Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 06:27, 15 October 2012

2012 October 8

Mexican–American War

Mexican–American War (talk|edit|history|logs|links|archive|watch) (RM)

Often there are conflicting reasons for choosing article names. In this case a very odd decision was made last year to ignore the MOS, which says use a hyphen, and ignore common sense, which says to use what reliable sources say to use. I am not a specialist on this topic, but I can and did do a google book search and found that multiple thousands of books use a hyphen - Mexican-American War, and the same hyphen is used in Spanish-American War, Roman-Tunisia War, and any other proper name that uses a similar construction - and a very few use an endash, space, emdash or slash. It is not the purpose of the encyclopedia to do original research and make up names for items that have well established names, and it is a misreading of our MOS to skip over the part that says that proper names use hyphens and find the part that says that adjective clauses use an endash, such as Uganda–Tanzania war, which is not a proper noun, and is just a made up adjective clause that has not yet achieved proper name status. The closing admin indicated they thought it was a case of a conflict between COMMONNAME and MOS, but if that was the case, I would expect policy to trump guideline. Apteva (talk) 00:32, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

• You know, for a long time I wondered why people like the en-dash over the hyphen, and why they were pushing to change it on Misplaced Pages. I thought it was some sort of linguistic prescription, affectation or overcorrection. But now that I have read the latest WP:DASH I finally understand what the reason is: A en-dash means between x and y, and a hyphen means x modifies y. So a Mexican-American is an American of Mexican heritage, and a Mexican–American War is a war between Mexico and the USA. Speciate (talk) 05:15, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

  That is correct for made up items that do not have proper name status. The North Dakota–Wyoming border conflict would get an endash. If it achieved proper name status it would become the North Dakota-Wyoming Border Conflict. What becomes important is the proper name status, with the inherent specific name that entails, not the relationship between the words. For example, if historians decided it was the North Dakota/Wyoming Border Conflict, that is what would be used. Our MOS is not inconsistent with normal usage other than in the examples "Uganda–Rowanda War" and "Roman–Tunisia War", which conflict with the text of the MOS. Uganda–Rowanda war is not a proper noun and war is not capitalized, and Roman-Tunisia War is a proper noun and needs to use a hyphen. And if it is determined that Uganda-Rowanda War is a proper noun, then a hyphen is used. Apteva (talk) 21:27, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

  Your assertion that we should change from a dash to a hyphen when a phrase becomes a proper noun is absurd, unsupported, and without concrete precedent. Please stop tilting at windmills. Your one-person crusade is a waste of time. Powers 01:50, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

  Everyone is entitled to an opinion, even if it is wrong. Show me even one proper noun that uses an endash. Normally examples are trivial to find. I have not had one editor come up with even one example of a proper noun that uses an endash. And finding one source does not cut it. What I am looking for is a valid actual proper noun that validly actually uses an endash for example in a predominance of books, as books have editors that fix punctuation errors. Like using an endash for Mexican-American War. Apteva (talk) 06:13, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

  You don't get to just make up a rule and require us to prove you wrong. Find a style guide that actually agrees with you that proper nouns are punctuated differently from common nouns, and then we can talk. Powers 17:51, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

  Both New Hart's Rules (Oxford University Press) and ours say the same thing - proper names use hyphens. Most style guides are not very specific. Regardless of what any style guides say, of the millions of books that are printed, most follow that convention, and use a hyphen for proper names, so from the results show the method, the style guides must all say the same. There is a quote from New Hart's Rules that is interesting: Apteva (talk) 00:35, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

  "It is, of course, vital to make sure that individual forms are used consistently within a single text or range of texts. If an author has consistently applied a scheme of hyphenation, an editor need not alter it, although a text littered with hyphens can look fussy and dated. Editors can find the dominant form of a particular compound in a suitable current dictionary such as the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors."

  Now I'm beginning to think you're having us on. I just checked New Hart's Rules on Amazon and there's nothing in there remotely resembling what you claim -- and there's certainly nothing like it in our own MOS. Care to try again? Powers 18:36, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I often disagree with Apteva's interpretations on proper nouns, but I don't think he'd just make something up. There have been many editions and prints of New Hart's—you're probably looking at different editions. --BDD (talk) 19:50, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

That's he or she of course. Google books found it - 2005. Apteva (talk) 07:59, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Oh, I found the passage you quoted without trouble; the problem is that it doesn't address proper nouns. Powers 17:37, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah. That is on the page that simply says "Use a hyphen in newly coined or rare combinations with -like, and with names, but more established forms, particularly if short, are set solid: tortoise-like ..." I have not read the whole book yet, and it may not say any more anywhere else. So far I have found a small number of books that use an endash for Mexican-American War, but not close to a majority. Apteva (talk) 06:27, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

The point though, is not to try to figure out why someone would want to use Misplaced Pages as a vehicle for introducing a radical new use for the endash, but why someone would ignore policy and guideline and choose that radical interpretation of the guideline over policy in choosing which way to close the RM. If someone is misinterpreting the MOS that is easily fixed by correcting the MOS. There are in fact two examples of using endash that are incorrect - one because it is misspelled, capitalizing it as if it was a proper noun, and the other because it is a proper noun and erroneously uses an endash in the example. The long argument last year was over whether or not this specific article (Mexican-American War) should use an endash or a hyphen. It was clearly a waste of valuable time to argue for using an endash, as clearly that argument does not have a leg to stand on, based on the over 10,000 books that use a hyphen. But the question here is not actually should the article have a hyphen or an endash, but was the RM closed correctly. I say that policy should have been chosen over guideline. And that it should have been noted that both policy and guideline agree that the article should be moved, and that it was a misreading of the guideline to think that an endash is used in a proper name, as the guideline clearly does not say that. But the example of one using one clearly needs to be removed. Apteva (talk) 16:03, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse close. The closing admin followed WP:RMCI; in (misnamed but) appropriate talk page discussion, the closer points out 1) the dearth of input for consensus to move in the discussion under review itself, and 2) the past history in previous discussions on the exact same subject. User:Apteva asserts closer did "ignore policy and guideline and choose that radical interpretation of the guideline over policy in choosing which way to close the RM." Apteva asserts the MOS "is easily fixed." As pointed out to Apteva, a sizeable measuring of consensus took place in the recent past (early 2011), involved two contentious RMs, a vast amount of discussion (easily seen in talk archives) and an Arbcom-mandated redrafting of the MOS (involving scores of editors and six weeks of input). The positions taken by Apteva are neither new nor novel; they were among the exact assertions made by those urging the hyphen at those times. With all that in mind, closer did what any reasonable admin would have done. It appears to me that User:Apteva is using this review as a second chance to make a case. That Apteva disagrees with the close is fine with me, but to suggest the closer mishandled the situation is poor assessment. Wikipedians often disagree on fine points; we settle such disagreements by measuring consensus. On this exact point of punctuation, such measurement has been recent, in-depth and wide ranging; Apteva would need to garner considerable new support to overturn the weight of such a considered and settled decision. For the record, like Apteva, I participated in neither the MOS drafting or the two RMs, though previously I played a large part in rebuffing a sock-aided push toward renaming as "Mexican War." BusterD (talk) 04:24, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

  "Sock-aided" is an oxymoron. What is known though, is that it is a misinterpretation of the MOS that led to the completely unsupported idea of using an endash. The closer noted that it was a conflict of policy vs. guideline, but actually it is policy and guideline that support the move. Commonname and MOS:HYPHEN. Endash does not apply because it is a proper name, and proper names use hyphens. I am not using this as a second chance. I am using this as a correction of a horrible mistake that the sooner it is fixed the better. There are 10,000 articles in WP that use a hyphen, and a very small number, perhaps 200, have been mucked up by using an endash incorrectly. Fortunately the number that did not get mucked up in the great endash folly of 2011 far out number the ones that did. This just happens to be the most visible, but all the rest need to be corrected as well. Apteva (talk) 05:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

  I appreciate the lecture. It appears Apteva fundamentally misunderstands an admin's responsibility in this case. Admins do not, as the user says below, "sift through the wheat and the chaff". Closing admins do not themselves weigh into the discussion deciding, for example, whether policy trumps guideline. The closer weighs the merits of the discussion itself and is trusted to measure the consensus inside the discussion. To my eyes it still seems Apteva is a lone voice, with an historic but unimpressive position, and seems to badger every contributor to any discussion. There's arrogance expressed in that user's relist assertion below. BusterD (talk) 12:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse. How else was this supposed to be closed? -Nathan Johnson (talk) 17:46, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

  Move, obviously. There are 10,000 books that use a hyphen, 100 that use something else. This is not even close. We do not count votes we look for the strongest argument in choosing how to close. We do not interject our own opinion - someone else has already had to have made the argument. We simply pick the one that is best supported by 1) commonsense 2) policy and 3) guidelines. All three lead to choosing my recommendation to move. All three are not supported by the arguments to not move. In consensus building, it does not matter if one or a thousand have a point of view - if the one is correct eventually the thousand will figure that out. That's what admins are for - to sift through the wheat and the chaff. Apteva (talk) 05:57, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• Endorse Well, I would have called it no consensus, but there was certainly not consensus to move. There's one oppose vote with an argument, Enric's comment leans towards a move, Tony's comment is essentially a request not to move, and the nominator added a support vote (appropriately, "as nominator"). There's no way this could have been fairly closed as a move. --BDD (talk) 17:55, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

  As noted above, we do not count votes when we close. We evaluate the strength of the arguments as they are presented without interjecting our own bias. In my case I really think the 10,000 books outweighs any other argument. Apteva (talk) 06:00, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course you think your vote outweighs the other arguments; that's why you made it. But Polling is not a substitute for discussion does not mean Polling is meaningless. It's right and proper to count votes, and to consider that in an outcome. Here, the closer considered that appropriately. --BDD (talk) 15:12, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

The biggest problem though, with the close is that no reason for the close was given. There was no reason for even closing it, as it could have been relisted. As it was I had to chase down the closer and ask them for a reason. And the reason given "a battle between Commonname and MOS" should have resulted in policy winning over guideline every time. Apteva (talk) 06:07, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

• Relist (as nominator) Actually this is the only possible outcome of this review, as it will simply be relisted later on anyway. Until it is moved. But it is still a useful review. Apteva (talk) 06:56, 11 October 2012 (UTC)