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Use of the phrase "sharing continuity" for films and TV series where continuity is one-way

See previous discussions here and here. Given the near-unanimous agreement that the phrase is problematic, I considered firing ahead and removing some or all of the ones I could find, but I figured getting a clearer consensus first would be better.

Basically the Marvel Cinematic Universe consists of a series of (mostly) highly successful films and, later, expanded to include network television and streaming shows that have met with less success. The films are produced by Marvel Studios, headed by Kevin Feige, under the stewardship of The Walt Disney Company, while the TV shows are produced by Marvel Television, which is ultimately answerable to Isaac Perlmutter. A large number of reliable sources have indicated that Feige and Perlmutter have a "rocky" relationship, and while the TV shows have a vested financial interested in claiming to "share continuity" with the more successful films, the films have absolutely no reason to associate themselves with television programmes produced by a separate corporate entity with whom the films' producers have a poor relationship. As a result, every time a film comes out one or another of the shows pulls a "crossover-type" event, but the films themselves either ignore or outright contradict these crossovers. Saying they "share" continuity, given this background, is incredibly problematic. As a result of almost all individual entries in the List of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episodes and the List of Agent Carter episodes having their own articles, the problem has spread to something in the area of 100 articles. (I can only assume that the reason the "Agents of Hydra" story arc has not been given its own string of articles is that those episodes don't actually "share continuity" with the rest the show let alone the films, but there are around 84 individual episode articles that include the phrase, as well as articles on the shows themselves and the individual seasons; "100" is probably a low estimate.)

Thoughts?

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:52, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm going to try keep this reasonably brief since I think I've made my point quite clearly previously. Regardless of any personal opinions on just how much they share continuity or if it is actually properly crossing over or whatever, it is objectively true that the creators of the TV series are setting their shows in the same fictional universe that is established in the films, with reliable sources provided for each series discussing how they are doing that in terms of real world planning and production-type stuff like writing, casting, etc. We never suggest that the films are trying to connect to the TV shows, in fact we discuss how they have not done so yet at a dedicated section which can be found at Marvel Cinematic Universe#Crossovers to feature films.

So if we provided an example of one of these pages that you find problematic, let's say Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., then there is a whole section dedicated to how, from the perspective of the series (which is what the scope of the article is), it is set in the same universe as the films and works in with the films' continuity. Because of this, going around and removing the wording would be far more problematic than keeping it could possibly be, in my opinion. If you had a suggestion for more appropriate wording that still conveys the intention of the line (to indicate that from the perspective of the series, it is set in the same universe and fictional continuity as the films) without making any out-of-scope, out-of-place statements about what we might individually think the state of the relationship between Marvel Studios and Marvel TV is, then that would be great.

P.S. The reason there have not been many new episode articles for the MCU TV shows lately is because I had been the driving force behind them and am currently very busy with real-life issues. Since this is not the MCU wiki or something like that, the fact that those episodes are set in some sort of alternate reality would not be a factor in a decision to create an article for a TV episode. - adamstom97 (talk) 06:26, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

That is a very poor example of the problem. The vast, vast majority of the hundred or so articles in question do not have such a discussion; they merely have the unsourced and unsupported claim in the lead that the episodes "share continuity" with the films. Although actually the example you give is arguably worse than the majority, since the lead is contradicted by the body (which clarifies that the continuity is actually one-way; I seem to recall an earlier version being even clearer on this, pointing out that as far as Joss Whedon was concerned, the main character in the show, whom he had killed off in a film that predated the show's premier, was still dead as far as the films were concerned). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:59, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

One-way continuity is still continuity in the context of the articles. No one is saying that the films have acknowledged the connection, as all of the discussion is regarding the way the specific TV show that the page is dedicated to connects to the films, not how the films connect to them. - adamstom97 (talk) 07:39, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

That's not what "sharing" implies. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:50, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

If I let you use my pen but I never use your pen, we are still sharing a pen. - adamstom97 (talk) 08:51, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

No, I'm not sharing my pen with you just because I borrow your pen. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 09:24, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

No, but the two of you are sharing his(?) pen. That is an exact analogy to the situation here. --Khajidha (talk) 10:59, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

No, that would be an exact analogy if the articles said that they share the films' continuity; simply saying they share continuity with each other is like us sharing our pens with each other, which is not the case in our analogy. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:29, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

The tv shows and the films share [a] continuity, just as you and Adamstom would be sharing a pen. --Khajidha (talk) 11:49, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

That doesn't make sense; if I'm borrowing Adam's pen, it's not the same as sharing our pens with each other. The films don't share the shows' continuity; they completely ignore the shows and might as well be set in a different universe. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:44, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I really don't get how you are getting that reading from the statement in the article. "The show shares continuity with the movies". I do not see how you are reading that as anything other than "the show uses the movies as backdrop for its stories in the same fictional universe". Nothing in the statement as written says or implies that the movies utilize the tv shows in their own back stories. There is an MCU continuity that both the films and the tv shows draw upon. They share that continuity. In the pen example, if you borrow Adam's pen, the two of you are sharing that pen. That is the exact situation in play here. --Khajidha (talk) 14:29, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

You seem to be missing the point here. There is no "the article"; we're talking about a collection of about 100 articles, most of which have no connection whatsoever to the films. The analogy breaks down when you think about whether "continuity" is more like "a pen" or "pens" and whether "sharing pens" implies mutuality. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:14, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Doesn't matter whether we're talking about each individual episode or the program as a whole. Each episode of the show is in continuity with the others and the entire program is in continuity with the films, therefore each episode shares continuity with the films. Any person, place or thing that appears in the episodes that also appears in the films is THE SAME person, place or thing in both. That's shared continuity. --Khajidha (talk) 00:19, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

the entire program is in continuity with the films On what basis do you say that, though? The director of several of the films (and a creative consultant on most of the others) has said that he doesn't consider "the show" (presumably referring to AOS, the longest-running) to be in continuity with the films. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:31, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Because Marvel said so. --Khajidha (talk) 01:21, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

@Khajidha: I missed the above comment until now. What do you mean by "Marvel"? Marvel Television say that, but Marvel Studios have consistently been very coy about it. And it is completely out of line with policy to use primary sources to justify using marketing-type language in our encyclopedia articles when the reliable secondary sources disagree. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:46, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Continuing with the pen. Why not write that the TV show borrows continuity from the films? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:09, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't be averse to that for some of the article, but most individual episodes don't borrow continuity from the films; they have nothing to do with anything outside the episodes immediately before and after. I think the current phrase is based on the assumption that all works "set in the universe" share continuity, and so each individual episode affects the continuity of "the universe" but if we don't accept that notion there's no point talking about continuity to begin with. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:29, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I stand by my pen analogy, and disagree with your interpretation of continuity, but would you agree with a rephrasing that removed the word, since I feel that was generally included as an editorial choice anyway? All that needs to be said is that it is set in the MCU, and then we can add a different clause if we are wanting to link to the list of films or list of TV series pages in the lead. So continuing our S.H.I.E.L.D. example from above, we could try something like "It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), in which several films and other television series are also set." - adamstom97 (talk) 11:43, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

That seems like WP:OVERLINK for, say, FZZT, which includes no significant references to any films or television series (it actually predates all the other television series, making that suggestion kinda anachronistic). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:44, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, which is why I said "we can add a different clause if we are wanting to link to the list of films or list of TV series pages in the lead". If it is not relevant to the article, then all we need to say is "It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)." - adamstom97 (talk) 20:51, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

So... you're saying we can remove it altogether from the vast majority of articles where it is not relevant at all? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:33, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, I think that would make sense. Do you agree? - adamstom97 (talk) 23:57, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

"set in the MCU" and "shares continuity with the films" are exact equivalents. They mean the same thing.--Khajidha (talk) 00:19, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Adam: Just to be clear, you are agreeing to the phrase "sharing continuity with the films" being removed entirely from articles like FZZT?

Khajidha: No, they aren't, and no they don't. This is a quite complicated issue, and the view you are advocating does not appear to be widely shared among the community (see the discussions linked at the top of the thread, which for some reason saw a lot more outside commentary despite being on a subpage).

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:31, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I think we still want to mention the films, since it is still noteworthy that the main character of the show (and most of the episodes) has come from the films. So for FZZT, we could say "It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), in which several films are also set". Then for an article like Shadows (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) which has notable connections to the series Agent Carter we could add a bit about TV as well: "It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), in which several films and other television series are also set." And then an article like Reunion (Runaways), which has no mention of the films or any other TV shows, could simply say "It is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)." If this was applied consistently across all of the articles then I would not have an issue with that. - adamstom97 (talk) 00:50, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

That wording is an improvement, but I think if you want to say that the character of Phil Coulson originates in the 2008 Iron Man film or some such, you should just say that, rather than the roundabout way of saying that it is set in the same universe as the films. Coulson only appeared in four of the 20 films, anyway, and Whedon has said that as far as the films after The Avengers are concerned he is dead. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:27, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Why do we need to single out one film and put emphasis on it in the lead of an article that otherwise does not mention it, when we can just say that he was in some of the films before they made the TV show? Also, the fact that the films have not acknowledged his resurrection does not change the fact that he was in the films before he died. - adamstom97 (talk) 02:20, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about singling out one film and putting emphasis on it. Please read my comment more carefully. Your new proposal is in agreement with what I wrote above, and contradicts your "in which the films also take place" proposal.

Anyway, the whole point of this thread was to get the opinions of people other than you. I know you like the phrase "sharing continuity" (if you didn't you wouldn't have written it into around 100 articles), but thanks to this back-and-forth this thread is now in TLDR territory. Whether I want to or not, I don't have the authority to unilaterally make a compromise with your position after a bunch of other editors agreed with my initial proposal that we throw the phrase out entirely, so this discussion is going nowhere.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:57, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I still can't see the distinction you are trying to draw between "in the same universe" and "sharing continuity". Those have always meant the same thing in all uses I have encountered. --Khajidha (talk) 13:38, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't think they are set in the same universe. They are separate fictional works produced by several different, loosely connected, corporate entities that have a "complicated" relationship with each other. I see "X is set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in which Y is also set" as being mildly preferable to the current status quo because (1) it slightly more closely matches the language used in the more careful of reliable secondary sources and (2) it isn't technically counterfactual, since the name "Marvel Cinematic Universe" (self-evidently) refers to the films, and the television shows do derive (some) continuity from the films, while saying they "share" continuity implies that the films treat the TV shows as "canon", which is clearly not the case.

My fanwankery response to a question that I've been avoiding answering in detail for several days

The Agent Carter short film on the Iron Man 3 Blu-Ray certainly does not take place in the same universe as Agent Carter (season one) (and neither does Iron Man 2, for that matter), and it's extremely difficult to try to fit Captain America: Civil War into a world where Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (season three) (or Inhumans (television series), for that matter) also happened. Agent Carter (season two), Inhumans and even The Incredible Hulk (film) essentially share no continuity with anything else in the whole franchise and have been completely forgotten, which will probably be the ultimate faith of the widely reviled Iron Fist (TV series) (it tied in with The Defenders (TV series), primarily because the latter show was already finished before anyone had seen Iron Fist).

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:08, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

"the television shows do derive (some) continuity from the films, while saying they "share" continuity implies that the films treat the TV shows as "canon"" Then that part of the continuity of the shows that derives from the films is continuity shared with the films, just as it already says. There is no implication that "the films treat the TV shows as "canon"". Just as if you borrow adamstom's pen, the two of you are sharing a pen with no implication that adamstom is also borrowing your pen. Reciprocity is not necessary for sharing. --Khajidha (talk) 15:23, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

But "continuity" is a mass noun and is not comparable to a single pen. We can say the films shared pieces of their continuit(y/ies) with the TV shows, the current wording is tantamount to saying we share our pens and do not have our own pens, or something like that (the analogy was bogus to begin with, and I really never should have played along with it). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:25, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

If they share pieces of continuity, then they share continuity. Maybe if you defined how you are using continuity I could understand you better. To me, saying "they share continuity" or "they are set in the MCU" or "are MCU spin offs" are equivalent phrases. Use whichever makes you happy. --Khajidha (talk) 11:23, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• How is this a MOS issue? EEng 06:31, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

@EEng: It was an MOS issue last time, but the only "non-film-focused" MOS regular who chimed in was SMcCandlish (talk · contribs), who I believe has every single one of the subpages watchlisted. Given that the reason I came here this time was that I anticipated the complaint that previous consensus was only "local", coming to the top page seemed like the best solution. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 06:59, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

I oppose the phrasing here, and support Hijiri's efforts to remove it. You can say that the TV shows are based in the same cinematic universe. The phrase "sharing a continuity" implies that events on the TV show are relevant to interpreting events in the films, and Hijiri appears to have demonstrated that is not the case. The fact that fans or screen-writers can come up with ad-hoc explanations for each movie is insufficient. — Preceding unsigned comment added by power~enwiki (talk • contribs) 15:29, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

No. It means that either the shows draw on events from the movies or the movies draw on events from the shows or both. Since the shows do draw on the movies, then they share a continuity.--Khajidha (talk) 15:46, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

You're wrong. In many cases the shows draw on pre-release blurbs for the movies, not the movies themselves. It's really, really obvious watching the latter part of AOS season 5 that the writers had no more information on what would happen in Infinity War than the moviegoing public, and the shows portray a large number of events that, if they actually took place in the same universe, would have massive repercussions for the films, but this didn't happen because they don't actually share continuity. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 01:25, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, but is there a proposed change to MOS or one of its pages on the table? This page is for discussion changes to the manual of style, and this strikes me as a very narrow question of wording of something or other, even if it affects multiple articles. EEng 01:49, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

@EEng: My understanding has always been that issues of style and language relating to specific sets of articles were acceptable topics of discussion for this talk page, and this is borne out by the fact that the vast majority of threads on this talk page at any given time are questions of this type. I supported the creation of a "style noticeboard" a while back, to allow for this page to be devoted exclusively to proposing changes to the MOS itself, but this idea found almost no other support. I forget which side you were on in that discussion, but I'm pretty sure you were involved; do you remember it? I'd really rather not go back and try to find it just to justify using this page for the same purpose almost everyone else does. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:00, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

That said, I would be in favour of adding a caution against using this kind of language to MOS:TV and/or MOS:FILM, if that helps. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 02:02, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Where's SMcCandlish when we need him? EEng 02:06, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm with EEng on this one. MOS talk pages are for discussing changes to Wikipedia's style guide, which covers general writing guidelines at a high-level. The issue being discussed in this thread, on the other hand, is very granular in comparison focusing on precise language and context. If the point was to discuss how the example given violates a MOS guideline or how the MOS can be enhanced by the outcome of this discussion, then sure, you could be in the right place. However, it doesn't appear that either is the case here. The proper venues are WT:TV or WT:FILM, and if you're not getting a solid consensus at either place, consider an RfC at either location or some other option on the dispute resolution totem pole. --GoneIn60 (talk) 03:06, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, I still disagree that this is the wrong venue, per my three responses to EEng's two comments above, but if the appropriate venue is WT:FILM then discussion already took place. I only came here as a formality to get input from the higher-up guideline talk page because going ahead and implementing the consensus from the previous discussion would almost certainly result in "you can't do that without consensus", but I guess that's already been addressed at this point, so I'd be fine with this thread being closed. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:45, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

The first discussion you linked to (which had the most participation) was at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film, but WT:FILM actually references Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film, a venue for covering topics unrelated to the MOS. Just wanted to mention it in case there was any confusion. If it were me, I'd choose to concentrate the discussion at WT:TV, simultaneously dropping a courtesy link at WT:FILM to make editors there aware. I wouldn't worry about IDHT complaints, since the previous discussion was over 9 months ago, had limited participation, and didn't result in a clear consensus. Furthermore, the next move might be a properly-worded RfC, since editors who watch these pages and choose to participate seem to be split on the issue. --GoneIn60 (talk) 10:04, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• They share continuity. Reliable sources claim so, the TV series do in-fact comment on events happening in films and other TV series (For Agents of SHIELD: Avengers 1 aftermath, Winter soldier hydra infiltration, Thor 2 aftermath, pre-Avengers 2, post-Sakovia accords Thanos' attack in Avengers 4; Jessica Jones also mentions the Skovia accords and the Raft prison; Cloak & Dagger referencing Misty Knight from Luke Cage). Yes, it's sadly one-sided, and yes-there have been retcons (Agent Carter TV series vs short film) but that doesn't change the fact that from both the company's prespective, the TV shows themselves and the RS talking about them, they are all in the same universe. --Gonnym (talk) 22:55, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

Comma after date

In the section Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Commas we say:

In geographical references that include multiple levels of subordinate divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element unless followed by other punctuation. Dates in month–day–year format require a comma after the day, as well as after the year, unless followed by other punctuation. In both cases, the last element is treated as parenthetical.

Correct: He set October 1, 2011, as the deadline for Chattanooga, Oklahoma, to meet his demands. Incorrect: He set October 1, 2011 as the deadline for Chattanooga, Oklahoma to meet his demands.

I see edits by user Jerry Stockton (talk · contribs) (hereby pinged) referring to WP:DATE and MOS:COMMA, adding comma's after dates ([1], [2], etc...) and I think this is not what we mean here. So could we perhaps somehow add a remark saying that, in constructs such as below, a comma is optional, and that wp:RETAIN normally applies?

Correct: On 1 October 2011 the deadline was set to meet his demands. Correct: On 1 October 2011, the deadline was set to meet his demands.

I'm not sure where or how to put it, so advice is welcome. I have seen other editors systematically add comma's after date specifications without referring to the MOS. Sometimes such edits are reverted, sometimes they aren't, so it would be handy to be able to refer to something like MOS:DATECOMMA that covers this. - DVdm (talk) 20:52, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

• The extra comma after the year is only used for MDY dates. It is used to balance the comma between day and year. Ie, the year is surrounded by 2 parenthetical commas. It is not used for DMY, month year or just year.  Stepho  talk  21:07, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Agree, though this rule is perhaps honored as much in the breach as in the observance. See also User:EEng#Why_every_goddam_thing_needn't_be_micromanaged_in_a_rule. EEng 21:12, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Yes, in the following slightly different sentence structure we also have:

Correct: On October 1, 2011, the deadline was set to meet his demands. Incorrect: On October 1, 2011 the deadline was set to meet his demands.

That makes sense. So am I correct that we really don't need the commas in the two examples that I provided? - DVdm (talk) 21:19, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

That's right, your DMY examples are incorrect with commas.  Stepho  talk  22:59, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

• I'd say that you do need a comma in the example sentence ("On 1 October 2011, the deadline was set to meet his demands") as the date has been moved to the front when it really should be at the end. ("The deadline was set to meet his demands on 1 October 2011"). --Khajidha (talk) 11:27, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

No no no no no no. Please let's end this. I cannot stomach another thread full of people offering mythical "rules" they learned in 7th grade. EEng 12:06, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

So far it looks like we have 3 different opinions here. According to Khajidha it is needed; according to Stepho-wrs it is forbidden; according to me it is optional and its usage is subject to wp:RETAIN. So yes, let's end this and state, once and for all, whether a comma is either needed, forbidden, or optional. That would make life easier. - DVdm (talk) 12:13, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I'll lay it out. According to our MOS, you need two commas in a MDY date:

(1) On May 1, 1988, he died of cancer.

unless of course it's at the end of a sentence or something:

(2) He died of cancer on May 1, 1988.

Having said that, while our MOS does call for that second comma in (1), not everyone subscribes to that view. I personally will include or not include that second comma according to the rhythm and pacing of the sentence as a whole. Now then... With DMY dates no commas are used except to the extent that you'd use one anyway at that point in the sentence (which may depend, as previously mentioned in relation to (1), on the rhythm and pacing of the sentence overall). Thus just as you might write either ...

(3) On Wednesday he died of cancer.

or

(4) On Wednesday, he died of cancer.

... you might also write either of these:

(5) On 1 May 1988 he died of cancer.

(6) On 1 May 1988, he died of cancer.

... and they're all grammatically correct, though you might prefer one or the other depending on the rest of the sentence. That's it. EEng 12:29, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Ok, that is clear and as I expected. Now, if we just could add this, together with a MOSlink in the guideline, this would help avoid little discussions such as here at User_talk:Jerry Stockton#Comma after date in WP:DATE?. - DVdm (talk) 12:40, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

(1) and (2) are already in the table at MOS:DATE; everything else is just rules of English, and MOS doesn't try to explain rules of English. (Actually it does here and there, but it shouldn't.) EEng 12:55, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Ok, if we can't (or shouldn't) have a MOSlink, then next time I will refer to this thread, or to its instance in the archives. Thanks. - DVdm (talk) 13:00, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Leaving out the second comma in (1) isn't a rhythm and pacing issue. It is simply wrong because it converts the year into part of the following clause and "1988 he died of cancer" is not a sensible clause. And all your examples without commas seem to read just as inaccurately. In all those cases you have moved the date away from its logical point in the sentence and need to show that with a comma. --Khajidha (talk) 13:06, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I think you misread EEng's message. Indeed, the comma cannot be left out in (1). It's not a matter of rhythm and pace there. R&P apply in examples (3),(4),(5),(6). - DVdm (talk) 13:14, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

No, he read me correctly, but nonetheless what he says is nonsense. Many or even most style guides do call for the second comma in (1), and our MOS has chosen to follow that, but it's not because of any baloney about clauses and the date's "logical point in the sentence" (which is truly a bizarre idea): it's merely a convention, just as having no commas at all in DMY dates is merely a convention. English is not a programming language, and presumably he didn't follow my earlier link to WP:MISSSNODGRASS. EEng 13:22, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I can't abide seeing e.g. In 2011, he released his second album. And I am always keen to remove what appears to me to be a totally unnecessary punctuation mark. This seems to be a AmerEng thing. 7th grade or no 7th grade. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:41, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

No, I followed it. I just didn't see it as relevant to the question at hand. And the reason style guides call for a comma after MDY dates is because the year there is a restrictive clause explaining what year the month and day in question belong to. Without that closing comma, the year becomes part of the next clause in the sentence. As for your assertion that English punctuation is not like programming language, I completely disagree. The entire purpose of punctuation is to separate words into sensible units and symbolize the relationships between those units. My description of the date's "logical point in the sentence" is (perhaps) not well phrased, but was meant to say that "He died of cancer on 1 May 1988" places all the clauses describing his death in a single place as opposed to separating the cause and the date to different parts of the sentence. --Khajidha (talk) 13:48, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

As for your assertion that English punctuation is not like programming language, I completely disagree – I rest my case. I note in passing that you don't appear to understand what a clause is. EEng 17:58, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Sanity Clause

-EEng

As in sanity clause, yes? Well, we already know, ya schmuck. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:13, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

• On 1 October 2011 the deadline was set to meet his demands. That needs a comma, because of the complexity of the introductory phrase.
  In 2011, he released his second album. Martinevans123 make's a fair point about the sentence being seemingly over-punctuated; but it's still an introductory, out-of-order phrase of time, in a language where word order is everything, as well the comma marking, even in that short a sentence, a natural place to pause when speaking it. Dhtwiki (talk) 22:04, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

A comma isn’t needed in either case; it’s a question of style. Some style guides would recommend one in those cases and some would recommend against one. The one I tend to use says: After introductory adverbs and short phrases indicating time, frequency, location or cause, the comma is omitted unless needed to avoid ambiguity or add emphasis.[3]--Trystan (talk) 22:45, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

The one example, at that site, showing a date is set off by a commas and the example following their rule doesn't involve a date, although the rule might be interpreted as applying to dates. In any case, that's just one style book, and it seems to be one for bureaucrats. Dhtwiki (talk) 23:36, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Martinevans123 make's a fair point about the sentence being seemingly over-punctuated; but it's still an introductory, out-of-order phrase of time, in a language where word order is everything, as well the comma marking, even in that short a sentence, a natural place to pause when speaking it. – I cannot say this is intentional self-parody; I can only say I hope it's intentional self-parody. Please stop dispensing writing advice. It's too painful to watch. EEng 00:53, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

If style guides conflict or offer a choice, we should go with the approsch that requires less punctuation. All this stopping to fall over commas is in any case an illustration of why MDY is inferior and should not be preferred other than for expressly American articles. MapReader (talk) 01:11, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I think that, if style guides conflict or offer a choice, we should not go with an approach that requires less punctuation. We should say that style guides conflict or offer a choice to use or omit a comma after introductory adverbs and short phrases indicating time, frequency, location or cause. Stating in our guidelines that the comma is optional, and subject to wp:RETAIN, would avoid discussions like this and, with a simple refererence to, say, MOS:INTROCOMMA, would cut short back and forth changes to articles. That is the reason why I had opened this thread: to get something in the MOS guidelines about there being no fixed, universal rule for having that comma. - DVdm (talk) 08:35, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

• In my view, the final comma in mdy format should be option, but consistent within and article (except for quotes). Many Americans do not use it. Many Americans would be puzzled by the argument that the comma before the year needs to be "balanced" by another after the year. Tony (talk) 13:34, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
  • Many Americans do many things that would not be tolerated in any MoS—surprisingly many also write "September, 2018", for instance. While there may be some who "would be puzzled" by a closing comma, I haven't come across any who argue against it in MDY, and I'd hate to see any RETAIN nonsense to justify such a nonstandard form. What next—RETAIN "thru" as American ENGVAR? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:20, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

• Please forgive my late entry, but I like comma discussions. Let me just offer my opinion.

1. As to the edits originally cited, the very first is incorrect.
2. I propose the following revision to the MOS text (in DYK nomination style):

ALT1: "In geographical references that include multiple levels of subordinate divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element unless followed by other punctuation. The last element is treated as parenthetical.

For the same reason, dates in month–day–year format require a comma after the day, as well as after the year, unless followed by other punctuation. Setting a comma after other date formats is unrelated to this requirement and depends on the situation, with consideration for MOS:RETAIN and MOS:ENGVAR. Such a comma could be required in some cases."

3. As to the validity of the requirement for MDY dates to set off the year in commas, I would suggest that this be addressed as a separate issue. Is it not based on consensus in a discussion such as this one? I am familiar with this requirement from previous job environments, as well as the prohibition of a comma between month and year (such as "September, 2018"), and I am generally in favor of them.

Jmar67 (talk) 01:26, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

esports vs. e-sports

RfC at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Video games#RFC: Standardization of "eSports"/"esports"/"e-sports" can use feedback from editors outside the topic area. (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 15:35, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

• Shouldn't an RfC on escorts be at Wikipedia:WikiProject Sexology and sexuality? EEng 15:38, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

  @EEng: You need some new glasses. You won't be able to see the escorts otherwise. ;) --Izno (talk) 15:53, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

RfC on single subsections

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

My question for this RfC is: should we strictly follow external style guides and always try to avoid single subsections, or should we allow them if a reasonable second subheading is not apparent? - adamstom97 (talk) 00:11, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

• Explanation and background: I am setting this up to try and close this matter, following an extensive discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film#To be or not to be a subsection as well as a brief continuation here (see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 204#Single subsections). Basically, @Bignole believes that we should strictly follow external guidelines which indicate that there should be no single subsections except for very special exceptions. I believe that there are necessary circumstances for using them in Wikipedia articles, more often than Bignole's approach would allow, and am supportive of the compromise suggested with the help of @GoneIn60 to allow single subsections if a valid attempt to come up with a reasonable second subheading has been unsuccessful. The argument that Wikipedia articles are not final, and so trying to format them as if they were may be inappropriate, should also be taken into consideration. - adamstom97 (talk) 00:11, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  May I suggest you include links to a couple of real-world examples. I can tell you from experience that responders to this RFC won't be reading a marathon discussion with "arbitrary breaks" in it. Betty Logan (talk) 07:11, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

Survey

• Allow to avoid being over-prescriptive. Generally a single subsection should not immediately follow the previous header, but at the end of a long section they are sometimes the best solution for some particular aspect of the subject. "The argument that Wikipedia articles are not final..." should not be considered - it is not 2006, and we have far too many articles littered with empty or short sections that haven't been expanded in 10 years or more. The discussions leading up to this are some of the lamest I've seen on WP. Johnbod (talk) 01:53, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
• Allow only in limited circumstances, namely when lots of content has already been written within a parent section, and the subsection would involve a connected-but-somewhat-different matter. It certainly shouldn't come right after the parent section header without any prose because those are pointless when they divide no content within a section. Snuggums (talk / edits) 04:40, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  I agree with your last part there Snuggums, this issue is with larger sections that have some content split off to a subsection, if that wasn't clear. The example being used this far is a film article that is following the four filmmaking phases for its structure: if a big development section includes lots of writing info, or a big post-production section includes lots of visual effects info, to the point that splitting those to their own subsections will make a big difference to the flow and readability of the article, should editors be forced to come up with a second subheading for the rest of the section's content that is likely best described as "General" or "Other" and could otherwise be covered by the existing heading of "Development" or "Post-production" respectively? - adamstom97 (talk) 05:35, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

• Please clarify Consider these two forms - A:

  ==Heading==
  ===Subheading===
  Text
  ==Next heading==
  

  and B:

  ==Heading==
  General text
  ===Subheading===
  Text specific to the subheading
  ==Next heading==
  

  Which is under discussion - form A alone, or both forms A & B? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:22, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  Sorry, this is what I was trying to clarify in my response to Snuggums above. The issue here is B, I think A is definitely wrong and I have not seen it being an issue anywhere. To Betty Logan, I was trying to keep it brief per the instructions at WP:RFC, but I can see now that I wasn't clear enough in establishing the issue. A good example would be Deadpool (film), which has two single subsections—one for Writing and one for Visual effects just as I described in my response to Snuggums above. This is pretty standard formatting for film articles which is why the first big discussion on this took place at MOS:FILM. This whole issue started when Bignole came to Deadpool 2, which was being formatted the same way as the first film's (good) article, and changed it so that Writing is on the same level as the four actual phases of filmmaking instead of fitting in the phase during which it took place. They refused to allow this bold change to be reverted and discussed per WP:BRD which is what led to all of this. In the months since there has been no consensus either way on this issue, so I wanted to settle it once and for all with this RfC. Another good example is Production of Avengers: Infinity War and the untitled Avengers sequel which is a big article with a lot of content to cover, and so had some subsections split-off for specific info throughout to improve readability. - adamstom97 (talk) 08:38, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  Allow both As an example of form A, see Stadler Citylink. There are several cities in the UK that have trams, also several in Hungary; but in each case, only one city uses trams of this particular type. It would be pointless to list those cities that do not use these trams; it would be misleading to omit the city-level subheadings since that would give the impression that the whole country uses those trams. So both country and city headings are needed, even if that means that there is only one of each. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:37, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

  Wouldn't changing the headers to "Sheffield, United Kingdom" and "Szeged, Hungary" solve this? --Gonnym (talk) 22:38, 13 September 2018 (UTC)

• Do not disallow I think this needs to be distinguished from "allow". "Allow" implies, for a significant portion of Wikipedia's editorship, "encourage". Rather these should be discouraged. Our guidelines are called guidelines not because they are hard-and-fast rules but because they are a useful guide to our writers, regarding what they are encouraged to do and what they are discouraged from doing; very little of what is in the MOS pages is "DO THIS! DON'T DO THAT!" I usually write longer biographical articles with a "Life" section that is divided into subsections on, for example, "Sources", "Ancestry", "Birth and early life", "Political career", "Later life and death", "Descendants", etc. There's not a whole lot one could write above those first few subheadings, but at the same time simply omitting the first subheading and opening the "Life" section with an unlabeled discussion of the person's ancestry strikes me as a bit weird. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, Li He and Ariwara no Narihira are probably the "best" examples of this preference of mine, and all three passed (somewhat superficial) GA reviews without this becoming an issue. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:20, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

It just occurred to me that I was confusing two separate issues. The above examples aren't actually affected by the proposal as they do not include lone subsections; I cited them because they include subheadings immediately below the main heading, which I've been called out for (by email) in the past, but has very little to do with this proposal. A better example is Fujiwara no Teika, which should have a discussion of his critical works separated from the discussion of his own poetry, and his prose fiction, and his diary, all collected under a heading "Works" or "Writings" or something, with "Poetic achievements" (should really be "Poetry", since his greatest achievement was as a compiler of an imperial anthology, not as a poet in himself), but in the short term the best way to implement that would probably be to demote the current heading and add a "Writings" heading above it, even if we were not to immediately add lengthy sourced discussion of his non-poetry works. "Allowing" the proposal is therefore fine, but it shouldn't be "encouraged" in the long run. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 07:52, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• Allow whenever it works better. · · · Peter (Southwood) ^(talk): 13:13, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
• Allow. This structure can be useful. Some examples in featured articles: Shield nickel, Halo 3, Elizabeth II, Saturn, Proxima Centauri. Ironically there are examples on both MOS:LAYOUT, and WP:MOS § Section headings. Earlier in the linked discussion, the objections were mainly to sections with very little content before the single subheading, because it looks messy and suggests that there's really only one topic discussed. I can agree with that. Later, one editor (at least) really did mean "never have a single subheading", invoking a linguistics class's style guideline. We needn't bind ourselves by that. Another noted that the Chicago Manual of Style gives as a general rule that multiple subheadings are expected, but gives examples where it's fine to have just one. I would be happy with an explanatory note somewhere saying "if a section has only one subheading, it may suggest that the structure is wrong. Consider whether the subheading is needed, or whether more subsections should be added." › Mortee _talk 13:58, 26 August 2018 (UTC)
• B is fine, A might happen temporarily, no need for a MOS provision. For an example of B, see [4]. A isn't worth fussing about -- editors' native logic will eventually lead them to add a companion subsection or remove the lone subsection heading. Not enough of a deal to bloat MOS for. EEng 17:51, 26 August 2018 (UTC)

• Allow There is no need to proscribe these. Often a single subsection is necessary to separate out a single specific subtopic which has attracted attention (and hence has decent sources), where no other aspect of the general section has that level of specificity. I think this kind of thing might occur even in a "good" article. --Bejnar (talk) 03:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

  French battleship Voltaire, Mark Sanchez, John Carpenter (game show contestant) blah blah blah —AE (talk • contributions) 08:25, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: I generally don't see them as needed. I avoid using them. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:59, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

When I do see them, I might add an additional subheading so that the section looks more balanced or to ensure that a reader doesn't accidentally overlook the initial material. For example, I might add a "General" subheading for the initial material. But even in a case where there isn't a single subsection, a "General" subheading or similar might be needed so that readers don't accidentally overlook the initial material. See, for example, this discussion, this discussion and this discussion. And then there are cases where a subheading might lend WP:Undue weight to an aspect, but that applies whether it's a single subsection or not. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:08, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I think what you have said in this comment is inline with my general thinking, in that we should try and find a way around it in the different ways you mentioned and for the different reasons. I just want to know whether there should be a zero-tolerance policy or not as that is what was being suggested by the other side of this debate previously. - adamstom97 (talk) 09:22, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• Avoid when possible, but let sleeping dogs lie – As mentioned in the main discussion, there is a clear preference in several academic sources to avoid single subsections as a general rule. We shouldn't ignore that, but at the same time, Wikipedia isn't exactly in the same context of being a completed work. Therefore, it would seem reasonable to avoid the predicament of using single subsections when there isn't a good reason to. There will always be exceptions of course, and we shouldn't be policing this in articles, but when there is a disagreement, the burden should lie on the editor trying to invoke the exception. In other words, let sleeping dogs lie, but realize that if a dispute occurs, the editor in favor of single subsections needs to state a convincing reason for doing so. --GoneIn60 (talk) 15:25, 27 August 2018 (UTC)
• DISCOURAGE, and give advice what to do instead and what any special exceptions are. The rfc isn’t well-phrased as to proposed language ... for whether allow would be ‘recommended’, ‘ok’, ‘nothing said’ or ‘discouraged but allowed’. I think mostly agreeing is undesirable, so ‘just’ need to find a wording. And would provide example or specifics of exceptions, because vaguely saying “exceptions” does not help clarify when to go the other way. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:08, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
• Discourage Single subsections should either be promoted to a section if they are that significant, combined with it's immediate section as readers don't always need a blaring section to figure it out, or pair with another subection for the rest of the "other" material. For example, John_Carpenter (game show contestant)#Other game show appearances could use any of those options.—Bagumba (talk) 04:57, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

• Without restating everything already stated in the other discussion, I will try to summarize. First, there are writing rules behind this, so it isn't just some random person's notion. It's in just about every single writing MOS out there, at least all the major ones that we use on Wikipedia. Secondly, we have section MOS that already discuss when to create a subsection and frequently, these single subsections usually already are in contrast to those MOS because they are short and shouldn't be separated anyway. Additionally, most often they're easy to avoid. I think what should be written is how to keep things in line with professional writings and having more than 1 subsection, while acknowledging exceptions that show when it could exist on its own. More often than not though, they don't need to exist. It comes down to better organization of the content.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:14, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

What? EEng 18:37, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're confused about.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:54, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

• I am very confused with this request. My inclination is that this should neither be encouraged nor discouraged; it seems to be the classic "solution in search of a problem" – to me. Please provide specific examples where article organization is so problematic that an RfC is needed and clarify the means being sought to achieve what desired end. Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 19:39, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Music sales chart rankings: number 1 or number one?

Back in April 2016, Jdcrutch changed "number 1" to "number one" at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Number sign. I think we must revert this change, or at least offer both.

MOS:NUMERAL says "Sometimes figures and words carry different meanings" which I think applies here. Chart results ought to be given in numerals, as are other rankings, sizes, scores, and other non-quantity marks of attainment or grade. The Chicago Manual of Style is silent on music sales chart rankings, but it says that clothing sizes would be given in numerals, for instance "a size 6 dress". I think this is analogous.

It seems silly to advise our editors to use "No. 1" but not "number 1", as they are virtually the same.

Going to the sources, there are good and bad examples of every type of chart result style, including many sources using the deprecated number sign (hash sign, pound sign). So all we can do with the sources is to say that, yes, high quality sources exist to support a particular usage. The following high quality book sources use the style I am proposing we restore:

• David A. Jasen (2002). A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-loved and Remembered Songs (1899–1999), Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780415937009. Page 13: "...difficult to say whether a 'number 1 hit' really was more popular than a number 5 or number 10 hit."
• Rob Durkee (2000). American Top 40: The Countdown of the Century, Schirmer. ISBN 978-0825672613. Page 85: "With the 'Archives' feature, done three times weekly, Casey ended hours 1, 2, and 3 playing, in chronological order, each number 1 single from the 1970s and then the 1960s." Page 243: "Wells was famous as Motown's first solo female singer to score a number 1 hit ('My Guy,' 1964). Kendricks was a member of the number 1 group in the history of Billboard's R&B chart, the Temptations; he had a number 1 solo on his own in 1973..."
• Joe Stuessy (1990). Rock and Roll: Its History and Stylistic Development, Prentice Hall. ISBN 9780137824267. Page 374: "But Springsteen's biggest impact came in 1984 with Born in the U.S.A. The title song became a popular anthem of the mid-1980s, even though it reached only number 9 on the single charts. The album reached number 1 and yielded two other singles, 'Dancing in the Dark' (number 2) and 'Cover Me' (number 7). Springsteen has yet to achieve a number 1 single."

Note that there is no hyphen in "number 1 hit", unlike the number-written-as-word-style article title List of number-one Billboard Top Latin Songs from the 1980s. Binksternet (talk) 22:34, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Oppose - With "No. 1", both elements are, in a sense, abbreviated. Perfectly fine to accept that and not "number 1". Primergrey (talk) 23:25, 15 September 2018 (UTC)

Suggestion - Add a bullet under "Notes and exceptions" to allow numerals from 1 to 9 in rankings (not just music rankings but also sports rankings, for example). Jmar67 (talk) 00:16, 16 September 2018 (UTC)

That's a healthy step forward. I certainly agree to that much, while still advocating further, to include two- and three-digit rankings. Binksternet (talk) 01:55, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

This is already covered in our guidance on lists and infoboxes, where space is an issue. It is, however, unnecessary in prose. Primergrey (talk) 23:10, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Question for Primergrey: In what way is "size 6 dress" different from "number 1 hit"? Thanks. Binksternet (talk) 01:55, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

If the CMOS makes a distinction then they'd be the ones to ask. Around here we'd write both out as words. Primergrey (talk) 11:55, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Quotation marks

An editor is systematically going through the articles I've created and changing my curly quotation marks to straight ones ("). I don't care a fig about his changes -- but is there some logical or grammatical reason to use straight quotation marks rather than curly ones? Just curious. Smallchief (talk) 15:11, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

From the FAQ, "Users may only know how to type in straight quotes (such as " and ') when searching for text within a page or when editing. Not all Web browsers find curly quotes when users type straight quotes in search strings." Primergrey (talk) 15:20, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Since it wasn't already mentioned (sorry if I'm stating the obvious): relevant MOS style entries are at MOS:QUOTEMARKS and MOS:PUNCT. —PaleoNeonate – 16:21, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Double-quote squared: quoting the quoted term

Is there a MOS recommendation about whether and how to use quotation marks on an expression that is already double-quoted in a secondary source? If we use double quotes as well, who are we quoting: the the secondary source, or the primary source it quotes, or does it even matter? If it does matter, do we need to add an explanatory note like, {{efn|"Thingamajig": Double-quoted in Jones (2005), citing Carroll (1872)}} to preclude scare-quote or POV suspicions? Or, perhaps just use {{cite}} and include the |quote= param to show the quoted expression in its original context? One interpretation of MOS:DOUBLE would be to use " 'thingamajig' ", but that just looks messy and opaque to me.

To put a real-world example on this: The journal Science in this article uses the term social contagion in a sentence inside curly quotes, thus:

Littman hypothesizes that “social contagion” may be a key driver of the purportedly rapid onset dysphoria.

It is understood that these are not scare quotes both from the context, the high standards of the journal, and the fact that the primary source they are quoting uses this term. The article Lisa Littman uses the same expression and cites the Science article as its source in a footnote. There's a discussion at the Talk page which mentions it towards the end of the discussion. Mathglot (talk) 02:51, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

I have often seen things like

"social contagion" (quotes in the original)

That seems like a good solution. I also do not find "'social contagion'" messy. That may look strange because there is no text around the single quotes. But it is an accepted way to represent a nested quotation. Jmar67 (talk) 03:36, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand the problem. We use double quotes for a quotation and single quotes for a quotation inside that one. What is the problem there? Thanks for commenting. Yours, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 03:39, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

BeenAroundAWhile Thanks for your response. So do you think it would be okay for an article to have " 'colorless green ideas' " in it, then? It looks messy and opaque to me with adjacent sets of punctuation like that. This probably doesn't come up very often; maybe we shouldn't worry about it. Mathglot (talk) 03:45, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

In the social contagion example you cite, that looks like the quotation marks are being used as a simple gloss or just for emphasis, in which case you'd use single quotes or I guess {{em}}. If you use the "quotation marks in original" approach (and you should say "quotation marks" per WP:TONE), you should use square brackets as they indicate an editorial comment. In the "social contagion" case, given the context of the sentence, if you're just quoting that, I don't think we as the readers need to know it was in quotation marks at all because, as you indicate, they are not working as square quotes or to express doubt/uncertainty/sarcasm. So if just quoting "social contagion", I'd use: So-and-so referred to "social contagion" to describe blah. If quoting the entire sentence:

"Littman hypothesizes that 'social contagion' may be a key driver of the purportedly rapid onset dysphoria."

or

"Littman hypothesizes that social contagion may be a key driver of the purportedly rapid onset dysphoria."

—Joeyconnick (talk) 05:53, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

• In the present context, I agree with Joeyconnick's take on this. Anything other than ordinary quotation marks seems to give undue weight to a detail that has little or no significance to the reader. What's significant is the purpose of these quotation marks: to distance Wikipedia from any POV implicit in this (or any other) quoted material, and to correctly attribute it. Ordinary quotation marks will do, because any level of quotation marks is sufficient to indicate that it's not Wikipedia's WP:VOICE stating those words as fact, and sufficient to indicate that the reader should look to the reference for the attribution. Lwarrenwiki (talk) 06:25, 17 September 2018 (UTC) rev. 06:29, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Mathglot (talk) 06:39, 23 September 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 [5] 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)

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)

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.[6] 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)

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."[7]

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[8] and the Wiki dictionary usage is [9] or [10]. (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.[11] Western in the opening example appears to be definition 2 (probably 2a) and thus would be capitalized. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:50, 28 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)

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 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)

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 [12]:

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 [13] 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)

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)

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)

Words as Words question

This may be the wrong place to ask, if it is, can someone direct me to where. I have been trying to edit articles with an eye toward this MOS. I thought I understood that words as words should be italicized. Then I came across the Tropical Cyclone article which is a featured article. The editors of this article put a lot of words in double quotes that, in my understanding of the MOS, should be italicized or perhaps in single quotes. You can see some quick examples in the first two paragraphs but there are many throughout the entire text. Can someone clarify for me? I made some changes earlier today in another article that might be wrong and I need to revert them if they are. Thank you. PopularOutcast ^talk2me 00:33, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

The MoS allows different variants on presenting words as words, as long as the style is consistent within the article. See MOS:WORDSASWORDS. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:06, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you! PopularOutcast ^talk2me 01:11, 10 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)

  Popcornduff has already answered this point below. If the historic announcement is still notable at the time of writing, it can be reported. If the announcement is not notable, ignore it. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:22, 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)

Seems like the consensus is that outdated announcements should be rewritten if you can be bothered, unless the announcement is independently noteworthy. Unless anyone disagrees, thanks, everyone! —67.14.236.193 (talk) 08:26, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

WP:REALTIME relates to this and notes some other related material. --Izno (talk) 13:51, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

There's also an essay on this at WP:ANNOUNCED that gives good advice, imo. oknazevad (talk) 14:15, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Good essay. Popcornduff (talk) 14:45, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Not sure how I missed this in my searching, and I pretty much completely agree. Thanks! —67.14.236.193 (talk) 02:21, 10 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)

Bit late to this, but: MOS:THETITLE explicitly allows dropping the “The” in cases like He bought three Smurfs comics. —67.14.236.193 (talk) 22:06, 10 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)

Quotations with rearranged sentence fragments

If paraphrasing a quote that rearranges segments "abc" into a different order, as in:

c ... a

then I suggest that the ellipses be required to include brackets around them to indicate that the structure of the quotation has itself been modified, appearing thus:

c [...] a

UpdateNerd (talk) 07:34, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

• That doesn't make sense to me, because it's not obvious that brackets indicate that the quote has been restructured. Popcornduff (talk) 07:46, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

But it's even less obvious when there are no brackets. UpdateNerd (talk) 07:54, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

I think they're equally non-obvious. Never have I ever seen square brackets and thought "oh, I wonder if the quotes were rearranged". I've never heard of them being used for that in my life. Is it common? Popcornduff (talk) 08:21, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Not common that I know of, but there are certainly use-case scenarios, e.g. the last paragraph of Death of Adolf Hitler#Aftermath, which states:

they secretly exhumed the remains of "10 or 11 bodies ... in an advanced state of decay"

Switching the order of the information clearly wouldn't benefit the non-quoted sentence structure, and yet combining the information like that is very informational. Without a bracket, it just seems like part of the quote has been left out. But because there are no other non-bracketed ellipses, the addition of brackets would indicate that there is something else special about their inclusion, i.e. the restructuring of the quote. UpdateNerd (talk) 08:55, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Something that basic does not need to be in a quote: it can be rewritten in WP's voice. "10 or 11 corpses were secretly exhumed; all were heavily decayed", or similar. - SchroCat (talk) 08:59, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

• Both with and without brackets are misleading the readers. Better to restructure so two separate quotes are used. - SchroCat (talk) 08:18, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
  • I agree. Popcornduff (talk) 08:21, 15 October 2018 (UTC)
    • I would say that a quotation should be given verbatim... restructuring could potentially change the meaning. If you need to restructure, paraphrase and cite, instead of quoting. Blueboar (talk) 11:24, 15 October 2018 (UTC)

Bolding links in navboxes

FYI

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Bolding navbox links to help reach a consensus. Regards.—Bagumba (talk) 12:17, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

Doesn't MOS:DASH contradict WP:ACCESS?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

-EEng (with thanks to GreenMeansGo)

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 &ndash;. 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, &ndash; or &mdash;. 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 on 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)

"note that your "numlock" must be switched off for the alt-plus-number to work" See, that's a problem. I keep numlock on at all times and would gladly see the numbers removed from the main keyboard, freeing those keys for more symbols. --Khajidha (talk) 20:56, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

@Tony1 and Khajidha: It's the other way around. Num Lock must be enabled (the numlock light must be on) for the Alt+value technique to work reliably. If numlock is off, it works for some characters but not all, depending upon the last key that is pressed before the Alt is released - for example, with numlock on Alt+0154 emits š, but with numlock off it's the same as Alt+← - i.e. it simulates the browser's "back" button. Fortunately, in the case of the en- and em-dashes, Alt+0150 and Alt+0151 work for both numlock states. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:43, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank, Redrose. Tony (talk) 03:45, 11 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)

The difference is that those other marks are actually different marks. These are all just the same mark at slightly different sizes. --Khajidha (talk) 16:28, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

Not really: a semi colon is just a colon with a small tail to it, but both do very different things. Ditto a full stop and a comma. They are as much "different marks" as a hyphen and an em dash are "different marks". - SchroCat (talk) 07:35, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

And that tail makes it different. A straight line is just a straight line, no matter how long. Especially as the length of these lines varies all over the place in various fonts. --Khajidha (talk) 17:32, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

And the length makes the hyphen into a dash: it's the length that makes it different, just as the tail makes the comma different. They are different things that do different tasks. Maybe we should stop using an apostrophe because they are the same as the single quote - which we also use? Do you find it confusing to have exactly the same character doing two different things with only the context to tell them apart? - SchroCat (talk) 20:28, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

"More of the same" is not really different. I don't see the difference between an apostrophe and a single quote either. They are two usages of the same thing. Which is quite common. --Khajidha (talk) 14:40, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Of course more of the same is different – it’s different by ‘’being’’ more (unless you’re trying to make molehill out of a mountain. You can’t claim they are the same but they are different! Em and en dashes differ from hyphens in both construction and use, and there really is no excuse for the laziness of not doing something just because people can’t be bothered to follow long-established rules of punctuation. The next thing I write I may not bother using sources just because I can’t be bothered. – SchroCat (talk) 15:28, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Next we'll be hearing that since a comma and single quote are the same, just in different positions, they're really the same thing too and should be used interchangably. It's idiocy. EEng 19:12, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

No matter how long? I think Wikipedia should be investing in very long ones, just to be on the safe side. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:27, 11 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)

I hereby propose just that suggestion, as the position that "this little horizontal line is different from this little horizontal line" just seems ridiculous. They are different usages for the same thing. It seems like saying the "W" on the Walmart sign is different from the "W" on my keyboard because it's bigger.--Khajidha (talk) 16:22, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose because at least so far, Wikipedia is not ruled by illiterates. I guess I should be careful what I wish for. And by the Walmart reasoning, we should eliminate the distinction between lowercase w and uppercase W because they're the same except for scale. EEng 18:15, 9 October 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - as far as I can tell, there's been nothing to show that the access policy has any bearing on dash. Beyond that, no one's reverting edits simply because they use hyphens, so the only thing this would apply to is preventing those who care from switching hyphens to the relevant type of dash. Finally, should this sort of proposal be hidden away under the original access/dash question? --tronvillain (talk) 21:40, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

It's a preposterous idea with no chance of adoption, so don't worry about it. EEng 21:50, 9 October 2018 (UTC)

• OPPOSE UNLESS WE ALSO OUTLAW LOWER CASE AND GO BACK TO THE 1963 UPPERCASE-ONLY VERSION OF ASCII. --DAVID EPPSTEIN (TALK) 22:28, 9 OCTOBER 2018 (UTC)

Watch your tongue or they'll propose that too. EEng 07:31, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

Hey, I just had an idea.... :-) ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:04, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. Hyphens and dashes do different tasks, despite looking slightly similar. - SchroCat (talk) 07:50, 10 October 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - We are not going to change the project's direction every few+ years as the majority view (among those who happen to show up to !vote) shifts with the wind. The object is steady and lasting progress toward a style-consistent and quasi-professional encyclopedia. The existing guidelines received due consideration whether you agree with them or not, and they should be left alone absent a VERY compelling reason to change them.
  In any case, such a proposal needs the widest possible exposure, and that usually means an RfC at WP:VPR with discussion notices posted to other venues. ―Mandruss ☎ 08:54, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

  "Academic arguments are so bitter, because the stakes are so small." Smallchief (talk) 10:40, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

I suspect it is not that the stakes are small, but with a narrow focus the scope of an issue may so small that there is less room for accommodating divergent views. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:08, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. Like SchroCat said, hyphens and dashes do different tasks. This was worked out in print world well before WP (or computers) came along, and just because mechanical typewriters didn't have a "dash" key shouldn't restrict us. As far as that goes, many early typewriters did not have "1" (one) keys; should we thereore eschew "1" characters? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:11, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

  As in: there are lO types of I/O? Martin of Sheffield (talk) 20:19, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

More like "l0 types of i/o" (who would ever use an "I" in place of an "l"???), and not using the shift key because in my old upright clunker from way back that lifted the whole key apparatus, which was just waaaaay too much work, and never mind my current keyboard situation, my habits are set, so there! ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:25, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Eh? Look at the source and you'll see I used lower case L not upper case I. BTW, what's this "0" all about, real old school types used "O" since it looks the same (but heh, really screws up the compiler - DAMHIK). Martin of Sheffield (talk) 22:35, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Well, that could be a matter of which font is used. I say screw style, kerning, and all that esthetical stuff, let's all use Courier so there's no confusion! ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:29, 12 October 2018 (UTC)

Does this suit? --Izno (talk) 00:01, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

• So we have explored the question presented (and had a little fun), and the only specific proposal made (Khajidha's endorsement of "just use hyphen's for everything") is a WP:SNOWBALL close (all OPPOSE). We're done, let's close this. ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:20, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

Actual proposal for change to MOS

"Just use hyphen, if anyone cares someone else will change it." What a lot of people seem to be missing from the original question is that WP:ACCESS is about improving accessibility for others and not placing hinderances or other blockers to editing. Where the MOS is specifying use of a character that is not on a standard keyboard and takes more than a trivial amount of effort (see Graham's response above, that qualifies well into the 'requiring significant effort to set up' even if he underplays it himself) - this is clearly not in the spirit or practice of ACCESS. The MOS is designed to be descriptive of best practice for most situations. And best practice for most situations is just to use the fucking hyphen and stop worrying about it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:04, 10 October 2018 (UTC)

• You see where this kind of permissiveness leads [14]. EEng 05:10, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

The standard convention ("best practice") for indicating an em-dash when only hyphens are available is double hyphen ("--"). Use of a single hyphen for that purpose is often ambiguous. But there are multiple ways of getting a dash – e.g., use the handy toolbar in the text window – so it is not much of an access issue. As to any "actual proposal" here – well, where is it? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:25, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

P.S. As it happens, there was a hyphen in a page range I added yesterday (oops!), but overnight some editor I don't know has corrected that. And it is no big deal. Which demonstrates that hyphens do get changed, routinely, so why does the MOS need to be fixed re hyphens? ♦ J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 20:41, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.