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:41, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I agree 100 percent. Fdssdf (talk) 17:15, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

You can't possibly equate a lack of participation with affirmative consensus. If indeed you were to try and "turn all WP pages pink", and gave the wide-spread notice mentioned, that kind of proposal would catch people's attention and there would be a huge response. But when an RfC simply says "let's talk about the comma"... of course you didn't get a large turn out. People figured it was a minor issue... and it should've been. That is, until guidelines started to be arbitrarily re-written, and there were hundreds of controversial page-moves made... then it became an issue and there was a response, albeit a piecemeal one. Different people reacting and complaining about different articles, but all tied to same mass-comma-removal-effort. No matter how you try to spin this, you do not, in fact, have "broad consensus" in support of all these changes... just a community largely caught off guard. If anything, this effort has "broad apathy" supporting it - on the part of those responsible for regulating this kind of behaviour. But, even I'm now past the point of caring and won't be participating in any more RM debates.* I just don't have the same... 'passion'... for saving commas as some people do for removing them. - ^theWOLFchild 18:29, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Please read what I actually wrote, then go read WP:CONSENSUS. I'm not going to respond to this incoherent straw man rant in any detail. But thanks for letting us know that you took your final administrative warning seriously and are electing to avoid this topic henceforth.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:46, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Wow, relax, the warning was to not "personalize" anything (and could easily apply to you as well) and I haven't in my last post. I just addressed your comments that somehow people not showing up to an RfC equates to broad consensus. (I've read WP:CON, but I couldn't find that part) My last comment is an impersonal, point by point, response where I ask you to explain the logic behind the "absenteeism consensus". You could just directly answer a question for once, without the (constant) personal attacks-via-blue-links (They're completely unnecessary and getting a little old). But, don't bother answering now, I don't need anymore "you're WP:STUBBORN and just trying to score WP:TOUCHDOWNS with your posts!"... or whatever other blue-linked insults you can think up. Anyway, I started this section looking for the "broad consensus" claimed at ANI. So far it just seems to be you and DL,(maybe a couple others). But, whatever... I've seen all I need to see here and I think I'll be moving on now. - ^theWOLFchild 01:30, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

The way to stop talking about something and move on is to stop talking about it and move on.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:33, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss, Masem, Graeme Bartlett, Aoziwe, Checkingfax, Ironholds, and Sroc: – Thanks Fdssdf. Some of the other supporters of those RFCs have still not been notified by Thewolfchild who pinged the dissenters to here and to his thread about me at ANI. Here's a ping of some (only works for 7 at a time, I'm told). Dicklyon (talk) 05:31, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Oh, stop your bullshit already. I only pinged the editors who participated in this discussion here, regardless of their opinion on the issue. You claimed there was consensus here, I asked the participants to verify their support or opposition, that's all. - ^theWOLFchild 06:44, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

As the diff of mine that you linked shows, I said there is "broad consensus as expressed at WP:JR". That's the guideline page. The relevant discussions that established that broard consensus are the RFCs. Dicklyon (talk) 06:50, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Nyttend, Agnosticaphid, DGG, Herostratus, Atsme, FactStraight, and Collect: might want to know, too. They could read the sections above for some context. Dicklyon (talk) 05:35, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

And who are you canvassing now? - ^theWOLFchild 06:44, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Support removal of the commas, in content and title, except where local consensus says otherwise. Any further debate should be on article talk pages, and specific to those articles. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:50, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

@Mandruss: – That has started. Thewolfchild and his pinged friends have started to show up at places like Talk:Joseph_P._Kennedy,_Sr.#Requested_move_6_April_2016. There are actually some interesting questions in that one. Dicklyon (talk) 06:03, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Who did I at the Joe Kennedy page? (and why is it you feel you need to continually lie?) You keep claiming you want to discuss this, but all you do is post nonsense. I'm just waiting to see if anyone is stupid enough to believe you. But keep going, it is entertaining... - ^theWOLFchild 06:49, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Calidum and Dohn joe showed up to oppose there shortly after you did. I didn't say you pinged them to there, just that you pinged them about such commas. Dicklyon (talk) 06:54, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I didn't ping anyone to the JPK, Sr. page and I didn't ping Calidum here. I only pinged Dohn jow here because he participated here. So, >bing!<, >bing!< ... that's the bell on the bullshit detector racking up a couple more of your lies. Is this all I can expect from you? - ^theWOLFchild 07:47, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I didn't say "here". You pinged Calidum to your AN/I complaint alleging a "war on commas". Dicklyon (talk) 16:06, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Support – I have used the comma all my life but now see the light and the freedom not using a comma allows. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 06:17, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose I do not see the close as supporting removal: As Drmies said, "there is no consensus outside of Wikipedia". The only need we have is to for consistency within an article, and to make every form searchable. And I think to follow the preferences of living people--though I think most living people couldn't care less and accept whatever the editor chooses to do. We have real problems in WP, and this is not one of them. DGG ( talk ) 01:02, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

And yet this has grown into quite a significant problem... - ^theWOLFchild 10:20, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
 

Except there clearly is a general consensus outside of Wikipedia, both in a general shift in usage (across dialects, genres, and registers), and in mainstream style guides, with few keep-the-comma holdouts, plus some observing that two styles exist without analyzing their currency, but the rest dropping it. The sourcing I did both before and during the RfC showed this clearly, whether the "voting closer" chose to acknowledge that or not. The community is not bound to accept the closer's assessment as holy writ, especially since the bulk his close is his own opinions about keeping the comma. Closes are a summarizing function, and we're free to read the actual discussion; consensus coalescing after an RfC (which exists as a straw poll of editor views, not a parliamentary bureaucracy process) is standard operating procedure and frequently moves beyond an RfC and its closer's impressions. Even if this were not true, and even if "here is no consensus outside of Wikipedia" were true, it wouldn't matter anyway. WP:POLICY is not subject to WP:CCPOL sourcing requirements of articles. External sources do not tell us what we are permitted to decide internally as Wikipedia's editors what is best for Wikipedia editorially. Virtually no style matters of any kind in English are universal across all sources on the topic (not even "sentences begin with a capital letter"), yet we have a style guide. WP consensus is formed internally, weighing relevant external sources (when they exist and are relevant), experience with what works and does not work well here, understanding what our readers needs are, and the considered views of the editors who bother to participate in asking and settling the question. Even if there were a 50/50 split in modern usage regarding "Jr."/"Sr." (there definitely is not), we'd still be free to pick one over the other, and we regularly do for various matters, to prevent longer-term, broader disputation. Even MOS:ENGVAR only applies when the choice between multiple styles is arbitrary and WP has no reason to prefer one over the other (not the case here), and ENGVAR wouldn't apply anyway, since the shift is international. Have you actually looked at the RMs about this? They're pretty close to flat-out snowballing for comma removal (except one involving some of the Kennedys, since it mingled deceased, BLPs with differing evidenced preferences, and a ship named after one of them, all of have to be assessed separately).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:04, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

• Support the comma-removal cleanup. I'm the one who did the initial large pile of source research (for forthcoming use in a section in an article on commas in English), which someone else decided also happened to make the basis for a good MoS-related RfC. With more sources obtained over the last month-plus (fortunately mostly at used prices, and with Amazon Prime when not), I could triple that citation pile and it should still show exactly the same thing: 21st-century English is abandoning that comma rapidly, and everywhere, across all genres, dialects, and registers, while it is not quite totally extinct. It's rather like writing "Web site" instead of "website"; in 1996 that didn't look pedantic, now it does. This things change (toward increased simplicity) all the time. When's the last time you saw "rôle" for "role" or "cöoperate" for "cooperate", or "A.F.L.-C.I.O." for "AFL-CIO", or "S.C.U.B.A." or "SCUBA" for "scuba"?
  Oppose attempting to re-legislate the RfC right after it closes just because it didn't go the way you like. The turnout in the RfC was not enormous, despite being at WP:VPPOL for a long time, well-advertised, and attracting the ire of a few people who really, really, really love this comma. The numbers did not become a big editor festival for one obvious reason: Most editors just WP:DGAF about minutiae like this, especially when a pile of sources (missing from the 2015 RfC) removes all subjective doubt. The commas are error-prone and an impediment to reading. They are not "more correct", but now the clearly less accepted option in the real world, and no one but half a dozen editors is losing any sleep over that natural transition in the language. WP has no reason to continue pretending that the comma-laden and comma-free usages are equally acceptable. They're provably proven not.
   — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:09, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• View the idea that all commas be removed as a splendid example of "the hobgoblin ..." In short, if a person uses a comma in real life, use the comma, If they do not use a comma, don't use a comma. And on a scale of 1 to 10 in importance, this is slightly below zero. Really. Strunk insists on a comma still in its latest edition. Chicago MoS gave a choice starting in 1993, but still requires a comma before "Jr." when the last name is given first. Casagrande says to use the comma for "academic style". That position would state that since Wikipedia is an "academic" creature, that commas should be used. As near as I can determine, the change coincided with the prevalence of electronic media, and the fact that computer programmers will elide any characters they can elide (recalling connections at 110 baud). YK. <+g> Collect (talk) 13:08, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Collect, you are mistaken about The Elements of Style. A number of less-than-scrupulous publishers have taken Strunk's 1918 first edition, which is in the public domain, and re-published it with a modern date, pretending that it's a current edition (some, like this one, go so far as to put White's name on it, too). The actual current edition is the 4th, by Strunk & White. Since the 1979 3rd edition, E. B. White has advised dropping the comma. The real one is here; you really ought to get one. Dicklyon (talk) 18:54, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

It would be nice if you had pinged me before insinuating that I in any way sought to mislead anyone at all. Casagrande is not "bogus" for sure. Nor is Chicago MoS bogus. And my comment about the changeover being concurrent with the prevalence of electronic media still stands. I note that clearly my "hobgoblin" comment is spot on. Collect (talk) 14:59, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

• We've done this already. The RfC with the greatest participation (around 40 editors) found - less than a year ago - that commas or no commas are both acceptable, as long as an article is internally consistent: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_119#RfC:_Guidance_on_commas_before_Jr._and_Sr.. Six editors shouldn't be able to overturn that recent rough consensus, and certainly can't claim that the latest RfC is a "broader" consensus than last year's. Dohn joe (talk) 13:11, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• Not sure why I got asked to come here, but since I did...Strong oppose any attempt to force anything on pages in general. The last thing we need is more rule-creep from MOS. Let editors at each page decide things, and don't attempt to force them to bend to your will. Remember that the number of people who come here is tiny compared to the general population: when there's wide discrepancy in usage, a few editors at an MOS talk page have no right to imagine that they can dictate everything to everyone else. Nyttend (talk) 13:55, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Thanks to Collect, Dohn joe and Nyttend. Your answers are both enlightening and interesting. Not quite the same as what Dicklyon has been feeding everyone as of late... - ^theWOLFchild 14:16, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
• How about a moratorium for a while -- a year, lets say -- on moving pages and rewriting article text? It's not really all that important an issue. Bikesheds, hobgoblins. There's so much to do here! Take a look at Wikipedia:Backlog, people, and dig in. We can meet back here in a year and cogitate together on the next step. Herostratus (talk) 15:02, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
  • Why? A grand total of I think four editors making noise about this is not a big deal. There're about a dozen RMs running concurrently on this issue, and they're all landslides in favor of removing the comma, not on the basis of heated argument about "correct" English, but simply sourcing. Ergo, the community itself has no problem with this change, and has apparently been expecting it, based on current usage patterns in the real-world material they read. The last time there was anything like a MoS-related moratorium, it was over capitalization of common names of species, involved dozens of editors, canvassing, organized disruption of RfCs, threats of an editor strike, eight years of constant fighting, and an off-WP conflict about the real-world acceptance level of a proposed formal standard. There's nothing like that going on here. The only heat on this issue is coming from the same handful of individuals, recycling the same arguments no matter how many times they're refuted. They never bring anything new to the table, and don't have any objective facts to back them up.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:56, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• I would suggest a very simple way to determine broader community consensus... An examination of RMs over time. First, Since the goal is to find out what the community consensus on these commas actually is, we should Temporarily remove WP:Jr from MOS completely (don't say anything on the issue one way or the other). For one year, all comma related page moves should be submitted to RM. Those for and against the commas can make their case, and let the community decide on an article by article basis (Yes, this will be repetitious for both sides... But we can live with that on a temporary basis). After a year, we should have enough actual OUTCOMES to assess community consensus, and write guidance that reflects that consensus. Blueboar (talk) 15:25, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Blueboar, I have repeatedly asked for people to examine my actual moves, and to say if any of them of are not good. In the very few cases where such examination has happened, the community consensus was that the moves were OK. Let's stop talking like I'm doing "mass moves" and "controversial moves" and when I'm not. If I'm doing too many, tell me what rate is OK. If some are controversial, point them out. Otherwise, it seems the processes are working, with broad consensus and a few anti-MOS dissenters. Dicklyon (talk) 15:53, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Oppose Blueboar's proposal. Essentially, that's "taking the Village Pump on the road", which defeats the purpose of the Village Pump as a commons area to determine and document community consensus. If an editor chooses not to participate at VP and other public venues, they choose to accept whatever community consensuses are established there. These venues are not hard to find within a few months of starting, and at least that much experience is needed to become minimally competent to participate.
Oppose anything that serves to kick the can down the road, costing yet more editor time, about a fricking inconsequential punctuation character that has been chosen by a few as an ideological battleground. Enough. ―Mandruss ☎ 16:01, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

We have already had a number of RMs. In addition to the currently pending/recently closed ones, we have this multi-RM from December, which was well attended and closed with no consensus. Dohn joe (talk) 16:43, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

Dohn, that big multi-RM on the racing drivers was back before the relevant RFC that changed WP:JR to again say that no comma is preferred (like it had said 2009–2015, but this was when it said both were OK). In spite of both being OK, it was 8–7 in favor of removing the commas, since in the racing business those commas are seldom used. So the "no consensus" close has little bearing on what the current consensus is, after the big RFC that again fixed WP:JR to favor no comma, relying on SMcC's huge pile of evidence from all modern style and grammar guides. Dicklyon (talk) 18:49, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Blueboar, the wording we had in January already was no preference either way. Because we don't make moves based on whim – there's has to be a legit reason for the move – lack of a preference either way is not a basis for one. Historically, a small camp of editors hugely in favor of the comma got their way through WP:FAITACCOMPLI on the basis of false claims that its use was "standard" in "American English". While this has since been disproven, if MoS did not express a preference, there would be no basis to correct it at RM, not even WP:COMMONNAME (it is not a style policy). It's a moot point anyway; the RfC concluded with a consensus to favor removal of the comma; a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS of half-a-dozen people at WT:MOSBIO can't overrule that and say "screw the RfC, there is no preference".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:56, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

the RfC concluded with a consensus to favor removal of the comma - which RfC was that again? - ^theWOLFchild 10:41, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

The one everyone else understands.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  10:34, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Well, you certainly seem to think so... - ^theWOLFchild 10:45, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

• I use the comma in my personal writing, but have no strong feelings about its use or non-use in Wikipedia prose or article titles, as long as both forms are searchable. Let the MOS as altered in the light of recent RfCs determine what to do about new articles, and be considered when a page move is considered anyway, but in my view wholesale page moves are disruptive, and the presence or absence of a comma, when the MOS says and practice demonstrates that both forms are acceptable, even if one is preferred, is not a sufficient reason for wholesale page moves. If such moves are to occur there should be clear consensus not just for the style rule but for the moves. DES ^(talk) 13:39, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Sorry but it makes zero sense to re-litigate this issue at every article that uses the comma. Community consensus has been established, and the local consensus burden should be on those who wish to deviate from the community consensus, not the other way around. The word "preferred" needs to mean something, procedurally; if not this, then what? Actually I'm very surprised to see this position from the editor who created the essay Wikipedia:Process is important back in aught 6. "Process is a fundamental tool for carrying out community consensus..." (emphasis mine) ―Mandruss ☎ 21:57, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

• OK... Both sides in this round of debate are claiming that consensus supports their view, and does not support the view of there opponents. There have been so many discussions and RFCs that an outside observer can't make heads or tails of who is right. It would help if someone would list all the recent RFCs on the issue (with links). Blueboar (talk) 22:15, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

1. Closed May 2015 - contains links to 9 prior discussions. Some say this one represents community consensus because it had a higher turnout than the following RfC.

2. Closed March 2016 - Others say this one represents community consensus because consensus is not merely about numbers and a far stronger case was presented than in the above RfC.

I know of no other RfCs.

Yet others are not concerned with which RfC represents community consensus; they feel WP:IAR is all they need to use the commas, or not, depending on the personal preferences of those who show up in article talk. For them, community consensus really doesn't mean much at all. "Do I feel that the commas improve the encyclopedia? Yes, I do. Therefore IAR says I can (and should) use the commas. Full stop." (Wouldn't it be nice if, after 15 years, we could nail down some fundamental ground rules like this? Process should not be a matter of editor opinion.) ―Mandruss ☎ 23:14, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the links. It helps to read both closures together, and treating the second as a slight clarification of the first. Given the "grandfather" statement in the second, it's definitely not an indication that we should go out and remove commas from existing articles... At best, it is an indication that we should not add commas to new articles (except in specific situations). Both closures were attempts to find middle ground, somewhere between "use commas" and "don't use commas". Blueboar (talk) 11:18, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

But the actual consensus in the discussion was not for any such compromise. It was for deprecating the commas, except where the current RS make a consistent and particular exception in the real world. Even the 2016 RfC closure got that part right. It supersedes the old RfC, which was emotion- not source-based. Whether the closer wants people to not remove the commas from extant articles is ultimately irrelevant. When content guidelines change, the content changes with it; that's just how it works, otherwise a confusing, inconsistent mess would result.

The ongoing RMs will, as usual, take the community's temperature on how it feels about renaming these articles; RM is essentially a long, slow additional RfC. So far, virtually no one cares. I'm told hundreds of articles [false claims my Thewolfchild] a bit under 100 were moved (zero by me, BTW), but less that a dozen RMs are open about it (and I can see they favor dropping the comma, consistently).

I agree that more bulk moves right this very moment are probably ill-advised, but that's not because there's a problem at the policy level, it's because there are four angry editors recycling the same failing arguments at RM after RM, and there's no reason to pour fuel on their localized fires. All of this talk of "grandfathering", whatever that was really intended to mean, is just stalling. The only purpose of stalling is to let a few individuals cool down. The way to do that is to move more slowly until tempers settle – not to make up weird "grandfather" rules that are incompatible with policy. I'll cover the "grandfathering" stuff's policy faults under separate cover.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:30, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

• I'm not going to pretend I read all of the comments above and clearly I'm not super active on wikipedia anymore. I also won't say that I unreservedly support Dicklyon going around and (seemingly?) militantly enforcing the rule we decided on; I would prefer that the MOS be magically absorbed into all the articles in a somewhat organic fashion. Of course, that's not really realistic, but given that a lot of people sort of reflexively oppose the idea that we have an MOS with actual rules, it doesn't help the cause to be ham-handed in enforcing those rules. That being said, "no comma" is the rule we decided on, and it makes sense for the reasons discussed in the RFC. For me, the best reason to ditch the comma is to not have to fight about whether a second comma is required after Jr.... that gets really old really fast. There also isn't really much of a reason to include the comma (I guess the best argument is that some people really would consider omitting a comma in your name to be the same as a spelling error in your name, but I think those people both are wrong and need something better to worry about!). So, with the five hundred reservations I just listed, I support Dicklyon. AgnosticAphid talk 23:29, 5 May 2016 (UTC)

This "grandfathering" idea is not an MoS matter, but a major new policy proposal no one's actually proposed

A little of the above disputation is about the wording in the RfC closure that reads "Grandfathering older articles, FAs, etc., is recommended". This simply isn't a MoS concern. It's an expression of the closer's opinion about desirable post-RfC comportment.

Here are some things it does not and cannot mean, because there is nothing anywhere in MoS or in any other guideline or policy that supports such notions:

• That a result to deprecate the comma means "do not add it to new pages but leave it forever in existing ones". [Actual practice: WP either prefers something or it doesn't (or has no preference, but even this RfC closed with a preference).]
• That some articles are exempt from guideline compliance just because they're older than some other articles.
• That applicability of guideline changes must be delayed based on article age.
• That guideline changes only apply to newly-created pages.

Application of any of these ideas would create terrible confusion and an inconsistent mess. It would also lead to an order of magnitude more dispute, because everyone would wikilawyer about article creation dates; which date to use in case of a merge; whether a guideline change added at date X, removed, and re-added on date Y could be said to date to X or to Y, etc., etc. No one would be able to keep it straight other than WP:NOTHERE people who spend 90% of their time looking for policy fights to get into or create instead of working on content; normal editors would be perpetually confused and WP:GAMEd-against any time they tried to make any edit complying with anything. If we'd actually had a policy that supported such any such approach, we would now have all old articles with linked and auto-formatting dates; old articles on species of birds and various other things would capitalize the common names, and newer ones would not; old articles could retain sections named "Trivia" full of junk; and so on. We have no such policy, for very good reasons.

The closer was asked by multiple parties, on his talk page, and here, and at the RM, to clarify what he meant and how he thought it might be implemented, or to remove that from the close, and he refused. The close didn't make sense, and we're all just going to have to move on. RM is demonstrating that we are in fact moving on. If GAN and FAC want to "grandfather" things, we'll find out. It's not up to MOS whether GAN/FAC seek compliance with particular line items in MOS before promoting an article, and it's not up to GAN/FAC if other editors want to seek it via direct edits or RM or whatever. This is not a bureaucracy, remember. We do have some WP:PROCESS, though.

If people actually want a WP:GRANDFATHER policy, we all know where WP:VPPRO is and how WP:PROPOSAL works. Good luck with that. Here's a draft for you, to speed you on your way: "No change to a non-WP:OFFICE content policy or guideline applies to pre-existing articles until an assessment, 6 months after the change, of its effect on new articles reaffirms consensus to keep it." Let me go get some popcorn first.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:30, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Well said, and in my experience contrary to popular "wisdom" which seems designed to promote conflict and kill efficiency. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:52, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Post-RfC cleanup of MOS:JR

MOS:JR reads:

Omission of the comma before Jr./Jr/Jnr or Sr./Sr/Snr is preferred. The comma can be used where a living subject's own preference or its use in current sources is clear and consistent. Articles should be internally consistent in either use or omission of the commas.

The presence of Articles should be internally consistent in either use or omission of the commas is directly self-contradictory, and it has to come out. We cannot remove all commas from all Jr./Sr. names in a article on the basis that one doesn't use it, if the "a living subject's own preference or its use in current sources is clear and consistent" criteria apply to someone else mentioned in the article. Likewise, we can't wrongly add commas to the names of those who don't use them and for whom sources do not support using them, on nothing but the basis that the article elsewhere mentions someone for whom that condition is actually true. Either result would be pursuit of typographic consistency to the point of insanity.

I removed the contradictory "internally consistent" sentence, but someone who has been pursuing disputes with me across a variety of topics, from punctuation to what makes a good RfA candidate, reverted it and told me to "go get consensus". Well, okay; WP:FILIBUSTERing doesn't really faze me.

Is there any rational objection to removing the self-contradictory "should be internally consistent" instruction with which our editors cannot actually comply?

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:39, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Off-topic venting

Thank goodness you bolded that entire sentence, else we would never have noticed it! - theWOLFchild 23:04, 10 April 2016 (UTC) It's standard operating procedure to boldface the RfC question or actual proposal when something is put up for discussion with a fair amount of explanatory material. Was there something else you wanted to uncivilly rant about for no reason, or did you perhaps want to go read WP:BATTLEGROUND, and try to think of something more constructive to do?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:29, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

• I see no problem... Since we can use piped links, a name can appear with a comma in one article, and without a comma in a different article. Blueboar (talk) 13:15, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
• I agree with Blueboar and disagree with SMcCandlish here. Piped links allow internal consistency on this matter, and within-article consistency is a virtue, although not an overriding one. DES ^(talk) 13:21, 10 April 2016 (UTC)
  • It's not at all a virtue when it forces changing names directly against the very rationale for any of the names being variant from the preferred default to begin with, and against the sources! That's backwards reasoning. It's exactly the same thing as saying "a) We should hyphenate compound adjectives, but b) with the sole exception of not doing so in the title of a published work that doesn't do it (e.g. "The Long Awaited Stranger"); however c) in any article in which there is such a title, remove hyphens from every single compound modifier, despite this being against the majority of reliable sources on English-language writing norms." We would never do that in a million years, so why on earth would we do something like that in this case? Shall we next say that in any article in which "iPod" or "Deadmau5" appears that all wild and wacky trademark stylization must be accepted without question? I think you're forgetting that the rationale for allowing an occasional exception for comma-Jr. was for the rare case that it's nearly universally applied to (and used by) a specific individual.

    If we were to really value paragraph-by-paragraph consistency above all else, then we would eliminate that exception, and also eliminate various parallel exceptions like for trademarks beginning with lowercase, names with number-for-letter substitutions, and other oddities that we accept when the sources tell us everyone else does for specific instances (exactly as we are for comma-Jr.). We can't have it both ways. Either we're allowing flexibility to follow the sources, or we're rigidly imposing a house style for absolute consistency. We can't make it rigid when editor A is going to pitch a fit when it's not consistent enough, then make it flexible when editor B is going to fight forever because they can't get the variance they want. That way lies never-ending, tendentious, style-warring madness, like piping [[Deadmau5|Deadmaus]] and squabbling about that in a zillion article-by-article disputes. As always, we need a consistent rule that is a guideline not a law, and allows for exceptions that RS tell us are exceptions, not for whim-based exceptions, and is otherwise followed as a best practice and is reliable upon in RfCs, RMs, GAN, FAC, etc. Otherwise we would not have developed a style manual at all.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:58, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

• DES, you wrote: "within-article consistency is a virtue, although not an overriding one" (my italics). Are you sure? Take a look at the start of the MOS: "Style and formatting should be consistent within an article". It is a governing feature of so much of our stylistic choices. Tony (talk) 14:04, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

And yet SMc seeks to remove the very same premise from WP:JR, just a few paragraphs down... - ^theWOLFchild 14:08, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

My view is that within-article consistency is indeed a virtue, but there may be other reasons that override it in specific cases. SMcCandlish argues above that this is such a case. He may be correct. His arguments in his reply to me are more through, and to me more persuasive, than his original reductio-ad-absurdum argument, which I thought was unpersuasive. I don't think that the presence or absence of the comma in such name is a really vital matter, I wouldn't have objected to guidance that said "Do whatever you like, as long as you don't edit-war and particularly don't page-move war over it". Nor would I object to establishing a single house style on this issue, one way or the other. DES ^(talk) 16:15, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree there's a potential contradiction here. If we make an article that's partly commaless, but we refer to a name that we agree should use a comma, it's not obvious what this provision suggests we do. However, I'm not inclined to argue about it until we have a definite case to discuss. We don't even have a single example yet of where the comma would be preferred, or an article where doing something about that would cause an inconsistency. When we have one, we can talk about how to fix it, and document the decision. Dicklyon (talk) 15:57, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Given the latest change of position of DES as stated above, I'll go along and favor dealing with this in the way that SMcCandlish proposed, which is to remove the extra statement of consistency that seems to override the exception of including a comma when justified. Dicklyon (talk) 17:12, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

What I'm getting at is the even more overriding if not-spelled-out principle of use the style that is appropriate for the contextual item in question. We would not apply the general principle to be consistent within the article to force the capitalization of k.d. lang, just because Billy Bragg is capitalized in the same paragraph, after agonizingly coming to the conclusion that k. d. lang is a rare special exception – its own micro-context. Way more to the point, we would never, ever say "if you're going to use 'k.d. lang', then in the same article you must use 'billy bragg', and 'wisconsin' and the lord of the rings. I really don't think it's a reductio ad absurdum; it's a directly parallel case. If we're generalizing from the IDENTITY and ABOUTSELF principle that if someone says they're "k.d. lang" or "Deadmau5" or that their product is an "iPod" – or their name is darned well "..., Jr." with a comma – and the real world goes along with them, then these are all micro-contextual exceptions that don't affect the style of surrounding content and are not overridden by it, either. Maybe we should say something like that specifically toward the top of MOS. It might actually forestall a lot of pointless future debates over such trivia.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:36, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

I made an edit to the consistency-within-article sentence that I think captures the intent. Please review. Dicklyon (talk) 21:24, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Of course you did. Heaven forbid you actually wait until the community has discussed how a guideline should be written and then have any changes implemented by consensus.
sigh... Just another day here at Dickipedia... - ^theWOLFchild 23:04, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

It's entirely normal to try implementing something and seeing if it sticks, if the problem is clear and the solution is simple. This is a wiki not a government agency, after all. How many more snide, baiting comments should we expect from you on this page today? Two back-to-back seems like more than enough.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:29, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Oh, the irony (is that number 3?) It's one thing to "try implementing something"... that's what WP:BOLD is about. But the way you guys persistently try to cram your own personal preferences down everyone's throat, with the gaming of the system, the bah-zillion page moves, the edit-warring, the disingenuous and misleading comments, the constant re-writing of guidelines to suit your purposes, the giant walls of text on every discussion to steer it off the rails or simply bore people into submission... that is not collaboration. And it's no way to build and maintain an encyclopaedia. - ^theWOLFchild 06:28, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Projection.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:33, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I'd actually missed this, but here's a superb example of why this sentence has to go: See thread at Talk:USS Frank E. Petersen Jr.#Requested move 7 April 2016 for <ahem> someone in this discussion WP:GAMING the wording here as an excuse to falsify the titles of sources to look like they're using the comma syntax when they're not, as a really WP:LAME attempt to support an RM to move the page title to have a comma in it. Things like this are why it is important we do not create loopholes in WP:P&G pages, and do close them swiftly and firmly when they're found.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:39, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Oh the hypocrisy (is that number 4?) This whole comma debacle has been going on for over a year, with multiple RfCs, RM-discussions, ANIs, debates and complaints with still no consensus in sight and it has your mucky paw prints all over it. You've had your say, ad nauseum, and what you want and why you want it is clear, but the way you're going about is disruptive. What would be best for the project is if you guys took a step back and allowed the community to come to an organic resolution on this by consensus, without your constant interference. Failing that, then ArbCom can always step in and sort it out. Don't think that you're making anything better here with all this, because you're not. - ^theWOLFchild 06:47, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Read: "I got caught falsifying sourcing to try to WP:WIN a WP:LAME editwar, so after numerous blocks and warnings for editwarring and incivility, I'm going to hand-wave with unsupported aspersion-casting and personal attacks, and suggest going to ArbCom, who would remove me from the project indefinitely." Whatever you say, man. [Diffs: [1], [2]]  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:33, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Projection. - ^theWOLFchild 09:12, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Recent RfC versus old RfCs

At this point, we have one RfC that said both styles are acceptable, and requiring consistency within an article; one RfC that said a second comma is required if the first one is used; and one RfC saying that no comma is preferred. We don't have any consensus beyond that. The MOS should say no more and no less than what has come out the RfCs. Dohn joe (talk) 14:54, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

New RFC with good sourcing, and equally advertised, trumps old RfCs with poor sourcing. Consensus can change and it did. By your reasoning we would not bother to ever have RfCs again except for all-new issues, because new RfCs on the same issue wouldn't matter, only the old ones would.

Anyway, I made the wording better match the close (the BLP thing is now given as a statistical likelihood, not a prerequisite). Shouldn't that resolve the issue now?

The "grandfathering" stuff in Drmies's close is up to GAN and FAC; it's not an MoS matter. We can't magically invent a new "old articles are somehow exempt from guideline compliance" policy out of thin air. That would be bedlam, if anyone ever took it seriously. All that can happen is that the volunteers who do GA/FA reviews can decide not to demand compliance with a particular part of a particular guideline as a condition of passing the article or not. And they've already always done that. That's out of MoS's hands, and more power to them. Does anyone here really care whether a common is in Martin Luther King, Jr. so much that they would deny it promotion? Didn't think so.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  15:54, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

I'm wondering whether Dohn joe has even read the RFC at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive_125#RfC:_Amending_MOS:JR_on_comma_usage, or the collected research on modern style and grammar guides on this issue that you collected at Talk:Comma#In_English:_Commas_used_with_.22Jr.5B..5D.22_and_.22Sr.5B..5D.22. These data were compelling enough that RGloucester changed his position and opened an RFC, and Randy Kryn changed his position (and wrote "SMcCandlish's research on updated and current usage puts this baby to bed."), and most others who previously argued for commas being OK just stayed away. If Dohn joe had come to that RFC, what argument might he have offered? Just that it's not what we decided a year ago? Maybe he should read it and report back. Dicklyon (talk) 16:26, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Haven't changed my position much, just that some pages should be grandfathered and others, like RFK Jr., are personal choices of living persons. Exceptions are the spice of life. Randy Kryn, Jr. 18:59, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

OK, good. But in the previous RFC you very clearly opposed saying that we prefer no comma; that's all I meant. Dicklyon (talk) 19:09, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

It's really pretty simple. Look at any "Jr." in Google Books, and you'll find the comma 30-60% of the time. This is standard, acceptable, modern usage no matter how you slice it. Claims that the comma is no longer used, or "obsolete" as SMC has done elsewhere, are not founded in reality. WP should not deprecate a style that is perfectly acceptable. Doing so, in fact, is harmful to WP, as it lowers morale of editors who see their perfectly correct contributions reverted. Dohn joe (talk) 03:21, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Nobody is saying it's not "acceptable usage" and nobody is getting contributions reverted because they used a comma. It's just that WP has a house style, like most other publishers, and it's generally considered a good thing to edit toward compliance with house style. And we chose our house style to be in agreement with the vast majority of modern guides and publishers, respecting the very good reasons that the guides cite. Dicklyon (talk) 03:26, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

What Dohn joe means by "acceptable usage" is MOS lead section's "Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason", but this is a summary of WP:ENGVAR, and obviously means acceptable under the MoS, as arbitrary variations WP that neither prefers nor deprecates. It does not mean "acceptable to someone somewhere" or we would have no MoS, since just about any typographical atrocity can be found in print somewhere. It's the "maybe this can be wikilawyered to seem like an ENGVAR issue" angle that's already been refuted at the RfC and at all the RMs, so this is just rehash. It's a common tactic (it was DF24's favorite in trying to go after LQ), so the wording probably needs to be tightened to put an end to the fallacies and confusions. There is no strong national tie with comma-Jr, and the distinction between the two usages is not arbitrary and hasn't been in the real world since the mid 1990s – one is proven to be strongly preferred (and not on a nationalist basis).

Dohn joe's pseudo-stats would not be valid even if they were made precise, because a Google Books search just coughs up matches for every book in the GBooks database (based on number of times the exact search phrase appears, from what I can determine, though paid placement by publishers is also rumored), and is not limited to current sources.

It's much more useful to use Google News for this, which only provides hits from the 4 years or so, mostly just the last year, unless you force it to do otherwise. Let's take some real cases, and produce real statistics (see next thread).
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:42, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

This is not an ENGVAR issue, at all - and where you got the notion that MOS's lead section is limited to ENGVAR situations I don't know. Neither is this trying to champion some obscure, quirky usage. This is simply an effort to allow editors to use accepted, mainstream style. And real cases show that using the comma is an accepted, mainstream style - see below.... Dohn joe (talk) 14:31, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Demonstration of obsolescence even in American publications

Google News search on "Ed Begley, Jr." (in quotes, and with the comma just for kicks) [3] Include &gl=us parameter to limit results to US sources, to test (yet again) the claim that American sources prefer the comma. Count every single source, once each, that appears on first dozen pages of results, sorted by usage, and only counting occurrence(s) visible in search results (no following links and digging around).

Key: WC = with comma; NC = no comma; ?? = both in same source; SO = spelled-out "Junior"; NJ: no-Jr (i.e. just "Ed Begley")

     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12  totals
-----------------------------------------------
WC:  5  8  7  2  3  4  1  2  5  2  3  2     44
NC: 19 13 15 19 17 14 17 14 10 13 11 13    175
??:  2           1     1                     4
SO:              1                           1
NJ:           1     1                        2

Result: 80% preference for no-comma over with-comma.

Repeat same test, for "Robert F. Kennedy, Jr." [4]

     1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12  totals
-----------------------------------------------
WC:  5  1  0  4  2  2  2  6  2  1  2  6     33
NC: 17 21 20 17 23 19 17 15 18 14 16 10    207
??:     2     3        2                     7
SO:                                          0
NJ:           1     2  1     2  1            7
Plus 1 case of no-junior in headline, no-comma in text.

Result: 86% preference for no-comma over with-comma.

The slight difference between the two results is normal statistical variation in a sample this size.

Notes: "Jr" with no dot is virtually unknown in American publications, even in headlines. Of those that were inconsistent on comma-or-not, there was no consistent pattern to the inconsistency, e.g. "use comma in prose but not headline" or vice versa; it was just random. One minor exception that that in 3 cases I saw sources use comma in text but "RFK Jr." (the abbreviation I mean) in headline (I counted these in the "??" row). "Jnr[.]", "Jun." and other variants did not occur in the Americans sources. There's no point trying to do a search like this on non-US sources, since the comma is even less common in British, etc., sources.

So, 14-20% survival of the comma usage in current American sources means "this is obsolete, and a few publishers just haven't caught up"; it's like NYT not dropping "Web site" in favor of 'website' until 2015.

PS: This is consistent with results in the RfC discussion itself, where I proved that the comma usage for Martin Luther King Jr, supposedly the poster-child for using the comma, showed that it's not the majority usage any longer in current publishing.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:42, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Demonstration of widespread current usage of the comma

SMC has a weird definition of "obsolete." It should be obvious that all kinds of current publications continue to use the comma. Seriously - go to Google Books. Search for 21st century books with an available preview. Search for particular names:

• Ed Begley Jr."
• "Desi Arnaz Jr."
• "Robert F. Kennedy Jr."
• "Ken Griffey Jr."

Search generic names:

• "Smith Jr."
• "Johnson Jr."
• "Williams Jr."
• "Brown Jr."

Search any name with Jr. and you will find between 35-60% usage of the comma - with an average of around 40%. 40% is acceptable, mainstream, proper, whatever you want to call it. A few determined WP editors want to essentially ban a mainstream style. This is bad for WP. Dohn joe (talk) 14:48, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Even if that's true, which I think it's not for most names based on my own counts of books, it's odd to see you arguing that we should follow the minority of sources. You've usually argued to follow the majority of sources; both are at odds with us having our own manual of style to follow. Dicklyon (talk) 02:46, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Update on implementation progress

Continuing at an average of about 3 comma removals per day, I'm up to nearly a hundred now over the last month or so. No new pushback since Thewolfchild, and his noise settled down after a number of warnings from admins and he decided to take a wikibreak.

There are still a few older RM discussions open, however. In its fourth week for unknown reasons, Talk:Harry K. Daghlian Jr.#Requested move 20 March 2016 still has very thin participation, as K. Daghlian Jr.&diff=715296433&oldid=715285096 Dohn joe noted there after I posted the fact that all the RM precedents agree with the RFC and WP:JR. It would be a pain for progress if any such RM ever closed as "no consensus" due to thin participation. So far it hasn't happened—we keep re-affirming the consensus that we're better off without the commas, so I'll keep moving along, slowly, as I continue to also do moves to fix errors with dashes, case, etc. Dicklyon (talk) 02:46, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

Here's the status of related RM discussions since the RFC and JR rewrite:

Closed in favor of following the preference expressed in WP:JR

• Talk:Andrew L. Lewis Jr.#Requested move 04 April 2016
• Talk:Robert Downey Jr.#Requested move 04 April 2016
• Talk:Feodor Chaliapin Jr.#Requested move 2 April 2016
• Talk:Benjamin O. Davis Sr.#Requested move 2 April 2016
• Talk:Larry Mullen Jr.#Requested move 20 March 2016
• Talk:Desi Arnaz Jr.#Requested move 20 March 2016
• Talk:Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr.#Requested move 2 April 2016
• Talk:USS Frank E. Petersen Jr.#Requested move 7 April 2016

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dicklyon (talk • contribs) 17:33, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for this. I've lacked the energy to hunt down all of these. If the obstructionism continues, it would be useful to have a page in your user space to track it. Or mine, it wouldn't matter to me as long as I don't have to be the main person maintaining it. Damn shame that a few people make something like that necessary. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:24, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

It will probably all blow over; and it will be here if we need to trot it out. Dicklyon (talk) 20:34, 17 April 2016 (UTC)

As I mentioned on one of those talkpages, these RMs all involve the same eight or so !voters (about five anti-comma and three pro-choice), so I don't know how valuable they would be going forward. And yes, it will probably resolve at some point, at least to a degree (see LQ and USPLACE for "resolved" issues that crop up perennially). It's an unnecessarily editor-unfriendly rule and a waste of resources - we will now be "fixing" perfectly well written articles. But it's not going to cripple WP or anything, I guess. Dohn joe (talk) 00:40, 18 April 2016 (UTC)

More closed in favor of following the guidance of the MOS

• Talk:Harry K. Daghlian Jr.#Requested move 20 March 2016 finally closed, again in favor of the recommendation of the MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 01:34, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
• Talk:Dale Earnhardt, Jr.#Requested move 17 April 2016 – Last four racers fixed, over Dohn joe's objection that "it ain't broke". Dicklyon (talk) 15:11, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
• Talk:Alan Hale, Sr.#Requested move 18 April 2016 – a technical request challenged by George Ho, though he took no position on it.
• Talk:Barnett McFee Clinedinst Jr.#Requested move 24 April 2016 – opened by Richard Arthur Norton in response to one of my recent moves.
• Talk:Martin Luther King, Jr. Day#Requested move 22 April 2016 – opened by me because I knew treating is as uncontroversial wouldn't fly with Randy Kryn. Another editor notified a massive number of wikiprojects to comment; it will be interesting to see what they think (answer: not much).
• Talk:Harry Connick Jr.#Requested move 04 May 2016 – Calidum asserted "Connick always includes the comma in his name, which can be seen on his website and on album covers" but the evidence showed and consensus agreed was that this was not the case.
• Talk:Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.#Requested move 6 April 2016 – Consensus was to move 4 Kennedy articles to comma-free form per WP:JR, after 5 weeks of waiting.
• Talk:Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library#Requested move 4 May 2016 – Consensus was to follow WP:JR in spite of the sign on the building; many sources agree.
• Talk:Dwight L. Bush Sr.#Requested move 4 May 2016 – By the time I noticed this one, it was relisted, unopposed, so I went ahead and closed it.
• Talk:Barack Obama Sr.#Requested move 13 May 2016 – Opposite proposed by George Ho, unanimous in favor of following WP:JR
• Talk:Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.#Requested move 13 May 2016 – Proposed by George Ho, unanimous in favor of following WP:JR
• Talk:Roy Simmons, Jr.#Requested move 13 May 2016 – Proposed by George Ho, unanimous in favor of following WP:JR
• Talk:Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.#Requested move 13 May 2016 – Proposed by George Ho, unanimous in favor of following WP:JR

Still no exceptions have been identified (or even credibly proposed besides RFK Jr.).

I've removed a bunch more commas; up to near 500 now, with very little pushback. Reviews of my work would be appreciated, in case I've done anything wrong. Mandruss has also recently been doing a lot of work in this area, and a few other editors including the occasional IP have helped, too. It appears to be going smoothly, without controversy, except where Randy Kryn and Martin Luther King are involved. Dicklyon (talk) 00:25, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Hiccups

A comma before Jr. or Sr. is like a hiccup – it leaves you wondering if and when the next one will come. We have some titles with isolated hiccups between parts, like in Robert N. C. Nix, Sr. Federal Building. I tried fixing this per the preference expressed in WP:JR, but my move got reverted by Beyond My Ken, with edit summary "The GSA lists it with a comma, see http://www.gsa.gov/portal/ext/html/site/hb/category/25431/actionParameter/exploreByBuilding/buildingId/0813." [5]. Now, for this building, the law that named it, and probably most sources, used the 2-comma version (and sometimes the longer name with "and United States Post Office"). But the GSA and some sources do use the 1-comma non-grammatical version, sometimes. However, the GSA and other sources also use the no-comma version, as here. And sometimes there's a space in "N. C." and sometimes not. Given all the flexibility that government and other sources show, I don't think it would be a stretch at all for us to use wikipedia's own house style on the comma this one, as we do on the space in the initials. Yes? Dicklyon (talk) 01:07, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

The GSA is the owner of the building (as it is of all Federal buildings), and that's what they call it, therefore that's what we should call it. Wikistyle should never prevail over the real-world name of something, and the GSA is about as real as you can get. Other than that statement, I'm not getting involved in this typically loopy Wikidiscussion. BMK (talk) 01:24, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

My link above showed that they also call it by the no-comma name. Dicklyon (talk) 01:39, 1 May 2016 (UTC)

After BMK cut off conversation here, and here, I went ahead and moved it back to the no-comma form, which the GSA also uses. BMK claims to have moved it "from a name they do not use"; this is not true. So I went ahead and moved it per the preference of WP:JR again, and marked the redirect as R from modification so he won't move it back as threatened. And he can't request a revert as undiscussed move after cutting off discussion with a falsehood, I presume, so this is settled. Dicklyon (talk) 14:07, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

Progress

In the last few days I fixed comma-imbalanced disambiguators such as "(Ray Parker, Jr. album)" and "(Hank Williams, Jr. album)" and "(Harry Connick, Jr. album)" and and "Grover Washington, Jr. song)" and "(Sammy Davis, Jr. song)", along with corresponding artist names, for all such things that I could find. Also categories such as:

• Category:Sammy Davis, Jr. live albums
• Category:Phineas Newborn, Jr. albums
• Category:Hank Williams, Jr. songs
• Category:Hank Williams, Jr. albums
• Category:Hank Williams, Jr. compilation albums
• Category:Hank Williams, Jr. live albums
• Category:Sammy Davis, Jr. albums
• Category:Harry Connick, Jr. albums
• Category:Harry Connick, Jr. video albums

which now all have "soft redirects" to the moved category name without comma. I'm also editing and moving contained and related articles, templates, etc. Everything is going over smoothly, except that Calidum reverted all the Harry Connick Jr.-related moves, and in the process we got a new RM discussion at Talk:Harry_Connick_Jr.#Requested_move_04_May_2016. There's also another imbalanced-comma fix being challenged by Randy Kryn at Talk:Dr._Martin_Luther_King_Jr._Library#Requested_move_4_May_2016. Nothing new at these, relative to the long list of precedents. Dicklyon (talk) 04:10, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

About 110 of these old empty cats with commas have now been deleted. Dicklyon (talk) 21:43, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

About done

All WP:JR-related RM discussions have closed, all upholding the no-comma preference:

• Talk:Andrew L. Lewis Jr.#Requested move 04 April 2016
• Talk:Robert Downey Jr.#Requested move 04 April 2016
• Talk:Feodor Chaliapin Jr.#Requested move 2 April 2016
• Talk:Benjamin O. Davis Sr.#Requested move 2 April 2016
• Talk:Larry Mullen Jr.#Requested move 20 March 2016
• Talk:Desi Arnaz Jr.#Requested move 20 March 2016
• Talk:Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.#Requested move 2 April 2016
• Talk:USS Frank E. Petersen Jr.#Requested move 7 April 2016
• Talk:Harry K. Daghlian Jr.#Requested move 20 March 2016
• Talk:Dale Earnhardt Jr.#Requested move 17 April 2016
• Talk:Alan Hale Sr.#Requested move 18 April 2016
• Talk:Barnett McFee Clinedinst Jr.#Requested move 24 April 2016
• Talk:Martin Luther King Jr. Day#Requested move 22 April 2016
• Talk:Harry Connick Jr.#Requested move 04 May 2016
• Talk:Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.#Requested move 6 April 2016
• Talk:Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library#Requested move 4 May 2016
• Talk:Dwight L. Bush Sr.#Requested move 4 May 2016
• Talk:Barack Obama Sr.#Requested move 13 May 2016
• Talk:Douglas Fairbanks Jr.#Requested move 13 May 2016
• Talk:Roy Simmons Jr.#Requested move 13 May 2016
• Talk:Samuel Goldwyn Jr.#Requested move 13 May 2016
• Talk:John D. Rockefeller Jr. Memorial Parkway#Requested move 15 May 2016

There are still two open issues re implementation:

• Dealing with User:Randy Kryn and his hangups about the Martin Luther King, Jr. comma.
• Revisiting the personal preference clause, since we find no examples of where it applies and it just causes a lot of trouble.

I'm am not in a rush on either, but stand ready to move forward when people are ready. Dicklyon (talk) 14:53, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Maybe the option we mulled over will be the best. If the name doesn't become Martin Luther King, with no comma or Jr.'s in sight, soon it will be something like 'Dr Martin Luther King Jr' as those pesky "periods" will give way to the European style "no periods" (and maybe should, has a discussion taken place?). Many of the articles above, the wholesale moves, are sad in that they have changed the names of many long-standing articles and the people they represent, and I'm sure I don't stand alone in that thought. Randy Kryn 15:02, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Randy, I'm wondering if you do stand alone on that thought, or are there others who think that the inclusion or omission of a comma before Jr. changes the name of a person, or of a place. Yes, we have changed the "names of many long-standing articles" if by "name" you mean to include punctuation, but changed the names of the people they represent? Hard to imagine. Why does the lack of comma make you sad? Were you sad in the '60s when magazines printed "Martin Luther King Jr."? I doubt it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:38, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Dr.Nawar Al-Saadi

The academic title Dr. in the title of the article Dr.Nawar Al-Saadi is incorrect, and it should be Nawar Al-Saadi. Am I correct in this statement? If so, it should be mentioned in this article.--DThomsen8 (talk) 11:32, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

You are correct per WP:DOCTOR. Plus there's a space missing. Dicklyon (talk) 16:32, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

A Senior moment

I moved John H. Bloomer, Sr. to John H. Bloomer, because I find no source that calls him Sr. and many that call him John H. Bloomer or John Bloomer. It seems that some people like to automatically add Sr. to a name if there's a Jr. Wouldn't we want to only do so when the Sr. is used in sources? Should we add something to that effect? Dicklyon (talk) 21:49, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Agree we should follow the sources on this (current ones – people die and new ones are born, changing the distribution of these suffixes). The usage seems inconsistent; it tends to vary with the notability of the parents, and the use of "Sr." is more prevalent in North America. Some British sources (e.g. New Hart's Rules) assert that "Sr" (or "Snr") is never actually part of anyone's name but just a disambiguation, applied only when necessary. This seems a reasonable position. Per WP:TWODAB, WP:HATNOTE, etc., we have no reason to apply a disambiguation when there are only two articles, and one of them is already disambiguated (with "Jr[.]"), unless WP:COMMONNAME tells us that the senior one is conventionally called "Sr[.]" in the preponderance of the modern sources.

NHR goes further, though, and says that "Jr." should no longer be applied to the son when the father dies. But this is not the norm elsewhere, and I don't even see any evidence that this recommendation in followed in British print sources, even if it probably is conversational use of the language (e.g., unless you are at a conference of spiritual mediums, one need not say "I"m meeting with Davenport Chesterfield Jr in an hour" if everyone in the conversation knows the elder died last year). At least in the US and Canada, the "Jr[.]" is usually part of the legal name; I don't know enough about British birth certificates and such to know whether that's true in the UK, nor how much any of this affects Australia, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:00, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

In American, Jr. is sticky, I'm sure. My Dad is still Jr. even though Sr. died in 1978, and my Bro is still III. Dicklyon (talk) 01:06, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

In the case of Bloomer, there's a Jr., but no article on him. Even if we make an article on him, I'd argue against Sr. for the dad. Dicklyon (talk) 01:07, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Right. If the son isn't notable, we have no need to disambiguate the father at all.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:11, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

An example of this is Donald Trump Jr. His father is notable and has an article, but I've never seen him referred to as Donald Trump Sr. (except on the Wikipedia disambiguation page). On the other hand, there is the case of Edward Higgins White, Sr. I will confess that I was the one who gave him the appellation. The problem was that while he was referred to as Edward Higgins White all his life, the article of that name points to his (more famous) son, Edward Higgins White II. Hawkeye7 (talk) 04:36, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't look to me like the II requires a Sr. to oppose it, but up to you. Dicklyon (talk) 05:32, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

When modern sources just say "Edward Higgins White", which one are they referring to? If it's almost always one of them, that would be the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, and if they use that more than the name without the suffix, it'd be the WP:COMMONNAME, too. E.g. Marvin Gaye was really Marvin Gaye, Jr., and the world knows his father as Marvin Gaye, Sr. (even when he was alive, though probably not among his friends and acquaintances, just in the press).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  11:31, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

That's easy to answer: the modern sources will always be referring to Edward Higgins White II. Hawkeye7 (talk) 03:12, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Most often so. But it's not clear that means we add Sr. to the dad. See the first line I just added at WP:JR, which I dredged up from an old 2009 version of Naming Conventions (people). Dicklyon (talk) 22:41, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I learned recently that James Madison was a Jr. Dicklyon and I have mulled over the possibility of moving King, Jr. to just 'Martin Luther King'. This may solve my heretical leanings that the Jr. comma is part of his common name (his name without the Jr. seems to be in about half of the sourced renditions). Randy Kryn 15:07, 23 May 2016 (UTC)

Beware bogus printings of The Elements of Style

I repeat info extracted from my comment to Collect above because it broadly relevant:

A number of less-than-scrupulous publishers have taken Strunk's 1918 first edition of The Elements of Style, which is in the public domain, and re-published it with a modern date, pretending that it's a current edition (some, like this one, go so far as to put White's name on it, too). The actual current edition is the 4th, by Strunk & White. Since the 1979 3rd edition, E. B. White has advised dropping the comma. The real one is here.

A usually reliable way to tell the real current editions from the old public-domain copy: the real ones don't put a comma into "Strunk, Jr.". Dicklyon (talk) 21:54, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

You're fighting your own sources now? - ^theWOLFchild 22:01, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Do not remove other editor's comments from talk pages. That is something you aren't allowed to do. I don't care if you don't like the question. It's a legitimate question. You have made a lot of changes to this project, predicated on this apparent "broad consensus" and on these outside sources, such as style guides. Now you're here telling everyone how the style guide you relied is wrong... "don't look at that style guide, look at this one!". Good grief. - ^theWOLFchild 22:29, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

If I'm fighting a source, it is Collect's bogus printing. I don't have one like that, but I'm familiar with it since it's widely available for free online. It's not bad for 1918, but he used it to suggest that The Elements of Style still says to use the comma. OK, yes, the 1918 edition still says that, but the editions since 1979 say the opposite. From your comment, I take this needed to be repeated. Dicklyon (talk) 01:04, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Hey guy - saying my sources were "bogus" is about as foul a trait in a post as one might wish. Are Chicago MoS and Casagrande "bogus" as well in this splendid example of "hobgoblin" rhetoric? Collect (talk) 15:01, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

You obviously have a bogus printing of Strunk, based on your statement that "Strunk insists on a comma still in its latest edition." I'm just pointing out that these bogus printings of Strunk are common, and one needs to beware lest they mislead to think that "latest edition" means later than 1918. Dicklyon (talk) 20:27, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Thewolfchild:: Dicklyon is obviously not "fighting his own sources". See straw man. You're fighting in contravention of the stop-or-be-blocked warning you received just a few hours ago, however, posting personalized pseudo-disputes just to keep arguing. If this doesn't stop immediately, it's rather obvious what the outcome will be. No one competent in English could come to the conclusion you're trying to come to here. A warning about bogus copies masquerading as current real editions cannot possibly be a warning about the current real edition. Basic reasoning. I know you are smart enough to have understood this, so your posts appear to serve no purpose but continued battlegrounding and pointless disruption, in contravention of the final warning you received a few hours ago [6], two of them actually [7].

PS: It actually is permissible, though uncommon, to remove disruptive nonsense, and very common to hat or otherwise refactor it. You know this, because you've previously been blocked for editwarring against refactoring. Please stop.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:36, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

Garner explains the when, why, and where here. Dicklyon (talk) 22:06, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Another legit printing:

• "50th Anniversary Edition" (2008 slipcased hardcover, Longman; ISBN 9780205632640, ASIN: B003OUKLQQ) – Repackaging of the 4th ed. paperback (Pearson Press, 1999), which Dicklyon linked to above

Amazon is overrun with the bogus ones:

List of caveat emptor junk:

"Annotated and Updated for Present-Day Use", ed. Stanford Pritchard (self-published Kindle, ASIN: B006TH2CYU) – some random guy's self-published rewrite "Updated 2011 Edition" (Kindle e-book, ASIN: B0058I7TFI) – Fraudulent; just a digitization of the 1918 version (more likely the 1920 edition, i.e., the publicly published version of the in-house 1918 version). "Illustrated" version (Kindle, ASIN: B00MKACA1A and B00NOGSOYG – Digitization of the 1918/1920 edition with cartoons or something added. (Penguin actually produced an illustrated version of the 3rd ed. (ISBN 978-1594200694), but it's obsolete.) "December 10, 2012" version (Kindle, ASIN: B00AMXXNBI - Some random person's digitization of the 1918/1920 edition "The Original Edition" (paperback, ISBN 978-0486464503) – reprint of 1918/1920 version, from some random print-to-order company "November 24, 2014" version (paperback, ISBN 978-1503313774) – reprint of 1918/1920 version, from some random print-to-order company "September 23, 2013" version (paperback, ISBN 978-1492788577) – reprint of 1918/1920 version, from some random print-to-order company "June 26, 2012" version (paperback, ISBN 978-1612933016) – reprint of 1918/1920 version, from some random print-to-order company "The Original Edition" (2008-09-17) (paperback, ASIN: B012TQGFR4 – reprint of 1918/1920 version, from some random print-to-order company "60 Minutes to Better Writing & Grammar" version (audiobook, ASIN B001N0OZTI) – some random company's read-aloud version of the 1918/1920 edition, surely abridged (60 minutes?) "Recorded Books Edition" (audiobook, ASIN B0015AOEGU) – some random company's read-aloud version

If you wanted a paper reprint of the original for research purposes, the Dover Press one would be the one to get:

• "The Original Edition" (hardback, ISBN 978-0486464503; paperback, ISBN 978-0486447988) – professionally produced reprint of the 1918/1920 version.

Amazon Digital Services also produces a Kindle e-book version of it without any monkey business:

• "May 5, 2015" version (Kindle, ASIN: B00X8UPUIG – Amazon's own digitization of the 1918/1920 ed.

However, it's available free online (in the 1920 Harcourt Brace edition) at Project Gutenberg in HTML, Epub, Kindle, and plain text formats; and (in the genuine 1918 privately printed original form) at Google Books in PDF.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:36, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

What about composition titles with Jr.?

The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. appears on its associated media with a comma, so I was thinking maybe this could be the example we need of when the comma is to be used. Then then I found that some reasonable fraction of books (like 40%, probably not a majority) do drop the comma. And the percentage is higher for the name Brisco County, Jr.. So what's our preference? Style composition titles like other things with Jr, or follow what seems like the official preference? And treat the character name like any other name? Dicklyon (talk) 23:07, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

• It seems a no-brainer to me that both articles would be exceptions to the house style. The producer of a work has the last word on its title, including any punctuation; this is not something that requires analysis by secondary sources. The character's name follows from the title of the work that includes it. If any books disagree, they're just wrong.
  But, per WP:CREEP, I would trust those decisions to local consensus until such time as that proves counterproductive. MOS:JR does not need to anticipate every possible situation; it needn't prevent the need for all local discussion on the question; but it hopefully will avoid a large majority of it. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:27, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

  I'm not suggesting we modify WP:JR, except if we find a great example to put into it. But many books do disagree with your approach; 5 on the first page of book hits here and 5 in the first page of News hits here. (I realize this can vary as hits are somewhat non-deterministic). Dicklyon (talk) 23:34, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

  Perhaps some versions of official media don't use the comma. Dicklyon (talk) 23:44, 12 April 2016 (UTC)

  I suspect they cleverly and creatively obscured the location of the possible comma with Comet's left ear, so as to avoid getting involved in the 21st Century Great Comma War. ―Mandruss ☎ 04:24, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

  Quite possibly. Not convincingly, but maybe. Dicklyon (talk) 04:31, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

And a related question. We all know the Jr needs a second comma if it has a first one, right? So a sentence like "During its broadcast run, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., garnered ..." has that second comma. But it seems incongruous with the italics that define the title, since one wouldn't want a comma after a title. I don't see any books doing that. Do we need different guidelines for composition titles that end with Jr.? Not that I seek more creep, just wondering what's right here. Leaving out the comma is the most tempting, and is what a lot of books do. Dicklyon (talk) 04:39, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

• I would be inclined to re-cast the sentence. The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., during its broadcast run, garnered...
  All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:06, 16 May 2016 (UTC).
  
• It's an out-of-band example, really. It's the title of a published work, so it is given as-published (within reason – i.e., we don't attempt to mimic font choices, colored text, purely decorative superscripting, and other typographic shenanigans; more on that below). If we came back in 200 years and the norm in English was to use "II", not "Jr." or any other variant of "Junior", and it were applied retroactively (e.g., MLK was called "Martin Luther King II" in then-contemporary sources), the title of that TV show would still be The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. For fictional characters, we generally follow the same rules as for real people, but this is a good case for an exception (and there are many, e.g. professional or honorific titles when treated as an integral part of the name, as in Doctor Doom and Prince Valiant), in this case to avoid conflict with the title of the TV show (principle of least astonishment). It only need appear once per article anyway; even the article on the character can just refer to him as "County" after the first occurrence.

  "The producer of a work has the last word on its title, including any punctuation" is not true across the board. For one thing, subtitles used to be separated from titles with commas in many cases, but these are normalized to colons these days, unless the construction grammatically calls for a comma (The Hobbit, or There and Back Again). As another. Secondly, books a century and more ago often had very long full titles, sometimes with three, even four levels of subtitles; these are routinely shortened. Another example is the Japanese fad of adding extraneous periods and other punctuation to English-language or "Engrish" titles of Japanese works, just because they think it looks cool. The consensus has been to drop this as extraneous and meaningless excessive stylization, per MOS:TM (thus the long-discussed moved of "Gangsta." to Gangsta (manga), among various J-pop and K-pop album and performer-name cases.) The de-stylings also mirror "P!nk" → Pink (singer), "Alien³" → Alien 3, "Spın̈al Tap" → Spinal Tap (band), and thousands of other examples. The general rule, which applies here, is: avoid unnecessary style, unless it is used consistently by almost all reliable sources for the subject in question (thus iPod, Deadmau5, and Mötley Crüe, not "Ipod" or "Ipod", "Deadmaus", and "Motley Crue"). The comma remains the vast-majority usage for the title of The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., so there ya have it. We need not do an analysis of the source treatment of the character name, since our own WP:CONSISTENCY concerns for readers and editors trumpsany off-WP preference. The consistency policy applies more strongly toward consistency between related articles than consistency across all titles. If it were not for the comma-jr. pattern in the title of the series, however, we would probably remove the comma from the character-name article, just as we use between-initials spacing (T. J. Hooker, B. A. Baracus, etc.) even the space-free style is common off-WP.

  PS: I agree with Rich F. that recasting confusing or dispute-generating sentences is the right way to approach them. That's why MoS's lead says to take that approach. :-) That said, "During its broadcast run, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. garnered ..." (no comma after Jr. despite one before it inside the title) is actually correct. A work's title is a unit that can be replaced with anything ("During its broadcast run, X garnered ..."), and which does not affect the surrounding grammar ("I watched The Should Horses, Don't They? last night."), nor is affected by it ("J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings", not *"J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings").  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:56, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Manuals of style

Garner's Modern American Usage (OUP) says "Both forms are correct." Not a "bogus" book. Further, "jr. and sr." really mean "son" and "father" or "the younger" and "the elder". Examine Alexandre Dumas, père on Wikipedia for the usage of a comma as common in particular. Same use of comma in EB. The appendage is a descriptor of the person, and not an integral part of a name.

Ritter's "Oxford Guide to Style" (2002) uses the comma for the "post-positive particle." Straus' "Blue Book" (2014) "The comma is no longer considered mandatory" but says one may use a comma. Guffey's "Essentials of Business Communications" (2012 Cengage) says to use the comma unless the person prefers not to use a comma with their name.

Need more? The world is not unanimously opposed to commas by a long shot. Sorry about that.

Again - the entire interminable series of discussions is about as big a waste of verbiage as imaginable, but when one editor explicitly accuses another editor of using a "bogus" source, the temptation is to point out that the sources are not bogus by one whit. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:36, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

No one denies that the comma form is both correct and used. However, there are advantages to using the commaless form, and the majority of style guides worldwide agree that the commaless form is to be preferred in contemporary English. As such, the Wikipedia MoS has expressed that preference, much as we express a preference for double inverted commas, despite single inverted commas being standard in some varieties of English, including my own. RGloucester — ☎ 16:43, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Is it ever possible to put something to bed around here?? Collect, if you feel you can bring a significantly stronger case than was made in the last RfC, go ahead and do so in a new RfC. Be prepared to piss off a lot of editors if it is not significantly stronger, for wasting yet more of the project's time. But this is not helpful or productive. ―Mandruss ☎ 18:56, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I was accused of using a "bogus source". Amazingly enough my nly voiced opinion was that where the living person uses one form or the other that we use that form. O just suggest that when one accuses any editor of using a "bogus source" that it should be made clear that the name-calling editor is actually wrong. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:52, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I was correct that you were citing a bogus modern printing of Strunk as if it were a modern edition. Dicklyon (talk) 22:20, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

I find your graciousness invisible here. I did not cite bogus sources and your inane reiteration of that inane point rankles inanely. I would point out that I called the one source "Strunk" and linked exactly to it, and cited a large number of other sources as well. Now can you look up the meaning and connotation of "bogus" before you make the same charges and attacks on others? I have iterated that the entire issue is like the value of the Vice Presidency to John Nance Garner. Cheers. Collect (talk) 02:59, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

You wrote "Strunk insists on a comma still in its latest edition." If you meant the 1918 edition as the latest "Strunk", then OK. If you meant to imply that The Elements of Style in its recent editions requires a comma, then you are wrong, most likely because you were misled by a bogus reprint of Strunk 1918 dressed up like a modern edition. That's all I meant, and I'm pretty sure it's correct. I never accused you of citing "bogus sources" as you claim I did. Dicklyon (talk) 03:15, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

That's correct. The Elements of Style has directly recommended against the comma since since the 1979 3rd edition. Collect is relying on a reprint of a century-old book. PS: Referring to a particular printing of some source as bogus is not a personal attack on an editor. Someone needs to re-read WP:NPA for a refresher on what it says.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:57, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

@Collect:: You're citing nothing but obsolete sources. and I'm not sure what you hope to gain by this; I already sourced it to the b'Jesus belt [8]. Ritter's has been replaced twice over (2005, also Ritter, and 2014, new editor Waddingham), and the new Garner's (Modern English Usage, now) came out a month or so ago. Anyway, you keep arguing this "the comma is not wrong, it's not forbidden" angle, and well, so what? There is no such thing as Standard English, handed down from on high by authoritarian edict and enforced by the International English Language Police. All style is arbitrary at one level or another, and every style guide conflicts with some other style guide on virtually every single point, even the most basic things like "sentences begin with capital letters" (some style guides would permit "3M is a company that...", and others would not). You cannot overturn an RfC and a long and growing string of consensus conclusions at RM by bible-thumping old style books from a decade (or century!) ago. The premise never was that the usage is incorrect or unheard of, it's simply declined to the point that it's being abandoned across all genres, dialects, and registers. The usage in reliable sources show this, the advice in actually current style guides show this, and that was sufficient for consensus to change. I'm sorry that you feel so strongly about this comma, but we really need to move on to more productive things than recycling the same argument indefinitely. If, as you say, your only concern is that "where the living person uses one form or the other that we use that form", we already have that in here. So, aren't we done here?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:57, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Nearly done. We're still seeking an example of a living person who shows evidence of consistently using and preferring that comma. Dicklyon (talk) 22:16, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I look forward to hearing about this person, when he or she is eventually unearthed.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:28, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Amakuru, since you are participating in these talks I ask that you do not do anymore comma closings, such as the one you've just done at Martin Luther King Jr. Day which includes, at least from my reading, both biased comments as regards future closings as well as doing a 'count the votes'-type close, something that the topic surely does not deserve. Randy Kryn 21:00, 3 May 2016 (UTC)

I remain opposed to concerning ourselves with subject preference, as it does not merit the editor time required to determine it, as if it can very often be clearly determined in any case. I strongly suspect that the presence or absence of the comma is far more significant to a few Wikipedia editors than to the subject individuals involved. Thus, it looks to me like more bikeshed battleground. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:28, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I have taken to not even looking for subject preference, since I haven't been able to find an example where it matters. I agree we should get rid of it, as we agreed over a year ago, but that might raise a backlash again. Having it in there allows the possibility that someone will find an example of where this applies, and in the mean time we should probably not sweat it, and continue to invite an example. Dicklyon (talk) 04:44, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

That matter can be considered resolved. After the closer of the RfC about MOS:JR objected to my including BLP-related rule (which was discussed but did not make it into the close), I removed it and instead made it a factual observation about likelihood, and this has been stable for a while, nor have any problems arisen about that change, or the inclusion of it at all.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:09, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

A slight expansion of MOS:JR

First, this is not about the comma-before-Jr controversy, per se, although some of it follows logically from that part of MOS:JR. Further, this does not affect article titles.

There are two questions that I think should be addressed at MOS:JR:

1. Doe Jr., John or Doe, John Jr. ? (MOS:JR logically precludes Doe, Jr., John and Doe, John, Jr., with local exceptions)
2. When the given name is omitted, Doe or Doe Jr. ? (MOS:JR logically precludes Doe, Jr., with local exceptions)

I feel the answers to both questions follow from the answer to this question: Does the Jr. (as well as Sr. and III) modify the surname, or the given name?

I have no easy access to hardcopy style guides, and I'm too ignorant to find those that are online, so perhaps someone else could see what they say. With any luck, there isn't wide disagreement between the style guides on this.

I do find some other web guidance that says the modifier suffix disambiguates the given name, not the surname, despite its position in a full name of the form First Last Jr.. And that is what makes sense to me. The son generally has the same surname as the father, and he is called Jr. when his given name is the same as his father's. Therefore I'm proposing the addition to MOS:JR of language similar to the following:

When the surname is shown first, the suffix follows the given name, as Kennedy, John F. Jr. When the given name is omitted, omit the suffix—Kennedy, not Kennedy Jr.—except where the context requires disambiguation.

Aside from the comma before the modifier suffix, which is actually a completely separate issue, I don't see the need for local leeway on these two questions. It would make no sense to deviate on these matters of form on the basis of a perceived "preference" by the subject. As for reliable sources, their treatment of a specific individual, as to these two questions, generally comes from their own manuals of style, not from anything specific to that individual. So, likewise, we don't need discussion at Talk:John F. Kennedy Jr. about whether reliable sources prefer Kennedy, John F. Jr. or Kennedy Jr., John F.. Thus, I feel this change should prevent far more battleground than it creates. While MOS, and guidelines in general, do not usually indicate "amount of leeway", I think an informal consensus in this discussion should be enough. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:56, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

In the DEFAULTSORT spec, the Jr; usually follows the given name, as {{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Sammy Jr.}}. The ones that aren't like this, I've been fixing. Good idea to put it into the guidelines, I agree. But omitting the Jr. after the surname really depends on whether or not the meaning is clear without it; sometimes it's used contrastively vs Sr. Dicklyon (talk) 05:21, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Hence, "except where the context requires disambiguation". ―Mandruss ☎ 05:28, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

Right, you did say that already. Dicklyon (talk) 05:48, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

BTW, if anyone opposes as "a solution in search of a problem", I can produce a couple of examples that I've run across in the past couple of days, and I haven't been paying much attention to the questions prior to that. I simply omitted that for the sake of brevity, per TL;DR. Bear in mind that this should affect citations, not just body text, as |author=Kennedy, John F. Jr. versus |author=Kennedy Jr., John F.. That's real, and significant. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:33, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

I agree; I've seen and fixed a bunch of "last = Kennedy, Sr." type cites. But mostly I've overlooked them. Dicklyon (talk) 05:49, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

In my proposed text, I am changing the term "modifier" to the more correct term "suffix", per Suffix (name). For conciseness, the guideline should be updated to briefly define what the term means in this context, and then use it instead of phrases such as "Jr. / Jr / Jnr or Sr. / Sr / Snr"; but that issue is separate from this proposal. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:33, 14 May 2016 (UTC)

I find that a number of DEFAULTSORT specs follow the name with 1 and 2, or 01 and 02, presumably to get Sr. alphabetized before Jr. Not very consistent, though. Seems like just using Jr and Sr, and letting Jr. come before Sr., is more normal, and we ought to just accept it as standard or recommended practice. Is it worth saying so in the guideline? Dicklyon (talk) 03:53, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Not this guideline imo. As for the DEFAULTSORT guideline (wherever that is), it seems a bit creepy. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:34, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Survey

!Voting as to whether to add the text in the blue-green box above to MOS:JR. Support for "do that", Oppose for "don't do that". As proposer, I don't consider my comments about "amount of leeway" to be part of this Survey, but rather just separate musing with no other interest, and I expect that question would remain unaddressed for now. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:41, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

• Support as proposer. Oppose the two-comma alternative discussed below, due to the lack of convincing arguments given for it to date. ―Mandruss ☎ 06:06, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
• Support as it agrees with typical usage, and what I have been moving toward for consistency. Dicklyon (talk) 06:08, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
• Support as this indeed follows standard English usage. Hawkeye7 (talk) 06:40, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
• Comment, can you please reword or summarize whatever this survey is on in clear language at the start of this 'Survey' section. Thanks. Randy Kryn 4:06, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

I believe it is to add the text in the box the MOS guideline section: "When the surname is shown first, the suffix follows the given name, as Kennedy, John F. Jr. When the given name is omitted, omit the suffix—Kennedy, not Kennedy Jr.—except where the context requires disambiguation." I suggest we add something to say that this applies also in a DEFAULTSORT spec. Dicklyon (talk) 04:36, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Done. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:38, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose in this circumstance a second comma would be de riguer. "Kennedy, John F., Jr." just as in "Trousers, white, officers, for the use of". All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 19:24, 16 May 2016 (UTC).
  

  To my eyes, that second comma is the same comma already precluded by MOS:JR, as I said at the top of the parent section. It is not "comma-after-surname", but rather "comma-before-suffix". As I've indicated above, that comma is a question that has already been decided, and it is a separate issue from this proposal. If you assert that "Kennedy, John F., Jr." is de rigueur, then you're also asserting that "John F. Kennedy, Jr." is de rigueur, and the community already has a consensus against that form as default. ―Mandruss ☎ 20:59, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

• I think the comma is needed in last name fist situations. "Kennedy, John F. Jr." would indicate that his name is "John F. Jr. Kennedy" (as if "Jr." was a middle initial). To conform to the preclude we would have to style it "Kennedy Jr., John F." Blueboar (talk) 22:08, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose as written, but Support with the second comma, per several above commenters. The sensible form is Surname, First Middle, Jr.. While, yes, you can find publications that do other things (including "Surname, First Middle Jr.", "Surname Jr., First Middle", "Surname, Jr., First Middle", "Surname (Jr.), First Middle", and "Surname, First Middle (Jr)", probably among others), none of those are the majority usage, and they do not make much sense. They generally only arise when a publisher has an indexing back-end that is hardcoded in a not-so-great way and they have little choice but to use some odd option. Or they just didn't think about it very much. Our own system is smarter. What works best on WP, and what will be least confusing to readers are the only two matters we need concern ourselves with, and "Surname, First Middle, Jr." fits the bill in both cases. PS: The argument 'If you assert that "Kennedy, John F., Jr." is de rigueur, then you're also asserting that "John F. Kennedy, Jr." is de rigueur' has no basis at all.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:05, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

Extended discussion of the expansion proposal

• Comment - Ok, I didn't know there would be this much disagreement, with everyone applying their own personal reasoning to the question. With that much disagreement, this is not a good way to make this decision, and it probably wouldn't be very durable. In my opinion it's time to suspend until someone can survey major style guides. Per MOS:JR, we should limit that survey to style guides that favor no comma in "John F. Kennedy Jr." ―Mandruss ☎ 23:56, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Would you have any interest in doing this? Clearly, you're already somewhat familiar with those guides, where to find them and how to navigate them. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:33, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

 Declined. I'm only doing detailed source research on this stuff for mainspace. MoS is based on editorial consensus on what makes most sense for the WP context and readership. That may be informed in part by style guide compare–contrast, and by surveys of what different genres and registerd of publishing are actually doing on average, but it is not the primary concern. WP:ISNOT#PAPER and is not bound to do exactly what any external publications, or any grouping of such publications, is doing. The principle of least astonishment is generally in play, per WP:COMMONSENSE, so we are not going to adopt something unique and confusing, when the intent is to adopt something that will be non-confusing, for readers and secondarily for editors. We had about 7 years straight of constant strife caused by someone rattling a quixotic "source the MoS!" sabre all the time, and virtually nothing ever good came of it, just increasing MoS rigidity and WP:CREEP, compounded by cyclical rehash of the same issues over and over, and a huge drain on editorial productivity, with people devoting time to sourcing, and writing multiple pages to keep track of the sourcing, for an internal guideline that is not subject to WP:V to begin with. The entire fiasco was ridiculous. I do in-depth source research for mainspace. If it occasionally also helps resolve an MoS issue, that's great (and that was the case with the MOS:JR RfC), but spending hours and hours going through style guides just to settle a question we should collectively be settling with editorial judgment, is not on my to-do list.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:05, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

• Re: "everyone applying their own personal reasoning to the question" – That is precisely how consensus discussions work and are supposed to work.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:05, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

  Fine. I believe that my personal reasoning, "that second comma is the same comma already precluded by MOS:JR", is stronger than the other personal reasoning. Your comment about "unique and confusing" is at odds with the experience of at least the first three !voters here, who do not find it unique or confusing at all. Are we too ignorant, uneducated, or uninformed to be properly confused? Your argument is thorough and articulate as always, but not all that convincing in my opinion. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:47, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

  Except you haven't actually provided any reasoning for that view, just stated it, and I see no basis for such a belief. The two comma rationales (in index-reversed and normal name order) are clearly unrelated, and you haven't established a relationship between them. It would seem that by your reasoning, because the name is written "Smith, John J." in index format, it would have to be written "John J., Smith" when unreversed. Does not compute, ha ha. The commas in the reversed, index format exist for the sole purpose of separating types of name elements, and have nothing to do with how the name is normally spelled/punctuated.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:07, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

  The trend away from "John F. Kennedy, Jr.", toward "John F. Kennedy Jr.", which you documented, is based on simplification, elimination of an arbitrary and unnecessary comma, an archaic historical artifact. Likewise the British elimination of the full stop in Jr., Dr., etc., which I'm confident the U.S. will eventually adopt for the same reason it has eliminated that comma. Accepting your argument for the sake of discussion, "Kennedy, John F. Jr." also eliminates an arbitrary and unnecessary comma. There is nothing remotely "confusing" about that form; I look at it and I know exactly what it means. Surely you're not suggesting that we need to show that Jr. is not part of the given name, as if the number of people with names like "John Jr. Doe" is large enough to be considered.
  Even if we did that, what would a reader infer when they saw "Doe, John Jr." for that extremely rare John Jr. Doe? I'm fairly certain they would infer "John Doe Jr." Thus we would have accomplished nothing but satisfying our own nitpicking, pointless pedantry. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:17, 17 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm OK with either way, or even with continued inconsistency, since this pretty much shows up only in citations and sort order. In the DEFAULTSORT specs, I found the no-comma version common even when articles used the comma before Jr. otherwise, so it looked like going commaless was going to be the easiest thing (also it works best with global replace, making fewer commas needing to be put back). And citations are pretty much a messy inconsistent area, so I don't worry about them much. Probably this discussion should go where citation styles are discussed. Dicklyon (talk) 16:12, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Comma with post-nominal letters

Hi, should a comma precede post-nominal letters? For example, I see in this guideline that it is included, e.g. "John Doe, MSc", but in the article post-nominal letters, it is not, i.e. "John Doe MSc". --Eleassar ^{my talk} 15:14, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Either is perfectly acceptable. Although of course we shouldn't include degrees anyway. Note that if a comma is used then it should also be used between each set of letters, something which some editors don't seem to realise (e.g. either John Smith CBE DSO MC or John Smith, CBE, DSO, MC, but not John Smith, CBE DSO MC). Neither should a comma be used at the end of the sequence, which some editors also unaccountably do (e.g. John Smith, CBE, DSO, MC,). -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:35, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Comma at the end to close off the aside seems rather accountable to me. Are there style and grammar guides that say not to? Dicklyon (talk) 16:06, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Obviously if you used it as part of a normal sentence you'd add the terminal comma. But not in the lead with a DOB in parentheses afterwards, which is how we usually use postnoms. Only ever seen that done (and then only occasionally) on Wikipedia. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:19, 25 May 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. It would therefore be acceptable to write either "John Doe, BSc, Civ Eng" or "John Doe BSc Civ Eng", but not "John Doe, BSc Civ Eng"? --Eleassar ^{my talk} 07:22, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Continued references to someone with a purely alias stage name: where to draw the line

When we have someone whose stage name has no resemblance to their real name--or at least is not typical of a human name--such as "Sting," "Snoop Dogg," "Sinbad," "50 Cent," or "Flavor Flav;" or when their stage name is more like a typical human name but still not much like their real name (such as "Jason Alexander" for Jay Scott Greenspan), where do we draw the line on how to continue to refer to them throughout the article?

And if the unusual stage name has two parts ("Snoop Dogg,"50 Cent," and "Flavor Flav," for example) and we're supposed to keep referring to them with their atypical stage name, then do we still just say the whole thing, or just say the last part as if that were their surname ("Dogg," "Cent," and "Flav")?

2600:100E:B135:BAE3:7F12:1ED8:71D3:7A68 (talk) 02:13, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

I can guarantee that we won't treat that last word as a surname. As for the rest, here's one man's opinion.

• I'd use "Sting" in an entertainment context (i.e., in most of the article, for an entertainer) and "Sumner" in other contexts.
• I'd use "Alexander" throughout, except for the first sentence. It would be very confusing to use both Alexander and Greenspan depending on context, as it would be less clear that we were talking about the same person. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:54, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

MoS RfC notice: Image montages on ethnicity and other demonym articles

FYI

 – Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please participate in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#Proposed repeal of WP:NOETHNICGALLERIES. It is a proposal to vacate the previous consensus reached in the February 2016 RfC that resulted in the creation of the MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES provision at MOS:IMAGES, and also relates thematically to Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 127#RfC: Ethnicity in infoboxes (all of these discussions are ultimately about using infoboxes to identify individuals as members of particular ethnicities, and this relates also to MOS:IDENTITY). The MOS:BIO talk page seems like a relevant notice point, since it's about mass biographies; we don't see to have a separate MoS page for that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:11, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Allow inclusion of former names in lead section of biographies covering transgender and non-binary people

The guidelines currently say:

In the case of transgender and non-binary people, birth names should be included in the lead sentence only when the person was notable prior to coming out.

I find this illogical and dislike the suggestion that encyclopaedic information should be omitted. It's also extremely inconsistent to apply such a guideline only to transgender people. Bill Clinton was certainly not notable when he was William Blythe; Portia de Rossi was not notable when she was Amanda Lee Rogers; and Chuck Lorre was not notable when he was Charles Michael Levine.

Of course, all of their articles mention their former names, and I think most people would agree that to not mention these birth names would be contrary to everything the encyclopaedia seeks to be: according to WP:ABOUT, "The ideal Wikipedia article is well written, balanced, neutral, and encyclopedic, containing comprehensive, notable, verifiable knowledge."

So what's the difference for transgender people? Is it believed that the subject of the article themselves might find the mention of their birth name offensive? Or that someone else might on their behalf feel offended? Well, Wikipedia is not censored, and certainly feelings of offence that we imagine the subject of an article might feel are not a sensible reason to suppress verifiable information about them. The subjects of articles should not have any say in how facts about them are reported. After all, if the feelings of article subjects are of concern to us, then it should not just be transgender people who we look out for. Chuck Lorre's article reports that he said "as far back as I can remember, every time I heard my last name I would experience acute feelings of low self-esteem", and yet that last name is reported.

It seems to me that someone's birth name is pretty much always of encyclopaedic interest if it is known, and their own personal feelings about their birth name are seldom known to us and are not relevant in any case. Thus, I would suggest that this guideline be omitted. What does anyone else think? 79.158.212.99 (talk) 21:59, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Consensus

• Support: I'd tend to agree here. Seems like political correctness overstretched in an area that compromises on article quality. NottNott|talk 22:04, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Going to expand on my comment seeing as I'm likely to start a full discussion regarding this.

The issue is in the clear exception made to the usual policy just because someone is transgender or non-binary:

1. Current policy states that someone who simply changes their name has to have their former name included regardless of how notable that person was at the time.
2. Why should there be an exception for transgender/non-binary people?

I feel as the larger debate must consider whether anyone who has had a changed name must have their former name(s) included in the lead section, and how this would impact on article quality. Leaving the policy as it is and giving unjustified preferential treatment toward transgender and non-binary people just makes an unnecessary distinction in trying to not cause offense as well as compromising on article quality. NottNott|talk 22:55, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose – The guideline does not suggest "omitting" this information, merely not placing it in the lead in bold print. I agree that we should not do this, as the guideline specifies, when a person was not notable under said prior name. It simply adds clutter. No one has suggested, anywhere, that the birth name should not be included in the article at all. It would likely appear in an "early life" section. However, that doesn't mean that we go against the WP:BLP policy and highlight an irrelevant past name in the lead, in a way that questions the legitimacy of the person's present identity. RGloucester — ☎ 23:10, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

So you'd omit Bill Clinton, Portia De Rossi and Chuck Lorre's birth names from the relevant lead sections? Under what criteria would you consider a birth name "irrelevant"? In what way does specifying a birth name question the legitimacy of the person's later name? 79.158.212.99 (talk) 23:20, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

It isn't necessary information. If the person was notable whilst having the name, then it should be included in the lead. Otherwise, it is just cluttering the lead with information that is not relevant to the person's notability. The lead section is a summary, and highlighting an irrelevant name that existed only when a person was not notable in the first sentence of the article is giving that name WP:UNDUE weight, suggesting that that name has more significance than it actually does in the wider context of the person's biography. This does not align with WP:NPOV. RGloucester — ☎ 23:25, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Their date of birth is also completely irrelevant to their notability. It is, nonetheless, a vital biographical detail that it makes no sense to omit. Would you omit the birth names of the three people I mentioned in their articles? Under what criteria would you consider a birth name "irrelevant"? In what way does specifying a birth name question the legitimacy of the person's later name? 79.158.212.99 (talk) 23:38, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @RGloucester: Currently anyone with a changed name regardless of their notability at the time must have that not notable changed name included in the lead. This in theory also clutters the lead giving weight to the previous name. Perhaps this forced inclusion of previous names is the issue. NottNott|talk 23:41, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

No one, again, has suggested omitting any biographical detail. This is merely about the first sentence of a biographical article. The threshold is that of notability. If a person was notable under an old or alternative name, then that name should be included in the first sentence of the lead. If they were not, then it should be left to the body of the article. This should apply to anyone, not merely transgender people. It does not make sense, at all, to clutter the lead with names that have nothing to do with the notability of the subject of the article (I would support changing the guidelines to this effect). As far as "specifying a birth name", this is quite clear. In the case of transgender people, as opposed to others, placing the name chosen by a transgender person's parents in the first sentence of the article, bolded, when that name has nothing to do with their notability, i.e. the reason for their having of an article, gives WP:UNDUE significance to their birth name in the context of their notability and biography, and strikes me as an attempt to delegitimise the person's transition, and nothing more. It is one thing if the person was notable under the old name, but if they were not, there can be no good reason for including it in the first sentence of the article. RGloucester — ☎ 23:46, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

You're not answering my questions. So that I can understand your thinking, can you please tell me if you would omit the birth names of the three people I mentioned in their articles? Under what criteria would you consider a birth name "irrelevant"? In what way does specifying a birth name question the legitimacy of the person's later name? And how does your logic apply to birth dates or places? What is the good reason to include those that is not a good reason to include their birth name? 79.158.212.99 (talk) 23:55, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

I have made my reasoning very clear, and I shan't repeat myself. Read from the third sentence of my last comment prior to this one. RGloucester — ☎ 23:57, 31 May 2016 (UTC)

Why not just answer the questions? 79.158.212.99 (talk) 00:02, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

"The threshold is that of notability. If a person was notable under an old or alternative name, then that name should be included in the first sentence of the lead. If they were not, then it should be left to the body of the article. This should apply to anyone, not merely transgender people". Specific discussions on whether a person was notable under a prior name can be decided by consensus at an article talk page. That's how I'd change the guideline. RGloucester — ☎ 00:05, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

So, specifically for those three people that I mentioned, what is your opinion? Should their names be mentioned? How does your logic apply to birth dates and places? and how, as you claimed earlier, does mentioning a birth name "question the legitimacy" of a later name change? I really don't understand why you are refusing to outline your thinking like this. 79.158.212.99 (talk) 00:10, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

I don't know anything about those people, so I am not fit to comment. On the rest, I have made myself very clear. I shan't engage in this discussion further. RGloucester — ☎ 00:15, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

You don't know anything about Bill Clinton? I'm impressed. 79.158.212.99 (talk) 12:46, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

B @79.158.212.99: As a new editor you're likely unaware of the policies and guidelines that more experienced editors will be well aware of. WP:Notability is an important policy that covers whether an article is worthy for inclusion on the site. Remember to WP:Assume good faith and respond calmly - this isn't a battleground. I can support this proposal but being hostile to established editors is unacceptable. NottNott|talk 00:16, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

I'm not being hostile. A discussion is no use if views are not made clear, so I was asking RGloucester to clarify their views. 79.158.212.99 (talk) 12:46, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

• Comment I think, in general (not just concerning transgender individuals), the rule should be: If the birth name was something they were actually notable under (such as with Caitlyn Jenner), their former name should be included in the lead. If it's reliably sourced but they only became notable under their new name, the name they're notable under should be used in the lead, and the body of the article should contain information about previous name(s). And of course, if it's not reliably referenced, it shouldn't be included at all. That should be true of anyone who uses a pseudonym or has legally changed their name; it shouldn't be specific to transgender individuals. We should never deliberately exclude entirely information about a real name or previous name if it's supported by reliable sources, but that doesn't mean it has to go in the lead if it's not actually one of the most significant points in the article. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 00:17, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
• Support: For quite a few reasons, the wording should not have the word "notability" in it. Notability is not a content matter (and we are dealing with a content issue par excellence here). It's a technical description of our inclusion criteria. Per the notability guideline, notability is only used to determine if we should have a separate article for the topic, and not the content of any existing article. Either MOS:BIO is in conflict with that guideline, or it uses the word "notability" in some other sense (highly confusing in the Wikipedia environment). From the content point of view, it makes no sense to argue that we include or omit content from the time before the subject was notable. Once again, notability is not a content guideline, and it becomes crystal-clear when we consider such content: hardly anyone is notable when they are born, lead their "early life and career", and so on, and this information is regularly included in articles and rightly so. If the person did something before or after there was "significant coverage [about them] in reliable sources that are independent of [them]" is utterly irrelevant. The word "notability" aside, the spirit of the current MOS passage is, as NottNott points out, in conflict with the rest of the guideline, or at best, a rather unfounded exception to the rule. It begs the question: why is the birth name seen as unwanted by some in the lead? If it is a matter of a profound change in identity accompanied with respect for privacy, we should turn to BLP policies rather than our style guide. WP:BLPPRIVACY lends itself to discussion on this, and concludes that it all boils down to the availability of such information in reliable sources. On a final note, RGloucester is arguing for an option (all birth names should be omitted in the lead) that is not on the table at this RfC, and it would require significantly stronger consensus to overturn that steadfast guidance of the MOS. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 02:52, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - when a transgender person changes his/her name, it's a denial of that person's birth identity; to compare this to someone changing his last name out of respect of the man who raised him/her (Bill Clinton) is, n my opinion, inappropriate. You could perhaps make this claim for a person who "intended to reinvent herself" (Portia de Rossi). עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 10:45, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
  • I don't really understand what you're arguing for here. Should people's birth names be given, or not, or are you suggesting that it should depend on the reason that they changed their name? 79.158.212.99 (talk) 12:46, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
    • Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. People who changed their name out of denial of some aspect of their former life (gender, religion, etc) should have this wish respected, unless they were already notable under their old name (e.g Chelsea Manning); peopl;e who's name change was not a denial of their original identity should have the old name written in the lead. (I think this should apply to women who lost their original last name when they got married). עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 13:34, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Current wording works as-is for people who are transgender as well as those who are not. To address one of the examples the IP has been badgering RGloucester with above: There is no real need to have Bill Clinton's birth name in the lead of his article, of course it should be in the body, but it is neither relevant to his notability, nor adds anything to the understanding of him that would be relevant to have in the lead of his article. This is the case for most subjects who are notable after a name-change, regardless of the circumstances. Likewise for people who are notable before a name-change, then yes that generally should be mentioned in the lead. Either way, Birthname is a subsection of the MOS which is an editing guideline (not a policy) listing best practices, it can be ignored on case by case basis subject to local consensus at the article if there is a need to do so. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:13, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
  • The current wording is "In some cases, subjects have legally changed their names at some point after birth. In these cases the birth name should be given [in the lead sentence] as well", with a specific exclusion for transgender people. Are you suggesting that the exclusion for transgender people be extended to all articles? 79.158.212.99 (talk) 12:46, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
    • Ah I see what you mean. Well yes I would still oppose removing the specific exemption for transgender people unless it was extended to everyone equally. EG: "Where subjects have changed their names - birthnames should not be in the lead unless they were previously notable under that name." would replace both sections. Cant complain about special treatment, it makes no restrictions on discussing the name change in the body of the article, and where necessary the birthname will still be included in the lead. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:21, 1 June 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose Speaking as a trans person who has changed their name (legally as well as socially): Referring to a trans person by their previous name (deadnaming) is a form of misgendering, and can cause emotional distress (gender dysphoria). Cisgender people who change their names do not experience dysphoria, so the situation is not analogous (though they may experience discomfort with their previous name for other reasons). Even if the trans person's previous name can be found by searching online, there is no need to emphasize that name in their Wikipedia article if they were not notable before they transitioned. Funcrunch (talk) 15:18, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Notification log

Messaging Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) to form a broader consensus. NottNott|talk 23:16, 31 May 2016 (UTC)