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Does the MoS apply to sources?
Please clarify If I have a sourced that is formatted as such "War in Vietnam (1968-1971)" is it proper for me to change that to "War in Vietnam (1968–1971)" per WP:DASH (that is, a hyphen - changed to an endash –)? Or should I leave that formatting as it is in the original source, irrespective of if it contradicts our style guide? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:35, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- See Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style#Allowable typographical changes (permanent link here).
- —Wavelength (talk) 18:28, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- What do you mean by "original source"? The book itself? Or a reference to it? If the book is published by any halfway respectable publisher, it will have the en-dash on the cover. But the publisher's website or press releases may not. Barsoomian (talk) 18:33, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- Right I mean the original source is named "... (1968-1971)" (with hyphen) not "... (1968–1971)" (with ndash). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:12, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- Is this a physical book? Anyway, it's normal practice (and sanctioned by the MOS, as mentioned above) to make minor adjustments in quoted text like this. Barsoomian (talk) 02:13, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Book Well, it doesn't actually exist--it's a purely hypothetical. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:06, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- So you were hypothesizing a book that has been unprofessionally edited. If and when you find such, you can worry about whether to correct it. Aside from some self-published tract it's unlikely though. Barsoomian (talk) 09:15, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Many such books do exist (here's one); it's not the most common professional style, but it is a style sometimes used. For WP, though, the typography should be converted to our house style, which has deep roots in quality publications and professional typesetting. Dicklyon (talk) 16:04, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- So you were hypothesizing a book that has been unprofessionally edited. If and when you find such, you can worry about whether to correct it. Aside from some self-published tract it's unlikely though. Barsoomian (talk) 09:15, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Book Well, it doesn't actually exist--it's a purely hypothetical. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:06, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Is this a physical book? Anyway, it's normal practice (and sanctioned by the MOS, as mentioned above) to make minor adjustments in quoted text like this. Barsoomian (talk) 02:13, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Right I mean the original source is named "... (1968-1971)" (with hyphen) not "... (1968–1971)" (with ndash). —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:12, 4 April 2012 (UTC)
- To answer the original question, yes, what Wavelength said. If the sources uses a hyphen when the MoS calls for an en-dash, yes you may change it, regardless of why the source uses a hyphen (unless the source is discussing hyphens or the hyphen is otherwise immediately relevant, but that would be pretty rare). Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:48, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- I don't think changing a hyphen in that circumstance to tie up with what our MOS mandates here in our own text for a year range (ie use an en-dash) would be the end of the world. But I would just query, or perhaps quibble about, one or two of the observations above. First, although probably applicable in principle, the section of the MOS cited by Wavelength is technically about quotes, not about formal titles (and also includes the misleading generalisation that 'This practice of conforming typographical styling to a publication's own "house style" is universal'). Secondly, as noted in a previous thread, it is not a sign of "unprofessional" editing to prefer hyphens for all compounds, joins and ranges, such that 1968-1971 would be hyphenated; it's merely an alternative. N-HH talk/edits 16:05, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, it is a sign of "unprofessional editing" to use a hyphen in a date range. Cite me a professional editor (someone who does it for a living, for a publishing company) who does that. I looked at your link and didn't see anything like that. I'm not going to force everyone to scrupulously observe the rule, but it certainly IS the rule used by "professionals". Barsoomian (talk) 15:50, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- I don't think changing a hyphen in that circumstance to tie up with what our MOS mandates here in our own text for a year range (ie use an en-dash) would be the end of the world. But I would just query, or perhaps quibble about, one or two of the observations above. First, although probably applicable in principle, the section of the MOS cited by Wavelength is technically about quotes, not about formal titles (and also includes the misleading generalisation that 'This practice of conforming typographical styling to a publication's own "house style" is universal'). Secondly, as noted in a previous thread, it is not a sign of "unprofessional" editing to prefer hyphens for all compounds, joins and ranges, such that 1968-1971 would be hyphenated; it's merely an alternative. N-HH talk/edits 16:05, 5 April 2012 (UTC)
Concur with those saying YES, please change the incorrect hyphen in the source title to an en dash for date range. Binksternet (talk) 16:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- @Barsoomian: I said "as noted" not "as demonstrated". And no, it's the rule used by some professionals and a rule preferred by some style guides. You can believe what you like, but I'm neither going to dig up and show you in-house or hard-copy style guides nor go rooting around online for any that are publicly available just to prove it to you. Many non-technical publishers genuinely do not bother with the distinction, because it is mostly a useless distinction and one done seemingly for its own sake and for the sake of complexity rather than for clarity. Having said that, we do it here. N-HH talk/edits 16:24, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- So you don't actually have anything to support your opinion, however strongly expressed. That someone "noted" they agreed with you is nice, but unconvincing. What is decided to do in Misplaced Pages doesn't have to follow the practices of print editing, but don't blow off the rules followed by editors and typesetters for hundreds of years as "useless". Barsoomian (talk) 16:42, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- It's not an "opinion" that people can agree with or not, it's an observation, born of both wide reading and professional employment (and the noting referred to my noting it btw). Most newspapers and periodicals (in the UK at least) and plenty of professionally published books and official publications do not use en-dashes for such ranges. Like I say, the rules as you perceive them are not universal, or more – or indeed less – "correct" than any other rules. But if you wish to believe that they are, on the basis that you've personally not seen otherwise yet, that's up to you. All a bit off-topic from the specific query of course but it seems odd to be so insistent when someone is telling you in good faith that they have seen otherwise. I accept you don't have to take my word for it, but nonetheless. N-HH talk/edits 17:29, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Since you still fail to cite anything other than your own opinion, we'll just have to leave it at that. Barsoomian (talk) 18:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Dicklyon has cited one such book (see above). ― A. di M. 01:48, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- Of course you can find books that are done amateurishly, especially from a tiny publisher of poetry with no budget. That example book has the hallmarks of an amateur. Aside from the hyphens, it also uses double spaces after periods. Probably laid out in MS Word. The statement was that a professional editor would ignore the rules on en-dashes. Show me a style guide from a reputable publisher that explicitly says that. N-HH says there were such, but I find that hard to believe. But I've only been editing books for 20 years, what do I know. Barsoomian (talk) 03:12, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- You know what you know, like everyone else. Even in 20 years you might not have seen everything. You've chosen, reasonably enough in principle but in somewhat bad faith, to not take my word about what I know and about my observations (again, this is not "opinion"; and also comes, in part, from professional experience), and rejected them simply because they do not conform with your own; which rather defeats the point of debate and exchange, you'd have thought. This is a side point on a talk page and yet you're demanding that I prooove something about common and easily observable exceptions while accepting that I take your word for a much bolder assertion about universality. Anyway, since you insist, I have spent some of my Easter weekend trawling around the web to find something I can flag up for you. Here are two, for what they're worth.
- National Geographic on hyphens: "a hyphen means up to and including when used between dates: November 15-21"; and dashes "For a range of numbers or dates in display type or in map and graphic labels, an en dash may be used in place of a hyphen for readability"
- The American Medical Association. I have no experience of or even knowledge really of this one, but it seems to be widely used in the medical field. This summary page, assuming it is a reliable precis, suggests the AMA prefers hyphens for date and number ranges (which actually refutes my own point that hyphens are preferred in a non-technical context)
- As I say, there are plenty of things I read that appear to happily rely on the simple hyphen for ranges, from the Guardian newspaper to the London Review of Books. If you wish to continue inferring that this is all a figment of my imagination, or that I am trying to deceive you, carry on. N-HH talk/edits 16:29, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- ps: the point as well is not about "ignor the rules on en-dashes", but about the fact that there are no fixed or universal rules in the first place - there are different rules, used by different editors and different publishers, all just as professional or correct as any other (up to a point). N-HH talk/edits 17:09, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- Don't talk about my "bad faith" in not simply taking your word for something you refused to document that contradicts my own experience, when you reject what I say on exactly the same grounds. As for the two "citations" which you finally deign to give, the NGS sadly does seem to use hyphens for ranges in text, but oddly not in "display type". The AMA link is "Instructions to Authors". No indication as to how it will look in print. I routinely convert al hyphens in manuscripts between two numbers to en dashes myself. So the only cite you have is the NGS, and that is half hearted, and refers to a magazine, not books, which have higher standards -- we're talking about "professional" best practice. You asserted that "the rule used by some professionals and a rule preferred by some style guides." In fact -- and I maintain it is a fact -- it's the rule used by, if not all, the great majority of professional book editors. The original question was about the TITLE of a BOOK. Not what is used in the pages of a magazine. Barsoomian (talk) 02:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- A hypothetical question about a hypothetical book, which could quite easily apply to the title of an academic paper or a journal or newspaper article. In any event, from when I first made my side observation I referred to general publishing, not books specifically, as did you at first (and btw there are books that do not use en-dashes; also please don't pretend that that journal or other forms of publishing are somehow a lesser form or less professional, or make up some ridiculous excuse as to why the AMA might not really mean what it appears to say). My comment about bad faith was somewhat badly phrased, but was meant to refer to your not accepting my word, ie assuming bad faith on my part, not my assuming it on yours. I simply don't understand why anyone would think I would be making up claims about what I have seen and what I have worked on, whether I had evidence I could share online or not. By contrast, I did accept your word about your experience - I just said you obviously haven't seen everything, which you haven't, if you really haven't edited or seen professionally published work - including books - with hyphens for ranges. If you don't understand that what you do might not be what everyone else does (or if you think it somehow "better"), or that a claim to universality demands a much higher standard of proof than the claim of exception (which is satisfied by one contrary example), then I don't know what else to say to you, since you're clearly not open to rational discussion. N-HH talk/edits 14:31, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Don't talk about my "bad faith" in not simply taking your word for something you refused to document that contradicts my own experience, when you reject what I say on exactly the same grounds. As for the two "citations" which you finally deign to give, the NGS sadly does seem to use hyphens for ranges in text, but oddly not in "display type". The AMA link is "Instructions to Authors". No indication as to how it will look in print. I routinely convert al hyphens in manuscripts between two numbers to en dashes myself. So the only cite you have is the NGS, and that is half hearted, and refers to a magazine, not books, which have higher standards -- we're talking about "professional" best practice. You asserted that "the rule used by some professionals and a rule preferred by some style guides." In fact -- and I maintain it is a fact -- it's the rule used by, if not all, the great majority of professional book editors. The original question was about the TITLE of a BOOK. Not what is used in the pages of a magazine. Barsoomian (talk) 02:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- You know what you know, like everyone else. Even in 20 years you might not have seen everything. You've chosen, reasonably enough in principle but in somewhat bad faith, to not take my word about what I know and about my observations (again, this is not "opinion"; and also comes, in part, from professional experience), and rejected them simply because they do not conform with your own; which rather defeats the point of debate and exchange, you'd have thought. This is a side point on a talk page and yet you're demanding that I prooove something about common and easily observable exceptions while accepting that I take your word for a much bolder assertion about universality. Anyway, since you insist, I have spent some of my Easter weekend trawling around the web to find something I can flag up for you. Here are two, for what they're worth.
- Of course you can find books that are done amateurishly, especially from a tiny publisher of poetry with no budget. That example book has the hallmarks of an amateur. Aside from the hyphens, it also uses double spaces after periods. Probably laid out in MS Word. The statement was that a professional editor would ignore the rules on en-dashes. Show me a style guide from a reputable publisher that explicitly says that. N-HH says there were such, but I find that hard to believe. But I've only been editing books for 20 years, what do I know. Barsoomian (talk) 03:12, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- Dicklyon has cited one such book (see above). ― A. di M. 01:48, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- Since you still fail to cite anything other than your own opinion, we'll just have to leave it at that. Barsoomian (talk) 18:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- It's not an "opinion" that people can agree with or not, it's an observation, born of both wide reading and professional employment (and the noting referred to my noting it btw). Most newspapers and periodicals (in the UK at least) and plenty of professionally published books and official publications do not use en-dashes for such ranges. Like I say, the rules as you perceive them are not universal, or more – or indeed less – "correct" than any other rules. But if you wish to believe that they are, on the basis that you've personally not seen otherwise yet, that's up to you. All a bit off-topic from the specific query of course but it seems odd to be so insistent when someone is telling you in good faith that they have seen otherwise. I accept you don't have to take my word for it, but nonetheless. N-HH talk/edits 17:29, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- So you don't actually have anything to support your opinion, however strongly expressed. That someone "noted" they agreed with you is nice, but unconvincing. What is decided to do in Misplaced Pages doesn't have to follow the practices of print editing, but don't blow off the rules followed by editors and typesetters for hundreds of years as "useless". Barsoomian (talk) 16:42, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
Justin (koavf) started this section because of a question I asked him about one of his edits (my post on his talk and the following discussion on my talk). I'm looking for consensus on whether or not we should change hyphens to en dashes in the title of works cited in references. This question has come up before with dashes.js. The "Allowable typographical changes" section and this talk page discussion sheds some light on the issue, but I would like to know what the consensus is about hyphens/dashes in work titles or to spur on discussion of the issue. It doesn't really matter that much to me, since it honestly doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but what is a big deal to me is consistency which is why I would like community input on this issue. —danhash (talk) 18:14, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Use the style (dash not hyphen) that MOS recommends. It's 100% normal for basic typography to be adapted to the medium and "house" doing the publishing. Besides, unless you are an incredibly knowledgeable type expert, you don't actually know whether a hyphen or an en-dash was really used on the book cover, since their respective widths vary wildly between fonts (and non-electronic typefaces), and are exactly the same size in plenty of them, meanwhile, for every popular typeface there are about 100 almost but not quite identical knockoffs, and so on. You'd have to get into "typographical forensics" to even be certain what typeface you were looking at, which would be the only way to be certain what character had actually been used on the book cover or title page. We cannot be fetishistic about trying to exactly replicate the look of glyphs as used in sources. MOS has a strong and consistent position away from this notion, in MOS:QUOTE, throughout MOS:TEXT, at WP:TRADE, etc., etc. National Geographic is a reliable source on nature documentarianism and anthropology photojournalism, and the AMA is a RS on medical practice in the US; neither are experts on English writing. (Note that the AMA style guide is a guide for paper writing and citation style for American medical journal publication, not a grammar guide; it's goal is in-house consistency for medical academics, not descriptive or even prescriptive linguistics.) None of that really matters though. The question is not whether using hyphens for ranges is demonstrably an extant albeit minority style used even by some professional writers, editors and publishers. Of course it is. Every weird or sloppy writing practice you can think of is. WP just plain DGAFs about that. We have a standard for consistency, so stick to it. There is virtually no rule in MOS or any of its subpages for which a professionally-published exception can't be found. No one has ever posited otherwise, and an argument that proceeds from such an assumption is a red herring. MOS is by definition a prescriptive (and where it's useful to be, even a proscriptive) work, though somewhat moderated in what it prescribes by descriptivist tendencies. It is not a guideline for general usage in the world of writing, only for writing WP articles in a consistent way for non-jarring reader experience across the site and for setting rules so that there is a rule for everything, style-wise, that people editwar about. It's an interesting and in-flux balance, and like all compromises, no one is every 100% happy with everything about it. It necessarily rules out minority practices for the most part, to settle on something, and usually that which satisfies the largest (which is often not the most foot-stomping and nit-picking) audience. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 19:00, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well, the National Geographic and AMA style guides are, by definition, perfectly reliable primary sources for what some style guides for some professional publishers say. What they might happen to be style guides for doesn't diminish their relevance or probative value. They're also all that I happened to find online in a quick search after being pressed for evidence. Anyway, this is indeed a red herring and a side point, as I always acknowledged - I wasn't trying to make a definitive point about the question at hand, I was simply trying to rebut a persistent claim that all professional publishers use en-dashes for ranges. They don't, and I still don't accept that it's somehow "sloppy" or less correct not to (and of course, this fact means that the hypothetical scenario envisaged in the question is likely to crop up quite often, especially with non-book publishing). However, as I also acknowledged from the start, we do use them in such cases. N-HH talk/edits 19:40, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, their relevance and probative value are very sharply limited, because they are house-organ style guides that are intended to apply to very specific publication circumstances, and are not general style guides for general practice. Failure to understand this kind of distinction is precisely what generates the specialist style fallacy so often. And in point of fact, the AMA guide is not used by much of anyone anywhere for anything outside the medical profession, except for citation styles as required by some professors for biology and anatomy classes that are part of undergrad pre-med tracks (as I found out the frustrating way - anthro majors like I was often take at least one one such class, and have to learn the different AMA citation style just for those classes). We don't need primary source evidence that different style guides exist for very narrow publication niches and recommend various things that mainstream style guides don't; we already know this and DGAF. G'ing and F about that causes rather than solves problems, because it generates buzz and focus and controversy about trivial crap, like entertaining on WP as a style idea the fact taht MDs insist on not hyphenating adjectives in medical terms even where it would be helpful to do so, because they assume that everyone already understands what is a modifier of what in a medical journal, and fail to get it through their "can't see the encyclopedic forest for the specialist trees" skulls that 99.9% of people who read an article here about a medical term are not doctors. And really really, no one cares what Nat. Geo. does in its own publications, any more than we care whether the local greengrocer knows how to use an apostrophe correctly and knows that the express checkout is for 15 items or fewer not less. It has nothing to do with how the rest of the world writes or how we write an encyclopedia. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 06:30, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think you're overinterpreting my point here. I'm not arguing the toss over our style guide or fundamental points about the principles of style guides - all I was saying here was that the use of the hyphen in this context will be found in professional publishing and hence in sources that people wish to refer to on WP, such that the scenario envisaged in the original question will need to be addressed. It will be. I didn't think we needed primary style-guide evidence for that or for the existence of varying style guides either, but I was persistently presented with demands to prove my rather uncontroversial and simple observation. As I said, regardless of what they are for (which doesn't matter in this context), the AMA and NG examples clearly and explicitly provide that proof by way of example. N-HH talk/edits 17:22, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- You were attempting to rebut my statement that you wouldn't see that in a professionally published book. You've found a reference to 1) a magazine and 2) the submission guidelines for medical papers (NOT the guide for how it would appear in print, which could be quite different). In any case, the original query was about the title of a book -- what you would see on the cover -- and neither of your sources applies there. So, no, you have not "clearly and explicitly provide that proof ". Just forget it and move on. 18:51, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- No, as I have explained over and over, from the outset - and rather obviously just above, in the post to which you claim to be responding - my point has always been a rather simple one about publishing in general (although yes, including books). In any case, the original question was about a hypothetical "source" (you btw were the one that first morphed it into being a book source specifically; perhaps you should read the start of the thread again) - the principle would apply to any other form of publication, as I have also had to point about, oh, twice now. Anyway, happy to move on, perhaps you could too. The amount of bollocks that can spiral out of control on an MOS talk page perhaps in part explains why it's such a minority sport. N-HH talk/edits 16:10, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- You were attempting to rebut my statement that you wouldn't see that in a professionally published book. You've found a reference to 1) a magazine and 2) the submission guidelines for medical papers (NOT the guide for how it would appear in print, which could be quite different). In any case, the original query was about the title of a book -- what you would see on the cover -- and neither of your sources applies there. So, no, you have not "clearly and explicitly provide that proof ". Just forget it and move on. 18:51, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think you're overinterpreting my point here. I'm not arguing the toss over our style guide or fundamental points about the principles of style guides - all I was saying here was that the use of the hyphen in this context will be found in professional publishing and hence in sources that people wish to refer to on WP, such that the scenario envisaged in the original question will need to be addressed. It will be. I didn't think we needed primary style-guide evidence for that or for the existence of varying style guides either, but I was persistently presented with demands to prove my rather uncontroversial and simple observation. As I said, regardless of what they are for (which doesn't matter in this context), the AMA and NG examples clearly and explicitly provide that proof by way of example. N-HH talk/edits 17:22, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, their relevance and probative value are very sharply limited, because they are house-organ style guides that are intended to apply to very specific publication circumstances, and are not general style guides for general practice. Failure to understand this kind of distinction is precisely what generates the specialist style fallacy so often. And in point of fact, the AMA guide is not used by much of anyone anywhere for anything outside the medical profession, except for citation styles as required by some professors for biology and anatomy classes that are part of undergrad pre-med tracks (as I found out the frustrating way - anthro majors like I was often take at least one one such class, and have to learn the different AMA citation style just for those classes). We don't need primary source evidence that different style guides exist for very narrow publication niches and recommend various things that mainstream style guides don't; we already know this and DGAF. G'ing and F about that causes rather than solves problems, because it generates buzz and focus and controversy about trivial crap, like entertaining on WP as a style idea the fact taht MDs insist on not hyphenating adjectives in medical terms even where it would be helpful to do so, because they assume that everyone already understands what is a modifier of what in a medical journal, and fail to get it through their "can't see the encyclopedic forest for the specialist trees" skulls that 99.9% of people who read an article here about a medical term are not doctors. And really really, no one cares what Nat. Geo. does in its own publications, any more than we care whether the local greengrocer knows how to use an apostrophe correctly and knows that the express checkout is for 15 items or fewer not less. It has nothing to do with how the rest of the world writes or how we write an encyclopedia. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 06:30, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- Well, the National Geographic and AMA style guides are, by definition, perfectly reliable primary sources for what some style guides for some professional publishers say. What they might happen to be style guides for doesn't diminish their relevance or probative value. They're also all that I happened to find online in a quick search after being pressed for evidence. Anyway, this is indeed a red herring and a side point, as I always acknowledged - I wasn't trying to make a definitive point about the question at hand, I was simply trying to rebut a persistent claim that all professional publishers use en-dashes for ranges. They don't, and I still don't accept that it's somehow "sloppy" or less correct not to (and of course, this fact means that the hypothetical scenario envisaged in the question is likely to crop up quite often, especially with non-book publishing). However, as I also acknowledged from the start, we do use them in such cases. N-HH talk/edits 19:40, 9 April 2012 (UTC)
- The AMA guide is certainly not a reliable source for presentation of text. The cite you gave is "Instructions to Authors", a guide for how files are prepared for submission to medical journals. How it's processed from there and ends up on paper or online is undefined. As for your "rebuttal", do not claim you have done that. You have found one example of a magazine that follows your practice, in its text -- but not the display text, which would include the title in the original question. Barsoomian (talk) 02:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- To return to the opening question in this thread, it's perfectly fine to correct the hyphen to a dash in a ref title: just on the practical side, a google search will be unaffected by which typography is used in the search box. Tony (talk) 02:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
Hyphen question
Is it just me, or does World-number-one male tennis-player rankings seem over-hyphenated? Jenks24 (talk) 05:14, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Perhaps so. And World number one women tennis players has too few. Maybe "World number-one male tennis player rankings" and "World number-one women tennis players" would be better? Hyphenating such long compounds is highly variable, but those woud be my guess at a good way. Dicklyon (talk) 05:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Go back to first principles. Why do we hyphenate in such constructions? To avoid ambiguity in parsing. Is "world number one male tennis player rankings" in any way ambiguous? Could it be interpreted, for example, as "(world number one male) tennis player rankings" or "world number one (male tennis) player rankings"? No. It's unambiguous. So it doesn't need any hyphens at all, especially not between "number" and "one". Peter coxhead (talk) 09:34, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Such titles hurt my brain, no matter how they're punctuated! :-) ― A. di M. 15:15, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- While you might be able to deduce that there is only one possible reading of the construction and thus omit all the hyphens, to do that you have to read to the end and then analyse it as if it were a chess problem. Help the reader out and put in at least one hyphen: "World number-one male tennis player rankings", then it can be easily parsed as it's read. Barsoomian (talk) 16:52, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- But "number" and "one" are the most tightly semantically connected words in the string, and so least likely to be mis-parsed. Hence this hyphenation doesn't help readers. "World-number-one male-tennis-player rankings" might, since the article is about (male tennis players) who were ranked (number one in the world) in different years. But I don't think anyone would seriously propose this hyphenation! (I'm not sure the word "rankings" is really needed; "World number one male tennis players" seems to me to equally meaningful as an article title and is easier to parse.) Peter coxhead (talk) 10:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- Certainly "World-number-one male-tennis-player rankings" is what I'd propose, if we were stuck with this wording, as it's the least jarring possibility for me. But I like your suggestion much better. Or "Male tennis players ranked first and second in the world, by year". —JerryFriedman (Talk) 14:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Your alternative is the best yet, and has the merit of accuracy, unlike the existing title which is both inelegant and inaccurate. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:51, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Certainly "World-number-one male-tennis-player rankings" is what I'd propose, if we were stuck with this wording, as it's the least jarring possibility for me. But I like your suggestion much better. Or "Male tennis players ranked first and second in the world, by year". —JerryFriedman (Talk) 14:56, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- But "number" and "one" are the most tightly semantically connected words in the string, and so least likely to be mis-parsed. Hence this hyphenation doesn't help readers. "World-number-one male-tennis-player rankings" might, since the article is about (male tennis players) who were ranked (number one in the world) in different years. But I don't think anyone would seriously propose this hyphenation! (I'm not sure the word "rankings" is really needed; "World number one male tennis players" seems to me to equally meaningful as an article title and is easier to parse.) Peter coxhead (talk) 10:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- When writing prose (even journalistic prose) rather than titles or headlines, I would (were I writing about tennis) make world's into a possessive, as in "the world's number-one male tennis player". If the title is going to be slightly inelegant anyway, there might be nothing wrong with phrases such as "world's best female tennis player" (why not the best?) or "top-ranked tennis players in the world". Unlike German, English doesn't work well with a long stack of nouns modifying each other. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:30, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- Apart from the disclaimers already posted, I would point out that the possessive form is quite ENGVAR specific. "Why not the best?": because scoring systems that compare different results are necessarily subjective, and the possibility of injury/freak results/different priorities means that the winner of any given event is not necessarily the best (if there can be an encyclopaedically valid application of that epiphet). Kevin McE (talk) 09:03, 8 April 2012 (UTC)
- While you might be able to deduce that there is only one possible reading of the construction and thus omit all the hyphens, to do that you have to read to the end and then analyse it as if it were a chess problem. Help the reader out and put in at least one hyphen: "World number-one male tennis player rankings", then it can be easily parsed as it's read. Barsoomian (talk) 16:52, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Such titles hurt my brain, no matter how they're punctuated! :-) ― A. di M. 15:15, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Go back to first principles. Why do we hyphenate in such constructions? To avoid ambiguity in parsing. Is "world number one male tennis player rankings" in any way ambiguous? Could it be interpreted, for example, as "(world number one male) tennis player rankings" or "world number one (male tennis) player rankings"? No. It's unambiguous. So it doesn't need any hyphens at all, especially not between "number" and "one". Peter coxhead (talk) 09:34, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
- Erk: the title wording is awful. I don't have a quick fix. Strictly speaking, it should be "World-number-one-male-tennis-player rankings". Most American writers would prefer to drop all of the hyphens, and I think I would too, if the current wording were unavoidable: "World number one male tennis player rankings". I agree with Shakescene about the difference between title and running prose here. Tony (talk) 02:54, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- Hyphenated expressions often represent re-arrangements of longer expressions from which some words (such as prepositions and conjunctions) have been removed. One unraveled version is Rankings of male tennis players who have been number one in the world, and another one is Male tennis players who were the best in the world, and another one is Top male tennis players in the world, and another one is World rankings of top male tennis players.
- —Wavelength (talk) 20:55, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- The first problem is with "World-number-one", hyphenated like this. How many numbered worlds are there where "males" play "tennis", and how would we know which of these worlds is supposed to be number one? Of all the suggestions made here, World rankings of top male tennis players strikes me as being by far the best. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- Agreed. It would need to be "world number-one", so it's clear that "world" is an adjective, synonymous with "global", "worldwide", "international", modifying "number-one", together forming a compound modifier of what follows (male tennis players). That said, the phrase "world number-one", however hyphenated is a total Briticism. If the article were actually limited to number-one players (it isn't, but let's pretend), various alternatives would be less colloquial. Simply "Number-one male tennis players" would be sufficient. It is implicit in a title like this that we don't mean "male tennis players who were number one in Botswana or in Clovis, New Mexico", just like the List of snooker players implicitly includes only those who are genuinely notable in WP terms, which means internationally, not just "he's a good player at the local club and won a grand off me last week". We don't need "world" or any synonym of it in List of snooker players, so we wouldn't need it for a "Number-one male tennis players". And "tennis-player rankings" is overhyphenation; this sort of hyphenation is always optional, and should be opted for only when it's helpful. As noted, the "rankings" part is redundant anyway. We already know what the ranking is (number one), though the article prose doesn't match the title anyway. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 06:14, 19 April 2012 (UTC)
- The first problem is with "World-number-one", hyphenated like this. How many numbered worlds are there where "males" play "tennis", and how would we know which of these worlds is supposed to be number one? Of all the suggestions made here, World rankings of top male tennis players strikes me as being by far the best. Milkunderwood (talk) 04:05, 17 April 2012 (UTC)
- To me, "World-number-one male tennis-player rankings" does not even make sense, irrespective of hyphenation. To me it seems to be talking about ranking number one players in order (i.e. you might have twenty players who are all "number one", yet which you then rank in order 1 to 20). This seems not to be what the article is about. 86.160.218.68 (talk) 02:55, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
Wikidata
The Signpost has reported this week on progress in launching this new project—one that is likely to be powerful and influential if managed well. I've signed up as a volunteer WRT participating in discussion and consensus-generation concerning style, formatting and presentation. This aspect doesn't seem to be on the radar yet for Wikidata, yet it is just as important there as it is for a WP; style and formatting need to be discussed by the community, or we'll find ourselves with hyphens for minus signs all over the place, and units and symbols jammed up against each other (both contrary to ISO rules and en.WP's MOSNUM). There may need to be unique discussions about whether percentage signs, for example, may be spaced or unspaced, depending on the linguistic origins of the original author (the French space it). It's an interesting new scenario, and I encourage experts here—who have constructed and maintained what appears to be the most sophisticated guide for numerical style in the whole of the Wikimedia movement—to contribute to this exciting new project. (I've left the same message at wt:mosnum.) Tony (talk) 03:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
- Thank you for alerting us to Wikidata; please continue to post relevant information about its development.
- —Wavelength (talk) 15:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Soft hyphens
There's never been a solid consensus about soft hyphens. The closest we've come is this discussion, which had no followup. The reason it's come to my attention is work with AWB's typo fixing. Soft hyphens makes the typo fixes useless in some cases, and provides general confusion in others. I've reviewed about 20 or so pages that have these soft-hyphens (the vast majority of which are not visible... only occasionally has someone used the tag... usually they're hidden).
I think in most cases they're the result of copy-pasting from a source that maintains them, and they similarly are propagated as they're copy-pasted, often unknowingly.
The downside is, much in the way the accented quote marks cause issues, these break most regex based processing, and make it difficult to process the words. I also have questions about how grammatically correct these are. Most compound words should have an agreed upon hyphen style, or should be separate words. A soft hyphen is usually being used in cases where a particular choice would be correct. Finally, there's no uniformity (not to mention almost nobody knows these exist or how to put them in), so words that may be hyphenated in some instances (e.g. co-exist, or coexist) are instead being inconsistently applied. Even more inconsistent with a soft hyphen because the display of the hyphen depends entirely on the width of the viewer's screen. We don't use hyphens as line breaks (newspaper style) on wikipedia (nor do most computer displays).
In the two dozen or so articles with these I've reviewed, I've seen one use that seems reasonable for a soft-hyphen. That is, extremely long words that would benefit from line-breaks at a certain point. Here is one example (scroll down to the link to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu).
I'm not proposing a hard and fast rule, but it would be nice to know if I'm missing some alternative justification for soft hyphens. I would propose guidance along the lines of "soft hyphens are generally discouraged, unless there is a particular reason for their use, including extremely long words that are likely to look unbalanced if they don't line wrap." That could be worded better but you get the idea.
Any thoughts? Shadowjams (talk) 19:14, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
- We cannot know how wide the user's screen is, therefore we cannot predict which words are likely to be wrapped to the next line. Even if we could, the insertion of just one or two words will re-set the paragraph, resulting in a different word requiring the soft hyphen treatment. Therefore, if we are to advocate the use of soft hyphens, every word of more than two syllables which is not the first word of a paragraph will need to be given such hyphens just in case they happen to fall at the beginning of a line. I'm against the use of these, on the grounds of simplicity. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:04, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
- Agreed, with the small exceptions that some long words should wrap, such as some examples at Longest English words. Shadowjams (talk) 20:22, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
There is a good case for using soft hyphens in table headers that are longer than all entries in their column. They allow graceful scaling on narrow displays, saving the user from horizontal scrolling. −Woodstone (talk) 23:40, 15 April 2012 (UTC)
- That's a very good point. I had not thought about that.
- What I'm gathering is that these are being generally misused, but there are some instances, like table headers and extremely long words, where this does make some sense. If there are other possible uses I'd appreciate if someone would add them here. But do we think a guideline on them could be drafted? Shadowjams (talk) 23:29, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
- Soft hyphens are in the same league as hard spaces: we desperately need good syntax shortcuts for both, but the suitable template syntaxes were taken up long ago, often for not particularly useful targets. Let us gain consensus for a push to reallocate short syntaxes for both of these valuable functions. Tony (talk) 07:29, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
MOS: size and inclusiveness
Frequently an editor wants or suggests an addition to the Manual of Style, either to its main page or to one of its subpages. I am one editor who prefers that there be no limit to the combined size of all of those pages, including possible subpages not now existing, and it seems very appropriate that a very large encyclopedia covering many subjects would have a very large manual of style.
However, Noetica has advised me that a very large amount of detail in the Manual of Style is to be avoided in consideration of the circumstances. (User:Noetica/Archive4#Complications with ly, 09:40, 18 June 2009) Indeed, I have occasionally seen comments calling for reducing its size to make it less daunting to editors with academic limitations.
Therefore, I ask everyone with an idea for an addition to think about the consequences when the next call for reduction arises. Perhaps one of the more important guidelines will be removed because a less important guideline will have been added. Also, I suggest that hidden comments be added to the present version, indicating which guidelines have the greatest priority and should not be removed if and when a reduction occurs. Of course, consensus is important.
—Wavelength (talk) 01:11, 17 April 2012 (UTC) and 00:16, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- I believe we need three MoS main pages: the current one, in full detail (more than 40,000 hits a month); a shortened version, as I've done in my userspace (MoS for beginners, more than 200 hits a month, but unpublicised, and yikes, not up to date); and an ultra-short one for newbies. Tony (talk) 07:44, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- There are already problems caused by the main MOS and its subpages saying different things. (I could cite the capitalization of the common names of organisms, but please don't start discussing that topic again! Another example which occurred recently is the guidance on images.) Having multiple pages would be a disaster: they would soon become inconsistent; where advice is controversial, editors interested in the MOS would argue about which bits should be included in the various summary versions and which not. I think that what is needed is a good index to the MOS and its subpages. To some extent Misplaced Pages:Editor's index to Misplaced Pages fulfils this need, but a more specialized one would, I think, be better. (It doesn't matter if indexes are not equally complete.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter coxhead (talk • contribs) 09:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- I disagree with Tony on the need for three main MOS pages. Apart from the problem of keeping them in synch - I don't think that a special MOS page for newbies will work. I checked two articles that had associated "Introduction to" and found the number of hits over the last 30 days as follows:
- Metric System - 65 k; Introduction to the metric system - 1 k
- Evolution - 219 k; Introduction to Evolution - 6 k
- Clearly the hatnotes that link to the introductory articles are not attracting a lot of attention. (WP:COI note - I have been heavily involved with both metric system articles).
- I disagree with Tony on the need for three main MOS pages. Apart from the problem of keeping them in synch - I don't think that a special MOS page for newbies will work. I checked two articles that had associated "Introduction to" and found the number of hits over the last 30 days as follows:
- There are already problems caused by the main MOS and its subpages saying different things. (I could cite the capitalization of the common names of organisms, but please don't start discussing that topic again! Another example which occurred recently is the guidance on images.) Having multiple pages would be a disaster: they would soon become inconsistent; where advice is controversial, editors interested in the MOS would argue about which bits should be included in the various summary versions and which not. I think that what is needed is a good index to the MOS and its subpages. To some extent Misplaced Pages:Editor's index to Misplaced Pages fulfils this need, but a more specialized one would, I think, be better. (It doesn't matter if indexes are not equally complete.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter coxhead (talk • contribs) 09:26, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- I am also not happy with the idea of producing a single article call MOS - Why not have a book called MOS that is made up of all the MOS articles and that we concentrate on getting more of a balance between the sections in the main MOS article - in particular we should expect to see a specific article associated with every section in the top level MOS. If there is no article associated with it, why something that is important enough to warrant its own section at the top level not important enough to warrant such an article? One area that springs to mind is the section "Punctuation". Martinvl (talk) 09:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think three versions is overkill. I would guess that most people come here looking for guidance on a specific point, and as long as they can find that quickly it doesn't matter how long the rest of the manual is. Probably few people set out to read the whole thing... 86.160.218.68 (talk) 02:38, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- The best existing system for finding MoS guidelines is the search box near the main page's upper right corner, labeled "Search the MoS". I have often urged the page be redesigned to make that search box more noticeable, ideally looking like the Google main page, and navigating to everything else from there. Newbies are unlikely to click on a link to an easier version; a better idea is to get non-newbies to click on links to more details, since non-newbies are more likely to know or care about a page's less noticeable features. Art LaPella (talk) 05:17, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- It may be the "best existing system" but I didn't find it at all helpful when I started editing. The problem is that you have to know the way a topic is described in the MOS to know what to search for. (As just one example, try "common names" as a search.) A good index includes many alternative starting points and can grow. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:43, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- Common names? Isn't the second item on the list what you had in mind? But I get the point; something like redirects, or multiple index entries for each possible name for something, would help a lot. Good luck; remember, we can't even get the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Register implemented. Art LaPella (talk) 17:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- Art LaPella, the Register is implemented (used) whenever anyone consults it.
- —Wavelength (talk) 19:59, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Over 1% as often as the Manual itself. I'm surprised, considering that almost all the sections are empty. Art LaPella (talk) 20:54, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Common names? Isn't the second item on the list what you had in mind? But I get the point; something like redirects, or multiple index entries for each possible name for something, would help a lot. Good luck; remember, we can't even get the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Register implemented. Art LaPella (talk) 17:30, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- It may be the "best existing system" but I didn't find it at all helpful when I started editing. The problem is that you have to know the way a topic is described in the MOS to know what to search for. (As just one example, try "common names" as a search.) A good index includes many alternative starting points and can grow. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:43, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- The best existing system for finding MoS guidelines is the search box near the main page's upper right corner, labeled "Search the MoS". I have often urged the page be redesigned to make that search box more noticeable, ideally looking like the Google main page, and navigating to everything else from there. Newbies are unlikely to click on a link to an easier version; a better idea is to get non-newbies to click on links to more details, since non-newbies are more likely to know or care about a page's less noticeable features. Art LaPella (talk) 05:17, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think three versions is overkill. I would guess that most people come here looking for guidance on a specific point, and as long as they can find that quickly it doesn't matter how long the rest of the manual is. Probably few people set out to read the whole thing... 86.160.218.68 (talk) 02:38, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- I am also not happy with the idea of producing a single article call MOS - Why not have a book called MOS that is made up of all the MOS articles and that we concentrate on getting more of a balance between the sections in the main MOS article - in particular we should expect to see a specific article associated with every section in the top level MOS. If there is no article associated with it, why something that is important enough to warrant its own section at the top level not important enough to warrant such an article? One area that springs to mind is the section "Punctuation". Martinvl (talk) 09:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
Order of sections
Hi, in articles about geographical or political regions (e.g. islands, countries, states) are there any guidelines about the order in which standard sections (e.g. "History", "Geography", "Economy" etc.) should appear? 86.160.218.68 (talk) 02:25, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think there should be such a guideline, but I think that's more something for WP:GEOG than for the MOS. ― A. di M. 09:34, 21 April 2012 (UTC)
- There is WP:LAYOUT for topics in general and for sections in general, but it seems to lack an answer to this question. I suggest that you ask the volunteers at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Geography.
- —Wavelength (talk) 00:25, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks, re-asked at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Geography#Order of sections. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.160.84.125 (talk) 02:48, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Geographic coordinates of private firm
I hate the MOS and wish it was blown up in the morning, for half a dozen reasons. That said, this seems the place to answer this question. I recently came across a piece with green links for geographical coordinates of a private business in the body of the piece: Lusty Lady. Is this an appropriate or commercializing use of green links? Carrite (talk) 03:51, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
- This is what you called a grene link, but it lookes bloo to me. (Assooming you dont like no speling or grammer neither; korect me if Im rong.) Art LaPella (talk) 04:46, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
- Thank you for your illiterate non-answer. Would anyone less snotty and more fluent in the language like to check out the GREEN LINKS that are present in the blue link Lusty Lady and advise on whether they are kosher??? Carrite (talk) 01:11, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
- Carrite, please see the notice at the top of this page, about discretionary sanctions under a recent ArbCom decision. You might take this as a gentle first warning. ♪☺♥♪ Noetica 01:44, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
- Um, without commenting on Noetica, I asked Carrite for a correction, and I got one. But the Seattle coordinate link is undisputably blue on my computer. Perhaps it's green on Carrite's computer. Or perhaps he means the green lines for "Bing Maps", "Google Maps", "Open Street Maps" and "Wikimapia", visible after clicking the blue link. Art LaPella (talk) 02:17, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
- No-one willing to actually address the OP's question? IMO the coordinates are useful, but they should be in the top right corner (as in lots of articles – I guess there's a template for that) rather than on their own line at the beginning of a section like that. Anyway, the relevant part of the MOS is MOS:COORDS so you might want to ask at WT:MOSNUM and/or Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates instead. ― A. di M. 23:39, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
- (As for the colour, in the default skin it's blue, but a slightly more greenish shade of blue than internal links. FWIW, the closest colours to that in http://xkcd.com/color/rgb/ are called “windows blue”, “flat blue”, “french blue”, ”mid blue”, “bluish” and “medium blue”. ― A. di M. 00:05, 25 April 2012 (UTC))
- Here are the actual link colours for Vector skin:
- bluelinks (unvisited) (visited) (active)
- redlinks (unvisited) (visited)
- interwiki & external (unvisited) (visited) (active)
- None of these look green to me. Coordinates added with the
{{coord}}template - in this case 47°36′24.8″N 122°20′18.5″W / 47.606889°N 122.338472°W / 47.606889; -122.338472 - use the external link colours, so they show up as . The components of this colour are: red 20%; green 40%; blue 73.333% - The article in question - Lusty Lady - deals with two locations: one in Seattle, the other in San Francisco, so it is neither appropriate nor possible to put both of them upper right. There is no special template for putting coords upper right - you just need to amend the value of one parameter in the existing
{{coord}}template, from|display=inlineto|display=title, or add it in if not already present. Whether coordinates for commercial venues are appropriate or not - it is normal practice for coordinates to be given for anything with a fixed location. See, for example, articles in Category:Nightclubs in California most of which have coords. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:01, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
- Here are the actual link colours for Vector skin:
Propose add subsection: Foreign living person names
I've put propose add section where I believe it would be most helpful. In ictu oculi (talk) 02:15, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- That's fine, Ictus. But I have undone your addition of the start of such a section. Please discuss first; and especially do not edit MOS without leaving an edit summary. One that informs everyone adequately. There have been serious problems in the past, tracking down undocumented changes like that. Without a proper summary, anything could lurk underneath. We'd have to check it again and again, even months later.
- Now, what did you have in mind for foreign living person names, for inclusion at WP:MOS?
- Noetica 03:22, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Noetica, very sorry old chap, no harm intended. I was referred here, at least I think here(?), by PBS. I was confused about what can and can't be edited: as you saw I only dropped in blank propose new section. (I came here by clicking direct from WP:MOSPN not via the talk page here so didn't see the big red sign above, sorry). A large status quo chunk was removed at WP:MOSPN with instructions to see MOS:FOREIGN but there's nothing relevant here. Anyway I've restored the chunk deleted at WP:MOSPN, as far as I can see it has long status quo there and the topic belongs there, so apologies for bothering you here. Please excuse the not leaving an edit summary either, it should have at the least said "please see Talk". In ictu oculi (talk) 03:54, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Just to clarify, there is actually no rule against changing the MoS without prior discussion. It is wise, but it's not absolutely required. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:08, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- A worthy clarification, Darkfrog. No ill feeling in any direction, I trust. But I will continue to watch closely and act in the interest of consensual development and clear documentation. The recent ArbCom decision encourages me in this. Noetica 13:17, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- I am comforted to know I didn't trip a wire! But I don't mind Noetica's comment or reversion It probably should be a rule even if it isn't. In ictu oculi (talk) 04:03, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
- A worthy clarification, Darkfrog. No ill feeling in any direction, I trust. But I will continue to watch closely and act in the interest of consensual development and clear documentation. The recent ArbCom decision encourages me in this. Noetica 13:17, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Just to clarify, there is actually no rule against changing the MoS without prior discussion. It is wise, but it's not absolutely required. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:08, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Noetica, very sorry old chap, no harm intended. I was referred here, at least I think here(?), by PBS. I was confused about what can and can't be edited: as you saw I only dropped in blank propose new section. (I came here by clicking direct from WP:MOSPN not via the talk page here so didn't see the big red sign above, sorry). A large status quo chunk was removed at WP:MOSPN with instructions to see MOS:FOREIGN but there's nothing relevant here. Anyway I've restored the chunk deleted at WP:MOSPN, as far as I can see it has long status quo there and the topic belongs there, so apologies for bothering you here. Please excuse the not leaving an edit summary either, it should have at the least said "please see Talk". In ictu oculi (talk) 03:54, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
µ and micro
There's recently been a dispute on a page as to whether to use "µg" or "microgram." Does the MOS have anything to say about this and if not is it a section worth considering? SÆdon 19:32, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- See also Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_108#Micro_sign, but "mcg" is an alternative that is recommended by other style guidelines. -- JHunterJ (talk) 19:37, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Depending on your readership, it might be appropriate to write "microgram (μg)" in the first instance and "μg" thereafter. From my observations in the UK, "mcg" seems to be used in the medical profession, but "μg" is used in other applications (Under European Union regulations "μg" is the correct form, not "mcg" - German keyboards actually have a "μ" character. Martinvl (talk) 20:18, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- I've worked in the US as an integrated circuit designer; "µ" was always used as the prefix, never "mcg". It was used in a wide variety of units: µm, µg, µF, µV and µA. I also volunteered as an emergency medical technician, and observed that mcg was used, but the prefix micro- just didn't seem to occur with any other unit. I was told "µ" was avoided because when it was hand-written it could be mistaken for "m". Jc3s5h (talk) 20:29, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- Depending on your readership, it might be appropriate to write "microgram (μg)" in the first instance and "μg" thereafter. From my observations in the UK, "mcg" seems to be used in the medical profession, but "μg" is used in other applications (Under European Union regulations "μg" is the correct form, not "mcg" - German keyboards actually have a "μ" character. Martinvl (talk) 20:18, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
The OED has the following illustration: (1980 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 29 Mar. Advt. between pp. x and xi), A metered-dose aerosol delivering 100 mcg salbutamol BP per actuation. — kwami (talk) 20:39, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- It is in the MOS - see MOS:UNITS, more specifically Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Conventions. --Redrose64 (talk) 20:51, 23 April 2012 (UTC)
- In my own work—life science journams—it's always µg and never mcg. However, what we need to figure out is what is best for general-audience publications. As we've seen, professional and general don't always match. My own feeling is that micrograms should follow the same rules as centimeters and other metric units. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
- I've worked with electronic components, where capacitors often have values in microfarads. I'm old enough to have used a typewriter to produce labels for packs and boxes of such items. We would type a lowercase "u" and then write the descender by hand. Later, when computer databases arrived, we couldn't very well write on the screen; so we followed the lead of our suppliers and either used the letter "u" as it stood (or "U" if only capitals were available), or entered the unit as "MFD". This might seem ambiguous: but a one-megafarad capacitor would be enormous - even one farad is so large as to be extremely rarely used. It's not often that you find them much bigger than 4700 μF, and although it might seem logical to write that as 4.7 mF, the "millifarad" unit is not normally used. So, in electronics, the unit prefixes "μ", "u", "U" and "M" are all still in use to mean micro - but only where capacitors are concerned. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:33, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
- In my own work—life science journams—it's always µg and never mcg. However, what we need to figure out is what is best for general-audience publications. As we've seen, professional and general don't always match. My own feeling is that micrograms should follow the same rules as centimeters and other metric units. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:13, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
Avoid preceding a direct quote with "that"
I propose an additional guideline for either Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style#Quotations or Misplaced Pages:Quotations: Avoid preceding a direct quote with "that". An example of this objectionable usage appears in International reactions to the 2011 Egyptian revolution#Media (permalink):
- New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof said that "it should be increasingly evident that Mr. Mubarak is not the remedy for instability in Egypt; he is its cause. The road to stability in Egypt requires Mr. Mubarak's departure, immediately."
The word that should be removed because it implies that what follows is a description of what Kristof said, not his exact words. This principle is obvious, but because this error is so prevalent in Misplaced Pages, an explicit rule would be helpful.
I started this discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Quotations#Avoid preceding a direct quote with "that" four days ago and nobody has responded yet; in the interests of keeping the discussion in one place I ask that people respond there, not here, unless people strongly believe that this is the right place. —Anomalocaris (talk) 06:15, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
- Wow. The main question is whether that one is too obvious for the MoS. I fix that one wherever I find it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:15, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
- Beware the obvious. It is perfectly normal and justifiable to write like that. Two examples that occur in NHR, without a murmur of disapproval, in the chapter "Quotations and direct speech":
- He is alleged to have replied that 'our old college no longer exists'. (p. 154)
- He asserted that 'Americans don't understand history', and that 'intervention would be a disaster'. (p. 156)
- For similar examples in CMOS16, see 13.14, in which two have "that" immediately before the quoted material. Another one of interest there:
- Benjamin Franklin advises us to "plough deep while sluggards sleep."
- (And if you think that is acceptable but preceding with "that" is unacceptable, you have a job of explaining to do.)
- Similarly again, CMOS16 at 13.15 gives an example of indented quotation beginning like this:
- ... Aristotle observes that
- revolutions break out when opposite parties, ...
- So is this to be condemned also? If not, why not? If so, why?
- It is easy to find examples like all of these with a Googlebooks search, in well-edited books from serious publishers: , , , and so on.
- Noetica 14:11, 24 April 2012 (UTC) ☺♪
- The that is not actually wrong in Anomalocaris' example, but I'd still omit it. I guess the fact that that quotation is so much longer than in Noetica's examples (more than one sentence) must have something to do with this intuition of mine. If the it should started the sentence in the original, too, I'd go with Kristof said, "It should be blah blah, immediately.", with this punctuation and capitalization. ― A. di M. 23:46, 24 April 2012 (UTC)
¶ I've never, ever, inferred that anything in quotation marks is meant to be anything other than direct quotation; I've always considered it misleading if not actually dishonest to put a paraphrase within quotation marks. That's precisely what quotation marks are for: actual words are what go within quotation marks. I've never considered that whether something within quotation marks is preceded by "that", or by anything else, affects the accuracy or precision of what's within them. So I think this (to me) utterly novel guidance is completely misguided. Two subsidiary points:
- "that" as a conjunction often makes the grammar, intention and meaning of a sentence much clearer, while the question of whether to precede the quotation marks with a comma (Frank said, "Let's go!") is a very fuzzy choice, partly dependent on WP:ENGVAR and partly on where and when you first learned to write. To my eyes, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof said, "it should be increasingly evident that Mr. Mubarak is not... is clumsier than using "that".
- Where "that" may come into play is where the quotation begins with the beginning of a sentence. If Mr Kristof had begun his sentence, "It should be increasingly evident", then none of the choices is entirely satisfactory, as for example in the way I just framed this sentence. Legal and highly-scholarly documents that try to reproduce every character precisely would write something ugly like "t should be increasingly evident". Less formal (even encyclopaedic) usage must choose between sticking a confusing, jarring capital in the middle of a sentence, inserting a confusing comma that enjoys no universal convention, or not letting the reader know if a whole sentence is being quoted by putting "it" in lower case.
These are difficult questions that can and should be discussed somewhere (like my hypothetical Misplaced Pages magazine of common practice), but can't and shouldn't be pinned down in something that's become so prescriptive and proscriptive as the Manual of Style; the topic's just too murky. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:32, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
En dash spacing
Another situation; see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_New_York_City_Public_Transportation/New_York_City_Subway/Station_naming_convention#Outdated_naming_convention and Talk:Brooklyn Bridge–City Hall / Chambers Street (New York City Subway)#spaced en dash. These should be unspaced, right? Dicklyon (talk) 01:50, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, if the painstakingly developed and optimally consensual guidelines at WP:DASH are to be followed, those en dashes should indeed be unspaced. Noetica 01:55, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, this seems an open-and-shut case; the en dash here means "to" or "through". It's hard enough to maintain the practice set out at WP:DASH as it is, without a project coming up with a different convention. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:04, 25 April 2012 (UTC)
Straight versus curly quote marks
1. Initially the MoS says:
- Typewriter or straight style: "text", 'text'. Recommended at Misplaced Pages.
- but this is almost immediately contradicted with "... the straight versions are recommended, and double rather than single quotation marks." In other words, single quotes like 'text' are not recommended at Misplaced Pages.
2. The following is given in support of the view that double straight quotes should be used:
- "In its search form Google uses double quotation marks to search for phrases. Google ignores any punctuation marks in the pages it is searching."
- I do not see how this fact supports that viewpoint.
3. The text also says:
- Misplaced Pages's search facility, and the prompts that appear as users insert text, ignore double quotation marks, but treat single quotation marks as significant. They also distinguish straight and curly forms (neither ‘occupy’ protests nor “occupy” protests will find the title "Occupy" protests directly, especially in prompts).
- This is contradictory. First it says that Misplaced Pages search ignores double quote markes; then it says that “occupy” will not match "occupy", so obviously it doesn't ignore them.
- In response to (1), what is in the MoS is not actually contradictory if you read Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style#Quotation_marks. The default is double quotation marks, but you need to alternate single and double quotation marks in some cases. The "explanations" concerning searching are, I agree, a little unclear. What is meant by ... ignore double quotation marks, but treat single quotation marks as significant is, in each case, straight quotation marks I think. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
- Those are fair concerns to have
, Peter. I'm glad you have raised them. That explanatory section, drafted by me, was subjected to scrutiny for more than a week on this talkpage. I adjusted it after a few useful comments, and only then put it into WP:MOS. I cannot recall whether it is has been altered since. Probably, a little. - Now to details in the points you make:
- Point 1
... but this is almost immediately contradicted with "... the straight versions are recommended, and double rather than single quotation marks." In other words, single quotes like 'text' are not recommended at Misplaced Pages.
- Not really, I think. You omitted context at the start of your point. This preceded what you quote:
There are two possible methods for rendering quotation marks at Misplaced Pages (that is, the Quotation mark glyphs, displayed with emphasis here, for clarity):
- So that part just deals with the straight–curly distinction. The wording that you go on to cite does not follow "almost immediately", since it is under a different rubric and addresses a different topic. I will concede this: the use of single marks for nested quotations is glossed over, just there. I do not think that is a serious difficulty though. It is all explained at the appropriate place in MOS, and people want to reduce the size of MOS, right? Still, if it is a problem, perhaps the wording could be supplemented like this (see underlined):
But for practical reasons the straight versions are recommended, and double rather than single quotation marks as primary.
- I prefer this to your re-wording with "default", because that can be construed in various ways also.
- Point 2
I do not see how this fact supports that viewpoint.
- Well, that is one notable fact among others; it is well to alert editors to it. Consider this scenario, for just one example: A reader selects some text from an article and pastes it as a Google search. The behaviour of the search will differ, depending on whether the included quote marks are single or double. It is well to be aware of that. And then also, this about Google sets up what is then said about internal searches on Misplaced Pages, which work differently.
- Point 3
This is contradictory. First it says that Misplaced Pages search ignores double quote markes; then it says that “occupy” will not match "occupy", so obviously it doesn't ignore them.
- Well noted. I agree. The text should be amended to something like:
Misplaced Pages's search facility treats differently styled quotation marks in unintuitive ways; and the prompts that appear as users insert text ignore straight double quotation marks, but treat other quotation marks as significant.
- I think that's right. Try various experiments, progressively typing in these strings and monitoring the prompts that appear:
- Weird Al Yankovic
- “Weird Al” Yankovic
- ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic
- "Weird Al" Yankovic
- 'Weird Al' Yankovic
- It is important that such detail be recorded accurately and comprehensively somewhere; and WP:MOS seems to be an excellent location to gather it all together for the benefit of editors.
- Noetica 23:38, 26 April 2012 (UTC)
- (OP) I'm sorry, I think there may have been a confusion here because I forgot to sign my original post and it ran into Peter's response. I have now signed it above. Having read the responses, I stand by all three original points. In the case of #1 it seems obvious (to me, anyway) that anyone reading the text in question would assume that 'this' is just as good as "this", which actually seems to be not what we want to say. In the case of #2, this aspect of Google search behaviour may be "notable" and of interest to readers, but then so are dozens of other things no doubt. However, I still do not understand why this Google behaviour is a reason for Misplaced Pages to prefer straight double quotes, as opposed to standardising on any other style. And if it isn't a reason then it doesn't belong in a section titled "Reasons to prefer ...". Not that I'm saying any of these things is a huge deal, but just what I noticed while I was perusing that part. 86.160.221.37 (talk) 01:56, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
- Hopefully it's now clear who said what. I do think it's worth adding Noetica's suggested "as primary" to the MoS, as this is what is actually meant.
- As for the information about searching, I can't see that the subsection headed "Reasons to prefer straight quotation marks and apostrophes (and double quotation marks)" belongs in the body of the main MoS at all. It could be in a footnote, perhaps, or in a subpage, but the MoS itself needs to give sharp, clear guidance. The subsection is also confusing, because it mixes up two entirely different issues: straight vs. curly and single vs. double. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:04, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
- No contradiction between Points 2 and 3: Misplaced Pages's search facility is not based on Google, and the former treats curly and straight quotes as distinct whereas the latter doesn't. ― A. di M. 10:56, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
- Thank you for sorting out the thread, Peter. I take your points. Let's see what else is said, over a day or so. The details in that section respond to perennial questions and concerns about the long-standing guidelines favouring "..." over “...”, and "..." over '...'. Those guidelines are challenged from time to time, with sound motivation. But they are well backed by community preferences, as it turns out. I will resist moves to lose anything in the comprehensive explanation that we now have; far better to err on the side of giving even more than is relevant, in the interest of telling the whole story. And indeed, more could have been said!
- Just one note: the explanation is explicitly applied to apostrophes also; and with them, searching (in various modes) is a serious issue. It concerns not only readers, but editors searching through large articles for internal inconsistencies and other matters to adjust. See WP:MOS#Apostrophes.
- Noetica 11:06, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
Need for shortcut disamb?
I find out I've been merrily linking WP:CONSISTENCY believing it led to the MOS lede "consistent with the titles of related articles" and I find out it links further down the MOS page to "consistent within articles". Duh. Is there any value in creating a separate WP:CONSISTENTTITLES to the former. Or is that pointless seeing as there's more detailed information at AT on WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Or is there value in creating WP:CONSISTENTTITLES to link to AT? In ictu oculi (talk) 04:09, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
- If you make a shortcut for your stated purpose, please choose something shorter.
- —Wavelength (talk) 06:11, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
- WP:MATCHING? In ictu oculi (talk) 06:50, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
- Consistency across article titles is not a MOS issue but something for WP:AT and it should be discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:Article titles -- PBS (talk) 09:56, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
- For the subsection Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style#Article titles (permanent link here), I suggest the shortcut MOS:AT (red link now).
- —Wavelength (talk) 16:17, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
- I think that is a bad idea much better not to create it and to use the policy link to WP:AT. On that same issue this "The Manual of Style applies to all parts of an article, including the title ...", needs to be removed. The title is governed by the AT policy and its naming conventions and when the two contradict each other over a title of an article, the At policy takes presidents just as WP:V takes presidents over WP:RS. The current sentence implies otherwise and I presume was put in there by arguments by some editors over hyphens and ndashes. -- PBS (talk) 19:23, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
- WP:MATCHING? In ictu oculi (talk) 06:50, 27 April 2012 (UTC)
U.S. at the USA
Lemme put this here so we can get more feedback.
There's a problem at the United States of America article. Namely, that American usage (supposedly) generally favors U.S. in preference to US, but every single other abbreviation in the article apart from D.C. is given without punctuation.
Now, that's a perfectly valid way of looking at the current MOS guidelines here, but it's also an eyesore ("the United States, the U.S., the USA, America"). It's much more common now for real style guides to advise against any punctuation (costs ink, after all), but there's nothing wrong with keeping the punctuation – as long as you use it consistency for all the abbreviations in your piece.
Now, I hardly want to avoid American English at the USA page, but surely standardizing the usage and avoiding jarring text (the whole point of a MOS, after all) is more important than whatever segment of the American population will only surrender those particular full stops from their cold, dead hands.
In any case, discussion here. Feel free to weigh in. — LlywelynII 04:28, 28 April 2012 (UTC)