Misplaced Pages

Since there seems to be agreement that ENGVAR doesn't apply to date formats, something should be added to the MOS:ENGVAR section to make this clear. There is currently a hatnote in the MOS:RETAIN subsection that links to Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers § Retaining the existing format. I suggest adding a "Dates and measures" section with a short paragraph and hatnote pointing to MOS:DATETIES. AHeneen (talk) 17:48, 2 September 2017 (UTC) (edit conflict)

I didn't know that the Philippines and Japan use Am. Eng. but the DMY date format. I've learned something new. I also don't think absolute consistency throughout all of Misplaced Pages's articles is necessary, nor that absolute consistency within an article is required, just as consistent as possible, within the present guidelines, and taking into account those combinations such as those in the Philippines, strong national ties, and, in those articles whose topic does not have any particular tie to the US or Great Britain, the style selected by the first major contributor. I do not understand, though, why articles that have any connection to science necessarily ought to be written using the DMY date format. I can understand articles on military topics ought to use the DMY format, and I can understand why articles on science, particular physics, astronomy, chemistry, and biology, should probably use the metric system, but what is the particular connection between date format and science that would require using the DMY date format?

Regarding your question, Peter coxhead, regarding MOS:DATEVAR, I guess I'm a little puzzled as to what change you think I might be advocating. I think the first bulleted item in MOS:DATEVAR is somewhat unclear. It reads:

If an article has evolved using predominantly one format, the whole article should conform to it, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic or consensus on the article's talk page.

By "one format", I'm assuming this means "one date format", since this appears in the section on date format. I think the second part of the sentence – "the whole article should conform to it" – is ambiguous and should be cleared up. I assume the intended meaning is: "this date format should be used throughout the article", but it might be interpreted by some as: "the variety of English that generally uses that date format should be used throughout the article". If it means the former, then I think no one would have a problem with it (but it should be clarified). Until now, I thought the date format should match the variety of English used (and I was not basing it on a misunderstanding of MOS:DATEVAR – I don't think I ever read this part of the MoS before). Though I still think there is a general correspondence between the date format and varieties of English (and I'll keep the exceptions in mind), I am persuaded that there is no need to require that the date format in an article match the variant of English used in the article. SMcCandlish, do American writers and scholars really use the DMY format? If so, that's new to me. However, regarding articles on topics that have no strong national ties to the US or Great Britain, such as an article on archaeology in South America, I think both the variety of English used and the date format should be the choice of the first major contributor to the article. There ought to be some things left to the choice of those who write or expand articles. I think the date format used in the language spoken in a country where English is not the predominant language is irrelevant.  – Corinne (talk) 17:52, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

@Corinne: ok, so we agree; I thought you were arguing for consistency between date format and ENGVAR, at least in the case of US English. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:55, 2 September 2017 (UTC)

Catching up here, and there's a lot to cover:

• "there seems to be agreement that ENGVAR doesn't apply to date formats" – I don't think we have such a consensus at all. Rather, it is not applied blindly or simplistically.
• "the Philippines and Japan use Am. Eng" – They don't. The Philippines and Okinawa have their own English dialects that, in written and non-colloquial form, are difficult to distinguish (and are derived) from American, but with DYM dates and some other quirks.
• "I also don't think absolute consistency throughout all of Misplaced Pages's articles is necessary" – No one made such a hyperbolic argument, though. Increased consistency has proven to be beneficial, even if we make allowances for certain inconsistencies for good reasons. Random desire to do something different, or a less random one to write a date one particular way just because you think it's expected by those who use the ENGVAR you surmise the article is written in, aren't good reasons. The latter one can sometimes be okay as a default (if the assessment is correct), but only in absence of other, countervailing reasons that matter more. I.e., an article's ENGVAR and DATEVAR should match if there's not a Misplaced Pages-good reason for them not to. If there is one, then we're free to be consistent in a different direction (e.g. consistent with other archaeology articles or whatever). There is more than one kind of consistency, and their interplay can result in cross-inconsistencies. It's just the nature of the beast.
• "nor that absolute consistency within an article is required" – Consensus is against you on that, and has been the entire time. Even MoS's detractors concede that a legit purpose of MoS is intra-article consistency, even when they think inter-article consistency should be completely abandoned (a point on which they also do not and will never have consensus). Any exceptions here will have to have very good reasons, i.e. WP:IAR-level ones, or be drawn from another guideline (e.g. some compressed constructions are permitted in tables but not running prose, etc.).
• "those articles whose topic does not have any particular tie to the US or Great Britain" – ENGVAR is not limited to those two countries. As a practical matter, there's little discernible difference between US and Philippine and Okinawan written English in a formal register, just as there is little between formal, written British, Irish, and Australian. Where differences do exist we don't ignore them. This entire idea of divorcing DATEVAR from ENGVAR is predicated on the false assumption that there are only two ENGVARs.
• "I do not understand, though, why articles that have any connection to science necessarily ought to be written using the DMY date format." – That wasn't proposed either, only that the science nature of the topic provides a rationale for arguing for DMY format (a rationale which might otherwise be absent in an AmEng article). The problem here is that people seem to be looking for a table of invariable rules to apply, when the *VAR guidelines all make it clear that the result at a particular article is a matter of a consensus discussion, not a robotic rule application.
• Yes, "this date format should be used throughout the article" is an improvement over "the whole article should conform to it", and is what is intended. However this doesn't somehow mean that the ENGVAR and DATEVAR should conflict without good reason, because the "strong national ties" standard applies to both. Where some mistakes are made are in assuming that everything that looks like AmEng at first glance is, and is being used because of a strong national tie. Both assumptions can be wrong, one can be right, or both can be right.
• "do American writers and scholars really use the DMY format?" – Who cares? And it's not a useful conceptual approach anyway. American writers (like British ones and Botswanan ones) follow the style guide of the publisher or intended publisher of what they're writing; it doesn't have anything to with their own individual, personal nationality unless they're self-publishing. And WP has no reason to care anyway. The DMY format is understandable by everyone. Our duty is reader understanding not "reader happy-making by using every stylistic quirk a big knot of them is most likely to prefer at a particular topic". If you're asking whether some American writers prefer DYM format all day every day, the answer is "yes" (I'm among them, so my very existence proves it). We're common in technical professions (where we also use ISO Y-M-D dates frequently, too, usually when machine parsing is expected).
• "There ought to be some things left to the choice of those who write or expand articles" – They just shouldn't be style things. We've learned through long and consistent experience that permitting (or failing to curtail) random stylistic variation leads to recurrent, productivity-draining WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior over trivia.
• "the date format used in the language spoken in a country where English is not the predominant language is irrelevant." – Agreed on that much!
• "both the variety of English used and the date format should be the choice of the first major contributor to the article" – But that isn't the case now and never has been. We look to first major contributor's version if and only if consensus cannot be reached (and it's only about what they did then; they have no "supervote" about what to do now). It isn't some magically WP:VESTED position held in an "I got here first, and am staking a claim" sense, and we would never permit that. The entire concept is fundamentally un-wiki. We have FMC edit history as a last-resort fallback for one reason and one only: to put the dispute on hold unless and until a consensus can emerge that one ENGVAR or DATEVAR or other *VAR is preferable for demonstrable reasons (which may take years, or be never).

  We could and probably should throw out the "first major contributor" rule, because it has caused more problems than it solved. It would make more sense to go with the WP default for everything: when consensus for a change does not emerge, revert to the status quo ante. The "FMC" rule is actually a WP:EDITING policy violation and should never have been put into the guidelines at all, even as a last resort. The fact that it's very frequently misinterpreted as a mysterious WP:OWN exemption is a very good reason to remove it.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  01:06, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

For many articles, perhaps most particularly science-related ones, there's no reason to prefer one variety of ENGVAR to another, so there is no rational way of reaching a consensus, there are no demonstrable reasons. "The first major contributor principle" is the "status quo ante principle"; otherwise how in an article with no ENGVAR ties which has developed a mixed style over time do you decide what the status quo ante is? It's not a question of WP:OWN, but of trying to decide at what point ENGVAR and style are sufficiently established to be maintained. "The consistent ENGVAR at the first major expansion" would probably work equally well, and would avoid the implication of ownership.

With the benefit of hindsight, given that the English Misplaced Pages didn't decide to use US English throughout, it would have been better to have set US English as the default (given its numerical prominence) and require all articles in other ENGVARs to be marked as such at the point of creation (changeable by consensus of course). This would have saved a lot of hassle, but it's too late now, I think. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:33, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Whatever the article is already written in is the ENGVAR to use if there's no strong national tie. The default DATEVAR to use is the one that matches the ENGVAR, but a case can be argued to use DYM dates in a science article if there is no national tie compelling MDY. That's not a guaranteed-win argument, especially if literature in the field in question isn't actually very consistent on date formatting; but it could be a component of the "what date format should this page use?" discussion at any given science article (proof: it has been in this case). First major contributor and status quo ante are not the same at all. The SQA is what the page had before the dispute erupted (e.g. yesterday). The FMC is what it had with the very first non-stub edit, which might have been in 2004. If the article has really had a mixed style for a long time, then the FMC might be necessary to look at, though this is rare. Most cases of stylistic mixture can be traced to recent edits, and normalized to the style in use before them (which might be from last week, not from the date of the FMC). I agree that "at the first major expansion" is an improved version of FMC, and would support that as a minimum change to the presently very problematic wording. But it still strikes me as an unnecessary divergence from standard WP practice, which is the immediate SQA.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  12:19, 4 September 2017 (UTC) PS: I tend to agree on the last point (both "should have" and "not going to happen" aspects). I'll probably surprise a lot of people in saying (as an American) that I would have voted for British/Commonwealth English for several reasons, including it having numerical superiority by world-wide regions if not by readers head-count; because of its richer history; and because it maintains distinctions lost in AmEng, e.g. practice vs. practise and defense vs. defence. But we'd've had to keep single-then-double quotation marks order, and dots for abbreviations, for clarity/parseability/disambiguation reasons.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  12:26, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Question about ENGVAR ...  – Arbitrary section break

SMcCandlish I really don't want to get into an argument with you, but I'd like to point out that several times during this discussion you have said what you personally would prefer:

I'm an American who prefers DMY date format myself, but it's not my or your job or privilege to impose that preference on everyone, especially not by "I got here first" chest-beating.

I would have voted for British/Commonwealth English for several reasons, including it having numerical superiority by world-wide regions if not by readers head-count; because of its richer history; and because it maintains distinctions lost in AmEng, e.g. practice vs. practise and defense vs. defence.

are at least two. While of course you are free to do this, I don't think these kinds of comments are helpful to sorting out a multi-faceted discussion, except perhaps in a discussion regarding a specific proposal for a change to the current style guide. This present discussion is actually covering several different things, and has gotten a bit confusing, but I don't think it is on a specific proposal. Also, I don't think saying "especially not by 'I got here first' chest-beating" is helpful, either. I don't see any previous comments that suggested that attitude, and if anyone mentioned "first major contributor", it was because it is in the MoS already, and quoted above.

Several times you have said that it is more logical to use the DMY date format for science articles:

Children of Llullaillaco is primarily a science article; while we don't have a formal rule about that, the above reasoning (that science generally uses DMY format) is good logic, about how English is written for a particular context.

When I asked, "What is the particular connection between date format and science that would require using the DMY date format?", I don't think I got a good answer. "Science generally uses DMY format" isn't enough. If the vast preponderance of sources in science use the DMY format, that may be a sufficient basis to include in the MoS: "The DMY format should be used in all science articles." That is why I asked, "Do do American writers and scholars really use the DMY format?" Your response was, "Who cares?" implying that I was asking about these writers' and scholars' personal writing preferences. I wasn't. I was asking about what they use in published books and articles. If there is a mix in the sources, then I have to agree with Peter coxhead, who wrote, above, "For many articles, perhaps most particularly science-related ones, there's no reason to prefer one variety of ENGVAR to another, so there is no rational way of reaching a consensus." I also think that Misplaced Pages is mainly used by the general public, including young people, and that they ought to be able to find and read at least some articles written in the variety of English they themselves speak, read, and write. That is why I think it is right that some articles are written in British/Indian/Australian/Canadian English and some are written in American (U.S.) English, and that some articles use the day-month-year date format and some use the month-day-year format. For the same reasons, I also don't think that, even if most scientific publications use the day-month-year format, our science-related articles should all be written using that format.

I'm surprised that you would write,

Personally, I wish we'd just throw out "M D, Y" dates entirely, and all other variants except the rare cases we really need ISO Y-M-D dates for a specific reason. DMY is understood just fine by everyone, it's just not everyone's personal preference or what they're most used to, which is true of every single rule in MoS or any other style guide for some subset of people. One standard would make maintenance much easier, and WP has no real reason not to standardize on one specific date format like virtually every other publisher in the world does. The lame-ass reason we haven't is people whine and cry too much any time they don't get to write exactly like they want to.

I don't know about those who "whine and cry too much any time they don't get to write exactly like the want to", but saying that "DMY is understood just fine by everyone, it's just not everyone's personal preference or what they're most used to" is disingenuous. Except for a few writers such as yourself, the month-day-year date format is very much the preferred format for over 250 million American (U.S.) readers. I don't think they should be dismissed so easily.

When I wrote, above,

However, regarding articles on topics that have no strong national ties to the US or Great Britain, such as an article on archaeology in South America, I think both the variety of English used and the date format should be the choice of the first major contributor to the article. There ought to be some things left to the choice of those who write or expand articles.

You made a big point of saying that it is not only the US or Great Britain. Of course I know there are other varieties of English, including Indian, Australian, and Canadian, and the English of the Philippines and Okinawa; I just didn't feel I needed to list them all. When I wrote, "There ought to be some things left to the choice of those who write or expand articles", you responded, "They just shouldn't be style things." I disagree with you. On certain types of topics, and at certain stages in the formation of an article, the choice of ENGVAR is a style choice, and I said this: if there are no strong national ties to a particular place that would recommend one variety of English over another, and if the article is not on a military topic, then the person who starts a new article, or expands a stub, ought to be able to select the variety of English he or she wants to use. I don't think the person should have to gain consensus on this. If, however, an article on such a topic has, over time, developed a mixed style regarding ENGVAR, then discussion may need to take place and a consensus reached. I don't think this is anything new. When I used the phrase "first major contributor", I was merely using the phrase that is in the MoS; if you feel it needs to be changed, then I think it should be a separate discussion following a clearly written proposal. This discussion has been too much all over the place.

I am a copy-editor, and consistency is important to me, and I work to ensure it in articles. I have always believed that the date format should match the variety of English used in an article. To me, it was always pretty clear: use DMY with British, Indian, and Australian-related topics and MDY with American- (U.S.-) related articles. I now understand that there are some other combinations such as articles that use Philipines English. When I wrote, above, "I am persuaded that there is no need to require that the date format in an article match the variant of English used in the article", it was only because I saw several comments that seemed to say there isn't, and shouldn't be, such a requirement to match the date format with the variety of English (even apart from the exceptions to the usual matching). Maybe I'm too easily persuaded. I see now – and I don't know why this wasn't clear to me from the beginning – that you agree with me that there is a correspondence, and that the date format should match the variety of English used. I think it's already in the MoS:

Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the date format most commonly used in that nation.

So, regarding allowing editors to select the style they want to use, I want to make it clear that I do not mean that they should be allowed to mix-and-match date format and variety of English as they please.

So, to summarize:

1) We all seem to agree that, in an article about a country where English is not the primary language and there are no strong national ties to a particular English-speaking country, the date format used in the language spoken in that country is irrelevant.

2) MOS:DATEVAR and MOS:ENGVAR are fine as they stand, except perhaps we ought to change "the whole article should conform to it" to "this date format should be used throughout the article" (in the fourth bulleted item in MOS:DATEVAR). I have gone ahead and made this change.

I would like to propose that the fourth bulleted item in MOS:DATEVAR be changed from:

Where an article has shown no clear sign of which format is used, the first person to insert a date is equivalent to "the first major contributor".

to:

Where an article has shown no clear sign of which format is used (i.e., uses both date formats, with neither predominating), and does not meet the requirements specified in MOS:DATETIES, the date format used by the first major contributor, or, if several years have passed, the editor making the most recent major expansion, is to be used.

 – Corinne (talk) 19:37, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

A lot of fair points, though I think you mistake my intent in a few places (or I just made my intent unclear). I really don't want to get into an argument with you, either, and suspect another detailed response would largely restate the same previous points in other wording. Some of them might be interesting discussions, in separate, focused threads about specific issues to solve.

I like the general nature of the change you're proposing, other than we should do as Peter_coxhead suggested, and remove references to first major contributor and instead couch it in terms of edits. The WP:OWNish behavior you say you're not really aware of is very familiar to some of us, and a problem that's been running for a decade or so, and even worsening (and applies to all the *VARs). The insertion of another "magically special party", namely "the editor making the most recent major expansion", compounds the problem. It's adding a new bug while trying to fix an old one. But the approaches will combine well. Moving that to new subthread so people see it.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  00:03, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Combined DATEVAR revisions

If we combine Peter_coxhead's and Corinne's clarification proposals, something like following seems to emerge (with an additional tweak to tie the last conditional to actual development happening, not just time passing with no development): {{tq|1=

• The date format chosen in the first major contribution in the early stages of an article should continue to be used, unless there is reason to change it based on strong national ties of the topic, or consensus on the article's talk page.
• Where an article has shown no clear sign of which format is used (i.e., uses both date formats, with neither predominating), and does not meet the requirements specified in MOS:DATETIES, retain the date format used in the first major contribution, or, if more significant content development has happened, in the most recent major expansion.

I would support that at MOS:DATEVAR, and conforming wording tweaks at the other *VAR / *RETAIN provisions. It clarifies best practice, doesn't substantively change the real intent and meaning of FMC (and preserves the acronym), yet eliminates the OWN/VESTED problem that is an EDITING policy conflict. This might even make happy those who feel that whoever does the most work at an article should have more say, without actually giving them any special power (since it's based on content not editor name – a "major expansion" might be the work of seven editors all building up the article over a month, or whatever). Basically, the more you do the work (and it's real, encyclopedic work), the more likely it is that your version will stick, which is how WP works in general anyway.

@Corinne and Peter coxhead: If this works for you, we can treat this as a proposal and advertise it at WT:MOSNUM, etc. Or just treat it as a draft to work on further, and do a final version as a proposal at WP:VPPOL. Or whatever you like.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  00:03, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I will read the whole discussion tomorrow, to double-check that I support it; I only have five minutes now. What you have written is fine, but write "national ties with", rather than "national ties to" for point two (first modified). –Sb2001 00:15, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Revised it to use of, which is what's actually meant here, on a careful re-read. The national ties in question are a quality of the topic, not a relationship between the topic and the date format.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  01:35, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose in part: I see likely problems with or, if more significant content development has happened, in the most recent major expansion. This allows an editor making a major expansion to change the date format. Suppose the first major expansion used date format A. An editor adds an expansion using date format B. Now the article appears to be inconsistent, so the proposed wording allows it to be changed to date format B. This is a recipe for instability, since another editor could now expand using date format C and the date format could be changed again. We need to favour stability. If this part is removed, then I think the proposed wording is an improvement. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:40, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

• Comments:

(a) Regarding which preposition to use after "strong national ties", to me, neither "of" nor "with" sound right. To avoid having to choose, perhaps we could revise this to:

• unless there is reason to change it based on a strong tie between the topic and a particular country and thus variety of English...

(b) Regarding this phrase, "retain the date format used in the first major contribution", if, through editing by various editors, the date format has become mixed, "retain" doesn't make much sense to me. I would write:

• implement consistency by using the date format used in the first major contribution.

(c) Regarding whether to leave off the last part, I understand Peter coxhead's concern. SMcCandlish, I went back and re-read what you wrote earlier, which I'll copy here:

First major contributor and status quo ante are not the same at all. The SQA is what the page had before the dispute erupted (e.g. yesterday). The FMC is what it had with the very first non-stub edit, which might have been in 2004. If the article has really had a mixed style for a long time, then the FMC might be necessary to look at, though this is rare. Most cases of stylistic mixture can be traced to recent edits, and normalized to the style in use before them (which might be from last week, not from the date of the FMC). I agree that "at the first major expansion" is an improved version of FMC, and would support that as a minimum change to the presently very problematic wording. But it still strikes me as an unnecessary divergence from standard WP practice, which is the immediate SQA.

I'm not clear on what your primary concern was here. Do you still think an alternative to "last major contribution" needs to be included? For all: what, if anything, is the concern that makes "the date format used in the first major contribution" insufficient by itself? (I'm not saying it is insufficient; I'm just trying to help the discussion.)  – Corinne (talk) 16:19, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

I'm happy with both of Corinne's suggestions. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:26, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

The (a) revision works for me, too, though I'd prefer "nation", for continuity between the related provisions. As learned the hard way with, e.g., inconsistent wording intended to mean the same thing at WP:PERFNAV and WP:PERFCAT, people will wikilawyer endlessly about the to-the-letter wording and will become resistant to it being normalized once they think they've found something they can leverage.

Agreed entirely with the (b) change.

On (c), I can let that go for now. Would rather get one major improvement than hold out for two, when the second may not be as good as I think/hope.  :-)   However, I'm curious of the exact intent of the earlier "or, if several years have passed, the editor making the most recent major expansion" version, and if Peter has the same concern about it. My own recent-major-expansion material was an attempt to keep something of that, without it just being a time thing, but maybe time makes sense and matters here.

An explanatory bit about (c) – don't let it hold anything up: I agree with Peter's assessment of the version I proposed, but see it as a good thing (i.e., I don't agree with the slippery slope predicted). It's closer to editing policy. If I create a tiny stub, and Corinne works it up to a B-class article (first major contribution), but Peter radically expands the article and works it up to a GA or FA, and is convinced a different date format is more appropriate in the now very different article, why should we go back to the FMC version of the date? One of Peter's primary concerns of late (which I share) is that with our editorial pool shrinking, it's becoming increasingly difficult to actually have and firmly conclude consensus discussions on article talk pages about such things. From my perspective, this means that the "FMC is a last resort, not the first or only choice" intent of these *VAR provisions is eroding, that they're actually on the edge of turning into a VESTED entitlement and an OWN free pass. We may ultimately have to revisit the stringency of the *VARs, to not be so "forbidding" of trying to change things. The WP standard for everything is that anyone is free to try to make almost any change they want to (within policy limits); they're just not free to editwar to get their way – if someone objects, then stop, revert to status quo ante if others want to, and hold a discussion. The *VARs short-circuit this, and tend to be misinterpreted and misapplied as requiring that one get "prior permission" before even attempting the change. But, that's probably too big an issue to deal with at this time. Or maybe I'm just flat wrong; the risk may be much less than I think and less than that of being any more lax about changes to dates or other *VAR things. I'm keeping that possibility in mind, especially given that I resist most MoS change proposals but now am making one or at least suggesting one could become necessary.

New question (d): What about the extant wording's point regarding first insertion of a date (i.e., what about a case in which the FMC doesn't include a date)? I guess for the DATEVAR version of this, that needs to be worked in somehow, probably as "by using the date format used in the first major contribution that included a date".
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  19:36, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Revised point (a) part.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  00:52, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Just a quick note that US military uses dmy and in milhist for US, this is preferred. It is a bit of a twist on "strong national ties"? FYI Cinderella157 (talk) 01:47, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it certainly is, Cinderella157. Though this was briefly touched upon above, I appreciate your mentioning it.

Regarding the third bulleted MOS:DATEVAR item, copied from above, with SMcCandlish's phrase added:

• Where an article has shown no clear sign of which format is used (i.e., uses both date formats, with neither predominating), and does not meet the requirements specified in MOS:DATETIES, retain the date format used in the first major contribution that included a date, or, if more significant content development has happened, in the most recent major expansion.

If you think about it, the part after "or" will not help much to determine the best date format to use since those recent edits probably played a part in creating the situation of two date formats being present in the article. Other than "the first major contribution that included a date", can you think of any other benchmark to use that would not end up being confusing? How about the toss of a coin?  – Corinne (talk) 05:21, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

The *VAR idea has seemed almost that arbitrary to me the whole time (and a coin toss would actually be less problematic). But given that we're stuck with some version of *VAR/*RETAIN (in at least four places) for now, I concede that the "or, if more significant development ..." part isn't going to fly. Just "the first major contribution" – and, for DATEVAR in particular, "that included a date" – should be sufficient. I'm also glad the US military thing got re-mentioned, since I'd forgotten about it, too, but it's in keeping with what's been said about not over-presuming when it comes to an ENGVAR and DATEVAR connection, even if there being one as default might be reasonable I wouldn't worry about any generality written here somehow creating a problem for MILHIST; their own topical guideline, which does seem to actually be accepted as one unlike some topical WP:PROJPAGE essays on which people have questionably slapped guideline tags, is sufficient good reason in *VAR terms. Military topics were probably better examples than science ones the entire time.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼ 

A Misplaced Pages-irrelevant rule to excise?

After this:

A sentence that occurs within brackets in the course of another sentence does not generally have its first word capitalized just because it starts a sentence.

Comes this:

The enclosed sentence may have a question mark or exclamation mark added, but not a period.: ... Alexander then conquered (who would have believed it?) most of the known world.

It doesn't seem to serve any purpose here, since we would never use a construction like this in our articles (with a question mark or an exclamation point). This appears to be WP:CREEP added by someone trying to make MoS a general-English style guide for the world (i.e., a how-to article) rather than Misplaced Pages's guide to writing Misplaced Pages articles in Misplaced Pages's voice.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  21:58, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. A quick search for articles containing "?)" or "!)" returned nought for both. It seems unnecessary. –Sb2001 23:04, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Deffo. Serves no 'pedia purpose and can only confuse the MOS's role. Primergrey (talk) 23:43, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm moving it to a footnote; the construction could be used in a quotation which we don't want someone to "correct".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  14:12, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

section length MOS location?

I remember once reading an MOS about the lengths of sections within an article, i.e. that they shouldn't be too short or too long, but I can't find such. Can anyone help me out? — fourthords | =Λ= | 17:29, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

@Fourthords: MoS doesn't seem to have much about it, just some generalities at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Layout#Body sections. One of the content or editing guidelines like Misplaced Pages:Article size might have more.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  19:31, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Did some digging around in relevant pages:

• Misplaced Pages:Article size#If you have problems editing a long article mentions "as long as none of the sections are longer than 32kB, which they really shouldn't be". This is in a section on advice about old browsers, though, not a section on length rules.
• Misplaced Pages:Article size#Readability issues says "For most long articles, division into sections is natural anyway." While also not a rule, it's a description of what we already know and do: divide material up logically, not arbitrarily (nor present it without logical divisions at all).
• Misplaced Pages:Writing better articles has some rather abstract advice about topicality, brevity, prioritization, attention, and merging/splitting.
• Misplaced Pages:Summary style also touches on some of these matters in general terms.
• Misplaced Pages:Merging and Misplaced Pages:Splitting do so even less.

We don't seem to have any particular rules about this, and the lack of them all along has apparently not been problematic in any way.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  04:10, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Use of alternative, uncommon spellings

Hi, I don't know if someone can point me in the right direction. I was copy editing a video game article and encountered the word 'mediaeval', in place of medieval. The article also contains 'reflexion' and 'connexion', instead of the more common terms. Now after doing some googling, it appears that these are legitimate, if not very widely used, alternate spellings of words. They are maybe more associated with British English, but I don't believe that any of these spellings are more common than their standard alternatives. Do we have any relevant policies or guidelines that recommend using, all things being equal, a non-archaic spelling when available? Should there be? I understand that in some cases the article content might mean that using a less common form would be less confusing for the reader because it would introduce consistency, but I can't really see the benefit of using weirder spellings just because they exist. On a personal note, I'd never encountered reflexion or connexion before and I'm British and I actually misunderstood what reflexion meant in the context of this article. There are many readers of the English Misplaced Pages with larger vocabularies than mine, but there are also those with smaller ones and I think we should try to write plainly where possible. Apologies if this is a long answered and addressed question, but I find navigating through the MOS a bit of a nightmare. Scribolt (talk) 10:56, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Those are indeed archaic spellings. They shouldn't be used unless part of a proper name. oknazevad (talk) 11:09, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

'Connexion' is a technical term used in some specialised contexts. See Methodist Church of Great Britain for multiple examples, or for that matter see Connexionalism. Mediæval is an affectation and should use the diphthong. The word is often met in names which are intentionally "olde worlde", such as the Mediæval Bæbes. Reflexion is a borrowing from French (see for example Reflexions sur la question juive) and unless being quoted is only designed to make the writer feel more cultured. Oknazevad's advice is good, though I would keep them in direct quotations as well, other than that ignore them. Regards, Martin of Sheffield (talk) 11:39, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

MOS:COMMONALITY. If that doesn't get you there somehow, WP:JARGON probably should. --Izno (talk) 12:10, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Thank you all very much, both for the background information and the guidance links. Scribolt (talk) 13:14, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Agreed with Oknazevad, Martin, and Izno, word for word, and based on previous discussions of these, too .  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  18:44, 5 September 2017 (UTC)\

Adam9007

RFC: Obsolescent spellings

Folks, can you please stop bashing the editor and focus on the actual MOS question: whether it is or is not permissible to use spellings like "mediaeval", "reflexion", and "connexion" in articles? How about if no one objects? How about if some other editors do object? As for the person you are talking about, I was just discussing the issue at his talk page and suggested bringing the discussion here (not knowing there was already a discussion here) so you can expect him here shortly. You might keep in mind that he is a human being with feelings. --MelanieN (talk) 22:00, 6 September 2017 (UTC)

• No: it is not acceptable, unless the context specifically calls for the archaic form. Toddst1 (talk) 22:05, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
• No (except in proper names that use those spellings like Mediæval Bæbes). Izno's reference to MOS:COMMONALITY is clear enough for me. And the fact that this was raised here by a Brit makes clear that it is not a valid application of WP:ENGVAR. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:07, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
• No Misplaced Pages is not a playground to try to reintroduce archiac spellings into mainstream English usage. TonyBallioni (talk) 22:13, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
• No unless it is in a quote or has a technical defined meaning. Titoxd 22:21, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
• Generally no, but "spellings like" is too vague. We need to add a provision to not use obsolete or archaic spellings outside of a) quotations and proper names, and b) specialist terminology. That will already be consistent with existing rules at MOS:JARGON and MOS:QUOTE. Then provide a list of some plausible examples of archaisms to not use, including "reflexion", "connexion" (outside the specialist meaning in Methodism), "coöperation", "rôle", "Rumania", "Manks", "to-day", "gay" to mean "happy" or "festive" and similar things if not already covered at MOS:WTW, and whatever else comes to mind (should be stuff still used in but abandoned during the 20th century; it's already a given that we're not going to be using "hwæt", "thine", or "an-hungred"). However, I want to point out that not everyone considers "mediaeval" obsolete yet. MoS itself says to use it in place of "mediæval", at MOS:LIGATURE. Given past discussion , it appears that there's enough of a consensus to rule it obsolete for WP purposes, so that example that uses it will need to be replaced (it was only included because someone wanted to be clever and use two examples in the same sentence).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  22:29, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
• No unless needed for context/clarity. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:37, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
• Comment—and who's to determine whether a spelling is "obsolescent"? Why does this even have to be micromanaged by the MoS, rather than leaving it to WP:BRD? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:01, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
  • RS determine it. That'll mostly be current dictionaries, and N-grams, unless anyone finds any recent linguistic journal material or the like that addresses these words in particular, which is unlikely. It's going to take an aggregated review of all the reputable dictionaries that have editions within, say, the last two decades (or maybe even just one decade; going back to the 1980s or earlier will be a waste of time). That can actually come later; figuring out what to say about the list of words in more important right now that exactly which words to list. It has to be managed here because this is our style guide, and people are engaged in repeated bouts of disruptive disputes about these spellings; the reason we have a style guide is to prevent/stop that waste of productivity and good will (and, of course, to produce a more readable encyclopedia). We already did trying leaving this to BRD and local consensus, and the result has been repeated fights, re-re-re-litigation of the matter at this and other talk pages for years, now an incivil flamewar, and an editorial resignation right on the verge of an ANI. This is a perfect candidate for a line-item in the MoS, and I say that as someone strongly resistant to adding new line-items to MoS. (It might not be best in the main MoS page, but one of its subpages.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  03:28, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
• No with the standard "except in quotations or proper names" caveat. It's not an ENGVAR thing, as the spelling as discussed wre already obscure and archaic in the mid-20th-century in British English. Here in the 21st-century 60 some years later they're out right wrong. And this very much is what "commonality" was meant to address. (Which, to address Curly Turkey's comment, is why it's an MOS-worthy topic; it's already part of the MOS, it's just a matter of clarify how it applies.) oknazevad (talk) 00:33, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
• Generally no... but in specifics yes. In other words, if someone can explain why an article is using an archaic spelling (in a specific context), we should allow it. Blueboar (talk) 01:46, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
• No with a possible caveat relating to the context as mentioned by several people above. I would support SMcCandlish's proposal for a simple addition along the lines of: If there is two spellings of the same word with the same meaning, and one is not in common use in any currently used forms of English, the commonly used spelling should be preferred unless the context of the article content blah blah blah something clever. Scribolt (talk) 06:14, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
• No except with the usual "if the editor can justify it" caveats, which apply to all aspects of the MOS in any case so don't need to be spelled out explicitly. Ironically, I've occasionally caught myself using "mediaeval" and had to go back to fix it, but that's because I tend to work with a lot of 19th-century sources so it no longer triggers my "this looks wrong" filter. "Reflexion", "connexion", "shewed" etc outside of very specific instances are no more appropriate than emoji and should be removed on sight, as should instances of people using archaic terms when there's a globally-understood synonym (at least one FA uses "decollated" instead of "beheaded", for instance). ‑ Iridescent 19:31, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Extended discussion of obsolescence RfC

• In general I'd agree with , but claiming "gay" cannot mean happy is political. Possibly because I listen to a lot of folk music, but I always assume "gay" means gay unless used in an obviously sexual sense. For instance from the song "A North Country Maid" the line "The lads and young lassies are pleasant and gay" has no innuendo at all. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 23:05, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
  • That's already covered by both quotations (of lyrics) / proper names (of songs) and jargon usage (the concept of gaeity being retained in still-extant folk music); it's not an adjective that would be used in that sense in WP's own voice (e.g. "After the election results came in, McNabb had a gay party at his campaign headquarters"). Same goes for "queer", which still has some currency in its original sense in colloquial British and Irish usage. But I don't want this to get hung up on any specific word (and both of those are probably WTW matters anyway); I'm mostly trying to get at how to structure the entry in the MoS.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  23:10, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Innuendo? I imagine that that was an ill-thought selection of word. There is no reason to suggest that 'gay' has any sexual connotations as such; not all homosexuals are sexual in a physical sense. I do not like seeing 'gay' being used to mean homosexual, though, eg 'he revealed himself to be gay' is the sort of thing you would read in a tabloid newspaper. But that is another issue. –Sb2001 23:17, 6 September 2017 (UTC)
    • Okay, so that's two completely opposite reasons to consider that one a MOS:WTW matter; I'll strike it from my original comment.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  23:21, 6 September 2017 (UTC) PS: Journalism style guides (for what they're worth) do recommend "gay" (for males) rather than "homosexual", which they variously consider judgmental or clinical. These things are always a moving target. In my own lifetime, for example, the preferred term for African-American has moved from Colored and/or Negro to Afro-American to African-American, with the first two now branded terrible and the third verging on it. A generation from now the fourth will be a bad word, and we'll be using something else.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  03:55, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
      • This doesn't seem to be covered by the MOS, but is in Misplaced Pages:Naming_conventions_(identity)#Sex_and_sexual_identities: 'gay' is preferred usage over homosexual. I'd agree with this - 'gay' is standard usage now, I think, in both UK and US English (I can't speak any wider) - it is overwhelmingly preferred by gay people themselves; 'homosexual' is now usually either scientific or pejorative, in my experience. TSP (talk) 13:32, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
• Comment after a quick search, here are some dictionary entries: Medieval Oxford, Mediaeval MacMillan, Medieval Merriam-Webster, Mediaeval Cambridge Reflexion Oxford Reflexion Marriam-Webster Reflexion Collins Connection Oxford Connexion MacMillan make of these what you will, but only one says anything about any of them being archaic. Adam9007 (talk) 02:15, 7 September 2017 (UTC)
  • Good start. It's important to look for more than just the word "obsolete", though. E.g. Collins (a leading British dictionary) says "reflexion" is the "less common" spelling even in BrEng. More importantly, it has a corpus analysis chart that shows that usage of it died down to nearly nothing ca. 1800, and has been flatlined ever since then. That is, thus, a demonstration of "obsolete", with way more data to back it up than just an old-school dictionary entry. Their similar chart for connexion shows a marked decline ca. 1960, and a usage flatline around 2000. For mediaeval, it shows continually declining usage since the 1910s; for medieval, increasing usage since the same period, stabilizing rapidly thereafter and remaining stable to the present. And so on. I'll bet good money that Google N-grams will also show the same patterns. I didn't know that the online Collins had this kind of data; this is going to prove useful in a lot of future discussions. It's got gaps, though; e.g. it has no separate charts for cooperate, coöperate and co-operate, though Google N-grams does; co-operate has been declining since WWII, and the old-timey British journalese spelling "coöperate" was seemingly never picked up by book publishers at all. (I remember first seeing it as a child in the 1970s when I lived in the UK and practiced reading newspapers, and having to ask what it was.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  03:47, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Having learnt to read newspapers in the early '60s I must be about 10 years older that you and I can only remember seeing "coöperate" very rarely. Co-operative is a lot more common, particularly in its abbreviation. Consider: "I went to the coop to get a chicken". Did I go to the co-operative shop (co-op), or to the chicken's house (coop)? It's easier to read with the hyphen and WP:RF ought to triumph over journalistic imitation. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 08:24, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Sure, Americans write "co-op", too. (And I don't think anyone's contemplating the idea that WP can't have "co-operate" in it; it seems to be the usual UK spelling, and some Americans use it as well.)

This might be getting a little off-topic, but I don't know that I think "coöperate" is "journalese". In the current day, I strongly associate it with The New Yorker magazine; it's a bit of branding for them. But I've also seen it in old novels. --Trovatore (talk) 09:20, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Well, I haven't kept track of usage of it in any detail. Regardless, it's just weird. I've seen a handful of other cases of the "Englaut", like "reëlection", but they seem even rarer.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  11:44, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

It seems to be standard and indispensable in Boötes. I can't think of another such example, but there may be some. --Trovatore (talk) 22:14, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Laocoön, Brontë, but all three of those are proper names; the only word I can think of in English where an umlaut is still regularly used is naïve and even that's dying out. ‑ Iridescent 22:24, 7 September 2017 (UTC)

Yes; we had a thread about that (on one of the MoS talk pages, I think) just last month. Dictionary research showed that the naïve spelling is the secondary spelling choice in every dictionary that includes it, and some no longer include it. So I would list it as obsolescent.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  22:57, 7 September 2017 (UTC)