Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Claim that "US" is dominant over "U.S." in American publications

A factual claim was recently added to MOS:U.S., saying that "US" has become the dominant abbreviation for United States in American (and Canadian) publications. I believe this is simply false. Less than two years ago, an opposite statement was here – saying that "U.S." was dominant in usage. If usage is mixed and neither form is really dominant, let's just admit that. Personally, I read a lot of North American publications, and I believe I see "U.S." much more frequently than "US" in them, so I believe the statement saying that "US" is dominant within the United States is clearly false. There is also a note purporting to explain why journalistic sources tend to include the punctuation marks. That note appears to me to be written in a biased way; it includes a questionable factual claim and a purported logical flow that seems unnecessary and questionable. There also appears to be a selective choice of a particular style guide (CMOS) that discourages the punctuation marks, without mentioning whether any other style guides for American English contain contrary guidance. My remarks here are not a matter of what we recommend for use on Wikipedia – they are a matter of whether the factual claims made here are accurate and whether the description of the usage and the reasoning is biased or objective. I suggest that some revision is needed to avoid making false claims and presenting information in a biased manner that does not accurately reflect the real situation. Again, this is not a matter of what is recommended – only a matter of what is described as being fact and reasoning. —BarrelProof (talk) 07:17, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

CMOS is the dominant US styleguide. Discounting names of institutions, which understandably are slow to change, it's my observation that the dots have been dropping out of US usage for some time. Tony (talk) 12:38, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Your comment does not seem to entirely disagree with mine. I believe the current claim that it is a fact that "US" has become dominant in American publications is false. Perhaps "U.S." has recently been used somewhat less frequently than, e.g., a couple of decades ago, but I believe it is simply untrue to say that "US" has become dominant in American publications. Real "dominance" would imply a large statistical frequency – e.g., 75% or more. I personally doubt the relative frequency of usage of "US" is above 50% in actual current usage in well respected American publications. Less than two years ago, it was stated in MOS:U.S. that the other form was dominant. Maybe that was false too. At a minimum, the Wikipedia MoS should not include false statements. You may also think that the persistence of usage of "U.S." can be blamed on old institutions run by old-fashioned people who are "slow to change" and ought to switch over to the more modern way to write, and you may think that the recent trend you believe you have seen is an indication that this trend will continue in the future. Those speculations might or might not be correct. But that does not affect the question of whether it is really factually true or not that "US" has become dominant in American publications, and CMOS is not the only American style guide. —BarrelProof (talk) 15:48, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

The MLA appears to also recommend omitting the dots, although it says it is not incorrect to include them. Although CMOS recommends omitting the dots, it says "it has been fairly standard" in the past to include them. It also recommends to include the dots in some cases: "In publications using traditional state abbreviations, use periods to abbreviate United States and its states and territories: U.S., N.Y., Ill." It also discourages abbreviation of the noun form: "In running text, spell out United States as a noun; reserve US for the adjective form only (in which position the abbreviation is generally preferred)." The U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual also says to include the dots for adjectives and avoid abbreviation for the noun. The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association guidance is similar. The Associated Press Stylebook says to include the dots and that abbreviation is acceptable for both nouns and adjectives. None of that changes the question of whether the assertion of dominance in current usage that is currently claimed the MoS is factually true. —BarrelProof (talk) 16:10, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

Subject to the approval of my esteemed fellow editors, I've made a bold edit that sidesteps the debate over external style guides [1]:

While in principle US or U.S. might be used (with internal consistency) in any given article, use or non-use of periods should also be consistent with other country abbreviations in the same article (thus the US, UK, and USSR, not the U.S., UK, and USSR). In longer abbreviations (three letters or more) that incorporate the country's initials (USN, USAF), do not use periods. When the United States is mentioned with one or more other countries in the same sentence, U.S. or US may be too informal, especially at the first mention or as a noun instead of an adjective (France and the United States, not France and the U.S.). Do not use the spaced U. S. or the archaic U.S. of A., except when quoting; and do not use U.S.A. or USA except in a quotation, as part of a proper name (Team USA), or in certain technical or formal uses (e.g., the ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes and FIFA country codes).

Very little of MOS tries to justify itself, and I don't see why it needs to here. Feel free, of course, to revert or tinker. EEng 16:57, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

• That looks good to me. I tinkered a little with a few details of the wording. —BarrelProof (talk) 17:10, 12 September 2018 (UTC)
• I'll support this over the non-neutral, biased, anti-U.S. use of the currently recently-worded version, which frankly should have been chucked after the last RfC on this topic. Thanks to EEng! --IJBall (contribs • talk) 18:27, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Gosh, I didn't even know there'd been an RfC. I guess fools rush in where angels fear to tread. EEng 20:25, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Comment – It appears the two most recent discussions are:

• WT:Manual of Style/Archive 196#Bold revision of "US and U.S." section (October 2017)
• WT:Manual of Style/Archive 205#Input on potential RfC on U.S. vs US (July 2018)

These eventually led to the formal RfC at WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 146#RfC: Revisiting the perennial US/U.S. debate, where it seemed consensus was leaning in favor of "Use the newest wording", but I'm not sure anyone can say with real certainty that it had a strong, definitive outcome. In light of reviewing these discussions, the version stemming from the October 2017 discussion should probably be restored for now, while those interested in undoing those changes give adequate time to revisit the issue in a new discussion. Just 2¢ from an uninvolved editor. --GoneIn60 (talk) 11:44, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

For those who don't know, "CMOS" means "Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor." BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 03:45, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

I was walking down the street today and a metal-oxide semiconductor said nice things about my haircut. EEng 03:47, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

RETAIN

I just ran into one of those US/U.S. tinkerers [2] and it really is annoying. Can someone craft some RETAIN wording to add to the above? I'm tuckered out. Something like, "Subject to these provisos, the choice of US vs. U.S. [something something should be retained something]". EEng 03:42, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Ping! EEng 15:51, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Doesn't MOS:DASH contradict WP:ACCESS?

I know that it says that dashes should be used instead of hyphens in certain places...but many people's keyboards don't have a dash key (only a hyphen key).

In keeping with WP:ACCESS, I honestly believe that it should be under review, in order to enable more people to edit without needing fancy key combinations. Tom Danson (talk) 03:27, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Did redirects stop being a thing all of a sudden? --Jayron32 03:59, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Usually when I want to get a dash, I go to dash or the actual WP:DASH and copy paste the one I want. No, it's not inaccessible not least because the manual option (and the template options!) are available. --Izno (talk) 12:20, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

By the way, there're also the HTML entities – and —. And they're available on the "Wiki markup" toolbar below the edit window, (possibly depending on what editor is being used). –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 12:34, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

I use a hyphen and wait for a bot (or TRM, who's better than a bot) to fix it. I agree, it's daft. Not only do most people not have access to it, most people don't know the difference either. But my question is why do we prefer the dash to the hyphen (I ought to know but don't)? If there's a good reason, then we should leave things as they are. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 12:35, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Ah, banner blindness. Part of that answer is in the FAQ above. --Izno (talk) 12:42, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. It's a pretty miniscule part of a bloated banner, I'm not sure why anyone would notice it. That said, if the problem with hyphens is with superscript, why not just make people use dashes for superscript? --— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dweller (talk • contribs) 13:53, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

↑↑↑Anyone got an answer to my question? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 21:29, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand the question. What is the issue with superscripts and hyphens or dashes? Dicklyon (talk) 03:10, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

If you use the basic editor, see Help:CharInsert. There's a tiny special character editor right above where the edit summary is where you can insert special character. Somehow, I just have the keyboard special code sequence down, which you can find for Windows and Mac by Googling.—Bagumba (talk) 12:57, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

@Tom Danson, Jayron32, Izno, Deacon Vorbis, Dweller, and Bagumba: Please see WP:How to make dashes. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:46, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

@Graham87: As one of the Wikipedians for whom accessibility is a really big deal, how do you make dashes? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:47, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I have little scripts set up with my screen reader JAWS to insert em and en dashes with a single keystroke. Insert is a standard modifier key with screen readers, so I press insert+hyphen to enter an en dash and insert+shift+hyphen to enter an em dash. Before I wrote those scripts I used JAWS's symbol insertion feature to insert both em and en dashes fairly quickly. I know the special code sequences as well but I only use those to type curly quotation marks and apostrophes when I want to find/replace them with straight ones. Graham87 01:35, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

@Redrose64: I do what Dweller does. I just type a hyphen 100% of the time. There's enough people who care who will fix it. I don't really care how many pixels a horizontal line has in it. For those that do, they can have their fun. --Jayron32 12:28, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

but many people's keyboards don't have a dash key (only a hyphen key). It's still possible to with the alt key. Alt + 0150 for an en-dash, alt + 0151 for an em-dash, etc. Note you have to hold down the alt key and then let it go after hitting the final number. Amaury (talk | contribs) 22:50, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

That method depends upon your keyboard mapping and operating system. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:05, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

It also depends on you having a numeric keypad or equivalent - if you are editing on a phone or tablet (even with an add-on keyboard) adding dashes and the like can become considerably more difficult.Nigel Ish (talk) 23:33, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

No it's not. Just use {{ndash}} or –. Why are we still beating this dead horse? EEng 02:34, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Recommending that people use the Bill Gates alt-number method is a non-starter for most, since there's no sensible way to learn such things. That's why so many alternatives are provided. I have a Mac, so my fingers just know to type option-hyphen for en dash and option-shift-hyphen for em dash, but for those not so fortunate, eitehr spell it out or just use a hyphen. It will get fixed eventually. Dicklyon (talk) 03:07, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

To-do list It took me forever to find the written reference (Help:CharInsert) to include for my comment above, and now WP:How to make dashes is identified too. I think what is missing is some easy way(s) (shortcuts, embedded links into the MOS, etc) for editors to find these resources. Placing this so I (or anyone) can circle back to this.—Bagumba (talk) 04:47, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Just use your old-fashioned typewriter ASCII keyboard to type the html entities, – or —. If some bot wants to convert it to the actual unicode, whatever, but it will render correctly. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:42, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

I have always believed WP:How to make dashes was someone's idea of a cruel joke. EEng 05:54, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Update To my surprise, the very top of MOS:DASH already had some instructions to enter dashes with the insert tool. Am I the only one who never noticed? At any rate, I added some (hopefully seen) wikilinks to Help:CharInsert and WP:How to make dashes, as well as at the FAQ (above).—Bagumba (talk) 07:59, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Why is everyone so focused on the how to do something awkward, rather than the why. Why do we force this if the only benefit of it is for superscript numbers, which are rarely used. Wouldn't it be more sensible to get a bot to spot hyphens in superscript numbers and convert them to dashes and then tell everyone to use hyphens because they're easy? --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:21, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

It's not awkward at all. If you don't have a Mac, just click on the en or em dash button under the edit box. Voila. Tony (talk) 12:11, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Tony, that's still how, not why. And that's obviously more awkward to boot. --109.158.20.12 (talk) 20:17, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm guessing people just think the longer dashes look better - and it's something of a holdover from print typography. I agree it would be simpler and easier for editors just to drop endashes and emdashes in favor of ASCII hyphens, and I don't think the result is ugly. It makes sense for most of the same reasons using ASCII quotes instead of curved quotes makes sense. -- Beland (talk) 20:23, 2 October 2018 (UTC), who boldly signs his posts with a double dash.

Great idea. Let's also stop using capital letters and present everything in Courier. EEng 20:31, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

Just read everything in the edit window – lovely monospaced basic ASCII. :-) Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:39, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

That still leaves the useless capitals. They're only there pretty much because people just think they look better – they're something of a holdover from print typography. EEng 20:52, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

• Wait, what exactly in WP:ACCESS is supposed to conflict with MOS:DASH? I can't see anything obvious, or how their use would impact readability. --tronvillain (talk) 21:04, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

The idea seems to be that since dashes aren't on "most" people's keyboards (actually, they're on essentially none) and you therefore have to use mutlikey sequences, that's somehow a problem for the disabled (or something). It's silly. You could just as well say capital letters are an accessibility problem because you have to hold down the shift key. EEng 23:08, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

En dash and em dash have been on every Mac keyboard since 1984, but I understant that's not "most" people. Too bad Bill Gates didn't drop out like Steve Jobs did, after studying typography. And yes, the option key is no harder than the shift key. Not an accessibility issue, especially since editors are free to just use a hyphen if they don't know how to type a dash (and a style gnome will fix it eventually). Dicklyon (talk) 03:03, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Plus, Mac users aren't people. EEng 03:18, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

"...the option key is no harder than the shift key" Nonsense. You're obviously not a touch typist. Keyboards have had a shift key for well over 100 years. Option keys are much newer. Nobody learns to use one as they learn to type. HiLo48 (talk) 03:11, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

I learned typewriter with shift key in 1965 (not well over 100 years, but over 50 at least); option key in 1984; it's not that hard. Dicklyon (talk) 03:14, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Not THAT hard maybe, but that wasn't what you originally claimed. My life involves using Macs and PCs. Using the Option key will never become automatic, or even simple, for me. HiLo48 (talk) 03:20, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Does anyone know what typical Text to Speech tools (used by people with vision restrictions) do with em-dashes? HiLo48 (talk) 03:20, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Please see the question that I left for Graham87 (talk · contribs) on 20 September 2018, plus his reply.

It is also clear from several posts that have been left since then that a number of people have not noticed my link to WP:How to make dashes either. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:52, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

They treat them as word/boundary-separators like hyphens and announce en dashes as "dash"/"en dash" and em dashes as "em dash". Graham87 08:25, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Excuse me, @Dweller: and @Jayron32:—don't be so lazy. You make more work for everyone else by refusing to click on the button provided under the edit box. Those who are hamstrung by using a Windows keyboard, note that your "numlock" must be switched off for the alt-plus-number to work. Tony (talk) 08:48, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for an answer to my question. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 08:50, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

If the question you refer to is "That said, if the problem with hyphens is with superscript, why not just make people use dashes for superscript?" the answer is that you completely misunderstood that example, and that dashes have no particular relationship to superscripts, and the example of the problem with hyphen instead of minus sign in superscripts was just someone's example, hardly representative of anything about minus signs, hyphens, or dashes in general. And a minus sign is not a dash. Dicklyon (talk) 05:11, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Why should people use en dash/em dash rather than a hyphen?

I'll restate the question as someone said they don't understand it and others have ignored it:

Until EEng's recent edit, the FAQ on this page said that the reason why we force people to use dashes instead of hyphens is because hypens are difficult to see in superscript numbers. (Now there is no real reason given)

Superscript numbers are rarely used (can't remember ever having used superscript in any of my squillions of edits)

Wouldn't it be more sensible to get a bot to spot (and replace) hyphens in superscript numbers and convert them to dashes and then tell everyone to use hyphens because they're easy?

Please. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 10:17, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

This question deserves an answer. Given the amount of effort people have gone to above to explain all various ways people can add em and en dashes, there must be a good reason why they should. Please explain what that reason is (remembering that this is a why question not a how question). Thryduulf (talk) 16:39, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Just as an aside, there doesn't always have to be a reason other than sometimes you have to pick a way to do it, and then stick to it unless there's some overriding reason to change. But really, can you imagine trying to read a section of text where hyphens have been used instead of em dashes to set apart a section of text? It would be significantly more difficult to do so without stumbling and reading the sentence as just containing hyphenated words. Dashes have different uses than hyphens, and the visual difference (small, but noticeable) helps convey that information. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 17:11, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

I think mostly the reason people haven't been answering is because we had literal years of fighting over these lines. How about Dweller do the research instead and present any concerns he specifically has with requesting certain kinds of lines versus others? --Izno (talk) 18:14, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

I learned how to use a typewriter more than 60 years ago. I've been writing since -- for publication (a lot), for fun, and now for wikipedia (a lot). I once had a job in which splitting an infinitive was an unforgivable sin. Today, nobody cares about split infinitives -- although I still have it seared into my memory that a split infinitive is tantamount to illiteracy.

I don't know the difference between a hyphen and a dash, and I don't know when to use an "n-dash" or an "m-dash." I have no idea whether the dash I just used is right or wrong. In dividing a word, I use an "n-dash" (or maybe that's a hyphen. I don't know); in setting a phrase off I use an "m-dash" (or maybe it's a double hyphen.) That's all I know. Nobody has ever told me why it matters. I notice that other editors correct my dashes (or hyphens) in the wikipedia articles I write -- and I spend a micro-second wondering what I've done wrong. It seems trivial to me -- like the guy who goes around changing en route to "enroute" -- or vice-versa, I don't recall. So, somebody explain to me why I should care. User:Deacon Vorbis made a start above. (And, yeah, I know I've used a lot of dashes or hyphens in this comment.) Smallchief (talk) 20:22, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

It's cool, you can keep using hyphens; no need to care, if you don't; plenty of us who care will clean up after you. For those who were fortunate enough to supplement their typewriter skills with typography, e.g. using TeX since the 1970s or Mac since the 1980s, or who studied typography via style manuals while writing books or papers, the difference becomes clear and important. It's sad that so much of the computer and online community got stuck in the ASCII rut and didn't learn or adopt good typography practice, but now that Unicode is ubiquitous, it's easier to do the right thing, and WP has decided to give it a try. A great huge powwow on dashes in 2011 pretty much ironed out the current consensus. Dicklyon (talk) 04:10, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be snide, but you didn't tell me why it matters. I'm curious. I'll look for the 2011 discussion. Smallchief (talk) 08:21, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

For the same reason that other punctuation marks matter. You could just use periods everywhere, but the other marks convey different structure and meaning. Dicklyon (talk) 15:00, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

@Izno: based on his comments on this topic, he has done a lot of research and has failed to find an answer - that is why he is asking. Before I posted the comment about I also did some research (so I could answer a question that everybody has been repeatedly failing to answer) and also failed to find an answer. I have found the Wikipedia:Short horizontal line essay, and suspect that Smallchief will agree with its sentiment. Thryduulf (talk) 21:10, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Hyphens, n-dashes, and m-dashes matter because the People To Whom It Matters say it matters. They don't really know why it matters either, but it does, because it's important that it does. So don't question why it matters, because it matters. Meanwhile the rest of us just use hyphens, because the People To Whom It Matters, who don't have anything better to do in life that really matters, will fix it for us, because it really matters. And that's all that matters. - BilCat (talk) 21:16, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Dude, you misquoted the bit about superscripts; that example was about minus signs, not dashes (as in 10^-3 versus 10⁻³). Dicklyon (talk) 04:05, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

As for a bot fixing hyphens that should be dashes, there are cases where that's easy, and cases where it's not. In the case of articles with dash in their title, links through the redirects that use hyphen can always be safely updated by bot to use the dash, I think (under the presumption that the dash in the title is deliberate and therefore probably correct). We should request a bot to do that. But in other contexts, it's hard to tell automatically which is correct, since they convey different meanings and the intent may be hard to infer. For example, if I mention the Smith-Jones House, it's hard to know if the hyphen is intentional, referring to a person Smith-Jones, or if (as is more common) it's just a sloppy way to write Smith–Jones House, a house named for two of its previous owners (or architects or whatever). The reader benefits if we get this right. Even readers who don't know the difference will get a subtle cue that Smith-Jones is closely connected, and Smith–Jones less so, even if they don't know they're getting it, just as commas are helpful in cueing a reader to pause at certain places even if they have no appreciation for how to use commas themselves. Dicklyon (talk) 05:00, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

You do a profound disservice to the professional standards of writing on en.WP, Dicklyon, in giving a carte-blanche for amateurs to ignore not only MOS, but every reputable style guide in English. Tony (talk) 05:05, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

That's still not an answer to "Why...?", unless, in your mind, "The style guide says so" is a good enough reason. HiLo48 (talk) 05:25, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

The world has many English language style, punctuation, and usage guides, and there is considerable variation in their recommendations for exactly how to use hyphens, dashes of different sorts, commas, quotation marks, etc. We distill a wikipedia style into the WP:MOS to try to keep our style somewhat more consistent, and therefore make the meaning more interpretable, than if we just followed all the random styles that are out there. For example, with MOS:CAPS we state that if you see something capped in the middle of a sentence you should interpret it as a proper name; many styles cap for other reasons, and we try to avoid that. With hyphens, if you see a hyphen between names, you should probably read it as a combined name such as a person sometimes takes on getting married, whereas if you see the looser connection of an en dash you should interpret it as something named after two individuals. More generally, the hyphen usually signifies a compound used as a modifier where the first word modifies the second (as in "a Mexican-American person" who is an American person of Mexican background) and the dash signifies an more symmetric relationship (as in "the Mexican–American war", a war between Mexico and the US, not a war about Mexican Americans). In general, WP's style manual has been written to capture best practices for how to use punctuation and typography to convey meaning and structure as clearly as possible. When you see a double hyphen, or the wimpy-looking spaced hyphen, you can be pretty sure that is typewriter style meant to signify a sentence dash or an item separator, but if you have any appreciation for typography it just looks horrible, so replacing it with an unspaced em dash or a spaced en dash per MOS:DASH is always a good thing to do; but feel free to leave it to someone who cares. Dicklyon (talk) 18:33, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm afraid you lost me when you used the overused cliché "best practices". That term is used by people who want to act as if they know more about something than someone else, and often don't. I'm not saying that applies to you, but it's rarely helpful in a debate. HiLo48 (talk) 21:02, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

I do not use such terms in debates, but thought it was useful in describing the intent behind the MOS. If you want to debate whether having an MOS is a good thing, or whether having an MOS motivating by trying to capture a consensus about best practices is a good idea, I'll probably stay out of that. Dicklyon (talk) 21:45, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

If the best answer to why should we use awkward dashes instead of hyphens is "because consensus in 2011 is that we should", then it would seem appropriate to change seek a new consensus. But I'm not here to 'win' an argument, I only care for our readers and editors (in that order) so it's worth waiting to see if Smallchief can find any good arguments from the 2011 discussion (thank you for diving into that). --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:31, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Nobody is asking anyone to "use awkward dashes instead of hyphens". Use hyphens where appropriate, and if you find using dashes where appropriate awkward, leave that to someone else to fix. Has anyone been pressuring you to learn how to use or how to type dashes? Of course, if you'd like to learn about good typography and grammar and be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, that would also be welcome. Dicklyon (talk) 18:33, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm trying to be part of the solution. The solution seems to be to change MOS because what it tells people to do is utterly pointless and makes things more difficult for editors. I'm desperately waiting for someone to tell us the vital purpose that's driven MOS to be the way it is. I've asked so many times and the best I'm getting is "because its best practice". When I write a football score as 3-0 and somebody feels the need to tell me that that hyphen should be replaced by a different mark that looks exactly the same but is more difficult to type, I want to know why and I don't think that's unreasonable. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 07:59, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I whole-heartedly support your effort in asking "why?".— Preceding unsigned comment added by SergeWoodzing (talk • contribs) 08:17, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Give me a break. The malcontents had their say many years ago and lost—thank goodness. Now we can return to writing a professional-standard encyclopedia. If you're too lazy to click on the dash button at the bottom of the edit-box, don't edit. Tony (talk) 09:09, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm trying very hard to give you a break. But you're refusing to answer a simple question. In so doing you're risking all the malcontents and lazy people changing the consensus so that we no longer have a professional-standard encyclopedia because we accept football scores written "3-0". --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:14, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

You have convinced me I shouldn't edit- is there an easy way I can undo 29,400 edits- and remove the 1,600 articles I have created? All this humour and jollity doesn't help me to explain to a class of new users- where should they be used, and what is the point?

There are a multitude of objections you face as well as total bemusment from the majority. Try these for for starters-

• why does WP not use other typographical ligatures, prefering to write st, and fi out without them? (Why does WP not typeset in Gill for example).
• Am I here to add content to an encyclopedia or learn about typesetting?
• What is an n-dash, and if it is so important why can't I find it on my keyboard? ( I use US-int keyboard ¥ as many people know Alt Gr + - gives the yen, and Sht Alt Gr + - gives a deadkey for underscore dot. (̣.- shown below the dot).
• Does n-dash (shortcuts, entities, templates) work exactly the same on fr:WP, de:WP or even commons?

When you taught touch typing in the late fifties- the key tops were all blank, and you worked with finger memory, you submitted your copy and if it needed to be typeset- the typesetters did that. The point being that the guy at the keyboard just entered the data- usually with out looking at keyboard or the carriage. In the days of AI and the beta version of a visual editor can we just enter the text, and let the gubbins typeset it correctly for the particular font selected by the end user on his/her chosen output device.

But in the mean time- what do ndashes do and why? ClemRutter (talk) 00:01, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

En dashes connect less closely than hyphens do, or separate more than hyphens do, depending on your perspective. If you can't see the difference, choose a better font; in a proper font, the en dash is as wide as the letter n, and the hyphen is much shorter, connecting much more tightly. Or if you don't see the difference, why do you care to talk about it? Dicklyon (talk) 03:09, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

The reason Wikipedia distinguishes between hyphens, en-dashes, em-dashes and minus signs is because that's what all professional publishers do, and have done for centuries. It's a very well established convention. So we do it to make our encyclopedia look professional rather than amateur. And has been said several times before, it's not the end of the world if a few editors don't follow the style guide because someone else will come along and fix it later. Professional publishing companies employ proof readers and copy editors to make these sort of adjustments to authors' texts. -- Dr Greg  talk  21:04, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

@Dr Greg: personally I'm in favour of using the proper 'dash' characters, but the argument "because that's what all professional publishers do" isn't sufficient, because they use ‘’ and “” and we don't. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:21, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Actually, not all professional publishers have the same style, which is why we had the big powwow in 2011 to converge on Wikipedia's style guidelines. And it's not true that they "have done for centuries". Conventions around dash usage have been in flux, especially through the 20th century, and never totally converged. Nevertheless, there are major themes and consensuses across publishers and guides, in spite of differences. So wikipedians came together and hashed out our own style guidelines. Not everyone likes omitting the spaces around the en dash in "New York–London flight", for example, but that's what we converged on, so we go with it. Lots of variations were discussed and voted on. The proposal to always use hyphen instead of en dash was considered, but received little support, as it's so at odds with all modern style and usage guides, and as it removes important cues to meaning and readability. Editors may get a bit short in trying to re-explain all this to those who don't know why they should care. I'd say you don't have to care, but if you do, read up on it in any number of widely available style and grammar and usage guides. Dicklyon (talk) 04:34, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

And as for the curly quote marks, I'm not sure I like that provision of our MOS, but I understand and abide by it. I'd sooner see the change to using fancier UNICODE quote marks than give up decent typography of dashes. But surely some would complain, "Why are we being forced to use fancy quote marks that are not on our keyboards and that we never used with typewriters?" Dicklyon (talk) 04:37, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

• It occurs to me that the question is a misnomer of sorts; it may lend to some of the misunderstanding. A question that is ostensibly about hyphens, and why they should ever be a dash will always be considering an endash only (an emdash is not a grammatical option where a hyphen may otherwise be properly used). Wherever an emdash may otherwise be in proper use, its punctuation defers through the endash to a semicolon (never to a hyphen). Am I wrong about this?--John Cline (talk) 18:06, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

What??? EEng 18:08, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

This is probably a good time for one of your talk page images.--John Cline (talk) 18:22, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

On the alert for hyphen/endash confusion

Happy to oblige. But in all seriousness I haven't the foggiest idea what you're saying in your post. EEng 18:31, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps I could instead ask for one example where a hyphen is used that could arguably be an emdash or conversely for an example of an emdash in use that could arguably be a hyphen? I am certainly wrong if you can—perhaps right if you can not.--John Cline (talk) 19:02, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

There's no such case that I can imagine, but I have no idea what you think this proves or illustrates. "I am certainly wrong if you can—perhaps right if you can not" – wrong or right about what? There are cases where a ndash would be used in the most careful typesetting, but a ndash would be passable (though not ideal) in a less careful setting (e.g. score was 5–2 vs. score was 5-2); but there's nowhere whatsoever that a hyphen can substitute for an emdash without looking absolutely awful:

He‍—‌now with his wife‍—‌went inside

He - now with his wife - went inside.

EEng 20:32, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Don't forget the more common typewriter style for that:

He--now with his wife--went inside.

These usages of spaced hyphen and double hyphen for em dash (and also for en dash) are sprinkled throughout Wikipedia. They're also common in sources such as the NRHP nomination documents, making it easy to see in many cases that the functional role intended is that of a dash, not a hyphen, and yet the article titles end up with just a hyphen (not even spaced); Staggs-Huffaker Building for example. These uses of hyphens may be "correct" within some typewriter-based styles, but are way wrong per any modern guide to English typographical usage. Dicklyon (talk) 01:24, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

If the 128 characters in ASCII were good enough for Jesus, they are good enough for me. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:28, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

I am way above Jesus in the food chain; and I say unto you that en and em dashes shall be used as the major authorities ordain. Tony (talk) 10:49, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

If God wanted people to distinguish between a dash and a hyphen, why did She make them look the same?Smallchief (talk)

Ask any husband; you can never tell which of two identical things "She" wants you to choose. ;-( Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:19, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

These comparisons of the hyphen (-), en dash (–), and em dash (—), in various 12-point fonts, illustrate the typical relationship between lengths ("- n – m —"). In some fonts, the en dash is not much longer than the hyphen, and in Lucida Grande, the en dash is actually shorter than the hyphen.

If hyphens and dashes look alike to you, you are using a deficient font. Not hard to fix. See this article. Dicklyon (talk) 14:51, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Well let me askye something... when He transmitted "I am the α and the ῼ" – what code page was he working from then? EEng 02:55, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Aramaic, written in a Hebrew script not [yet] available on computers, most probably. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 08:55, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Can we stop now?

If someone has a concrete proposal for a change to MOS (like "Just use hyphens for everything") let's hear it now. Otherwise I think it's time to stop. EEng 15:01, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

The real comma wars

• Pompeo cracks down, on improper use, of commas at State Department
• Mike Pompeo Has Launched a War on Misplaced Commas
• Secretary of State Pompeo Is Mandating His Oxford Comma Preference at State Department, Report Says
• Pompeo’s staff cracks down on ‘correct use of commas’ at State Dept
• DONALD TRUMP’S SECRETARY OF STATE IS STARTING A WAR—AGAINST COMMAS
• Mike Pompeo Takes Hardline On State Department Employees' Use Of Commas

EEng 21:39, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Has anyone explained to Donald what a comma is? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:08, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Very entertaining reading. I can only say that flexibility is called for in some situations. But I am definitely a fan of the mandatory serial comma, in the interest of clarity. Jmar67 (talk) 22:15, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Pomeo should read MOS:OXFORD.

I love my parents, B.B. King and Ladyada. -Guy Macon (talk) 22:23, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

We're talking about commas, not parens. EEng 22:55, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

I see what you did there. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 05:00, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Finally, two weeks later, someone. I was beginning to think I should start casting my pearls before other swine. EEng 05:35, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Why should section headings "Not be phrased as a question"?

Not in question form, please!

-EEng

As a point of inquiry: Can anyone explain why (at MOS:HEADINGS) we state that section headings (in articles) should "Not be phrased as a question"?

Six other "shoulds" are given, such as be unique, not contain images or math markup, not contain links, etc. For most of these there are good reasons, mostly technical, which permit no exceptions. On the other other hand, when I raised this question before (here), the consensus was that headings in the form of questions should be allowed where that is the better way. (Similarly when the question was raised here in 2007.)

If (as seems the case) "not ... a question" is a general preference, should we not say that, and thus distinguish it from the stronger, technically-based "should nots"? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:54, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

I see it as leading the reader. "Why?" as some subsection of "Birds became dinosaurs" is much more informatively "Theory" or "Fossil record" or etc. It can also tend toward the "You won't believe what happens next" clickbait circa 2015. Be explicit with our readers about the intent of the section. --Izno (talk) 22:35, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Why? Because we are not being rhetorical? Because we are not creating an argument? Because we are writing exposition? Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:39, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

I think the terminal punctuation is misplaced in a section heading. To that end, I don't think a section heading should be a complete sentence either.--John Cline (talk) 22:43, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

It's partly WP:NPOV - if a section heading is written as a question, it can be hard to write a neutral question; the very fact that it is a question can imply that what follows are not just answers but opinions. For example, a question like 'Why should section headings "Not be phrased as a question"?' suggests that the writer of that heading would like headings to be phrased as questions, and is expecting a number of counterarguments to follow. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:50, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

All your responses are interesting. Lacking mention of a specific case (that was deliberate), you all have assumed some kind of case as a basis for responding. As it is, I largely agree with your views. (E.g., that section headings should not be complete sentences. But! question marks don't just terminate sentences, they also indicate interrogative mode, and statements of an indefinite nature.) And I would even agree that as a general preference we should avoid questions in headings, for reasons such as you all have cited.

However, should this objection be absolute? Or should it allow exceptions, where warranted? There are technical reasons for the other "should nots", but that is not the case for questions. And I think there are exceptional cases, where "phrased as a question" is the better form.

E.g., in a previous instance there was a notable debate on a topic, and it was preferable to title the section in the same form as the debate.

In the case at hand there is a question of whether a prediction was made for the 1976 Tangshan earthquake. Not whether there was a successful prediction, but whether there any prediction was made. The view among seismologists is that it was not predicted (even "famously unpredicted"). On the other side, there are credible reports of Chinese scientists anticipating a quake in the near term, but which (for various deep and subtle reasons) are not considered "predictions". Titling that section with a definite (e.g.) "Predictions" or "Predicted" is therefore as non-neutral as "Not predicted". In cases such as this, where the topic is a question, I argue that a definite statement of the question is better than a title that states the viewpoint of one side or the other.

The narrower form of my question is: should this "not" be absolute? (And if so, then why?) Or does it permit exceptions? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:38, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Possibly also relevant: WP:NOTFAQ, loaded question, suggestive question —PaleoNeonate – 22:54, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

That section strikes me as a bit off, in the WP:SYNTH kind of way. I would expect the discussion about the ramifications of the supposed predictions to be in #Political_aspects, and any supposed predictions in some section prior to that of the discussion of the earthquake itself. The section itself is disorganized also. Regardless, I don't see a problem with a section name like "Reported predictions" or similar as an immediate change, since that's what we're discussing in that section. That title lets the rest of the section do the talking. (Some of the bolding in #Death_toll needs a WP:MOSBOLD applied to them--perhaps tabulated for easy comparison.) --Izno (talk) 02:57, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

I think of a heading with a question mark as being somewhat improperly informal (at least in most cases), like addressing the reader with "we" and "you". Do other reputable sources do that? What do style guides for formal expository writing say about it? It also seems like a bit of a "teaser" practice. Generally, I think we should simply provide information, not deliberately incite curiosity in a way that makes readers dig further to learn an answer – that's click-baiting, not informing. It is up to the reader to decide whether they are interested in the information we are providing to them or not – we shouldn't be engaging in trickery to try to incite their curiosity and get them interested in the material. I think Izno has an interesting point about leading the reader. We are trying to provide information, not control the reader's thought process. I also suggest considering particular examples, not just speaking in generalities and hypotheticals. The more examples, the better. It may also be good to keep in mind what is stated at the top of the WP:MoS: "it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". The current prohibition is not necessarily absolute already. Also, the word "should" is not necessarily an inflexible demand – for example, a "must" is stronger than a "should". —BarrelProof (talk) 02:03, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

I largely agree with BarrelProof. Particularly with "occasional exceptions may apply". But "not ... a question" tends to be invoked absolutely, without consideration of any possible exception. It does not help that it is included in a list of "nots" where the "should not" is quite inflexible.

I reject the imputation that (in the example) there is any "trickery to try to incite[the readers']curiosity". There is an issue there, overt and plain to see (and interesting enough that it does not need to be tarted up), that some people seem to have anticipated the quake – which many people would take (and implicitly have taken) as a prediction. Which the experts flatly reject.

"Reported predictions" does not work for the simple reason that no predictions were reported, which gets into some subtleties regarding "prediction" and "reported". E.g., the "credible reports" I mentioned above are of other people reporting that someone expected a quake. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:32, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Titling that section with a definite (e.g.) "Predictions" or "Predicted" is therefore as non-neutral as "Not predicted". - Why not "Predicted or not" (which doesn't have to be a question) or "Whether predicted" or something, i.e. just describe what is in the section? I think the problems PaleoNeonate listed are too severe to make exceptions. There's an automatic bias in asking a question and it is way more likely to be a NPOV problem than to occasionally solve one that couldn't be fixed with some substitution of phrasing. —DIYeditor (talk) 07:39, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Just to clarify, my remark was about the general issue – not about the earthquake article specifically. I don't claim that all of my comments apply to the discussed usage in the earthquake article. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:35, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Returning to the central question, I note that the objections (so far) to headings in the form of a question lack any technical basis, and thus differ from the other "nots". For this reason I think this "not" should be handled separately. (Where we might also explain the objections to questions.) Are there any objections to such a re-arrangement? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:05, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't know the robustness of the Wikimedia software, but a question mark at the end of an url has a special meaning; it's the end of the "pointer" part of the url, and the beginning of the query string, which is section of param-value pairs that get passed to software which can parse them and put up different results, depending what is there. For example, if you book a flight, your url might be something like www.flybynight-air.com/flights/search?from=JFK&to=LHR&leave=20181120&return=20181127&class=econ. Everything after the question mark gets handled differently. In order to be treated as a "normal" character, special charaters like question mark need to be "escaped" by software in certain situations in order to be handled properly, otherwise they will be seen as a special meta-character. (Url characters needing to be escaped use percent encoding. In the case of a question mark at the end of a section name, it's actually just part of the section title and not a special character. Lots of software would get tripped up by such a case, but properly designed software would handle it correctly. Even if WMF does handle it correctly, maybe your email provider doesn't, and will fail to handle sending such urls, for example. Mathglot (talk) 03:34, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

The Wikimedia software handles question marks (and several other "special" characters, including spaces) just fine, including the proper encodings when converted to urls. More relevant here is the contrast with <math> markup, icons, etc., which do present url problems, and therefore are not only 1) "nots", but also 2) do not allow exceptions. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:29, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

J. Johnson, what do you mean by "separately"? What is your suggestion? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:56, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

By "separately" I mean that "Not phrased as a question" (and also the first item, "Not redundantly refer back to the subject") be removed from the list, and explained, well, separately from the other "nots". We have "nots" for which there are technical reasons (and therefore do not admit of exceptions, WP:IAR not withstanding), and "nots" for which there are non-technical reasons. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:56, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that's not the only element of the list that is there because of an editorial stylistic decision rather than a technical limitation. For example, redundantly referring back to the subject of the article poses no technical problem, and I'm not aware of any technical limitation that prevents using Wikilinks in headings (I've seen it done, especially on Talk pages, and it seems to work fine), and I don't think that a heading that starts with a number would be a technical problem either. I think I've seen citations in headings before too, and icons – or at least some strange thing that looks like a picture – see, for example Talk:Gravity#🌠. I considered them undesirable, but I'm not aware of it causing a technical problem. In fact I believe that most or all of the items in that list are either not there for technical reasons at all, or at least have a combination of reasons that include some non-technical reasons. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:35, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Citations actually in a heading? I have never understood why somone would do that. But are you perhaps referring to a note?

Your example appears to involve a single character, which is to say, a glyph. I believe "icons" refers to the attempted use of image files.

A technical limitation is sufficient for non-exemption, quite regardless of any other applicable reasons.

♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 21:13, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen citations in headings before (and removed them). For example, if the section of the article contains a list of publications by the person who is the subject of the article or contains a list or table of statistics (e.g., the results of an election or the demographics reported in census results), someone might stick a citation into the heading of that section of the article to indicate that all the information in that section came from that source – because they don't know where else to put it, since it applies to everything in the section. It's ugly, but I've seen it happen. I don't recall it causing any technical problem. You can experiment with that yourself (e.g. in a sandbox). —BarrelProof (talk) 21:35, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Refs in a heading make a mess of the TOC and of edit summaries when editing that section; they also make it more difficult to link to the section. These are among the reasons why MOS:HEADINGS (fourth bullet) exists. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:45, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

More abominable than I would want to be caught doing. But post a diff here the next time you see one. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 00:49, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Wild specimens. 14,400 -- GreenC 00:55, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Your Wikisearch-fu skills are excellent. —BarrelProof (talk) 02:12, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Omigosh. Yes, excellent work. Thank you.

In passing I will note another problem with the current text: it confounds citations (refering to sources, usually with a {cite} or {citation} template) with notes (created with <ref>...</ref> tags). The problems Redrose mentions are, strictly speaking, with <ref> tags. Which the bullet points don't mention. But as most of these notes include citations the distinction between citations and notes need not impede the current discussin.

So why so many instances of an explicitly stated "not"? No one really cares? Do we need a tag? Should we care? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:25, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Unsurprisingly, [[Belgium#Functional urban areas[133]]] is both a linked a header (Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Section headings) and contains a ref. --Gonnym (talk) 23:34, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

• Chess960#Why_960?. EEng 07:27, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

That is case where there is a definite answer to "why is the name 960?", and the question can be easily turned into an affirmative statement: "why the name is 960". In the case I cited above the case is more like "Was there a prediction?", where we can't really say either "There was a prediction", or "There was not a prediction". I think the closest we can come might be "The Question of whether, or not, there was a prediction". But no one (no source) says there was any such Question. The scientists say (I believe with one exception) there was no prediction, while the rest of us see what what certainly look like predictions. It's as if "the Question" is in question, but much too evident to be ignored. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 23:51, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

I just thought it was an interesting case that would provide food for thought. EEng 03:20, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

It is an interesting case, particularly for exploring where, and why, some cases can be replaced with affirmative sentences, but other cases are not so easily handled. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:22, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

As I said above, I think "Predicted or not" or "Whether predicted" could work. Or separate (sub)sections for "Arguments that there was a prediction" and "Arguments that there was no prediction". I think it's always possible to affirmatively describe the contents of a section. —DIYeditor (talk) 00:26, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Separate pro/con sections don't work, as no one has explicitly made any such arguments. It would be like an "argument" (explanation) why some people think the sky is blue, and in this case might be taken as borderline OR. "Whether predicted" might work, but I find it a bit awkward. The question here would be whether "Predicted?" might be better. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:22, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Good thing it was an earthquake and not a storm, 'cause otherwise it would be Whether weather predicted. An article on new directions in the debate on whether weather was predicted might be Whither whether weather predicted.EEng 00:47, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

@J. Johnson: Well, even assuming this particular earthquake case is best suited for a question mark, how would this be handled in other situations? Hopefully not just by consensus on an article talk page, because I think if it is allowed, editors will get in the habit of not trying their hardest to figure out how to phrase it without a question mark. Would it need a new "question mark in headings noticeboard" or a post to this talk page every time there is disagreement? I think allowing it at all opens the floodgate for this. —DIYeditor (talk) 03:40, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

What I would propose is hardly an "open floodgate", and at any rate I don't see there is any pent up flood of demand for questions as headings. At the top of this discussion are some comments suggesting why questions are generally considered not suitable for headings, and those considerations still hold. What I am suggesting is that, as this prohibition is only stylistic rather than technical, and where there is consensus that an interrogatory heading works better than an affirmative heading, exceptions should be allowed. It does not require a noticeboard. On the other hand, addressing "not a question" separately from the technically based "nots" is an opportunity to document why questions are generally not suitable as headings, and would narrow the scope of where exceptions might be made. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:38, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Section headers on talk pages, at least ones written by me, often are in the form of a question. But I do agree that it is most often not best for articles, with the possible exception of an article on the "Jeopardy" TV game show. If there are specific cases, then bring them up. I probably believe that one could be NPOV, as I often enough do that in talk pages. It does seem less encyclopedic, though. Gah4 (talk) 20:53, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

Wording in MOS:US

The manual of style decrees that the United States of America be abbreviated as "US" or "U.S." I changed the wording to clarify that this abbreviation is being used to refer to the United States of America, as opposed to any of the other entities known as the "United States", such as those listed here: United States (disambiguation).

Here is the sentence in question (my proposed addition in bold):

While in principle, either US or U.S. may be used (with internal consistency) to abbreviate "United States of America" in any given article, the use or non-use of periods (full stops) should also be consistent with other country abbreviations in the same article (thus the US, UK, and USSR, not the U.S., UK, and USSR).

For some reason my edit has been repeatedly reverted. @General Ization and Amaury: Please clarify your reverts and provide a reason why the MOS should use the term "United States" in the description instead of the more specific "United States of America". Thanks, Augurar (talk) 07:45, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

• The reason your edit was reverted is that US and U.S. are abbreviations for United States, while USA and U.S.A. are abbreviation for United States of America. Surely that's obvious, and please don't say you think people won't know what the United States is. EEng 07:49, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia has chosen to use the abbreviation "US" to stand for "United States of America". If that seems contradictory to you, that's a problem with Wikipedia's policy; you can't change the name of the country to fit the abbreviation. Furthermore, it seems like typical American arrogance to assume that there is only one true United States or that everybody knows which United States the MOS is referring to. Augurar (talk) 07:56, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

US is an abbreviation for United States but refers to the United States of America. Surely with your degree in mathematics and computer science and so on you are equipped to appreciate such subtleties. As for your apparent suggestion that there's some other United States which might confuse our readers, you present me with a unique opportunity to ask, with complete sincerity, "What planet are you from?"

May I suggest to my esteemed fellow editors that they review this short thread [3] before wasting their time responding? If we just let the OP have the last word we can all go back to useful work. EEng 08:05, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

• Totally weird. Chill out, Augurar? Tony (talk) 09:03, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
• I would prefer the wording "While in principle, either US or U.S. may be used (with internal consistency) to refer to the United States of America in any given article ...". Jmar67 (talk) 12:36, 24 September 2018 (UTC)
• Thank you to other editors who perfectly expressed my reasoning for the reverts I performed last night. General Ization ^Talk 13:12, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

MOS Usage : 'Western' versus 'western'

I am involved in a current debate [A] on the interpretation of the MOS with User Attic Salt regarding the usage of the capitalisation of the word "Western" as applied to the statement: "The 48 traditional western constellations are Greek." in the article Constellation. This is referring to constellations adopted in the Western world or Western civilisation, as opposed to the Eastern constellations that are used in China and other Asian countries. Its usage here can be ambiguous here as western can mean a compass direction.

Attic Salt justified usage of WP:MOS saying: "Do not capitalize descriptive names for regions that have not attained the status of proper names, such as southern Poland."[4]

According to the Oxford dictionary.

"2 (usu. Western) living in or originating from the west, in particular Europe or the US: Western society.

- of, relating to, or characteristic of the West or its inhabitants: the history of Western art.

- historical of or originating in the noncommunist states of Europe and North America in contrast to the Eastern bloc."

Some similar Wikipedia usage is within Western world[5] and the Wiki dictionary usage is [6] or [7]. (Oddly this says American English it might be either.)

Under MOS:COMPASS it only says: "If one is consistently capitalized in reliable sources (as with North Korea, Southern California or Western Europe), then the direction word in it is capitalized."

What is the MOS convention here? Shouldn't this distinction be added to the MOS?

Thanks Arianewiki1 (talk) 02:14, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate Arianewiki1's comments, here. And his examples give me appreciation that when referring to things related to Western (or Eastern) civilization and peoples, it is common to capitalise the adjective "Western" (or "Eastern"). I gather, though, that when referring to geographic regions, such as "southern Poland", we don't capitalize "southern" when "southern" is not part of a commonly used name. What will get confusing in the Constellation article is that we have quite a few "northern"s and "southern"s when referring to groups of stars imagined by people living in the "Western" and "Eastern" civilizations. I note, furthermore, that the articles Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere use conventions where "Northern" and "Southern" and (also) "Hemisphere" are all capitalised. I suppose a certain set of rules might permit phrases like "Western constellations in the Northern Hemisphere imagined by people living in southern Poland". To me, that looks goofy.

It would be good if the MOS gave some guidance on this. I will accept what ever is decided, even though I would prefer to minimise capitisations -- to me, it is visual clutter. Attic Salt (talk) 13:53, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Your example looks perfectly normal to me and removing capitalization would introduce ambiguity or outright error.--Khajidha (talk) 13:16, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

In an article about constellations I think it would be useful to use lower case for directions and upper case for cultures or civilizations. For example, the people who devised the Western constellations were unable to see the southern stars. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:45, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Okay, can an example illustrating this be added to the MOS for the benefit of editors (like me) who have tried to interpret it for such cases? Attic Salt (talk) 15:26, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

My practice is to capitalize when the reference is to a defined geographic region For example, I was just working on an article in which I used the phrase "North Africa" which I defined as being Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Thus, North Africa, in my opinion, should be capitalized. I have defined it as a region. On the other hand if I were to say "northern Africa" northern would not be capitalized as it does not designate a defined area. I don't think I would ever write the terms "north Africa" or "south Poland" with north or south not being capitalized.Smallchief (talk) 13:10, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Fail to see why we would need something added to MOS, when a clear enough answer is found in the dictionary.[8] Western in the opening example appears to be definition 2 (probably 2a) and thus would be capitalized. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:50, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Ellipses

Per MOS:ELLIPSIS, we should "Put a space on each side of an ellipsis ('France, Germany, ... and Belgium')"; there are some exceptions, but they don't apply in this instance. Given that guideline, I've long been surprised to find we have article titles such as Not Only... But Also, ...That's the Way It Is and ...And Then There Were Three... My question is, although these and other titles were originally stylised without a space before or after the ellipsis, should we not follow the MoS, as we do for a dash or for a word that originally appeared in all-caps? (ie, in a quote, we set dashes consistent with the style used throughout an article, regardless of whether the dash originally appeared as a super-long em or even a hyphen; similarly, just because the title of a book, film, album etc was originally set in capital letters, it doesn't mean the title is rendered that way on Wikipedia.)

This is about article titles, of course, so if Talk:MoS is the wrong venue, understood. (And if that is the case, perhaps someone could push me along to the correct page.) Many thanks, JG66 (talk) 13:28, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Flag icons templates in headings

I keep running across flag icon templates being used in headings on list articles, such as in List of Lockheed C-130 Hercules operators. I usually remove them, but often face backlash from other users who "like" the icons. My question is, are there any circumstances for which flag icons can be used in headings, or is this a hard restriction, presumably for accessibility reasons? Thanks. - BilCat (talk)

No. Flag icons are images, and images are discouraged in headings, see MOS:HEADINGS, fifth bullet. Similarly, the second bullet discourages links in headings. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:44, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

"Discouraged" isn't really a hard restriction or prohibition. - BilCat (talk) 23:08, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Flag icons should not be used as mere decoration. That's the rule. I would also use the argument that they should not disrupt the reading experience unless there's a strong counterbalancing reason. So I support your actions fully, BilCat. Tony (talk) 01:27, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Per Tony. And if icons are allowed in headings, skies the limit. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:13, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Agree with above. Images in headings is not part of Wikipedia style. —DIYeditor (talk) 01:23, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

I've done the deed. And there's a more specific link in every section, which itself will have a link to the less-specific country article. Tony (talk) 01:48, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

MOS:GENDERID section

For the context aspect, the text states, "Use context to determine which name or names to provide on a case-by-case basis." As noted here at Talk:Jack Halberstam, it used to state, "Choose the name and gender identity that best applies to the context (principle of least surprise for the reader), defaulting to the identity as defined for the main biography if it can't be determined which one best applies."

I think that the previous wording (with or without the "defaulting to" part) is clearer when it comes to what is meant by "context." In the case of Jack Halberstam, for example, professionally, Jack is better known as Judith and allows feminine and masculine pronouns for his gender identity. In some cases, such as lesbian topics, it is less confusing for readers to call Jack "Judith" and use feminine pronouns for him. I changed the order of the section since I think that the context aspect should be stated first. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:02, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

WP:MOSDASH

Should Dowdy–Ficklen Stadium be named as it currently is (with an ndash) or Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium (with a hyphen)? I see some of the examples given of things named after multiple people (like "Seifert–van Kampen theorem") say to use an ndash. But this is a proper name of a stadium and ECU themselves names their stadium with a hyphen, not an ndash.[9] What is our rule on this? --B (talk) 21:06, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I'd say it should be hyphenated, although I stress I know nothing about the stadium or the reason for the name. If there were two families or organisations, Dowdy and Ficklen, and we talked about them coming together or joining forces, I think that would require an en/ndash: a "Dowdy–Ficklen alliance" or a "Dowdy–Ficklen partnership". But the name that results from that union would be hyphenated, as in many double-barrelled surnames – the new family becomes the Dowdy-Ficklens, not the Dowdy–Ficklens. JG66 (talk) 03:44, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

No, the en dash is obviously correct here. This stadium is named for distinct people, Dowdy and Ficklen. There is no Dowdy-Ficklin person. Many styles use a hyphen to represent the role of an en dash, but that is not what WP does. Dicklyon (talk) 04:55, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Agree with Dicklyon. Tony (talk) 08:51, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

"Of the same name"

In film + novel articles sharing the same title, it is common practice to short-hand linking with [[novel title|of the same name]] (OTSN). OTSN is not always the best solution:

• OTSN is often more words and syllables than the title itself. OTSN is not always short-hand, sometimes just the opposite.
• It obfuscates the title behind a pipe, making it less clear to the reader who has to think through an editorial phrase that isn't necessary.
• OTSN does make grammatical sense if the film title and book title are used in the same sentence to avoid duplication, but this is often not the case. Usually any mention of the novel title is hidden behind OTSN.
• OTSN is now so common on Wikipedia it has become a cliche; it is not done outside of Wikipedia to this extent, it is an English Wikipedia cultural artifact.

OTSN is used so often on Wikipedia (est. over 13,000 times), it would be appropriate to provide grammatical and editorial guidance on usage. There are correct times to use, but it's not mandatory and there should be some consideration it shouldn't always be used wherever a film and novel share the same title. The MOS might provide some guidance. -- GreenC 13:46, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree with your objections - it's definitely a "danger phrase" to me. I think it's an example of elegant variation, ie the dodgy substitution of words for fear of repetition (see my WP:ELEVAR essay). I don't think it's ever necessary, and instead would go for one of these:

• Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed and co-written by Jonathan Glazer, loosely based on the 2000 novel by Michel Faber.
• Under the Skin is a 2013 science fiction film directed and co-written by Jonathan Glazer, loosely based on the 2002 novel Under the Skin by Michel Faber.

I don't think repeating the title is that clunky, personally. Popcornduff (talk) 13:56, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

@Popcornduff: WP:ELEVAR essay is very interesting. If you would like to add a special section for "of the same name" I would happily link to it in edit summaries when making corrective edits. -- GreenC 15:44, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

@GreenC: Sure. I've added a section about OTSN. Let me know what you think. Popcornduff (talk) 03:08, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Discussion moved to Wikipedia_talk:The_problem_with_elegant_variation#"Of the same name" -- GreenC 12:15, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm not seeing a problem here, and it's hardly uncommon outside of Wikipedia. It's not mandatory—or even recommended anywhere I'm aware of—and where it's problematic, the answer is a copyedit. Not a MoS issue. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:56, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

I agree – it certainly doesn't warrant a hard-and-fast rule. In some cases (eg depending on the words that appear in the repeated title, or on the length of the title) using a phrase such as "of the same name" might be welcome; in other instances, it jars and/or might be unnecessary. JG66 (talk) 03:30, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

No problem, discussion moved to WP:ELEVAR essay. -- GreenC 12:15, 27 September 2018 (UTC)

Blockquotes as tables

Is there any part of the Manual of Style that talks about blockqutoe being used as a pseudo-table? MOS:BLOCKQUOTE just talks about it's use for quotations. --Gonnym (talk) 09:11, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Where would you want to do this? Regardless of that, have you considered the accessibility implications of using a construct for other than its design purpose? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:16, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

The Conjuring Universe#Principal cast and characters as an example, but this sort of "table" is pretty common in film and TV articles. And to your question, yes, I've tried changing it to a wikitable but got reverted, which is why I'm asking if this sort of table is an acceptable use of blockquotes. --Gonnym (talk) 11:21, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

WP:Accessibility is the first reason it should be swapped to almost anything else. That aside, I don't see any reason to have any sort of markup there. It makes the wikitext more complex without any good reason. --Izno (talk) 12:48, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

According to the W3C. the blockquote element represents content that is quoted from another source. This does not seem to be the case here: it is semantic misuse. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:58, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

The editor on that page has reverted another editor who tried fixing this. I've started a discussion on this over there to gain local consensus to fix this and would appreciate if you could join in. --Gonnym (talk) 08:37, 6 October 2018 (UTC)

LQ and nested quotations

What is the rationale behind the guideline "it is not conventional to change nested quotations inside quoted material to use logical quotation; preserve the original punctuation order"? It is being used as a rationale to maintain a comma inside a quoted song title; Here's the text in question:

In Rolling Stone, David Fricke wrote, "the alternate takes highlight Robert Plant's ripening vocal poise and, in a rough mix of 'Ramble On,' the decisive, melodic force of John Paul Jones' bass and John Bonham’s drumming."

This strikes me as totally irrational and pointless—it also looks "broken" when the entire rest of the article is in LQ, and when we don't preserve other elements of punctuation such as curly quotemarks, ALLCAPS, or single-vs-double quotemarks. Where did this guideline come from? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:12, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Plenty of publishers alter it the other way to achieve "harmony". But we need expert opinion on this particular issue. Tony (talk) 01:49, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Altering the punctuation of the internal quotation would seem to defeat the point of LQ. --Izno (talk) 06:15, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Someone activate our team of rabbis. EEng 06:18, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Rabbis or rabbits? --Izno (talk) 06:31, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Or rabies? EEng 12:00, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Izno: You'll have to explain—your point is not self-evident. The point of "Logical Quotation" is the "logical" bit, and—why would we alter virtually every other aspect of formatting but that? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:24, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

We're always being told that LQ respects the integrity of the quoted material. EEng 12:04, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

Not with regard to formatting issues, which are not issues of "integrity". The MoS calls for the reformatting of ALLCAPS, spaced emdashes, etc—even "trivial spelling and typographic errors"—as I've already pointed out more than once. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:38, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

But whether punctuation is inside vs outside quotation marks is an issue of integrity? EEng 02:08, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

No. Per MOS:CONFORM:

"Formatting and other purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment provided that doing so will not change or obscure meaning or intent of the text; this practice is universal among publishers. These are alterations which make no difference when the text is read aloud ..."

To drive the bolded issue home: if a public figure gave a speech that were quoted in both the British and American press, the British source would use British formatting of the quote, and the American, American. The exact same quote would be available in different formatting, even different spelling (yes, the National Post quotes Trump in Canadian spelling), while the words used would be the same. "Integrity" applies only to the words used, unless the formatting or spelling have some special semantic importance. In the case of a quoted speech—people don't normally speak punctuation. This normally applies to the written word as well, as the text is most often at the mercy of the style standards of the place of publication—which means the same piece published in different sources may (and often does) have different formatting (the National Post, for instance, republishes Washington Post stories reformatted with Canadian spelling). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:26, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

But if whether punctuation is inside vs outside quotation marks is not an integrity issue, then what aspect of integrity is LQ protecting? EEng 03:03, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Same as it's ever been—things such as not inserting terminating punctuation into a quotation where the original quotation itself was not terminated (à la the common American Trout Mask Replica is the best album ever, but my mother still hates it. quoted as The Critic called Trout Mask Replica "the best album ever.") or logically terminable (The report'll be delivered by Friday. quoted as The manager said the report would be delivered "by Friday."). Etc. etc. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:36, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

things such as not inserting terminating punctuation into a quotation where the original quotation itself was not terminated – And what else? EEng 05:11, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

You know what else, as it's been explained to you ad nauseam before. Game's over. I won't be responding to this attempt to derail the discussion again. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:16, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Your inability to discuss in good faith is what has derailed the conversation. You may now fulminate if you choose. EEng 13:55, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

• It turns out it was SMcCandlish who made the change 2018-07-25. Could we get a rationale for this? None was given in the edit comment, nor in the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 206#"Typographic conformity" section cleanup where he announced he was working on the section. Why on earth would we have (for example) quoted spaced emdashes conform to the MoS but not LQ? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 10:06, 30 September 2018 (UTC)

  I agree. That "It is not conventional..." note that was added there seems out of character for SMcCandlish, and outside what we do in most other cases. Maybe he was compromising with someone? Dicklyon (talk) 02:38, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

  "It is not conventional..." Since when do British sources normally maintain US-style formatting in quotations & vice versa? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:36, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

To me, it seems that there is a significant difference between quoting material within the text (where the material 'becomes' part of the WP article text, and thus cannot without inconsistency have a different punctuation style) and displaying material within the article which is surely what a nested quotation (and perhaps a blockquote) is doing. I've observed the practice described in the guideline occurring in the English WP for many years (my first edit was in 2007) and I'm greatly surprised that it was only formalised a few months ago. (Full disclosure: it would seem that I was involved in the particular dispute that prompted the OP.) Re: "when we don't preserve other elements of punctuation such as curly quotemarks, ALLCAPS, or single-vs-double quotemarks" - this is a genuine point, but then I have seen at least some of those features preserved also, although far less frequently. Harfarhs (talk) 06:42, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Harfarhs: The MoS calls for preserving them when the semantics requires it—otherwise they are normalized to MoS standards, per MOS:CONFORM. Are you aware of a real-world style guide that recommends doing otherwise? And please consider how problematic this would be—for instance, we could have the same text quoted in a British and an American source, both of which will be formatted to their own style standards. Which would we prefer at Wikipedia, and (importantly) why? MOS:CONFORM gives us a rationale for ignoring outside styling practices in most cases, which I've already quoted above. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:12, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Additional input request

There is a phrasing dispute at Wikipedia:Double redirects that would benefit from additional input. Please see Wikipedia talk:Double redirects#Within a couple (of) days of creation. Thryduulf (talk) 12:45, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

This is an extremely urgent matter of great import which I hope everyone reading this takes the time to comment on. EEng 17:00, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

The Smurfs or the Smurfs?

I have a question of fundamental importance to Wikipedia: when referring to Smurfs in general (not the film The Smurfs), should we write the Smurfs, or The Smurfs? Advice given at MOS:THECAPS is that it should generally be lower case, unless its part of an idiomatic expression such as the title of an artistic work. The Smurfs, as a collective term referring to characters from a particular artistic franchise, is not the title of a specific work, so I would argue that it should be 'the Smurfs'. The Smurfs uses both styles inconsistently; The Smurfs merchandising uses 'the Smurfs'; Schleich uses 'The Smurfs'. I won't sleep until this chaos is sorted out. GirthSummit _(blether) 09:54, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

"the Smurfs" when referring to the creatures/characters. The Smurfs when referring to something where The Smurfs is the title of the work, such as the comic series, or the film.

In the case where articles (the/a/an) begin a title they should be omitted when the title is used before a noun in a sentence. For example, "He bought three Smurfs comics", not "three The Smurfs comics". Popcornduff (talk) 10:08, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

That is a bit ambiguous. In the first case he may have bought three comics about the Smurfs: Smurf Digest, Smurf Homes and Smurfing Today. In the second case he clearly bought issues 5, 6 and 7 of The Smurfs. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:24, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

There's no reason to omit articles as the initial word in that way, and several reasons not to (including, as said, potential ambiguity). Harfarhs (talk) 01:00, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

"He bought three The Smurfs comics" is not how people normally speak in English, just as people don't normally say "I read a The New York Times article". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:02, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

And that's relevant how? Harfarhs (talk) 07:58, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

How is it not? You said "There's no reason to omit articles as the initial word in that way". Yeah, actually, there is. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 08:05, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. Examples like "He bought three The Smurfs comics" are unnatural and not commonly used in writing or speech. Popcornduff (talk) 10:31, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Thirded. Or fourth. (I've lost count) OK, smurfed. I smurf we have consmurfus here. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:03, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Not to beat a dead horse, but one more example: think how bizarrely "I read the The Smurfs comic" reads. Popcornduff (talk) 05:37, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Thanks all for your comments - much appreciated. I've fixed the inconsistencies I've found, so that we refer to the characters as the Smurfs, but retain The Smurfs when it's a title of a comic/film etc. I know this was a small problem, but it was making me feel blue. GirthSummit _(blether) 11:19, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

Announced events, after the fact

Sometimes we write something like, In July 2014 they announced they would do X.

By 2015, X has already happened, sources have reported on it, and we can directly cite a statement like In February 2015 they did X.

The former kind of statement always bugs me since there’s always the possibility that they never followed through, and it just seems cleaner to report the actual event than the intent.

Do we have any kind of policy/guideline about revising forward-looking statements after the fact? Or does no one else care, broadly speaking? Thanks! —67.14.236.193 (talk) 05:56, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

• I think plenty of people care, but not in numbers enough to keep up with this stuff. Just fix it wherever you see it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:02, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
  • So it is something that ought be fixed? That answers my question. Thanks! —67.14.236.193 (talk) 07:00, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) See WP:CRYSTAL for guidance. "Wikipedia does not predict the future", but on the other hand an announcement is a fact in the present. Consider:

  • "In July 2015 Jones & Co announced that they would be moving to new premises next year" - the fact has already occurred (in July 2015), Jones & Co made an announcement, WP is not forecasting, they are.
  • "Jones & Co will be moving into new premises in 2016" - WP is forecasting the move, unacceptable.

  Indeed the first example could even end up as: "In July 2015 Jones & Co announced that they would be moving to new premises next year, however due to a downturn in demand {{As of|lc=y|2017}} no move has occurred". All IMHO of course! Martin of Sheffield (talk) 07:13, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

  @Martin of Sheffield: I understand all that (and it’s all good advice, of course)—but I was asking about having statements like “In July 2015 they announced…” in 2018, i.e. after they had actually moved to their new premises (if indeed they did), when CRYSTAL no longer applies. Unless the announcement is somehow noteworthy independently of the event, why describe the announcement of a past event? Wouldn’t it be better to say, James & Co moved into new premises in 2016? —67.14.236.193 (talk) 07:58, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

  • Something else to consider is whether the announcement is still notable in retrospect. For example, I often read something like "On November 10 2005, so-and-so announced a tour to begin on March 1 2006." Unless the announcement itself is somehow important I just write "A tour began on March 1 2006". Popcornduff (talk) 07:40, 9 October 2018 (UTC)