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Misconception?

I see I'm not the only one wondering where you picked up the idea that our MOS says "proper names use hyphens" (as opposed to en dashes). I think the MOS is clear that it depends on the relationship between the connected elements. Many proper names are styled with en dash, when things are named after two people, or two places, for example. Dicklyon (talk) 00:47, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Please provide an example, and actually, please provide many examples. And even if you find 1000, those 1000 articles would all use that spelling, and all of the rest of the proper noun phrases would use a hyphen. We do not make up rules to look goofy, we apply rules that already exist in the real world. Common names use endash, proper names use hyphens. The MOS is not as important as what is actually correct, which is why it is a guideline and not a policy, but our MOS is not out of compliance with what should be expected other than in two of the examples that are erroneously used (Uganda... and Roman...). According to MOS:HYPHEN, there are three cases where hyphens are used. Item 3) says: "Hyphenation also occurs in bird names such as Great Black-backed Gull, and in proper names such as Trois-Rivières and Wilkes-Barre." The MOS clearly does not say that it depends on the relationship of the words, and if it did, it would be just plain wrong - and if followed, create an encyclopedia that looked like it was written by people who had failed the third grade. I am certain that is not the goal. What I "picked up on" is that something is very wrong with what has been "decided". Mistakes happen. Fix them and move on. This is just one of the items that needs to be fixed. Apteva (talk) 01:13, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

"Common names use endash, proper names use hyphens." sounds like something you made up. Do you have a basis for it? Dicklyon (talk) 21:17, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

No. That is what our MOS says. Common names by definition do not have an official name, and do have a "commonly used name". Our MOS offers help in knowing whether an endash or a hyphen is used, but that would be over-ridden if reliable sources indicated otherwise. Proper names use hyphens is in our MOS. Apteva (talk) 21:22, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure how the notion of "official" comes into this. Is that in the MOS? I'm pretty sure proper names implying hyphens is not. This is not a spelling or naming issue, but a styling issue. When reputable sources like this and this use the en dash in Comet Hale–Bopp, does that make it a common name? Maybe so, as some sources don't capitalize comet there (like this one, but it uses a hyphen so that doesn't fit your claims either), but I'd like to know where you get this stuff. Ah, here's one with lower case and en dash, which would be the style that our MOS suggests, except for the astronomers' exception. Styles do vary; get used to it.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dicklyon (talk • contribs) 21:32, 9 October 2012‎

Proper names are not just capitalized, they have established names. The Comet Hale-Bopp is a good example. It is not called the "Hale-Bopp Comet" or the Hale-Bopp comet, even though yes there are sources that miss-name it in that manner. We can always find conflicting reliable sources for just about everything. It is our job to figure out which is the most reliable or the most common and use that, and if necessary indicate alternatives in parentheses, and provide redirects. And yes I am thoroughly familiar with erroneous information being added to WP, and corrected, but this has nothing to do with different style guidelines. By the way, I very carefully researched this edit that was reverted For example it is blatantly obvious through a search of reliable sources (ten of the first ten books in a google book search all use a hyphen), and carefully did not break the reference to a file, and carefully fixed the URL that was broken. I checked all of the references that used an endash in the title and found that in the original source a hyphen was used, even though some sources do use an endash, and if I had found that one of those was used I would have left it as an endash. While we commonly change all caps in titles, changing punctuation is not recommended, and can not be done in URLs - either removing all caps or changing punctuation, as it breaks the link. All domain names are case insensitive (the part between // and the first /), and some URLs are case insensitive but most are case sensitive. The ones hosted on Windows boxes tend to be case insensitive, and most are hosted on Linux boxes which are case sensitive. Apteva (talk) 22:29, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

By the way, thank you for bringing it to my attention that there is a third misspelled example in the MOS that needs to be corrected. Nobody is perfect, after all. Apteva (talk) 22:50, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

Apteva, you quote the manual of style as saying, "Hyphenation also occurs in bird names such as Great Black-backed Gull, and in proper names such as Trois-Rivières and Wilkes-Barre." It does say that, but it does not say that only hyphens are used in all proper names. That is the misconception. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:11, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Not a misconception at all. I have yet to find any exceptions, and the MOS is not a dictionary. What it does is pull a couple of examples out of the dictionary. A better example than Trois-Rivières would have been "such as Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Mexican-American War". It is possible that if the Oxford University started capitalizing comet, they would use Comet Hale-Bopp, and possible that they would use Hale–Bopp. It has been pointed out that the IAU, despite being in French and English and French using a whole lot less capitalization than English is recommending capitalization:

the initial letters of the names of individual astronomical objects should be printed as capitals (see the IAU Style Manual, Trans. Int. Astron. Union, volume 20B, 1989; Chapter 8, page S30 – PDF file); e.g., Earth, Sun, Moon, etc. "The Earth's equator" and "Earth is a planet in the Solar System" are examples of correct spelling according to these rules.

Whether comet will be treated as a word like equator or as a part of the name like System remains to be seen. And whether they decide to use a hyphen or an endash also remains to be seen. I can imagine using Comet Hale-Bopp for a comet discovered by Hale and Bopp and Comet Hale Lennard-Jones for one discovered by Hale and Lennard-Jones to avoid the ambiguity of Comet Hale-Lennard-Jones. But I can imagine a lot of things. If WP was a work of fiction I could put all of them in. It is not. It is a record of fact, and as far as I have been able to determine, based on a majority of books using a particular proper name, no names use an endash. Bear in mind though, this is a guideline we are dealing with, and we expect there to be exceptions. If one was found there is zero need for inclusion, because the MOS is expected to have exceptions. If there were thousands of exceptions, than mentioning them is acceptable, but not if there is only one. Apteva (talk) 19:45, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Until you find consensus for a new WP style, you should avoid making wholesale changes to article styling based on your idiosyncratic interpretations. In the Comet Hale–Bopp article in particular, if there's a URL in which somebody put an en dash where a hyphen is needed, by all means fix it. But I have not been able to spot such in your diffs, so the best I could was revert the whole thing. What have I missed? Dicklyon (talk) 05:00, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Attempting to herd cats is never productive. I am applying the MOS as written. It says to use hyphens in proper nouns and to use endash in common nouns. There are three examples in the MOS that I know of that incorrectly use an endash when they should use a hyphen, and those errors have been noted so that they can be corrected. I did not correct Hale-Bopp because it was in the MOS - I was not aware that it was in the MOS until after that edit. I see no reason to make any change to what I am doing - fixing errors when I find them and bringing them up for discussion where an intelligent person might have a reason to dispute the change. I see no reason for discussing things that are totally obviously wrong. I only opened an RM for moving Mexican-American War because I knew that it had previously been discussed ad nauseum and produced an absurd choice, and I am certainly not going to try to offend anyone by just moving it now without any discussion. Apteva (talk) 05:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

If nothing else, I feel like Clint Eastwood "go ahead ... make my day" - if anyone wants to defend not using a hyphen I am more than prepared to defend the use of a hyphen. Apteva (talk) 06:01, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

It does not say that. Applying it as written would be a better idea than what you've been doing. Dicklyon (talk) 20:35, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Please be more specific than "it" "that" and "it". It is very hard to follow that if I have no idea which it or which that is being referenced. Apteva (talk) 20:43, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

If you are saying I left a word out where I wrote ... I am way too polite to use that word which I left out. Apteva (talk) 20:48, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Comet Hale–Bopp RM

Hi Apteva, you removed the RM tag at Talk:Comet Hale–Bopp with this edit. I'm sure this was a mistake, but please be careful in the future. I was also a bit surprised to see that the nomination and first vote were added in an edit by Anthony Appleyard, who was neither the nominator or the voter. Do you know if he moved the discussion from elsewhere? --BDD (talk) 19:31, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

As nominator I withdrew that RM. Discussion can certainly continue, but it has come to my attention that the recommended name is comet Hale–Bopp, which is what we are currently, consistently (at least in this article) using. It is quite possible that the overwhelming majority give it proper name status and that can be considered. AA moved it from technical requests contested. It is his practice, apparently, to kindly do so. I usually just let them die if no one takes the initiative of opening the RM, but his method is kinder. Apteva (talk) 19:40, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Gotcha. I'll give that a close, then. And as a side note, I agree about opposed technical requests; if the original editor doesn't want to press forward with a discussion, why bother? --BDD (talk) 19:52, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Not necessary. No reason to cut off discussion. And no reason for a formal close.Apteva (talk) 20:10, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

October 2012

Welcome to Misplaced Pages. Everyone is welcome to contribute constructively to the encyclopedia. However, talk pages are meant to be a record of a discussion; deleting or editing legitimate comments, as you did at Lorimerlite, is considered bad practice, even if you meant it well. Even making spelling and grammatical corrections in others' comments is generally frowned upon, as it tends to irritate the users whose comments you are correcting. Take a look at the welcome page to learn more about contributing to this encyclopedia. Thank you. DO NOT edit my comments to imply that I support your idea for a renamed page. Add your own by all means. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:36, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I am not implying anything. There is a bot that transcribes a summary of the move discussion onto WP:RM and it is not working. I am trying to trouble shoot the problem, which is possibly because of the link in the section heading. I will try taking out the links without moving it. Apteva (talk) 00:46, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Apteva needs to stop the disruption now

(moved from WP:MOS talk page)

In recent weeks, User:Apteva has been the most active contributor to this talk page, pushing his idiosyncratic theory about hyphens, dashes, and proper names. He has started at least three RMs based on this theory. As far as I can see, he has not been able to convince anyone to buy into his theory, and his RMs have been roundly opposed, as have his proposals here. I have not had time to read everything that he has written here recently, but on scanning it appears to be just same old same old. I think the vigorous pushing has become too disruptive, and needs to stop now. Does anyone agree, or have a good idea how to encourage a good resolution to this dead horse? Dicklyon (talk) 06:44, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that his or her behaviour has become disruptive, and I agree that something might need to be done about it. I hold off from concrete suggestions, for the moment.
Noetica 07:03, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that Noetica and others have posted many more times than I. But Users do not get banned for being prolific. Nothing that I do is not done without careful thought and purpose. I have just as much interest in improving WP as the best of us, and am not in the least "disruptive". I certainly apologize in advance for popping anyone's little balloon that was floated to say that Mexican-American War was spelled with an endash. This is not the first error that I have seen on WP, and it will not be the last. Each error needs to be fixed one at a time so that the respect of WP will improve a little bit each year. Believe me I could care less if every book spelled Mexican American War with an asterisk, endash, or a tilda. But whatever we find in common usage is what we should be using. Period. Apteva (talk) 08:04, 13 October 2012 (UTC)