Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 100

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

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Proposal to index

I'm interested in taking on a tedious and difficult task, because it feels important: invisibly indexing useful information in all the style guidelines talk archives in some hopefully uncontroversial and useful way. (I've got lots of time until May 1.) I've noticed when doing indexing for legal projects in the past that prefixing a semicolon to index terms seems to work well as a "poor man's database". Putting an invisible <span id="1" /> [changed per Daniel Friesen below] in an archive page would let people wikilink to a line, if they like, that gives useful information on any desired keyword. (What's useful and uncontroversial will be determined through feedback on this page.) I can then maintain a page with all these links, in my userspace or elsewhere, and/or we can put the invisible links on each archive page listed (visibly!) at the top of that archive page.

It would be particularly useful to know which issues have already been argued by a wide community, with or without an RfC, so I'll make sure to put invisible links there. I'll include that information on the summary page, which I'll put in my userspace for the time being.

Archive pages say that they shouldn't be edited, so anyone who makes an edit has a pretty steep presumption working against them, but we could use this to our advantage. Anyone is welcome to help, of course, but it's not a trivial project; I don't see how someone could do it at all without having some kind of broad knowledge of what subjects keep recurring, which pieces of information in the talk archives are new, where it's been discussed before ... this is kind of a headache, so we can use the presumption against editing archives to insist that people either get broad permission or discuss potential additions or subtractions on the (current) talk page if they don't want to get reverted immediately. So, that's what I'm doing: I'm asking for broad permission to start indexing. Anyone who has a search term they'd like included, please list it here. Anyone who thinks I'll screw it up, please let me know now :) - Dan (talk) 17:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. This proposal has already had one good effect ... on me. I'm realizing that a few things I said might get linked, but they aren't as tight and hard to miscontrue as I'd like, so I'm going back to fix them before they get archived. If people are more careful with what they write here, that can only be good. - Dan (talk) 20:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
This is in reply to Sept's question above, about why we don't follow guidelines with explanations and justifications. It seems to me that if there's a particular "Why?" that comes up a lot, and there's a quick answer, an occasional footnote (as at WP:Layout) might be helpful. But in general, it's hard to predict the questions, and even harder to get a short answer that represents all sides, so it would be great to have a page that matches keywords with all the relevant invisible links in the archives. For people who really want to know more (on all sides of the issue), it's ideal, and it's also a good way to deflect any criticism that we didn't think it through. - Dan (talk) 00:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Answered above in particular. In general, a habit of giving reasons, if any, seems preferable to expecting the readers to quarry them out of our discussions. But we could <wait for it> do both. 00:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
It's something I'm willing to keep an open mind on, Sept. Maybe another random survey? Do you want me to add a question to the GAU survey giving a few examples with more and less explanation and asking which works better? If so, can you give me some examples? - Dan (talk) 03:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
(copied from my talk page) However I would suggest you don't use the Keyword and just stick with hunting down anchors. <span id="anchor id" />. Dantman (talk) 02:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
That was from Daniel Friesen, a css guru who hangs out at Wikia and also gave a response at bugzilla to the bugzilla thread above. So, let's do it that way; there are other places to put keywords. - Dan (talk) 03:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

←Clarification. There's a general principle that things on WP pages shouldn't be invisible, in order to make sure we're getting the full benefit of multiple eyeballs. So I think I would recommend that we not insert <span id="1" /> on a talk page before it's archived, when we could just as easily, and in full view, insert a subsection heading that accomplishes the same thing. It's when a page is archived that inserting a new subsection heading isn't appropriate any more. Also, I really would recommend that the id's are 1, 2, 3, etc, on the principle that nothing invisible should be allowed to build up randomly even in talk archives. Having the id's be as simple as possible will make it easier to list and keep track of them. - Dan (talk) 20:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

A thought about editing style guides

(I have eliminated this comment because I have just realized that you all discussed this subject at length above. Great minds think alike, I guess. My apologies!) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 10:52, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Blockquote for emphasis

There are times where I will put one or two quoted sentences (with reference) inside of a <blockquote>...</blockquote> because it serves to emphasize the quote when formated without the (in my opinion) added visual clutter of the {{cquote}} template, although I only do it if there are no additional quotes from the same source in the section. Not sure if it's important enough to add to the MOS section but I thought I'd bring it up for discussion.Awotter (talk) 03:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you asked. I've seen plenty of three- and four-line block quotes. I'm sure some editors won't like a two-full-line block quote, but TCMOS gives examples of block quotes of just one line (11.26) and two lines (11.28). It does appear that WP:MoS suggests that four-line one-paragraph quotations should not be in block quotes, but anything longer should be; I don't know who decided this, and maybe they'll share. (But apparently, the example defines one line plus a name to be "two paragraphs", requiring a block quote.)
I can't find any discussion on the subject from a Google search of these archives, not under "block quote" or "blockquote", so I guess I'm free to tell you what I think. I often block quote with two full lines or more, although I'm not sure if I would get away with it at WP:FAC. I've heard that many Wikipedians don't like too much white space, so pay attention to how much white space you have in the vicinity. I lean towards block quotes for two full lines if I want to call special attention to the quote, or if the quote has several quotation marks that I don't want to demote to single quotation marks. - Dan (talk) 04:52, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
P.S. I need to be a little careful, so let me clarify "I've seen plenty of three- and four-line block quotes." This is not a statement that everyone should accept my original research, nor a statement that everything that you see inside or outside Wikipedia is good or relevant. I'm not a full-time professional copyeditor. I'm saying that when someone asks a question, and I can't find evidence that the question has been widely discussed on Wikipedia before, and there's no clear consensus among the commonly-consulted style guidelines such as TCMOS, a good first step is to report on what I have seen that seems relevant to me. That way, if I'm heading in the wrong direction, someone can tell me, and the conversation can evolve. - Dan (talk) 15:04, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the reply, it does seem like more of a personal preference. I like to be able to read articles without having to wade through large blocks of unbroken text because it just seems easier on the eyes whereas with a printed page it's not as bad. Awotter (talk) 04:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
An alternative option might be the use of pull quotes and epigraphs. Block quotes are really for practical reasons, and if you want quotes for aesthetic reasons, those two are really better options. VanTucky 18:01, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I know this qualifies as WP:WEASEL, but pull quotes are widely held to be unencyclopaedic. At least this is what I hear. Waltham, The Duke of 21:16, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to merge two MOS-related pages

The proposal is to merge Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) into Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations), and why not? It's been tagged for months and more input is needed HERE. Comments welcome. TONY (talk) 14:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

More eyeballs at protected style page, please

WP:Words to avoid is protected because of some edit-warring (not by me) over a proposed section on the word "phenomenon". There have also been discussions about giving advice on "controversy" and "the" (when used to falsely imply importance or definiteness). I wrote some proposed language here, but there's no discussion yet. Discussion would be helpful so that the page can be un-protected. Thanks. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:53, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Please, a few yay or nay comments would be appreciated at that link so that page protection can be removed. There have been no edits at all to the talk page. - Dan (talk) 16:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
The page is still protected because of lack of response. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:37, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Currencies

Do the three-letter ISO currency codes go before or after the value? That is, do we write CZK 55,555 or 55,555 CZK? Shouldn't this be stated in the MOS?--Kotniski (talk) 08:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Better to ask at MOSNUM (which is in a state of tumult at the moment). TONY (talk) 09:15, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Capitalization in French titles and style from 1589 to 1830

To begin with, if this is not the appropriate notice board to post this discussion, please excuse me. I am in a dispute with Charles and, apparently, WP:MOS-FR#Noble titles. I find this whole section of the MOS faulty. It tries to set standards were it readily admits there are no standards. In the end, the standard it does promote is contrary to the actual usage of capitilization method used by the House of Bourbon between 1589 and 1830. In addition, the standard is not followed by many English-speaking authors today, leading to a style of writing most English-speakers would not be familiar with from reading a biography of a member of the French royal family.

In particular, I am offended by the following comment/directive and find it to be arbitrary, incorrect and representative of a very biased POV:

"in French with capital spelling: Comtesse de, Marquis de... (e.g. Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu; Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon; Constantin-François de Chassebœuf, Comte de Volney). This is a incorrect Franco-English hybrid form using the capitalization rules of an English-user."

I am interested in getting this policy changed, and WP:MOS-FR#Noble titles rewritten or deleted. I will summarize my argument as follows (it is found more fully in Talk:Fils_de_France and Talk:Prince_du_Sang):

1) The capitalization method described in the MOS is not an incorrect "Franco-English hybrid." It is the one used by the French royal family and court themselves:

2) Many modern English-speaking authors do not use the Wikipedia style of capitalization, and to use it not only misrepresents how the people who used those titles and styles referred to themselves, but also is confusing to most English-speakers, whose reading material should not be censored by modern French linguists and how they feel about linguistic revisionism.

The following is a list of well-known books in English on the French royal family that specifically do NOT use Wikipedia's incorrect capitalization standard for French titles:

  • Nancy Mitford - The Sun King, Harper & Row, 1966;
  • Antonia Fraser - Marie Antoinette, The Journey, Doubleday, 2001;
  • Antonia Fraser - Love and Louis XIV, The Women in the Life of the Sun King, Doubleday, 2006;
  • Caroline Weber - Queen of Fashion, Henry Holt and Company, 2006;
  • Susan Nagel - Marie-Thérèse, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's Daughter, Bloomsbury, 2008.

BoBo (talk) 14:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm assuming fr.wikipedia.com will follow the Académie française on this; how do they capitalize? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it is necessary to consider what either French Wikipedia or the Académie française says on the matter. They are concerned only with modern French speakers. They are neither concerned with the accurate preservation in modern English of French capitalization from the past, nor with how an article in modern English should be written concerning old French styles and titles. BoBo (talk) 14:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Right, I'm not saying that we need to capitalize the same way the modern French do. I'm saying that you made two arguments; one was about what modern English writers do, and that's certainly important. Your other argument was on a subject that I'd be much more willing to trust the Académie française on, namely, "What capitalization was used in the 18th century by the French royal family and court?" - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:45, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
BoBo, tell me, how do you preserve what varied anyway? Do we alternate every second title with an upper- or lower case letter? Really now, we are not destroying information. Where text is quoted or duplicated we should use whatever form was used... If that is quoting the actual French or actual translations or English of the time. Anything else is not a matter of preservation! We are conveying the information either way. We do not write for the past, we write about it. As I said before, we don't call Henry VIII "the Kynge". Charles 22:21, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm... given what BoBo says... I think we do need to re-think this section of the guideline. Blueboar (talk) 14:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps it's worth mentioning that this kind of things can easily be checked with Google books, e.g. this book form the 17th century, printed in the 19th, uses this style. (And it's the first old book that I found.) --Hans Adler (talk) 16:06, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Hans, the book you link to is a perfect example of what I am talking about. It capitalizes the titles in the same way that the handwritten letters I referenced to earlier do. This should be evidence enough to demonstrate that the current Wikipedia standard is inaccurate. BoBo (talk) 18:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely with BoBo. I've disliked our capitalisation of French titles intensely for a long time, but my complaints have always been shouted down. Proteus (Talk) 17:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Without being any sort of expert, the capitalization in French is surely a political issue - whether a capital is used or not depends on the political stance of the writer. The current MoS formulation, following a Republican line, is way too emphatic. Johnbod (talk) 18:27, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Is this an NPOV issue? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Not in English I think. Johnbod (talk) 20:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
For me the capitalisation feels wrong, but this is because I've always used Chicago style and because the best history books use the non-capitalised style. "Rare was the great noble, who, like Henry, duke of Guise ..." (J. Russell Major, From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy); "La Rochelle's mayor, Alexandre de Haraneder, sieur de Roulraux ..." (S.Annette Finley-Croswhite, Henry IV and the Towns); "Nicolas de Neufville, seigneur de Villeroy" (N. M. Sutherland, The French Secretaries of State in the Age of Catherien de' Medici); "his future governess, Françoise de Longuejoue, baroness of Monglat ..." (A. LLoyd Moote, Louis XIII), etc. These are books I have read recently. In more popular histories, one does however find capitalisation in such cases, I admit.
Because I have been ticked off about, even mocked about, my non-captalisation principles, and, more particularly, because people come along helpfully adding capitals (but never all of them), I have crumbled and started to go with the capitalisation crowd. And I accept that where capitalisation occurs on article titles, one feels rather obliged to use the same form when mentioning those individuals in other articles. But I would urge those arguing over this to stop short of becoming heated, because there is no one "correct" system, not in today's English, today's French, today's English translated from the French, or in historical French. Inconsistency rules. The best we can aim for here is consistency within each article. qp10qp (talk) 19:32, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I was impressed by the evidence adduced by BoBo and Hans, so I decided to research how the current language of the MOS directive came to be. Before it resided on WP:MOS-FR#Noble titles, it was at Wikipedia:WikiProject France, where it had been moved in turn from Wikipedia:France-related topics notice board. It is there we must look to discover how the language was arrived at:
  • The page was created by editor NYArtsnWords on March 5, 2006. In the original, short version of the relevant section it states, "Capitalization is currently chaotic" and declares, "It would be helpful if we could come to some sort of consensus which would fit with Wikipedia:Naming conventions and Wikipedia:Proper names." There is no claim that one style—lowercased or capitalized—is more correct or in any way superior.
  • The most important change to the language is made, again by NYArtsnWords, on March 12, 2006. Here is where the claim appears that the lowercase style "is the correct form in French and is the form used in article titles on the French wiki." Here is where the claim appears that the capitalized style "is a Franco-English hybrid form." Significantly, NYArtsnWords adduces no evidence for the claims (though the form on the French wiki is obviously verifiable first hand), and there has been no discussion of the matter on the Talk page.
  • Another major change to the language is made, once again by NYArtsnWords, on March 16, 2006. Here is where the claim appears that "the current (tenuous) concensus is that all articles with French titles using de should have the title in lowercase." In edit summary, NYArtsnWords identifies the change to the language as following "results of discussion." The referenced discussion took place at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (names and titles). The discussion does indicate a consensus that titles in French be lowercased; however no evidence at all is adduced, and the discussion is effectively guided by the unevidenced claim (made once again) that the capitalized style "is a Franco-English hybrid form."
In sum, I believe it has been demonstrated in the present thread that—at least for the historical period under discussion—the claim that the capitalized style is an improper hybrid and the lowercased style is more correct are patently false. Those statements should be struck; in the matter of lowercasing it might help to explicate that the style is correct in modern French but was not historically the standard. I would make these changes myself on the basis of the great weight of facts presented, but it might be better if it was done by a member of the project. The matter of the old, and apparently ill-founded, consensus is in your hands. All the best, Dan.—DCGeist (talk) 19:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
There is no right and wrong. But let me explain the thinking. If we say "King Charles", we capitalise because the title is combined with the name; but if we say "Charles, king of England, the title is in apposition to his name and therefore is used as a general title (other people have been king of England). I would not insist on this; but I would object if anyone insisted against it in the policy.qp10qp (talk) 19:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Qp has described good contemporary American English style. The problem in this case is that WP:MOS-FR states (at one point in bold) that things are right and wrong, when the evidence clearly demonstrates that those statements are false. They've been floating around Wikipedia for over two years; now they should be removed.—DCGeist (talk) 19:59, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that's the issue. It would be good if someone could write a little essay, explaining all the nuances (erk, not me) to editors. I think it is good that Wikipedia has an MoS, but I feel the MoS should obey the overall principle of the site, which is that all information be sourced. Any attempt to standardise language on Wikipedia runs the risk of making one alternative right and another alternative wrong, whereas in the real world of letters and publishing, variety may exist from one publishing house to another, from one usage guide to another, from one branch of written English to another. In honesty, we must describe and explain such variety rather than presuming to rubberstamp one vein of it. The latter would be original thought, would it not? qp10qp (talk) 20:06, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Dank55, I agree with DCGeist. The standand needs to be rewritten to allow both forms of capitalization with the qualification that modern French usage is different from the usage in the 17th and 18th centuries. Articles about pre-1830 French individuals probably should use capitalization and post-1830 individuals should not. The 1830 date is somewhat arbitrary in the sense that I don't actually know the date when the lower-case usage became commonplace. All I know at this point is that the senior line of the House of Bourbon used capitalization in their titles all the way up to King Charles X of France, who was deposed in 1830. BoBo (talk) 20:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
It's better not to even go that far, in my opinion. All we need to do is write names in a style acceptable in modern English. In this case (names and titles), the capitalisation is allowable—but old-style capitalisation (and spelling, punctuation) is generally out of date now, whether in French or English. qp10qp (talk) 20:35, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Johnbod (talk) 20:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

←An interesting problem. Do the French make the case that a 20th-century "comte de Lyon" (I don't even know if there is a Count of Lyon) isn't capitalized because it's not a proper noun, the same way that a barber of Lyon wouldn't be capitalized? Several other possibly relevant things come to mind, all pointing in different directions:

  • The principles behind WP:JARGON and Use English, namely, English is hard, and it doesn't work to try to force everyone to learn the special rules or special words that every small group knows. The application of this would, of course, piss the French off mightily, since fr.wikipedia.org is now the second largest Wikipedia, and since they have to learn our stupid rules and stupid words on a daily basis. But we toss foreign capitalization rules, diacritical marks and non-English spellings out the window all the time, even though this often puzzles and offends non-English speakers. People who haven't grown up speaking a language created by a melting pot of cultures and run by "cowboys" who aggressively resist standardization often don't understand that there is a strong tendency among English-speaking people to shout "No more!" every time someone tries to force us to learn something new.
  • WP:NPOV: If there really are two sides to this story, then we are required to tell both sides.
  • Free flow of information: if almost everything that is written about French titles is written by Francophiles, including English-speaking academics who have used lower case, then we impede the flow of that information in and out of the English Wikipedia if the capitalization has to be changed. (My understanding from BoBo is that this is not true, that many recent scholarly works do capitalize the titles ... are these works representative or exceptional?) If we allow capitals, then usually capitalization will win out, since that's what most of us are used to (whether we know anything about French titles or not). If that means that we offend just about everyone capable of writing the articles, then the articles don't get written.
  • This seems like a potentially hard problem to me, but I hope I'm wrong. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:54, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

We write about the past, not for the past. We are not bound to use forms of French (which varied) used in the past when writing now. We do not use Old English for Henry VIII when he was called "the Kynge" nor do we use a form of a title just because it was found in letters of the time and also because some authors have used it. BoBo has claimed that the use of lower case letters for French titles is a recent invention to suit the egos of scholars who wish to rewrite history. I believe BoBo says that to serve his POV. The Almanach de Gotha, the Holy Bible of European royalty (almost all sovereigns consulted it when considering a bride's eligibility) uses lower case letters in its 1910 edition, so it's not even a new invention as BoBo would like everyone to believe. And if he wants to talk about what's official and used, the Almanach de Gotha is basically watertight. We haven't anglicized French titles because we borrow them in their entirety. If we anglicized them (which we could), we would use "Duke" instead of "duc", "Count" instead of "comte", etc. But we don't in all cases. In the last ten years, any number of authors have used both, but that isn't to say authors are always correct. Where there are variants we record what we know independently to be correct which is the French usage, not English usage if it varies (which it has). Charles 22:17, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Charles, your presentation would be more impressive if you did not personalize the dispute to the degree that you do. You should be especially careful not to mischaracterize the position of your opponent in a debate. Nowhere in the is thread, nor the two article threads where this dispute arose does BobBo claim that lowercase form might not reflect a style used in 1910. The facts remain: Capitalization is not a "French-English hybrid", but a style with a long, well-evidenced history of French usage. Lowercase is not "the correct form"; it is an acceptable form, just as capitalization is. Yes, our Manual of Style can reflect a preference here for one or the other, but that preference should be based on a consensus honestly arrived at after considering a large amount of available evidence and without browbeating those who disagree with us.—DCGeist (talk) 22:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I have no issue with healthy disagreement but this issue was started with BoBo characterizing anything but following what people called themselves as inventions to suit the egos of history revisionists which is an unfair statement which accuses anyone who may disagree with him of the same. I apologize if that did offend anyone or it seemed too personal as that was not my intent, although that was ultimately how it came out. My summary argument is that usage does vary and if neither is wrong in English we should at least favour a consistency to avoid disputes. I point to things like the latest old Almanachs de Gotha (as an example that the lower case is not a recent invention) and also current French usage because those are definitive and don't vary. The wording shouldn't say one form is wrong but that one form is preferred. I do, however, protest the argument of using what was used way back in the 1700s, etc. Like I said, Henry VIII isn't "the Kynge" to us. Charles 22:37, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Charles (though I still cannot find any reference by BoBo to anyone's "egos".) On the matter of which, if either, style should be preferred here on the English-language Wikipedia in 2008, I happen to agree with your argument that the lowercase style is preferable.—DCGeist (talk) 22:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
It was on another page. I can bring it up if asked but won't before that because I don't think it will serve anything past what I've already said. Let's focus on the topic rather than the people since it is out of the way. Charles 22:52, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
This discussion just came to my attention. Let me say a few words, since my edits have been brought up.
  1. It seems to me that this discussion would be more appropriate on the WP:MOS-FR talk page (and might perhaps be moved there?). My (recent) creation of the WP:MOS-FR page was meant as an attempt at encouraging discussion and clarification of these very problems. An RfC was made, although no one responded to it. As one can tell, there are very few people working on these things and my edits from 2006 have pretty much remained uncommented on for 2 years. The MOS-FR is under development and no one should construe anything on it as set in stone. I am concerned that the tone of the posts here is already heated. Relax and discuss.
  2. BoBo, in their original post, mentions historical cases of capitalization. The French language, like any other, has changed much over the last two centuries. If one was to follow 19h century capitalization rules for English, the Wikipedia would look like Pynchon's Mason Dixon. Judging from the Academy Française's website (see for example http://www.academie-francaise.fr/immortels/index.html) or from such contemporary scholars of the Ancien Régime as François Bluche (editor of the Dictionnaire du Grand Siècle), or Arlette Jouanna and Jaqueline Boucher (editors of several dictionaries on the Renaissance) or by the conventions of the French Wikipedia - noble titles ARE NOT CAPITALIZED in current usage. I do think it's necessary to look at how the French Academy and the French Wikipedia do things: if it's reasoned consensus we are looking for, why wouldn't we go to people and sites whose job it is to think about these things.
  3. DCGeist's archeology of the matter is correct - I am the source of the convention statements. If the expression "Franco-English hybrid" is the thing under attack, then by all means remove the line. I am truly sorry if that line has been taken as anti-English language POV; it was not my intention (in other words: it was not my intention to write on capitalization from a historical perspective, but only with regards to current French-language practice.). That unfortunate line notwithstanding, my point was: in contemporary scholarly work in French, this capitalized form is not used and that there is chaos in the wikipedia style. -NYArtsnWords (talk) 23:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
An addendum to the previous: With regards to titles of people before 1850, I have never seen a noble title (duc, comte, seigneur, etc.) capitalized in any modern French scholarly works on the 16th or 17th centuries, including:
  • Arlette Jouanna, Jacqueline Boucher, Dominique Biloghi, Guy Le Thiec. Histoire et Dictionnaire des Guerres de religion. Paris: Laffont, 1998. ISBN 2-221-07425-4
  • François Bluche. Louis XIV. Paris: Fayard, 1986. ISBN 2-01-013174-6
  • René Pillorget and Suzanne Pillorget. France Baroque, France Classique. Vol II: Dictionnaire. Paris: Laffont, 1995. ISBN 2-221-08110-2
  • Jean-François Solnon. La Cour de France. Paris: Fayard, 1987. ISBN 2-253-90439-2
  • Lucien Bély. La France moderne 1498-1789. Paris: PUF, 1994. ISBN 2-13-047406-3
In addition, contemporary French versions of period works, such as Madame de Lafayette's La Princesse de Clèves, use the lowercase format (see Gallimard, 2000 ISBN 978-2-07-041443-7 and Garnier-Flammarion 1966 ISBN 2-08-070082-0). -NYArtsnWords (talk) 23:51, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
My response to NYArtsnWords is simple. This debate shouldn't rely on anything modern French linguists, the Academie française or French Wikipedia are doing. Their discussions relate solely to how modern French is written. Unlike English, French is a highly regulated language. Any concentration on modern French usage confuses two separate issues. The issue in this debate is not the validity of modern French usage but how modern English articles should be written based upon ORIGINAL French usage. What is wrong with allowing English-speaking editors the right to choose which method of capitalization to use? I have offered the names of five well-known books in English on the French royal family which shows that there is no currently accepted English standard of translating French titles and styles. To impose one is dictatorial for no reason since it has been established that both methods have had weight at different times in French history.
I am also going to at this point include a quote from a response I gave to Dank55 on his talk page:
"As far as modern usage goes, I recognize that at some later point French usage changed. My assumption is that after the change certain English-speaking academics jumped on the band wagon to enhance their academic credentials. Academics are constantly trying to re-invent history in order to attract publishers and gain tenure. Unfortunately, I think at times this leads to an unnecessary revisionism. In this case, I see no reason why the original methods of capitalization can't be used. Rather than distorting the information, it makes it more authentic. An academic might insist on a new methodology, whether in France or an English-speaking country, but that doesn't make the new methodology in line with either the original circumstances or with the methodology employed in popular English-language biographies where most English-speakers will get their information." BoBo (talk) 23:56, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Support the proposal to copy the conversation to WT:MOS-FR and continue the conversation there, leaving this much text here to point people to the conversation if they want to join. Enough has been presented here for people to know whether they're interested or not. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I support that as well. Charles 00:11, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I do not support. It is my fear that any removal to the WT:MOS-FR page would serve only to isolate this debate to a apecific academic audience tilted toward accepted modern French usage and away from a general audience more representative of the majority of English-speakers not allied to a specific language. This debate, as I have said before, should not be a debate about the validity of modern French usage. This debate should be about how to write modern English articles. BoBo (talk) 00:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
What about WP:AGF? Everyone here will see where the discussion is and may participate. What have you to fear? Charles 00:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Charles, you have not been civil to me in the past when editing me on Prince du Sang. The addition of the question, "What have you to fear?" to your suggestion has an air of unwarranted sarcasm and dismissiveness associated with it that makes me especially wary of you. After a review of the WP:AGF article, I am also bothered by the following comment from GTBacchus:
"I've noticed a lot of interactions here in which one editor throws an AGF link at another as part of a response to some point in a dispute. The effect of this is often an escalation of ill will, and a further wandering from the constructive point at hand, because they end up arguing over whether one person was assuming good faith, and whether the other was assuming the assumption of good faith..." BoBo (talk) 00:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Really? It was I who suggested moving to a general discussion and I see nothing wrong with the edits at Prince du sang... You kept on reverting while pointing to a discussion you had already made your mind up on anyway. I said no one was going to listen there so throw it out where more people will see it. Wary of me? I beg your pardon but *that* is an unnecessary comment. I haven't any ill will, GTBacchus cannot speak for me and I have in mind to move the discussion to where it counts most, which is the most concise part of the MOS on the matter. Charles 01:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
You have just proved my point about incivility. Can Charles make a unilateral decision like he is suggesting? I think it has to be a consensus decision and so far you only have two other supporters, both open opponents of mine. I suggest that you stop trying to intimidate me and leave this conversation in place for the next week or so so that others can comment. BoBo (talk) 01:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Having taken the discussion this far here, it should remain. By all means add a notice at the other page. Johnbod (talk) 01:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I am not your "open opponent". I oppose your ideas which are shared by a few other people, so it's not about you. Please don't barb your comments about civility with more incivility. If you find me intimidating though there is something wrong! What can I possibly do, wish that your fingers get caught between your keyboard keys? :P Charles 01:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

'Ello 'ello 'ello. What's all this then? Are you going to immortalise yourselves on WP:LAME about, of all things, the location for the discussion about capitalisation of French names? I have a French book from 1997 (Cornette: Chronique du Règne de Louis XIV) that seems to be using inconsistent spelling. --Hans Adler (talk) 01:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC) (ec)

Does the honour come with a user box or some sort of barnstar? :P I know there is the inconsistency but I think the issue is the inconsistency leads to arguments over what is used. We should develop a policy or clarify the MOS. Charles 01:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't mind whether this particular argument lives here or somewhere else, as long as we're agreed on the principle: people can come here and start style discussions if they're not getting a broad enough audience on the talk page of some other style guideline, and this is a good example of good things that can happen when they do, but OTOH, this is the talk page for WP:MoS, not WP:MOS-FR. WT:MoS already has 97 archives. Searching talk archives is already pretty hard, we don't need to make it harder by putting stuff on the wrong talk pages. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I removed the unfortunate/incorrect/POV "Franco-English" line on WP:MOS-FR. The issue of consensus on French titles remains however.

There is no problem when using the English spelling of the titles with an "of" (Duke of..., Count of...) for those people known by their English forms... although one could imagine an infinite discussion about capitalization and the use of "of" in those titles (Pulling a book from a shelf: Capetian France 987-1328 by Elizabeth M. Hallam (London & New York: Longman, 1980. ISBN 0-582-48910-5) uses the lowercase "count of" and "duke of" throughout. I notice that Britannica online [ http://www.britannica.com/] appears to use lowercase and "de": "duke de", "count de" and "prince de").

The difficulty for French language titles on the English wiki: should contemporary French usage and the TCMOS be taken as guides? I am not sure that assuming "that after the change certain English-speaking academics jumped on the band wagon to enhance their academic credentials. Academics are constantly trying to re-invent history in order to attract publishers and gain tenure" is an effective way at arriving at consensus. English language usage is chaotic. A respected introduction on modern French history -- Gordon Wright's France in Modern Times (New York & London: Norton, 1987 ISBN0-393-95582-6) -- uses Duc d'Orléans, Duc de Broglie, Comte de Paris and Comte de Chambord. A respected overview of French literature -- Denis Hollier (ed) A New History of French Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1989. ISBN 0-674-61565-4) -- uses "marquis de", "prince de", "duc de".

The word "consensus" is key. The above discussion is an obvious example of why establishing a consensus and following a manual of style is helpful, if only to avoid losing oneself in endless discussion (or worse, edit wars) so that one may go back to writing/editing articles. NYArtsnWords (talk) 02:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

In addition to the five books I have already listed, here is a sampling of books printed in English of French royalty or nobility that capitalizes French titles:
  • Irene Mahoney, Royal Cousin, The Life of Henri IV of France, Doubleday, 1970;
  • Peter Quennell, Memoirs of the Comte de Gramont, George Routledge & Sons, 1930;
  • Hester W. Chapman, Privileged Persons, Four Seventeenth-Century Studies, Ebenezer Baylis and Son, 1966;
  • Bryan Bevan, The Duchess Hortense, Cardinal Mazarin's Wanton Niece, The Rubicon Press, 1987;
  • W.H. Lewis, The Sunset of the Splendid Century, William Sloane Associates, 1955;
  • W.H. Lewis, Assault on Olympus, The Rise of the House of Gramont, Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1958;
  • Joan Sanders, La Petite, The Life of Louise de la Vallière, Houghton Mifflin, 1959;
  • Lisa Hilton, Athénaïs, The Real Queen of France, Little Brown and Company, 2002;
  • Frances Mossiker, The Affair of the Poisons, Alfred A. Knopf, 1969;
  • J. Christopher Herold, Love in Five Temperaments, Atheneum, 1961;
  • Lucy Norton, First Lady of Versailles, J.B. Lippincott Company, 1978;
  • Maria Kroll, Letters from Liselotte, The McCall Publishing Company, 1971;
  • Nicholas Henderson, Prince Eugen of Savoy, Frederick A. Praeger, 1964;
  • Jack Richtman, Adrienne Lecouvreur, Prentice Hall, 1971;
  • Nancy Mitford, Madame de Pompadour, Harper & Row, 1968;
  • Stanley Loomis, Du Barry, A Biography, J.B. Lippincott, 1959;
  • Philip Mansel, Prince of Europe, The Life of Charles-Joseph de Ligne, Phoenix, 2003;
  • John Hardeman, Louis XVI, Yale University Press, 1993;
  • André Castelot (translated by Denise Folliot), Queen of France, Harper & Brothers, 1957;
  • Frances Mossiker, The Queen's Necklace, Simon and Schuster, 1961;
  • Alice Curtis Desmond, Marie Antoinette's Daughter, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1967;
  • Philip Mansel, Louis XVIII, Blond & Briggs, 1981;
  • Cynthia Cox, Tallyrand's Successor, Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis, Duc de Richelieu 1766-1822, Arthur Barker, Ltd., 1959;
  • Marvin L. Brown, The Comte de Chambord, The Third Republic's Uncompromising King, Duke University Press, 1967.
Why have I listed so many? To show that the capitalization of French titles occurs in many, many English-language books up to the present day. Regardless of the argument about how the French court used capitalization, why should Wikipedia institute a policy that is not inclusive of a lot of the books that are the best way that the average English-speaker can gain information on French royalty? In addition, I think the case of the American translation of Castelot's book on Marie Antoinette is very instructive, regardless of what style Castelot actually used in his original French edition (which I haven't seen), the determination was made that the spelling should use capitalization for the titles in English. BoBo (talk) 03:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I love that the American Library Association review on Amazon of the Lisa Hilton book you mention uses the lowercase "marquise de Montespan". Like I said above, English language usage IS chaotic. There has never been any question that it isn't. If it wasn't chaotic, there would be no need for discussion of consensus. That is why a manual of style consensus is helpful, so that people don't edit war minor issues of capitalization forever. Without Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles), things would be far more chaotic and one would never find anything. WP:LAME, mentioned in the comment above, is, despite its humor, a record of a lot of time spent on nothing. NYArtsnWords (talk) 04:23, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Basically, I agree with you, NYArtsnWords, that English usage can be chaotic. But, with historical evidence to support its use by the French court itself, I think that the capitalization of French titles should not be banned from use on English-language Wikipedia. French Wikipedia can do what they want. That is a separate issue. BoBo (talk) 04:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
How do we deal with inconsistencies, BoBo? Do we have articles on Henri, comte de Chambord or Henri, Comte de Chambord? Charles 04:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Charles, I think you are essentially asking a software question. Why do names of articles need to be case sensitive? If they weren't, either method of capitalization could be used. BoBo (talk) 04:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, the article names usually reflect what the subjects are called. If it matters to you and others what the content within the article is, what should the articles themselves be called? If you want to use "Duc" in an article, shouldn't the holder of that title have the article title using "Duc" as well, and not "duc"? What is to prevent someone from an edit war either way if we don't have a style guide? In Chambord's case, one is a redirect to the other, they aren't the same page technically because the caps do matter. Charles 05:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
From earlier in the conversation, "I agree with DCGeist. The standand needs to be rewritten to allow both forms of capitalization with the qualification that modern French usage is different from the usage in the 17th and 18th centuries. Articles about pre-1830 French individuals probably should use capitalization and post-1830 individuals should not. The 1830 date is somewhat arbitrary in the sense that I don't actually know the date when the lower-case usage became commonplace. All I know at this point is that the senior line of the House of Bourbon used capitalization in their titles all the way up to King Charles X of France, who was deposed in 1830." BoBo (talk) 05:12, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Just to be clear, my primary concern has been that the facts be represented properly and as wide a range of evidence be adduced as possible. And I greatly admire the effort you've taken to do just that. However, the refined distinction you propose—capitalizing the titles of nobles who assumed their titles before 1830, lowercasing the titles of those who assumed their titles afterward—despite its historical grounding, is an odd sort of distinction to make in a style manual. Manuals of style tend not to call for different styles depending on the age of the item described and the style most prevalent at that point in history. That said, style manuals do sometimes call for fine distinctions based on nuances that are arguably analogous, and your well-evidenced argument is certainly not unreasonable.
Coming at this largely from the outside, I find the argument for applying the lowercase style in all cases stronger because (a) it agrees with preferred present-day French usage, (b) it parallels preferred present-day English usage, and (c) in applying one style generally it will improve consistency in a readily apparent manner (thus increasing the average reader's appreciation of our pursuit of professional-level quality) and decrease case-by-case arguments (thus making the average editor's life easier). Best, Dan.—DCGeist (talk) 05:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
I want to clarify something, I too want Wikipedia to display professional-quality information. That is why I am introducing the idea that Wikipedia try not to discriminate against historically accurate presentations of French capitalization. By dividing the capitalization issue by date (1830?), I don't think the job of an editor will be made any more difficult. It seems easy to say different sets of rules apply pre and post a certain date. Any debate can be referenced to the date of the creation of the title or the date a person was born. In fact, there is already an article in development that lists the dates of the creation of certain titles, List of French peerages. BoBo (talk) 05:49, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Indeed, there is no doubt that your proposal is just as amenable to professional-quality presentation as the alternative. That's why I carefully worded my version of the case for that alternative—"readily apparent", "average reader's appreciation." In this regard, I'm saying, the case does hinge on the matter of perception: Would the average reader recognize the logic behind the system you propose? It seems most unlikely, in the absence of explanatory sidebars that would be inappropriate. I'm afraid the average reader would be more likely to perceive simple inconsistency.—DCGeist (talk) 06:09, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
The problem is I can't think of any professional-quality publication that makes such a differentiation between titles on the basis of date. Historically accurate is fine if you are reproducing a manuscript but in conveying information itself there is nothing gained by using a capital letter unless it is from a direct quote. It also seems easy to simply use the lower case letter across the board as is now down in French. Why do we have to create an even more artificial distinction? Again, we don't pick and choose the style of language we use based on date when writing article. I don't need to mention the "kynge" example again, I hope :-s Charles 06:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Naturellement, André Castelot uses lower case for titles in French, as do other French historians such as, Michel Antoine, Jean Castarède, Philippe Erlanger, Paul & Pierrette Girault de Coursac, Évelyne Lever, Jean-Christian Petitfils, Étienne Taillemine, Jean Tulard, Pierre Verlet, Jean de Viguerie, just to name a few. It irks me to have men & women of such erudition be given the epithet of "revisionists" just because they do not capitalize le roi de France or la comtesse du Trou. A question: if we are to use 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th century up to 1830 (why 1830? why not 1848 or 1870?) French Court's way of address, why is "Lis" in the article on the Fleur de Lis in English Wikipedia written with an "i" instead of a "y" since the "Fleur de lys" was the symbol of the French monarchy? Following this logic, when describing how Louis XVI was acclaimed before becoming unpopular (by the way, not by all his subjects), we should not write in French "Vive le Roi!" but "Vive le Roy!" On the other hand, if we want to stay so obtuse as to refuse the evolution of a language, why bother writing about anything outside the Anglo world? And why not pick a fight on the use in the same article of words being spelled the English way while others are spelled the American way? What is the proper English of English wiki? English? American? Australian? Canadian? Talk about inconsistencies! Frania W. (talk) 06:36, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I entirely agree. But Père Anselme was by far the most respected and authoritative royal genealogist-biographer-historian during the reign of Louis XIV on the subject of titles appearing in print. In the third edition (1726, first edition 1692 -- exactly the same on this matter) Père Anselme's "Histoire Généalogique et Chronologique de la Maison Royale de France, des Pairs, Grands Officiers de la Couronne & de la Maison du Roy", page 154, the entry on the Sun King begins, "Louis XIV. du nom, roy de France & de Navarre, surnommé le Grand...". Titles are not capitalised in Anselme's published works, though he may well have capitalised them in private correspondence -- especially to royalty. His style is typical of information printed in media intended for a wider audience than one's personal correspondent. Whatever variation one may find in post 19th century popular biographers in English, or in princesses writing letters, an encyclopedia strives for accuracy, authenticity and professionalism in the printed word -- not in penmanship. Most 17th, 18th and 19th century works I have seen lower-case French titles when the words are not translated into English. Foreign titles are notoriously mangled by writers of popular history in English. That is understandable: such works are character- and content-driven. But people turn to an encyclopedia for clarity and accuracy in both form and content, and should not leave misinformed or bewildered. Wikipedia may encourage anarchy in choices of subject matter, and even in length of articles. But "individual expression" in the rules of grammar, format, and presentation within articles simply say that we are unprofessional, i.e., undisciplined, unsure, and unreliable. Adopting standards isn't saying that any other usage is wrong, but that readers can count on Wikipedia to handle similar things similarly from article to article. Of course, that assumes that people don't game the system by creating forbidden forks, as has been done with a French royal title in Prince du sang and Prince du Sang -- which have recently been made to direct the reader (needlessly) to different articles. FactStraight (talk) 10:46, 21 April 2008 (UTC):
I think it is interesting to watch the evolution in the argument of the people wedded to the lower-case scenario. First, the MOS directly stated in an absolutist manner that using capitals was incorrect as if only morons would use it. Now that it has been established as a historical fact, they have switched carts to the argument that it would lead to inconsistencies. I am more persuaded by that argument than the ones they previously used, but I dislike the elitist, academic aspect of the the argument that "only the best" academic works use the lower case system, completely overlooking the multitude of English-language books that I have listed as if they were "populist" drivel. I would not be opposed to still using the lower case system IF the MOS was further rewritten to show that there is quite a valid case for using capitals both historically and in popular literature, but that Wikipedia has chosen not to use capitals for consistency purposes - not for educational, academic and/or professional reasons. In addition, I think the forms of address - Monsieur le Prince or Madame la Duchesse - should remain in capitals because they do refer to specific people, while the generic titles of prince or duc when used in reference to any holder of that title remain lower case. BoBo (talk) 11:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
  • It's a rather long section title, and my watchlist is about to capsize with repetitions of it. TONY (talk) 14:30, 21 April 2008 (UTC)


While upper case vs lower case may be a vital case, I believe there is something more important in the writing of Wikipedia articles: balance within the article. For instance, why does the section "Family life" in the article on Louis XVI of France go on for over 30 lines (1/6th of the article) on the difficulty L.XVI & MA had consumating their marriage (American obsession with sex?), but says next to nothing on the accomplishments of Louis XVI? Hardly a word on the scientific projects, nothing on the creation of the meter, the decimal system, the reason for the creation of the guillotine, the abolition of torture - the list is long... Here is the fr:wiki link to Louis XVI (and I do not mean to imply that articles are better in the French wikipedia, but in this case, yes). http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVI_de_France
What I am trying to say is that here we are discussing a long-ago-dead-way-of-address in the French language for which we are incapable of giving the closing date, but are not addressing the real issue when writing an article: the truth.
As for the "elitist" vs "populist" approach, it seems to me that the "elitist" would be characterized by the use of Louis XIV's court manner of speech, while the "populist" would be the toned-down modern French. Frania W. (talk) 15:01, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Frania, while I understand your problem and sympathize, your complaint is easily taken care of. All you have to do is translate the parts of the French Wikipedia article you want to use and incorporate them into the Louis XVI article with proper sourcing (by the way, it has been my experience that many of the royalty articles in French Wikipedia aren't sourced at all). My problem is a little different. I have provided sourcing and there are still people who, although they can't deny its historical truth, don't want to deal with it. As long as you source your claims, you can incorporate what you want, I can't.
As far as your "elitist" statement goes, "elitism" is when one small group tries to enforce their cultural will upon a much larger group. You would be valid in the claim that the courtly manner of speech characteristic of Louis XIV's reign was "elitist" in comparison to the mass of French commoners at the time, but you would be incorrect to say that its use in modern English literature is "elitist". I have provided a variety of sources to prove that many popular English-language biographies use the capital case. It is not a minority over the majority scenario. It is not a dead issue either, I have provided the names of six books printed since 2000 that use capitals. If what you said was true, then there should be no popularly printed books in English that use capitals with French titles BoBo (talk) 21:39, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Might I suggest the following revision of the present MOS:

Noble titles

Main article: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles)
There is currently no standard convention for French noble titles and present-day English usage varies greatly. In Wikipedia articles, French noble titles are currently listed in two different ways:
  • in English translation (Duke of, Count of...) for historical figures and royalty most well-known by their English forms.
  • in French for other cases, maintaining the French title spelling (seigneur, chevalier, marquis, duc, comte) and the de.
Furthermore, in the second case—French titles in French form—capitalization is currently chaotic: The consensus is that in order to prevent spelling inconsistencies within a single article or between different articles that the lowercase spelling be used.
The exception to this rule involves the style and form of address associated with the rank of specific members of the House of Bourbon. Certain members of the French royal family, the Fils de France, and their cousins, the princes and princesses du sang, were accorded a particular form of address. For example, Louis d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans was known at court as Monsieur le Prince because he was the First Prince of the Blood. His form of address should not be in lowercase (i.e. Monsieur le prince) because the style referred exclusively to him and no other royal or noble at the time.

BoBo (talk) 22:14, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I’m not sure there’s much purpose to illustrating within a style guide all the inconsistencies in usage in either language; moreover, the result is confusing. I would recommend keeping it very simple, and it would seem to me that there are two main issues to resolve (keeping in mind that this is the English Wikipedia):
  • First, is it satisfactory to require more than that usage should be consistent only within each individual article?
  • Second, if uniformity is preferred, should French titles be left in French or translated into their English equivalent spellings? (In the latter case, where there is no equivalent, the French spelling would be used; however, “of” would still replace “de”.)
I would further recommend that for consistency and simplicity, capitalization of French titles (translated or not) should follow the MOS practice for English titles. Askari Mark (Talk) 00:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Vidame of (a French title) and the like simply do not work. Also, some people are rarely referred to by translated titles, such as the marquis de Sade (Marquess/Margrave of Sade?). Applying English practices to French titles is stylistically incorrect and also shows a lack of care. I would keep the MOS simple and state that French titles appended to the end of a person's name are either in the form X, Count of Y where English usage is appropriate (I would say mostly for members of the French royal house) or in the form X, comte de Y. Standalone styles without designations may be in the form M. le Comte but otherwise it is just comte (we say "the princess" in English as well, generally not "the Princess"). Charles 00:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Bobo - the use of "forms of address" seems to me to be a minor point; I doubt that any editor will use "Monsieur le Prince" in any place in an article other than in a subsection on, specifically, forms of address. Nevertheless, I see no reason why, if you want to add information on the pages of French nobles about how they were traditionally addressed, you shouldn't use the period capitalization if you reference it and put it in quotes. You might also consult Appellations des princes du sang on the French wiki.
I also strongly recommend that this discussion be copied to the MOS-FR talk page, as it may be useful to understand the conventions.- NYArtsnWords (talk) 01:28, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
"Forms of address" are relevant here because some who like to edit historical biographies are prone to maximize use of both titles and foreign phrases. We have gradually ratcheted down the number of WP bios with paragraphs begining "His Royal Highness The Prince George of Camelot, Duke of Cambridge, said...". But some would like to do the French equivalent, "The Fils de France inherited a château with a cour d'honneur..." or "Madame la Princesse was handed the cordon bleu by her dame d'atour..." This preciousness must be resisted, not only because it's bad writing, but because if we who care about contextualized usage of historical titulature don't ration it, we're inviting a backlash from deletists with vacuum cleaners and attitude to move in and dumb everything down. FactStraight (talk) 07:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
  • The discussion should be referenced, but not copied, or it will develop two continuations. I think consistency within articles should be mandated, but otherwise, as in so many areas, either style allowed, since both are clearly used in English WP:RSs. Isn't it that simple? Johnbod (talk) 01:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes it is acceptable to set a standard for usage of the same foreign terms in all articles. Conceptually, encyclopedias seek to organize information in a way that shows as well as tells how that information is typically used. Pragmatically, if we don't set a standard each article's content becomes a battleground over trivial personal preferences. Some readers expect guidance from an encyclopedia concerning appropriate usage. Others, seeing none, assume the right to substitute their personal preference (Prince du Sang) for someone else's (prince du sang) every time they encounter it. This is inherently unstable. Others shouldn't have to spend so much time and energy over this issue. They can only be spared if we adopt a consensus on usage. FactStraight (talk) 07:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
And consistency within individual articles overrides any particular rulings on how to write French names and titles; the style has to apply to all titles in an article, English, French, German, or whatever. So if we say "Henry, Prince of Wales", we say "Henry, Prince of Condé" (or "Henri, Prince de Condé"). If we say "Henry, prince of Wales", we say "Henry, prince of Condé" (or "Henri, prince de Condé"), etc. (Whether we use French or English versions of French names and titles is a matter of choice but should be as consistent as possible within articles, though it's rarely perfectly possible.) There's not one rule for the names and titles of French people and another for the rest of the world. 01:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Johnbod (talk) 02:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Disagree. The consistency is in applying the proper forms for a title in the language in which is it written. We would never speak of a "fürst" (it requires a capital letter), why would we use "Prince de"? Charles 02:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Disagree. French is different from German or Farsi: English readers are historically much more accustomed to seeing Henri, duc de Guise than "Heinrich, Herzog zu Braunschweig" as an untranslated term amidst English prose, if only because past English encyclopedias treated French as a lingua franca. Titles in the other Latin languages are less decipherable for averagely-educated English readers, and those in other languages entirely undecipherable. I understood that we were discussing only how French titles and styles are to be used. FactStraight (talk) 07:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I’m not sure I agree, Charles. The gist of the foregoing discussion is that there exists no consistent standard in either French or English “translation”, so I don’t know how one approach can be said to be “stylistically incorrect and also shows a lack of care” with respect to another. Where is there a respected style guide that holds extensive consensus on the issue. Furthermore, translation of foreign-language titles into English has precedent on Wikipedia (cf. WikiProject Germany). As for the Marquis de Sade (which I have hardly ever seen rendered “marquis de Sade” in English), a formula can be included in the MOS to cover such “well-known exceptions”. Personally, I’m agnostic about whether titles are translated or not, or capitalized or not, but I’d prefer simplicity (for the sake of non-specialist editors) and consistency (for its own sake – and since it’s jarring to the reader to click on a link only to be taken to a page that employs a quite different approach). To me, this is “stylistically correct and demonstrative of care”. Askari Mark (Talk) 02:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
We can't apply English standards flatout to a language which isn't English. German is a little different than French with translation (although we never speak of the "Herzog of Anhalt"). French seems to go untranslated for any number of reasons (I personally think it is because it was the language of diplomacy) but German is usually translated or left in the full German. I still think that simplicity is to treat English titles as they are in English and French titles as they are in French (and have been used in English, which is not consistent). Simply replacing "de" with "of" and using the French titles still (capitalized, nonetheless) is tantamount to misleading readers, in my opinion. No Ducs of Berry or Comtes of Brissac for me. Charles 04:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Charles, you and BoBo are at either extreme on this issue, but I suggest that the best place to be is in the middle. Wikipedia cannot enforce a single style when one doesn't exist in the real world. Although I have stated my preference for lower case, some books undoubtedly use upper. For example, my copy of Jean & François Clouet, by Etienne Jollet, published by Editions de Lagune, Paris, uses the form "Prince de" that you object to. All titles are rendered in the same way: Diane de Poitiers, Duchesse de Valentinois; Claude Goffier, Sire de Boisy; François de Vendôme, Vidame de Chartres, etc.
All we can do on Wikipedia is try to be consistent within individual articles, respecting the style that is used already, if there is one. One will never be totally consistent: do we ever want to say Catherine of Medici, for example? Or Anthony of Bourbon? Certain nonsenses are inevitable—but we can take consolation from the fact that this is also true in published books, where, for example, Catherine de' Medici has one son called Francis and another called François. qp10qp (talk) 03:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
The French Academy though is the only body which governs French usage. If we favour consistency if it all possible why wouldn't we look toward what is used in French if England is all over the place? I'm not particularly concerned with the particule at the moment, we aren't discussing names themselves. This is about titles. Should we reproduce inconsistencies? Charles 04:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
As I have said before, I am against any reference to the Académie française and the its accepted version of "correct" usage. This debate should not be about how modern people in France capitalize. It should be solely about how modern English articles are written that incorporate past forms of French titles and styles. To incorporate modern French usage, as I have said before, conflates two separate issues that should in my opinion be delinked. BoBo (talk) 10:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I reject that in its entirety. We are not writing FOR the past but ABOUT the past. We don't have to abide by past "rules" which weren't rules at all. To separate the issues only misleads and serves to confuse others in this discussion. Charles 11:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I'll support a short-and-simple version of BoBo's revision: "While present-day English and past French usage vary, for the sake of consistency, articles with French titles and styles should use the lowercase." FactStraight (talk) 07:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I want to make sure you realize, FactStraight, that I only suggested my revision in order to allow consistency within a single article or between different articles. If the consensus is that such consistency is only necessary within a single article, I would prefer not enforcing any capitalization rule across the range of English Wikipedia articles on French royalty and nobility because I do not think the lowercase system is historically accurate in all cases within the pre-1830 time frame we have been discussing. BoBo (talk) 10:04, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
It is accurate today though according to the French academy. We aren't writing in English of the time either. Spellings change but we are still conveying the same information. You speak as if every single title was either written one way or the other. I imagine plenty were written both ways. Charles 11:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Charles: not only in the past "every single title was either written one way or the other", but even family names had different spellings. The name of Charles Claude Flahaut de La Billarderie, comte d'Angiviller comes to my mind, where in the 17th & 18th centuries, "Angiviller" could be Angeviller, Angiviller, Angevillier, Angivillier, Angevilliers, Angivilliers. Other examples of the variations on spelling of family names in the 17th & 18th centuries: d'Angenne/d'Angennes; de Montausier/de Montauzier, André Le Nostre/Le Nôtre, François Mansard/Mansart.
RE the translation of "de" into "of": instead of Charles de Gaulle, shouldn't we write Charles of Gaulle? Mon Dieu! Frania W. (talk) 15:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Frania, I must respectfully disagree with you on the idea that inconsistent French spelling in the past somehow impacts a discussion of the capitalization of older French titles and styles in modern English. You are making reference to the spelling of the names of the appanages that were used in the creation of the titles, not the titles themselves. As far as I can tell, the actual spelling of the titles prince, princesse, duc, duchesse, comte, comtesse, etc. has not varied in the last 400 years, but the capitalization has. It doesn't make any difference if the spelling of the name Berry in Duc de Berry has changed over time because the debate is not about the capitalization of the word Berry, but is rather about the capitalization of the word Duc, which has not changed spelling during the same time frame. BoBo (talk) 21:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
BoBo, this is the second time you try to "trip me" on what I wrote: The first time was on my "elitist" vs "populist" comment which I made in jest because I found hilarious that the "elitists" were now "populists" and vice versa. However, you seemed not to have caught l'esprit of my words and, instead, went on a long classroom style (yawn) explanation of the word "elitism/elitist". Thank you. However, a patronizing attitude is not sought after in the world of Wikipedia. And, probably unbeknownst to you, I could spell & explain to you the word "elitist" in quite a few languages. The point I was making, which prompted your last tongue-lashing, was in answer to the comment Charles made about the changes in spelling. By the way, in the 15th century, "comte" used to be spelled "conte". I have under my eyes a text from original early 15th century (reproduced in typing by the Sorbonne) in which you can see the chaotic spelling in French writing, which did not stop at the close of that century, and was still reigning at the time of Louis XIV. One of the reasons the Académie française was created was to put down some rules for the "literate" French (a tiny percentage of the population of France at the time of Louis XIV) who took quite a bit of liberty with spelling and did not give much of a hoot about grammar. Following, and courtesy of the Sorbonne, are excerpts from the Chronique 1407-1424 http://elec.enc.sorbonne.fr/morchesne/chapitre21/#453note:
Celle annee, la veille de Saint Clement, fut tué a Paris le duc d’Orleans Loys, frere germain du roy.
L’an mil CCCC VIII fut la bataille du Liege de Jehan duc de Bourgongne et de l’evesque du Liege contre les Liejois.
Celle annee trespassa madame d’Orleans, la femme dudit feu duc Loys d’Orleans.
Item le roy party de Paris pour aler a Tours et au retour en mars fut fait le traictié de Chartres sur la mort dudit feu duc d’Orleans entre Charles duc d’Orleans, les contes de Vertus et d’Angolesme, ses enfans, et le duc de Bourgongne Jehan.
Mil CCCC et IX. Montagu, le grant maistre d’ostel du roy, fut decapité a Paris.
Mil CCCC X. Jehan, premier duc de Berry, le duc et les enfans d’Orleans, le duc de Bourbon, le conte d’Alençon, le conte d’Armaignac et le conte de Richemont et autres furent a grant compaignie a Vicestre452 ; depuis poursuirent le duc de Bourgongne jusques a Mondidier, puis s’en retournerent a Saint Denis et a Saint Cloud pres Paris, et fut la bataille de Saint Cloud.
Mil CCCC et XI. Le siege fut miz a Estampes par Loys duc de Guienne, daulphin de Viennoiz, et par le duc de Bourgongne et les gens du roy ; et furent prins le conte de la Marche et autres au Puiset en Beausse par ceulx de la partie d’Orleans.
Frania W. (talk) 23:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Frania, I am sorry you feel I am trying to "trip" you. All I have been trying to do is "narrow" the context of this debate so that it doesn't go off into a million different directions. Although I am impressed with your research, I would like to point out that from the beginning I have restricted my conversation to the reign of the House of Bourbon from 1589 to 1830, primarily because my main concern has always been the titles and styles during that period. I carefully phrased the heading to this section using the phrase, "from 1589 to 1830," because of my interest in the courts of Louis XIV through Charles X. I even specifically restricted the time frame in my last comment to 400 years to ensure the accuracy of my statement. I respect your erudition, but please do not try to pull this debate into the 1400's, a time period I have not commented on. Your "slippery slope" technique only serves to distort and not address my two main points: 1) The actual capitalization of French titles and styles during the Bourbon period, and 2) its acceptable use in modern English literature. BoBo (talk) 01:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Why should we make that distinction and be constrained by limits which you seek to impose? You cannot restrict conversation in such a way. Should I say please do not comment to restrict this to such a specific time frame? Really now, you are making things more complicated than they have to be and it is getting tiresome. My interest, and Frania's, and many others', is to find a solution for all French titles. I'm sorry if you do not share that POV but we are not going to be limited by the whims of a single user. Charles 02:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
BoBo, I knew when I threw in the 15th century Chronique, that you would bring up the 1589-1830 span of time & I almost added a paragraph to this effect but judged my comment long enough as it was. The voyage into the 15th century was not meant to be a “slippery slope” but an interesting illustration of the evolution of the French language from that time until the end of the 16th century. I am pretty sure that if I had the time I could find a few texts dating back to Henry/Henri IV whose language & court manners were a far cry from those of his grandson Louis XIV. I understand very well your two main points & your tough fighting to have your view implemented, but I happen not to agree with you & I believe that my points are as valid as yours. The 1589-1830 period you chose is leakage free at either end. There was much left over from the two centuries before the reign of Henri IV that could still be found during the reign of Louis XV & beyond.
If you change the rules of Wikipedia for that period, how are you going to enforce them? Do you know how many read wiki rules & regulations before editing a sentence, specially when they see what they know to be a mistake, even if it is not one, according to your point of view? If all of us here reach a consensus, and you go ahead with the changes you want to make, do you think that a non-initié walking into a Bourbon article is going to abide by the new ruling? He or she is going to make the change to what he or she thinks is correct & you’ll revert, and so on until someone brings up the subject again & starts the very same discussion as if this one never happened. It is hard for me to imagine a ruling just for one period. I see it as “burdening the beast”. Frania W. (talk) 03:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
P.S. In the article on Ancient Rome, are the numbers written in Roman numerals because that is the way the Romans wrote?
Frania, I basically have promoted the idea that there should be no "capitalization police". It is due to the shortcomings of the software that Charles earlier pointed out that has forced this awkward situation where a standard needs to be put into place to guarantee consistency in a single article and consistency between articles, although it seems that there are editors out there who feel only consistency within a single article is necessary. If there were no "capitalization police", the edit wars you describe probably wouldn't happen.
I would like to address another issue at this point which I realize might seem a digression. I realize from your comments about the Marie Antoinette article and your exchanges with Charles that you hold Antonia Fraser in low regard. I hope that you are not so opposed to my line of reasoning because Fraser promotes the same use of capitalization that I do in her writing. I merely have sought to use her books as proof that there is no established, standard way of translating the capitalization of French titles and styles into modern written English. I have made no comments about her quality as a historian. I have provided many examples of other biographies of French royalty written in English that support the use of capitalization I do, independent of Antonia Fraser. BoBo (talk) 04:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I did not point out "software shortcomings". That is what you call them. Do not mislead people into believing I said that. Don't put people down by calling them "capitalization police" if you do not want to easily be put down yourself. I speak for myself, but also imagine Frania feels the same, in saying that your POV isn't so important that we would use Fraser to nullify it, the opposition is in that you are proposing a bizarre, asymmetric and at times nonsensical way of dealing with capital letters. What about examples that can be found both with caps and without them? Do you deny the sources do not exist "countering" almost each and every example you provided using caps which do not use caps? Charles 06:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
First, Charles, let me quote an earlier exchange in the conversation:
"Charles, I think you are essentially asking a software question. Why do names of articles need to be case sensitive? If they weren't, either method of capitalization could be used. BoBo (talk) 04:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)"
"Well, the article names usually reflect what the subjects are called. If it matters to you and others what the content within the article is, what should the articles themselves be called? If you want to use "Duc" in an article, shouldn't the holder of that title have the article title using "Duc" as well, and not "duc"? What is to prevent someone from an edit war either way if we don't have a style guide? In Chambord's case, one is a redirect to the other, they aren't the same page technically because the caps do matter. Charles 05:06, 21 April 2008 (UTC)"
You specifically bring up a software issue to prove your point that consistency is needed, because,"in Chambord's case, one is a redirect to the other, they aren't the same page technically because the caps do matter."
Second, your statements are growing increasingly hysterical for no good reason. By saying, "you are proposing a bizarre, asymmetric and at times nonsensical way of dealing with capital letters," when I have shown 1) the method of capitalization I propose was indeed used by members of more than one Bourbon court, and 2) it is used in many modern English books on French royalty and nobility seems to me to point to a logical inconsistency on your part and not mine. Any possible revisions to the current Wikipedia policy I have suggested have been my attempts to compromise with your clearly held belief that somehow modern French usage, which Qp10qp proves with his Clouet example is itself inconsistent, should reign supreme in English-language translation. As I have said before, your only argument so far that I think has any validity is the consistency one.
Third, you needn't jump so quickly to Frania's defense. She comes across as a highly intelligent person who is perfectly capable of explaining her own position on Antonia Fraser and how modern English has no set of capitalization rules concerning French titles and styles like modern French does.
Fourth, you are bordering on ad hominem attack, and I would suggest your future responses not be so derogatory. BoBo (talk) 10:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's a software issue, I just think you have issues with it. You have not shown that each individual only used one system of capitalization. Everything else you say, including what you say about Frania, to me is an attempt to sidestep around the issue and discredit others. This conversation (the one on one bit with you) is over because as far as I am concerned. You gloss over or entirely ignore the fact that the capitalization you are proposing itself was never consistently used. If you imagine at all that it is somehow "better" I'd like to see some real, worthwhile evidence. Ignoring the use of lowercase letters doesn't make them go away, for all of your quoted Fraser material and the like. That being said, the only reasonable policy would be to pick a side and endorse it (preferably the lowercase because it is the only thing that has anything said for it) for the sake of avoiding issues like capitalizing a letter. Charles 11:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
The tone is rising, not good in such a discussion & will take us nowhere. In my opinion, phrases like "your statements are growing increasingly hysterical" (from the Greek word for uterus, hystera) are out of place, and more so when addressed to a man. Frania W. (talk) 13:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)


←Okay guys. We don't want people taking WP:MoS off their watchlist because of long off-topic conversations. This stuff is relevant to Use English and WT:MOS-FR, and maybe some of the past discussions there will be helpful. You won't bring additional eyeballs or points of view into the discussion by continuing to discuss it here; in fact, the longer this gets, the less likely people are to read it. Like the bartender said, "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here." - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I've created a section: WT:MOS-FR#French titles. Charles 14:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

National varieties of English - right to revert?

A few hours ago, there was quite an edit war on Four-color theorem. My view is that, while Ozone009 (talk · contribs) was in the wrong by starting it, just reverting it may not have been the right course of action.

Looking through the section, the changes don't violate "Consistency within articles" * or "Strong national ties to a topic". Both the original change and the reversion break "Retaining the existing variety" if you take that expression literally - as after Ozone009's alteration, the "existing variety" is changed. That leaves the content of that section, which talks of the variety used by the "first major contributor". This, in turn, sounds to me like a form of WP:OWN.

*It's true that the page's title wasn't changed to match, and that the edits to the references section infringed the "titles" aspect of the policy, but these aspects wasn't addressed in any of the comments.

Here's my opinion. If there's no reason to use a particular variety of English in a particular article, then it shouldn't be changed without good reason. But just changing it back is equally changing it without good reason, and two wrongs don't make a right. So rather than reverting and potentially starting an edit war, a friendly note to the person who changed it should be the first course of action.

Comments? -- Smjg (talk) 14:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem with your view is that it essentially gives a free pass to PoV pushers (and language usage is a continuing source of difficulty here). Why should it be that one person is allowed to push through a change, and (only after that happens) it becomes something that should not occur? It's simple reversion of vandalism. It's not WP:OWN to retain one variety of English in an article, because the purpose of the MOS section cited above is to prevent edit warring over this issue, and the person who makes the first change is the party at fault, not those who revert the change. Horologium (talk) 15:55, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
True up to a point. But in this instance, it seems that the policy is what led to the edit war in the first place. Moreover, it's only reversion of vandalism if the original edit actually was vandalism, as opposed to ignorance or something along those lines. JTAI the policy certainly doesn't prevent edit warring, but it probably does reduce it to some degree. But then again, so would dropping a message to the person who changed it in the first place before reverting. -- Smjg (talk) 12:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I must say I agree with Smjg. It sometimes bears remembering that "preventing edit warring" is not an end in itself, but a means to keep the encyclopedia manageable and improvable. An edit war that moves quicker than the usual pace of improvement for the article swamps the histories and increases the risk that a constructive edit will be lost in collateral reverts. That is why we want to prevent them. However, how does reverting spelling-variant edits as a matter of principle help further the eventual goal?
With automatic reverts, each time somebody who lacks enough of a life to really care which national variant of English a world-wide encyclopedia is written in takes an interest in the article, the edit history grows by at least 2 entries, and possibly some multiple of 2 if he sticks around and decides to have an edit war. If the edit were not reverted, the history grows by only 1 entry, and stays that way until a sucker with the opposite agenda happens to come along. Just leaving it be appears to do the most to eliminate the distractions to constructive editing that should be the ultimate goal.
Sure, we have trouble if two stubborn editors with opposite spelling agenda start to target an article at the same time. But still this will only produce an edit war if both are willing to ignore the policy that says such things are not worth disagreeing about. I fail to see which possible good it can do to arbitrarily declare that one of the parties is entitled to wage his side of the war merely because what he supports happen to be the status quo.
The guideline that spelling-variant edits can/should be summarily reverted means that it only takes one ill-willed party to have an edit war. An alternative guideline saying that such edits should be ignored unless they leave the article in an inconsistent state would mean that a war would need two villains. Thus, wars would be supposed to be rarer. (And instituting a 1RR rule for such edits would be fair game, I think).
But if the first one to ignore the rules gets it his way, then were are we? Better off, I say. The purposes of our procedures are not to punish the wicked, but to prevent them from impeding the construction of the encyclopedia. Sometimes that calls for sanctions, sometimes just for ignoring them. –Henning Makholm 22:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

"First major contributor" is intended as a last resort: what do we do when there has never been a stable consensus? We may need to strengthen this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Then it's editor who makes first disambiguation of the variety who has equivalent status to the "first major contributor", perhaps; the first time a spelling such as "color" is used, which is not pan-anglophone. The use of "litre", for example, might flag Canadian or British or South African English, so it would come down to that person's preference/origin. TONY (talk) 05:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Even though Smjg is referring to a section that is in WP:MOS (and should be), the point seems like pure WT:CONSENSUS and WP:VPP to me: "But just changing it back is equally changing it without good reason". The responses seem to be more focused on policy than on style guidelines, also. Btw, this argument has an amazing ability to keep springing forth from the dead, which probably means that it's a hard issue to resolve. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:15, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
P.S. When the thread first started, I didn't say anything, since it concerns something that really is in WP:MoS. But the problem with saying anything now (like I just did) is that it's hard to try to move the conversation, and it makes it sound like I disapprove of something someone said. And besides, people don't always move off-topic stuff when you ask them to, as we've noticed recently. I think in the future I'm going to go with my gut; if something sounds like it will mostly be about something not style-related, I'm going to offer that opinion, before the conversation becomes hard to clarify (by virtue of being on the wrong page). - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Self identity

The Self identity section says

Use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self-identification) whenever this is possible. Use terms that a person uses for himself or herself, or terms that a group most commonly uses for itself.

I propose we change this to:

Use terminology that the majority of sources use for the subject whenever possible. Use terms that a person uses for himself or herself, or terms that a group most commonly uses for itself when reliable sources conflict with one another.

Any thoughts? Yahel Guhan 00:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

That would be completely contradictory to the point of this entry. Lara❤Love 01:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


I think I get what WP:MoS is saying, but only because I know where it's going; if I didn't know before I read it, then I wouldn't know what it was trying to say. Yahel and Lara, can you elaborate on what you'd like to see? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:15, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
I fully support Yahel's proposal, as being fully consistent with our article naming practice, both in guidelines (see WP:COMMONNAME) and in practice. (We use Hilda Toledano and Perkin Warbeck, although they did not, because most people do. Conversely, we should use Wendy Carlos, because most people do. [written before reading Jason's post below]) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I have inserted Yahel's text, with an added comma before when. This is what we actually do; if people feel we need more to counter the (non-consensus) argument that we must use Walter Carlos because it's the "correct name", we can link to WP:official names. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Conflict with verifiability/reliable sources

According to this guideline, if the subject of an article self-identifies as x, and an overwhelming number of reliable sources identify it as (contradicting/effacing) y, we should use x. This seems in serious tension with WP:V. Either the self-identity section should be altered to state that it trumps V in this instance, or it should be deprecated. There is serious need of clarification here. Skomorokh 01:34, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you're ascribing more weight to "whenever this is possible" than was intended. I believe the intent was to respect the preferences of the subject when they are known, and when doing so doesn't conflict with other overriding Wikipedia policies. So if J. M. Barrie described himself as "Scottish", we shouldn't refer to him as "British" (even though the latter is also factually correct). If Wendy Carlos self-identifies as female, we shouldn't use male pronouns in reference to her (even though some would argue that we should). It does not mean that if Jason A. Quest self-identifies as "African-American" – a claim contradicted by all of his biographers – we should defer to his claim. - JasonAQuest (talk) 02:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Then we should say that. We do not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not quite comfortable with the text and Sept and Tony worked on today, "Where possible, use terminology that a majority of sources use for a person or group. When reliable sources are in conflict, use terms...". If I'm not mistaken, it's trying to infringe on NPOV's territory. We might replace the previous: "Use terminology that subjects use for themselves (self-identification) whenever this is possible. Use terms..." with this: "Disputes over the proper name for a person or group are addressed by policies such as Verifiability and Neutral point of view (and Naming conventions, if the name might appear in an article name). When there is no dispute, use terms...". - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd no more adopt what a subject thinks is the proper national identity than adopt what he thinks is the proper age. Basing on V and RS, we should in a dispute possibly try to explain the subjects own views. W.C. & Barrie are not good analogies because the RW use is almost invariable female, and Scottish, respectively. DGG (talk) 23:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, DGG: this is WP:V and WP:RS territory as well as WP:NPOV, and I just updated my suggested text. I for one welcome our policy-page overlords. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
P.S. Forgot WP:NAME; just added that in. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Military titles

This may be a dumb question, but is there a Wikipedia style for military titles when followed by a name? Is it "Captain Hyman Rickover," or "Capt. Hyman Rickover"? Some style systems abbreviate these when followed by a name. Urzatron (talk) 14:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't see the answer in a quick skim of WP:WikiProject Military history/Style guide, but there are so many links from that page, one of them has got to answer your question. And if not, check with the folks at WP:MILHIST. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Alright, thanks! Wow, that's long. :) Urzatron (talk) 00:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Lead image size

If you look across Wikipedia, including our FA work, the vast majority of decent articles have lead images of a large size (mostly 250px), and forcing thumb size in the lead is the most common exception to that part of the images guideline. As it says in the Images size subsection, such images (I think it specifically refers to infobox images) being less than 300 can cause problems sometimes. Why not put this generally used convention of editing in to the guideline? VanTucky 03:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

What exactly do you want to put into the guideline? Hesperian 04:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Consistance across pages

...but consistency promotes professionalism, simplicity and greater cohesion in Wikipedia articles. An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be applied consistently throughout an article...

I'd like to change part of this to "An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be applied consistently throughout individual articles as well as multiple articles that are closely related". The reason is that there's currently some debate about using comma seperators for large numbers in scientific pages. Once that's settled, they should all either use them or not, to prevent confusion about the data. I believe this type of style requirement to prevent confusion applies to other pages as well. Also, some sections of pages become large enough to have their own article. The reasons why they required the same style when they are part of the original page are the same reasons why they should keep the same style after they have been split off. (I would go as far as to suggest we require ALL pages to have the same style as much as possible and reasonable, but that's a bigger discussion) -- SkyLined (talk) 10:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Anything policy-related should be hashed out on a policy page before we tackle it here. Determining the scope of "consensus" is very much a WP:VPP and WT:CONSENSUS thing; please go a few rounds on one (not both) of those pages, and then let us know when all sides have weighed in so we can have a look. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Using a policy page as a scratchpad to develop a proposal

I have raised a MOS policy about policy changes question at the village pump. Feel free to read it and comment. Lightmouse (talk) 11:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

This is a very good time to go to WP:VPP for this and several related issues, thanks Lightmouse. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Ten-day archiving

Tony and the Duke and I would prefer 10-day archiving by MiszaBot, and MiszaBot did its thing last night. Anyone can feel free to revert if they think that's a bad thing, but we were up to about 400K, and it could have easily been 800K. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Numbers as figures or words

Please remember the major question: should this page go into this for several bullet-points at all, or should we write a general summary here, and leave the details to WP:MOSNUM? I should prefer to be simple here; let's keep that revert war in one place. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:30, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Use of header for heading

Throughout the pages that comprise the MoS, there are scattered uses of the word header as if it were a synonym for heading. A header is text in the upper margin of a page; the word has nothing to do with a section heading in an article. Wikicode and title of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings) use the correct term, and so should the MoS pages, consistently. Finell (Talk) 17:23, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

A wide-spread use in WP, even if it is a misuse. I have no objection to tweaking as Finell proposes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Did some poking around in dictionaries and glossaries, I agree with both of you. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I fully support the change; it will help us at SBS clarify things a little, as we use header for the titled coloured bars in succession boxes. Waltham, The Duke of 00:31, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

A case of confusing pronouns

Here's a rather complicated situation regarding the pronoun(s) to be used for a fictional character, for I would appreciate guidance on interpreting the first two bullets of WP:ID. The character in question is Akito Sohma from the manga Fruits Basket and its anime adaptation. (Please ignore that article's current hideous quality, including a wretched inconsistency with pronouns: I'm preparing to clean it up soon, thus my question.) In the manga, Akito is presented as male for the first half of the series, but turns out to be biologically female and raised to live as man; at the end of the series, as part of letting go other roles he/she has been living, Akito announces that she/he will henceforth live as a woman and is afterward always shown dressed in women's clothing. The anime adaptation covers the first third of the story and was generally faithful to the manga, but was made before the manga reveled Akito's biological sex and, in wrapping up the story early, shows Akito as unambiguously male.

If I understand WP:ID correctly, when discussing the character as portrayed in the manga, Akito should be referred to with female pronouns. What about when discussing the character as portrayed in the anime (such as when describing the differences in adaptation)? What about when discussing the character generically, independent of format? And, possibly most importantly, is there any way to make distinctions clearly enough as to not confuse either readers and editors? (Especially in other articles where Akito is mentioned in passing without reason to explain pronouns.)

For full disclosure, the rule of thumb I've been following in editing other Fruits Basket articles is to use "he" except when discussing Akito after she declares she will live as a woman. Which goes against the word of the guideline, but seemed at the time to invite less confusion. My thanks for any insight others can give. —Quasirandom (talk) 18:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

The first place to look is Wikipedia:Naming conventions (identity), which is (arguably) policy, so that needs to be considered first. (And btw, if anything there looks wrong, tell us, because policy fixes are high priority.) Your next stop would be Wikipedia:Categorization/Gender, race and sexuality. Your third stop would be Wikipedia:Manual of Style (anime- and manga-related articles). Skim the talk pages as well. If none of those answers your question, let us know. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:05, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
The first claims to be a guideline, and it looks like the MOS is echoing the relevant points there. The second, I'm not seeing anything additionally relevant. For the third, having edited that guideline I know it has nothing specific to add and for other questions, it refers back here. I could take discussion to the talk page either there or WikiProject Anime and Manga, but started here since the actual guideline is here. —Quasirandom (talk) 19:17, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
On the first point, the infobox says "This page documents an English Wikipedia naming convention". What's going on there is that this page is an offshoot from WP:Naming conventions via the WP:Summary style process, and you can make a case that text doesn't lose "policy" status just because it got too long for its policy page, but I'm just being pedantic. It's a "naming convention", which is something vaguely more important than a guideline.
Perhaps someone will answer your question here. The WP:GAY folks tend to have encyclopedic (in both senses) knowledge of these things. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah -- hadn't quite realized WP:NCI's a spinout of WP:NC. Thanks. —Quasirandom (talk) 00:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Dash or hyphen?

I'm no style guru, but I can't fully agree with this statement from the MOS:

  • [en dashes are used...] As a substitute for some uses of and, to or versus for marking a relationship involving independent elements in certain compound expressions (Canada–US border, blood–brain barrier, time–altitude graph, 4–3 win in the opening game, male–female ratio, 3–2 majority verdict, Michelson–Morley experiment, diode–transistor logic) [...]

OK, I agree with 4–3 and 3–2, but with the others I find hyphens equally acceptable. Checking with the Chicago Manual it seems they probably prefer hyphens here too (although other style manuals no doubt take different views). Do we really need to make things more difficult for ourselves, when there's no clearly established standard in the outside world? Hyphens are easier both for editors and for users of Search. We could at least allow both styles, like we do with em dashes and spaced en dashes.

And while we're at it, how about this one:

  • Spacing: All disjunctive en dashes are unspaced, except when there is a space within either or both of the items (the New York – Sydney flight; the New Zealand – South Africa grand final; July 3, 1888 – August 18, 1940, but July–August 1940).

Does this look right? Doesn't to me. I came across a neat usage from Chicago: London-Sydney (with a hyphen; see above), but New York–Sydney (use an unspaced en dash when any of the terms contains a space or hyphen). To me, that style would be aesthetically preferable.--Kotniski (talk) 10:56, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Check out /Archive 99#Dashes again (groan). The bottom line is that rules on dashes are slowly changing in modern usage, especially substituting hyphens for en-dashes. (For instance, look at the title bar at the top of your screen, before and after "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia".) But it's a good idea for Wikipedian usage to change slowly, for many reasons, and we've decided to stick with the current usage for now. I have a bet going that eventually some of the en-dashes on Wikipedia are going to wither into hyphens, but that's not the current consensus, and I'm not going to support any change until we look at the issue again next year.
I don't know the answer to your second question. Looks complicated. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:06, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
CMOS ranges from the excellent to the ignorant (in many places they don't even take their own advice). Take no notice of this tripe here about en dashes; they're essential to good writing in English. TONY (talk) 14:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Tripe is a dish best served cold. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with Kotniski on both points, though less so on the second. Before I respond, let me say that the MoS is only a guide, and you don't have to follow it. Others may of course alter your chosen style.
On the first point, I wouldn't say that hyphens are equally acceptable, but then again, they won't do much harm. In handwriting, the en dash and the hyphen are indistinguishable, and in typewriting, a hyphen will do for an en dash. On Wikipedia, though, we should imitate good publishing houses, and as far as I can see, good publishing houses do use the en dash for disjunctive compounds. So I can't find anything wrong with the MoS entry you quote.
On the issue of spaced en dashes for things like "New York – Sydney flight", I'm equivocal. An unspaced en dash is used in such cases in some publications, so it would not be wrong. I strongly believe, however, that when a dash construction looks unwieldy, it is best to redraft to avoid the dash. So, for the above examples, I might write "New York to Sydney flight" and "New Zealand v South Africa grand final". Unfortunately, there is no way round the unspaced en dash for the date range that gives day, month, and year at the beginning of our biographical articles: in the body of the article one can write such ranges out as part of sentences, but at the start they need to be given in the MoS-recommended form in brackets. To use an unspaced en dash in such cases would create miscues like the following: 27 May 1519–23 October 1565. The M0S's advice therefore makes sense to me. qp10qp (talk) 15:30, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, MOS is not just a guideline as long as this "tripe" is enforced at FA. If that were changed, I would still urge that we sensibly acknowledge that there are different ways of writing "and every single one of them is right"; but I would not care whether it was done. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:48, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Just an aside really. The en-dash is needed in Michelson–Morley experiment to make it clear that this involves two people. A nice illustration of this is the Birch–Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture. Geometry guy 19:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Concur, at least for BSD. When there are two links of different force, we should differentiate, although English often does not; but that does not require a general rule when we don't need to distinguish (and, as is pointed out somewhere above, a double dash = is also usable when we do). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • qp, where is this person who uses a typewriter? Do they also have a rotary telephone bell for the lady at the exchange? I need these items for a museum. One of the benefits of an online language-based project is that we can now readily use the formatting and typography that was previously available only to professionals. Like en dashes. PMA is even going to change to a better font/browser, I suspect, that will allow him to see the difference. TONY (talk) 02:38, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
    • No, I am not. It is uncivil of you to suggest it.
    • More to the point, many of our readers cannot. MicroSoft has market dominance, and its software with all of its flaws, is unavoidable for many people.
    • Please retract. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:50, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
      • I'd hoped you were going to take a more measured approach since your hysterical launching of that AN/I hate page aimed at besmirching my role; no success there. Now get a grip on yourself and stop accusing people of incivility, when their comment was meant in a light-hearted/ironic vein. There's nothing to retract, and no place for the unpleasantness you are all too ready to inject into these proceedings. On the substantive issue, Microsoft may be dominant, but we're talking here about browsers and fonts, not platforms. There's plenty to choose from, including the newly released Safari for Windows, which has received good reviews. TONY (talk) 03:09, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
        • If Tony wishes to be understood as ironic, he should learn to use emoticons; but the claim of irony will do as a retraction. As for his rôle: I did nothing but quote his own foul language and bad manners; I am grateful to observe that both have improved recently. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
          • But you knew that I'm just a rude, rustic colonial ... what did you expect? And no, it's not a retraction. TONY (talk) 04:04, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
            • The Great Australian Adjective might be excusable on ethnic grounds; none of the quotes above, however, contain it. Shall I ask whether there is a special colonial exemption from WP:CIVIL? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:11, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

← Ignoring the usual nonsense, I should like to mention that hyphens already enjoy extensive usage in various linguistic constructs, and that I do not find it necessary to further extend this usage, when clarity can be derived from the application of dashes in the other cases. Touching not only on this issue, but also on the much-discussed matter of spaced en dashes versus unspaced em dashes, I say that I like each dash having a role of its own, which not only makes things clearer but justifies each one's continued usage on Wikipedia. With a few exceptions, I have in my mind a rather clear distinction:

  • Hyphens for conjunction
  • En dashes for disjunction
  • Em dashes for interruption

Simple, isn't it? Waltham, The Duke of 10:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for using all three (except that I prefer spaced en dashes to unspaced em dashes, but never mind). However since the boundary between conjunction and disjunction seems rather blurred (what is disjunction anyway?) my preferred distribution would be more like this:
  • hyphens for joining
  • unspaced en dashes for "to" and "thru" (and for joining items containing spaces/hyphens)
  • em dashes (or spaced en dashes) for interruption.

Also simple, and I think more comprehensible to the ordinary writer. The point about Michelson-Morley is a good one though.--Kotniski (talk) 15:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Kotniski, your second option is used by a few publishing houses, but looks gawky to me and others. Scientific American tried it for a while in 2004–05, but I think they dropped it in favour of rewording triple bungers. TONY (talk) 15:25, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't see why we need to prefer a usage at all. All we really need to say is: Be clear and Be consistent within any one article (for the sake of clarity). There are innumerable slightly different ways to use dashes; why bother to distinguish cetween them as long as they are not obscure? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:25, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

My dear fellow, this could easily be tweaked as "Be consistent within an encyclopaedia for even greater clarity". :-) Waltham, The Duke of 00:34, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Your Grace, I must respectfully question your august opinion that consistency across the encyclopedia adds significantly to clarity. Our readers will quickly learn that our conventions do vary from article to article: one article will use semi-cola and asyndeton, another will not; one will use Harvard, another will use footnotes; one will use colour, another color; one AD, another CE. Within the article, a reader will naturally assume that the change from an emdash to an endash and back again must mean something and wonder what; she will quickly see that differences between articles mean only that we are written by divers hands, as indeed we were. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, I do not seriously propose that there should be full standardisation throughout the encyclopaedia, or that it would be as important and helpful as is standardisation within an article (and, to an extent, within a topic). However, although readers will indeed learn that most conventions are not global, some style details—which, even though often seen as relatively unimportant, they form part of the skeleton of text—are better-off standardised, so that the readers may be aided in reading by something they will normally (or at least should) not pay much attention to. In films, the best special effects are usually those which do not attract the attention of the audience. Similarly, good style is supposed to pass unnoticed, ensuring that readers will peruse the articles of their choice without obstructions or distractions; standardisation helps in this respect. Waltham, The Duke of 22:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Initial spacing

This may have already been discussed, but following a discussion at the help desk, there seems to be a consensus that the rules regarding initials (eg. H. G. Wells or H.G. Wells?) needs to be clearer. Do we have a policy on this, and if so, where? If we don't, should we have one? Thanks, PeterSymonds | talk 14:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Translations in first sentence

I have searched extensively on many occasions for a policy on this, and have failed to find one. I am referring to the practice of putting the name of something in its original language in parentheses after the English translation, like, "Some French Guy (French: Un gars français)". Sometimes the {{Lang}} template appears. There are numerous references to this practice, but no guideline as to how it should be done.

If the other language does not use the Latin alphabet, it is common practice to write the name as it would be written by a user of that language, and then give a Romanized version. Usually there is only one language, the original, but sometimes two are appropriate, especially for a person. Sometimes, the different versions of the name are a notable topic, addressed in that article (e.g. Christopher Columbus), as part of a separate list (Vienna), or even in an article devoted wholly to the names of that thing (Istanbul).

As I understand it, the purpose is to give the name in the language of origin. But I have also seen mention of the name in other languages, ones in which the thing is often named. For example, someone recently added the Turkish name of Lesbos, Midilli, while the English name is derived from the Greek. I assume the Turkish name is also used frequently, given the isle's proximity to Turkey. Is this appropriate?

If I am correct in believing that there is no policy page, I suggest that we create one.

MagnesianPhoenix (talk) 21:04, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

If we do write a page, perhaps that awful Lang template can be discouraged, since there's no need to WP:OVERLINK a common word/term like French language. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:48, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
The purpose of the Lang template is a common format for all languages. At what point is the name of a language uncommon enough that it should be linked? Should the continuum of commonality be encoded in the Lang template so only the uncommon languages are linked? -- SEWilco (talk) 17:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
The template itself isn't the issue; it's a question of when to use it. I came across it being used for English, which resulted in a link to the English language on the English wiki (!!), and italicizing of the English phrase that followed (WP:ITALICS is for foreign phrases). Some people automatically apply the template where it's not needed on any translation. My suggestion was that we discourage the use of the template when it's not needed and results in WP:OVERLINKing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually, the name Midilli is not particularly common; I've never heard it before, and Google Scholar suggests it is far less common than Lesbos as a name for the island. (Tenedos, on the other side of the frontier, is another question.)
  • WP:NCGN suggests that such names be included if they are used in English more than 10% of the time.
  • Not linking should be troublesome for advocates of uniformity. It is not impossible for, say, Russian, Armenian, and Abkhazi names to be in the first line of the same article. We may not need to link to Russian language, but we should certainly link to Abkhaz language, if only to be sure it's spelt correctly; do we really want to have one or two black and the rest blue? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
    • I have no problem with inconsistency on that level. Apart from the utility of rationing links to the useful ones, it signals when we know and the reader should know that an item is obscure/less well-known. As for black and blue, any linking is going to cause that in the text. TONY (talk) 10:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I feel another general principle lurking around here: when there's a question of whether a suggestion is NPOV or not, that's above our pay grade on this page. All we can deal with here is style and language: what works well, what's accepted, what looks nice. We can't right any wrongs. That begs the question, what do we do about it when someone suggests that we're dealing with something that even has a flavor of POV? I don't have the answer ... obviously, I got it wrong in the discussion about Arabic foods. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:03, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Once there is an at least semi-concrete consensus on something, can we go ahead and create a guideline page, as I suggested, or put it under WP:Lead section? Now, as for specific issues...

The Lang template is not just for the names of languages in the opening sentence; it has applications to any kind of foreign-language text. That said, I could care less if it was deleted.

I strongly agree with the point Septentrionalis brought up - that not linking major languages would be fraught with inconsistency and difficulty. (Though I'm not sure if you yourself agree, given your position on uniformity.) Not only would it be inconsistent, the decision on the significance or commonness of a language is unavoidably POV. For an encyclopedia trying to rid itself of its U.S./U.K./Australian bias, dividing the languages of the world into - effectively - "nobody wants to read about this language" and "nobody's heard of this language" would be an unseemly judgment call. Also, while linking to the French language article in the body of an article would usually be gratuitous, I don't think the clean, well established format of "([[Language]]: Name)", once, in the first sentence, is a problem at all. Let the reader decide to use or not use the link. What about Latin? It's extremely well known, but also a topic of interest.

The addition of the Turkish name Midilli has been reverted. I was tempted to do that myself. I know it's not a common name in English. The reason I brought it up was to ask if the inclusion of a relevant non-English name was felicitous, and to illustrate the need for a guideline with the very question. The answer, as we have been graciously informed, is found in WP:Naming conventions (geographic names). I still support the creation of a new guideline (see above).

MagnesianPhoenix (talk) 04:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, but as you know, I'm a minimalist when it comes to linking. There are good reasons to ration it to the important stuff you really want readers to access. Linking English on en.WP seems absurd, but it's done all too often. Linking United States same deal: why? Let's not splash bright blue around the text for no reason ... TONY (talk) 15:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Lesbos does, and should, link to Greece; readers may want to go there, although almost all English-speakers know what it is. (For example, to compare the demographics of Lesbos to the whole country.) Kentucky should link to United States for the same reasons. Lesbos should also link to Mytilene.... Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
I might be a little late here, as usual, but here it goes... I don't know about Lesbians, or residents of other, nearby islands, but Greeks in general have no idea about the Turkish name of Lesbos, or of any other island of the Archipelago for that matter. How often are names of neighbouring countries' languages used in Wikipedia for localities, especially when there are no major historical connections? Really, this doesn't sound very serious. Waltham, The Duke of 05:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
If it is felt that this really needs to be addressed by the guidelines, I would strongly suggest that it is better to amend WP:LEAD to include something on it than to create yet another guidelines that hardly anyone will read or obey. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with it being part of WP:LEAD; I am not really partial to either of my suggestions. My concern is having the information somewhere. As for no one reading or obeying it, no one will read or obey it if it doesn't exist. Its existence will give editors who find themselves in my position the opportunity to look up the policy. MagnesianPhoenix (talk) 10:02, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Late addition: I just ran across this in WP:Proper names: "Geographical names in a language not official to the article's political entity (English excepted, of course) should not be listed as alternatives, except on the link to another (foreign language) Wikipedia." (Apparently, someone felt strongly about this, since the not is bolded.) I don't care what we do about Lesbos, but if people think this guidance needs tweaking, we should tweak it. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

What SI unit to use?

I have a park that is 11 acres; do I use km^2, ha, or another unit in metric? --NE2 22:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Although hectare is not SI, it is accepted for use with SI, and the converted area, 4.5 hectares, is convenient, so I woud use that. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:49, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Parks in the U.S. should use U.S. units, and we would prefer to have either km2 or hectares in parentheses after it. (The {{convert}} template is helpful for this.) Btw, we prefer <sup>2</sup> to ^2. Is the park in the U.S.? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Does the conversion in Sheridan State Scenic Corridor look good? --NE2 00:51, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I added some links to articles for the units of measure. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 01:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Nice touch, Gerry. Yes, that's it, NE2. Btw, User:Dincher and User:Ruhrfisch crank out articles on parks like nobody's business; they just got another Featured Article a few days ago. Reading some of their work may give you some ideas, and they're very friendly and collaborative. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:06, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm actually working on Historic Columbia River Highway and decided to write about the parks along it. --NE2 02:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Possessives

What is the correct writing of possessive form of noun ending in S, like Knowles? --Efe (talk) 05:15, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:MOS#Possessives is the short answer, and the link there is the longer answer. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 05:34, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

American

Looking at WP:AN#Politically-motivated systematic edits, it seems there's at least one user concerned by the use of the word "American" to describe people from the United States (as they point out, American and American people are both disambig pages). This does seem to be a common practice, but I'm not able to find mention of it in the MOS. Is it mentioned, one way or another? If not, should it be? – Luna Santin (talk) 22:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no other adjective used to describe people from the United States, and it is internationally recognized to mean "people from the United States", not "people from the New World". If you want to see an interesting reaction, walk up to an average Canadian or Mexican and call them American, and see how they react. At the very least, they will politely correct you, and are extremely unlikely to agree with the logic that they are American because they are on the same land mass. Walk into one of the Protestant sections of Belfast and call the locals "Irish", for an extension of that type of logic (and I use the term "logic" loosely). The editor in question here needs to be told in no uncertain terms that he needs to stop his disruptive edits or risk getting blocked. USian (one of his preferred neologisms) is a grammatic abortion that should never appear anywhere in Wikipedia. Horologium (talk) 23:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree, American universally means from the US. If you wanted to include Canadians and Mexicans, you would pick another term, like "North American". Other languages use phrases along the line of "United Statesian", but that term is nearly non-existent in English. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:39, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
How many times does this dead horse have to be beaten? Corvus cornixtalk 23:43, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Isn't there some place in official policy that we can just point to next time? --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes: any dictionary or thesaurus; the lack of an alternative makes it a non-issue. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone, but in Spain, I was told by several people to say that I was "Norte Americano", not "American" or "Americano", because that was considered a little obnoxious; they felt a lot of kinship with "America" (North and South America), and weren't happy that we had appropriated the word for ourselves. Nevertheless, there aren't any alternatives to "American" that have any traction at all. - Dan (talk) 00:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. "American" is the English word for people from the United States. The Spanish word is estadounidense, I believe, if you're being the most exact you can be, norteamericano if you're kind of including Canadians--but we don't have an equivalent term in English at all. Darkspots (talk) 00:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
"Yankee doodle dandies" is the preferred term.--Father Goose (talk) 06:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
The issue was not that a new term need be used to relate to citizens or things from the United States of America. It was instead to propose the reduction in usage of American for things from the United States of America. To completely remove the ambiguous nature of American, it would be best to simply relate things from the United States of America, as "from the United States of America" or "formed in the United States of America".
Arctic.gnome's point of American relating universally to the United States of America is simply incorrect. Of course Canadians are North Americans, but they are also part of the greater America. Just as Belgians are Western Europeans, they are also part of the greater Europe.
As Horologium points out, Canadians, Mexicans, Bolivians, etc. will no doubt be offended if you call them American. This is yet another effect of the ambiguous nature of "American". They do not want to be thought of as being from the United States of America, so they reject the label American, when really it simply means they are from America (continent(s)).
I would love to use an alternative for American (US), such as Usonian. Unfortunately this is not in common usage so it will not be used here on Wikipedia. However, I am not proposing the usage of a new or pre-existing term for American (US). I am simply suggesting we state people, things and places as being from the United States of America, and not the ambiguous title American. Dale-DCX (talk) 07:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
If the term "American" already refers to denizens of the United States, who are we to try and change that? North American and South American work perfectly fine as more general terms. American, by definition, may be ambiguous, but it's very unambiguous in common use. --clpo13(talk) 07:52, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
In any cases where there might be confusion, I agree that we should say "from the United States". However, unless an article is specifically talking about the Western Hemisphere as a whole, the phrase American without context is very unlikely to be assumed to mean anything other than from the US. Indecently, I recommend that we all go around using "Unitedstatesian" in real life until it's popular enough to be added to reviewed dictionaries. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
(prepares to make controversial statement) It is fitting that the people of the United States should be called by the ambiguous American—they are rather ambiguous as a people anyway... Waltham, The Duke of 00:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Wow. Stereotype much? Horologium (talk) 01:38, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
Let's just say that I find stereotypes enjoyable to discuss. :-D
PS: I really like your username. Should I translate it as clock or as sundial? Waltham, The Duke of 09:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

From United States comes this sourced statement:

“ The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an American. Though United States is the formal adjective, American and U.S. are the most common adjectives used to refer to the country ("American values," "U.S. forces"). American is rarely used in English to refer to people not connected to the United States. ”

The reference for the above: Wilson, Kenneth G. (1993). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 27–28. ISBN 0231069898. Can we all agree that changing articles to eliminate use of "American" as a demonym for people from the United States is disruptive? Horologium (talk) 03:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, it meets the standard in WP:POINT, since there is no other word WPians have accepted for it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
I have nothing to add, and there is nothing to disagree with. Waltham, The Duke of 09:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
So what is the appropriate response to Dale-DCX who continues to replace the word American when he finds it?Doug Weller (talk) 23:11, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
That I am correct in stating American is ambiguous, but that due to a Usonian dominance of Wikipedia's operational language, not to mention lazy editors, nothing is going to be done. Bitter, yes I know. I just can not stand extremely abiguous terminology. I like how Horologium referenced an "American" English guide to support the usage of American as solely for Usonians. Funny stuff.
Well, you guys can do what you like. I maintain American is overly ambiguous and that "from the United..." is better. Oh well. Dale-DCX (talk) 02:08, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Other languages may handle the issue differently, but actual usage of the English language by almost all sources is that "American" is the standard way to indicate a person or thing from the United States. Wikipedia is not the place to Right Great Wrongs. It is not the place for Wikipedia to invent new words such as Usonian or otherwise changing the language trying to fix the world. In English "American" is rarely used to mean "of the Americas", it is only used that way in specific contexts where that is the unambiguous intent. The phrases "North American", "North and South American", "of the Americas", or some reference to the "Western Hemisphere" the standard non-ambiguous way indicate the broader meaning of "American"ism. Alsee (talk) 13:53, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh good, I get to be the second person to comment who actually cites sources. The primary adjective definition of American given in the OED is "Belonging to the continent of America". The primary adjective definition given by Merriam-Webster's (Third edition) is "belonging to, inhabiting, or coming from, or forming part of America." Note that the first noun definition given (this precedes the adjective) is: "an Indian of No. America or So. America." And the first definition given for America in MW3 is "of or from No. America or So. America." Thus, the leading dictionaries of both the UK and the US clearly lay out that this term is not as specific as was claimed in unsourced arguments above. The very fact that it carries enough ambiguity to lead to discussion like this shows that it is inappropriate for use specific to meaning "United States"; we don't want ambiguous labels. --EncycloPetey (talk) 12:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
While I personally agree that the use of the word "American" for people from the US is problematic, I doubt that the order of the entries in the cited dictionaries reflects usage. Collins COBUILD (a British dictionary based on its own corpus of texts) says "1 An American person or thing is someone or something that belongs or relates to the United States of America. […] 2 An American is a person who comes from the United States of America", and does not even offer an alternative meaning. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1894) has entries for "American Flag", "American Peculiarities" and "American States". All of them refer to the United States, and there are no other entries starting with "American". --Hans Adler (talk) 12:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable is not especially useful for this issue. Suggestion: look at sources that describe the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Many books credit him as the European discover of "America", even though his voyages primarily involve the Caribbean, Central America, and South Amnerica. Consider also that the 2003 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia defines America as the combination of North and South America. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:42, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I can't cite the OED, because its online version is largely behind a pay firewall, but much of Merriam-Webster's content is available without a subscription. One of the entires on which Dale-DCX imposed his change was on Mark Twain. M-W doesn't list Twain as such, but rather as "see CLEMENS", since "Twain" was a pseudonym. The entry for Clemens reads: "Samuel Langhorne 1835–1910 pseudonym Mark Twain American writer". [1] This would seem to confirm the use of "American" to mean "someone from the Unites States" at least in reference to Merriam-Webster, despite their primary definition of "American". The other articles subjected to this type of POV-pushing are not in M-W (they are bands of recent vintage). (FWIW, MW3 dates from 1961, so I'm not sure how useful a 47-year old reference is for modern usage. The M-W.com version is based on Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition[2], which was released in 2003.) Encyclopedia Britannica's online edition also notes Mark Twain as an "American humorist, journalist, lecturer, and novelist..."[3].
For additional referencing of "American", let us go to Dictionary.com, which has its own unabridged edition based on the Random House unabridged dictionary (2006), and the American Heritage Dictionary (2006). At the entry for "American" [4] the Dictionary.com first definition is "of or pertaining to the United States of America or its inhabitants: an American citizen." and the American Heritage first definition is "Of or relating to the United States of America or its people, language, or culture." Likewise, the first definition for "America" in both of these dictionaries is "The United States".[5] Lastly, Kenneth G. Wilson, in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, notes the presumptuousness of the usage of the term "American" to refer to inhabitants of the United States, yet also recognizes that it is the only term in wide use. [6] Horologium (talk) 13:40, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Your sampling is inherently biased. All the dictionaries you've cited are produced in the United States. Please provide similar research from dictionaries of Canadian English, or Australian English, or the English as spoken in India. You'll find that they do not have the same slant as US dictionaries. Since Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia, we need to be mindful of how the articles and categories will be interpreted in countries outside the US. Note also that the Columbia Guide is only refering to substantive use of the adjective to name an inhabitant, not use of the term generally. The proper noun United States may be used attributively to achieve the same function, and often is. We say "the United States Congress", not "the American Congress", so there are cases where "American" isn't even used. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
My sampling is biased because it appears that only American (deliberate use) dictionaries have online access; OED (British English) and Macquarie (Australian English) require subscriptions. I am not familiar with Canadian or Indian English dictionaries, but if you point me in that direction, I will see if I can come up with citations from them. I will be heading to the University of Florida library tomorrow to see what they have. And as I noted, Britannica uses the formulation of "American writer" for Mark Twain, which was one of the articles upon which this debate focused. Surely you are not going to claim that Britannica is US-centric? Horologium (talk) 18:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Um, "the United States Congress" is a bad example as it is a proper name. In any case, what does the OED suggest as the proper demonym for citizens of the USA? It might also be interesting to see what the Oxford Dictionary of American English says, if anyone has a copy handy. Askari Mark (Talk) 18:54, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Above I have already given the definitions from a British dictionary from 1987, Collins COBUILD, which is independent of Webster's and OED: There "American" appears only with the US meaning. It follows that "American" is not the word for "from America". I don't like this, but that's how it is. --Hans Adler (talk) 18:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Since "America" is not generally a place name in English, except as short for the United States of America, this does not seem particularly odd. There's North America, there's South America, there's Central America (a subregion of North America), and there's "the Americas", but no just-plain-America in the seven-continent model. It's true that there's no good adjective for "of or pertaining to the Americas", which is arguably a pity. --Trovatore (talk) 19:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (edited in UK) is a bit weasely: "from North, South, or Central America, especially the United States of America." DCDuring (talk) 20:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
One fairly unambiguous way to refer to things having to do with the people, geography, culture, and institutions of the United States is by the attributive use of the nouns "United States" or "US". "The United States transportation system" is much less ambiguous than "the American transportation system". After first mention in an article (or section, in some cases) it would be very appropriate to switch to "US transportation system". I could not say whether or not there might be cases for which this would not be suitable, but I am very sure that it would cover many circumstances. DCDuring (talk) 20:00, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
"The United States transportation system" is clearly better than "the American transportation system", yes. Not so much because of ambiguity, but just because it sounds more formal and precise, and this being an encyclopedia we want writing to be done in a fairly "high" register. On the other hand "a United States author" sounds strained and frankly unidiomatic. --Trovatore (talk) 20:18, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Wiktionarians, if there is a primary definition, will often place it first, but you're basing a huge assumption on the order found in OED and M-W, which if anything supports the idea that dictionaries are confusing and not the point you're trying to make. All the obsolete and archaic terms are ordered first as well, but they are not primary definitions either. The definition you cite is legitimate and still in use, but not nearly as common. It is first only because it is older. Because the definition exists, Dale-DCX might have a case if an article pertained to one or both of the Americas as a whole, or at least didn't pertain to the U.S. yet made comparisons to things African, Asian, and European, but outside of such potentially ambiguous context, the meaning is straightforward, and the behavior is disruptive. DAVilla 70.112.116.94 (talk) 19:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Given that there seems to be confusion as to which of these terms should be used, may I suggest deferring to the highest authority on things relating to the United States and use the form as it appears in the title of the United States Government? (i.e., not the "American Government" - there is no "American House of Representatives", not is there officially an "American Congress" the term "U.S." or "United States" is universally used as an adjective in the names of these institutions. These are not "bad examples" for being proper names; they are clear indications that as proper names they were deliberately chosen to avoid problem which might be inherent in other chosen options. There is, of course, the Organization of American States, but to the best of my knowledge it does not have delegated representing only the 50 states of the US.

The term United States fulfils all of the functions necessary for its usage as the adjective of choice on Wikipedia:

  • It is an accepted adjectival form
  • It is universally understood
  • It is unambiguous

While the term "American" is definitely a common adjectival form and is understood widely (though not without some controversy in other parts of the Americas), it is hardly unambiguous in all settings and circumstances. Furthermore, as has been pointed out, "United States" is the more formal and precise term and is thus more suited to an encyclopedia. Grutness...wha? 23:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It is "an accepted adjectival form" in some contexts. It is terribly ugly in locutions like "a United States author"; no one says that. ("A United States Congressman", on the other hand, is fine.) --Trovatore (talk) 23:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes they do - it may not be common in the United States, but it is elsewhere. I do not know of any contexts in which it is not an accepted adjectival form. Check the 50,000+ ghits. Grutness...wha? 23:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
It's utterly hideous. No, I think that form is absolutely unacceptable. --Trovatore (talk) 23:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Although I don't find the usage "United States author" hideous, it would not be my preferred use. Searching on Books.google.com shows that "American author" is much favored over both "United States author" and "US author", though both of my less favored usages are plentiful. Also would an author who wrote before the American Revolution be well described as a "United States author". Frankly, I think we have to depend on context. If we are talking about English language authors, American would not be ambiguous. Few would take it as including Canadian or Jamaican authors. I wonder how English-language discussions of Spanish-language literature refer to Latin American authors? The body of a WP article defines its own context for the most part. The contention should really be focused on what words to use in the lede, IMHO. DCDuring (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking, wouldn't it be an interesting source for this discussion to go on IMDB and find every movie with the word "American" in the title, and see in how many of those cases, the term refers to the United States? Unfortunately, there were way too many hits for it to be useful. I couldn't really examine them all. Still, I would ask anyone to estimate for himself: When you hear a phrase "American ________," do you not expect this to be referring to the United States? Simply examine countless cultural sources, from the Miss America Pageant to the American Music Awards to "American Pie." I know that's not precise, but it's massively intuitive. Urzatron (talk) 20:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

No, IMDB would not be an interesting source. Mostly as the majority of movies are made in the United States. It would not be surprising for United States movies to be called "American". Thus I think it shows very little, other than things created in the United States by people from the United States are often called "American". No surprise there. Your other references are also created by United States peoples. Again, no surprise.
To answer your question... When I here the phrase "American ______", I do not think directly of the United States of America. Nor would many peoples and nations outside of the United States of America immediately think of it as being from the United States. Which is the point here. We know United States citizens think of themselves as American. However, many, many non-United States peoples do not. So you may think American=United States is intuitive, but it is not. Dale-DCX (talk) 21:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Really? Huh. I would have thought that if I said "American Gladiators," "American History X," "American Gothic," "American Gangster" or "American Beauty," you would have thought of the United States. Are you sure? Urzatron (talk) 21:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

We all know that the "Google Test" isn't supposed to mean much, but I was curious about something. I tried a few searches on Google, filtering by *.uk and *.ca domains, to see what results I got. These are only British and Canadian sites, remember.

  • "American Culture" - 94,800 on .uk, 84,900 on .ca
    • "United States culture" - 446 on .uk, 416 on .ca
    • "U.S. culture" - 15,100 on .uk, 5,430 on .ca
  • "American revolution" - 2,120,000 on .uk, 88,000 on .ca
    • "United States revolution" - 12,200 on .uk, 5 on .uk
    • "U.S. revolution" - 1,300 on .uk, 641 on .ca
  • "American Civil War" - 231,000 on .uk, 37,500 on .ca
    • "United States civil war" - 10,700 on .uk, 8,250 on .ca
    • "U.S. civil war" - 15,800 on .uk, 82,50 on .ca

Of course, there was no question about what America Carolyn Parrish was talking about when she uttered her famous line "Damn Americans ... I hate those bastards." and she's supposedly "American", judging from the arguments being advanced by some people here. Horologium (talk) 22:10, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Another issue relates to categories. Look at the "nationality" categories in which Mark Twain is included--Category:American humorists, Category:American memoirists, Category:American novelists, Category:American satirists, Category:American short story writers, Category:American travel writers, Category:American humanists, and Category:American socialists. Not a "United States" in sight. Same thing for all of the musician categories for the bands that Dale-DCX changed. And look at the user cat—Category:American Wikipedians. Unless you have the admin bits, you won't be able to change those, and if you do, you know better than to try...we have Wikipedia:categories for discussion and Wikipedia:User categories for discussion for those, and it's unlikely that you would be able to gain a consensus for such changes in either venue. Horologium (talk) 22:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

This is from The Columbia Guide to Standard American English (1993):

American (adj.), America (n.)

We of the United States of America, citizens of only one of many nations in the Americas, North, Central, and South, have preempted the informal name of our country, America, and our title, Americans. It may be arrogant and inaccurate that we do so, but the fact is that no other citizens of the Americas seem to want to be confused with the Americans of the USA. Nor have others coined any other universally recognized names for us. Yankees and Yanks sometimes applies to all of us but often only to Northeasterners (particularly New Englanders) and twentieth-century soldiers. Our flag is almost always “the American flag.” Only the precision of The United States of America and of a citizen thereof can be official and usefully substituted, and the rest is language history: we speak American English, we live in the United States, the U.S. (or USA), or America (the beautiful), and we’re Americans, even if we only adapted and adopted the language and the lands. It is not likely that these usages will change soon, so overwhelming is their use both by others and by us.

TCMOS had 118 hits on "United States"; all 118 either used it as a noun or, when it's even arguable that it was an adjective, only in the sense of the U.S. Government. APStylebook didn't have anything useful. NYTM (1999, paperback) followed the same usage as TCMOS. First two definitions in Wordnet are "a native or inhabitant of the United States" and "American English, American language, American (the English language as used in the United States)". I can find no support at all for the idea that "United States" is an adjective, other than conceivably when it refers to the U.S. government. The phrases "New York minute" and "Munich beer hall" do not make "New York" or "Munich" adjectives.

Unless anyone has a clear argument that "United States" has wide usage as an adjective, or that there is some other synonym for "American", then we're stuck with "American" by default. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Urzatron (talk) 01:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Sorry I'm late; I just now finally finished reading all the comments. The OED says:
"A. n.
1. An indigenous inhabitant of (any part of) the Americas; an American Indian. Now only with modifying word, as indigenous American, original American, etc.; see also NATIVE AMERICAN n. 1.
2. a. Originally: a native or inhabitant of America, esp. of the British colonies in North America, of European descent (now hist.). Now chiefly: a native or citizen of the United States. Cf. also LATIN AMERICAN n., NORTH AMERICAN n., SOUTH AMERICAN n., etc.
b. As the second element of compounds forming nouns with the sense ‘an American of the specified origin or descent’. Cf. AFRICAN-AMERICAN n., ASIAN AMERICAN n., Irish American n. at IRISH adj. and n. Compounds, ITALIAN-AMERICAN n., POLISH-AMERICAN n.
3. An American ship or other vessel. Obs.
4. The variety of English used in the United States; American English.
5. Brit. In pl. Stocks or shares in American companies or enterprises.
B. adj.
1. a. Of or relating to (any part of) the Americas.
In later use sometimes difficult to distinguish from sense B. 2, except in scientific contexts. Cf. LATIN AMERICAN adj., NORTH AMERICAN adj., SOUTH AMERICAN adj., etc.
b. Of, relating to, or designating the indigenous inhabitants of (any part of) the Americas; of, relating to, or designating American Indians. Now chiefly with modifying word, as early, original, indigenous, etc.
c. Of, designating, or belonging to any American Indian language, or such languages collectively.
d. Designating animals and plants native to or originating in America, chiefly to distinguish them from similar or related species native to Britain or the Old World, as American aloe, crow, marmot, etc. See also Special uses 3b.
American bittern, elm, leopard, masterwort, ostrich, plaice, robin, etc.: see the second element.
2. a. Originally: of, relating to, or characteristic of the European (esp. British) colonies in North America or their inhabitants. Now chiefly: of, relating to, or characteristic of the United States or its inhabitants.
b. Of, designating, or belonging to the English language as used in the United States (or formerly, in Britain's North American colonies).
See also AMERICAN ENGLISH n.
c. As the second element of compounds in the sense ‘American of the specified origin or descent’. Cf. AFRICAN-AMERICAN adj., ASIAN AMERICAN adj., ITALIAN-AMERICAN adj., POLISH-AMERICAN adj.
d. U.S. Of a horse or cow: originating in the eastern states, esp. as opposed to the southwest, being typically of superior quality and relatively large in size. Now hist.


Unfortunately, the term "United States" is not listed as an adjective, and indeed until the 1993 revision the closest entry related to the country in question defined it as "The Republic of North America. Abbrev. U.S. or U.S.A." (1888). Just more grist for the mill. Her Pegship (tis herself) 04:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I am quite troubled by those who are trying to use the order of definitions in a dictionary to claim that American has a primary meaning of "of the Americas" Quite a number of dictionaries give as their first definition of a word, the first definition used in time, not the main one that is currently in use. Unless one checks the dictionary's policy one cannot claim the first definition is the one that is in primary use. American these days has as its primary meaning "of the United States of America. If people think that we need more precision in our use of national adjectives, we'd be better off removing the term "British" from every article relating to Northern Ireland. Caerwine Caer’s whines 03:15, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

You are quite right, Caerwine. But I notice that the COBUILD data based dictionary has been mentioned a couple of times in this discussion. This dictionary has it's definitions ordered according to the statistical usage calculated from their multi-million example database. (It is an eye-opener at times, for this very reason!). -- Algrif (talk) 15:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

If anyone's still interested, the Canadian Oxford Dictionary's first sense of American relates to the U.S., but other senses remind us that Latin American, American elk, North American, and I would add American Indian all do not specifically relate to it.

Where American can cause confusion, United States and its abbreviation U.S. are certainly attributive nouns, usable as an adjective in many contexts, as in United States citizen, U.S. passport, United States government, U.S. embassy, etc. If that is awkward, then we can use of the United States, from the U.S., (U.S.) or some other formulation when necessary.

What American means depends on context and nuance. It makes no sense to impose one definition on it, or to dictate when it is to be used, when we have many editors practised in the craft of writing. Any ambiguous phrasing ought to be improved, and it's great if an editor wants to take on the task across many articles. But please don't make blanket changes without specific justification, because that only pisses people off. —Michael Z. 2008-04-26 05:30 Z

I wonder why this is only an issue with America. No one complains that we call people from the United Mexican States "Mexican". Powers T 02:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Caps for US Democratic Party

I'm sure this has been asked many times before, but is it "the democratic convention" or "the Democratic convention"? thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:45, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a cap D, and either cap C or not depending on context. "The Democratic convention is held every fourth year in the summer." - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Centuries

Do we prefer 16th century or sixteenth century or do we have no preference? Itsmejudith (talk) 11:01, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:MoS#Numbers as figures or words. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry I missed it. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:53, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Scrolling reflists

I added a scrolling reflist to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum but another editor has removed it with an edit note of we do NOT use scroling ref for reasons too long to list here. Scrolling reflists enable the article length to be reduced and are particularly useful when 40 or more references appear in an article. Can anyone show me where it says not to use scrolling reflists in articles? This feature is being used in quite a few articles now. Mjroots (talk) 15:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Just been told it's at WP:CS. Mjroots (talk) 15:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Watchlisting the RFCstyle list

People interested in WP style, formatting and language might want to watchlist Template:RFCstyle list. I get the sense that very few people do. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

French language MOS : Works of Art

After the lengthy discussion of French noble titles (see above), I wonder if we might review the "titles of works of art" section at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (France & French-related). Specifically, should we maintain the rules given or should we adopt the simpler rules (only the first word and any proper nouns) adopted by the WP Opera people? Please respond on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (France & French-related). - NYArtsnWords (talk) 22:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

ClueBot III

ClueBot III is an outstanding archiving bot that will go find section links all over Wikipedia and correct them on the various pages as stuff gets archived. We should do this. I'm bringing it up now because it's relevant to the objection, "We can't move material from one style guidelines page to another, it will break links". Just let ClueBot III archive the section(s) to a separate page, then do a Special:WhatLinksHere on the archived page, then we can fix the links manually or run a bot. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, it took me some time to figure out what you mean. So can we instruct ClueBot III about exactly which section we want "archived" to a temporary subpage? And is ClueBot III the same thing as WP:CLUEBOT? And how long does it normally take until ClueBot III has "updated" all links to the subpage?
--David Göthberg (talk) 21:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
That's the right link, and it will show you that there are 5 ClueBots that do different things. More people have seen the ClueBot that reverts vandalism. There's nothing in the documentation at User:ClueBot III about telling it what to archive, but there's an easy workaround: ClueBot can go into action in under an hour, maybe less, and it only archives sections below it on the page; so if you're trying to move a particular section, just move it to the end of the page, put the ClueBot code right before it, and tell it to archive anything more than 1 hour old (maybe less, I'm checking that now). Link updating has been nearly instantaneous with archiving. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:23, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Ah, I see. And I assume that Cluebot uses the "what links here" to see what pages to investigate for section links, right?
--David Göthberg (talk) 00:21, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Exactly, and it takes ClueBot III a short time to check every page on Wikipedia that links to the entire page. We would only need to run WhatLinksHere on the new single-section archive page, which will then (after ClueBot III has done its thing) only be linked by WP pages that linked specifically to that section on the previous page. Of course, ClueBot III can (and should) also be used for normal 10-day archiving, and will update all relevant links on WP when it does so. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 00:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Right. Seems like a nifty solution. And while we update all the links to that single-section archive page we can redirect that archive page to the new section in the page we actually are moving the section to.
--David Göthberg (talk) 01:22, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Reading through this, I have decided to add the following feature to ClueBot III: If a section on a page monitored by ClueBot III contains {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}}, ClueBot III will archive that section next time it runs instead of waiting for the required section idle time to elapse. This feature is beta and has not been tested, so let me know if there are any problems. Also, ClueBot III doesn't care where it's main template is, it will archive all level 2 sections that fit the archival requirements, so the above suggestion about moving the section to the bottom and putting the template above it will not work. Thanks. -- Cobi(t|c|b) 10:18, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

←Thanks Cobi. Cluebot III had a bad bug over on WT:Layout (archived only half the page, but deleted the whole page), and my bug report at Cluebot Commons got archived without an answer, so I put Miszabot back in for daily archiving, but Cluebot III could still be extremely useful for helping us identify which pages link to specific sections, especially with your new ArchiveNow feature. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:06, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, Cobi fixed ClueBot III over at WT:Layout, I'll keep an eye on it. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Terms from foreign languages

At Template talk:POTD protected/2008-05-02, I wrote this comment:

In the article in German on Warnemünde one finds the forms der Alte Strom, dem Alten Strom, den Alten Strom, des Alten Stroms, and Altem Strom with no article. The form depends on whether it is in the nominative, genitive, dative, or accusative case, and on whether an article is used. Such case distinctions do not occur in English. Which form, then, should be used when writing in English? I don't know whether WP:MOS or other style manuals address the issue. In the caption here I've changed it to Alte Strom because somehow the nominative seems like the default.
Comments?

Is this sort of thing covered in any style manuals? Michael Hardy (talk) 02:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

There are 2073 cities in List of cities in Germany. Not one of them (skimming quickly) has an unhyphenated adjective in front of it. The few hyphenated adjectives are uninflected: Neu-Ulm, Ober-Ramstadt, Groß-Gerau. I'm not sure if this answers your question, but I don't have a better answer. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:41, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, this was a river rather than a city, and that could be said to account for the unhyphenated adjective, but that's not really what this was about. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:11, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Normally, you would follow the nominative case, which in this instance is der alte Strom. Since it's a proper name here, "the Alte Strom" would be best usage based on the way I have usually seen such terms conveyed in English sources – so you guessed right! Askari Mark (Talk) 05:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I couldn't find anything in style manuals but I would have thought normal practice would be to use the nominative form as used without an article, and as the name would appear as a headword in a German encyclopedia (the lemma or Grundform). That would be Alter Strom.--Boson (talk) 05:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
This was the conversation I just had in #wikipedia-de, I'll also post on de.wikipedia.org to confirm.
...
<dank55> Der Alte Strom ist ein Fluss in Warnemünde. [It's a river in Warnemünde}
<paddyez> a major river yep
<dank55> ich meine nicht irgendeinen alten Strom :) [I don't mean just any "Old River" :)]
<paddyez> he lived by the old major river in Warnemünde?
<dank55> wir wissen nicht, wie man im allgemein solche Worte auf Englisch schreiben soll,
  [we don't know how to write such words in general in English]
<Thogo|trabajando> paddyez: der Alte Strom ist ein Eigenname, der heißt halt so. ["Alte Strom" is a proper noun.]
<dank55> ob wir "Alte" oder "Alter" oder so was schreiben soll [whether we should write Alte or Alter]
<paddyez> Thogo|trabajando: aha
<paddyez> in that case the "Alte Strom"
There was no disagreement with this. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

It probably wouldn't hurt to bear in mind the context in which the term was used in English Wikipedia: Template:POTD protected/2008-05-02. It's a caption to a picture, and it's a long noun phrase, not a complete sentence. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:37, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it's fairly clear that the nominative should be used.The problem is that in German there is a strong nominative form which is used when used alone or following the indefinite article (Alter Strom and ein alter Strom; the latter cannot be a proper noun) and a weak nominative form used after the definite article ("der Alte Strom"). The lemma used in encyclopedias etc. is the strong form "Alter Strom"), so in my opinion the English should be Alter Strom. The German rule should in my opinion not apply following the English the. The only argument for "Der Alte Strom" would be if the definite article were part of the proper noun, which I don't think it is; it would be unusual in German and the German Wikipedia article would not then have zwischen Altem und Neuem Strom (without the articles). If the definite article were part of the proper noun, the German form would have to used in English (Der Alte Strom as opposed to the Alter Strom) Of course, I can imagine that to a German writing the Alter Strom would be like scraping ones finger nails down a blackboard. That the form Alter . . . is the lemma can be confirmed by looking at similar article titles (for masculine nouns) on German Wikipedia. de:Spezial:Alle Seiten&from=Alter+&namespace=0 http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spezial%3AAlle+Seiten&from=Alter&namespace=0, e.g. Alter Bau, Alter Dom--Boson (talk) 18:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, I see that this article bears the title Alter Bahnhof (Heilbronn) and begins by saying

Der Alte Bahnhof in Heilbronn ist...

Of course that's appropriate when writing in German. Writing the Alte Strom in the English Wikipedia article still seems better than writing the Alten Strom, when it's in a caption that is only a noun phrase. I remain uncertain about what is the best way to handle this. Notice that this was in the article titled Warnemünde, not an article about the river. There must be other articles in English Wikipedia that correspond to the various titles found here. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Normal practice is to use the nominative case and treat it as indeclinable in English; I think I see an evasion which may hold. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:44, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
But "use the nominative case and treat it as indeclinable in English" fails to say whether to use "Alter Strom" (which in German would be used when there is no article) or "Alte Strom" (which would be used when preceded by a definite article, and is the form I actually used in the caption, which had the definite article in English). Michael Hardy (talk) 16:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
In fact, I used both; if you want to tweak, I have no objection. (Perhaps "Alte Strom" with no italics, as an English phrase?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Relevant conversations at WP:RD/Language from February and today. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Here's that link: WP:RD/Language Michael Hardy (talk) 01:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Being clear about naming conventions vs style guidelines

When a page has (article) naming convention information (including perhaps information on redirects and links), and a sizeable amount of content that is clearly intended as a style guide, would it be better to split the page, or should we perhaps create a new infobox that says that both kinds of content are present, and explains the difference? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:39, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

  • It depends. The two functions do overlap; often, splitting the page begs for more inconsistent advice than we have now. The new infobox should be small; a list of all the MOS pages and all the NC pages would overwhelm most pages. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
That makes sense to me, let's keep it on the same page, when there's not enough material for two pages. I'm not talking about a sidebar that mentions other pages; I mean a substitute for the top infobox, the one that might say "this is a naming convention" or "this is a style guideline", neither of which is 100% accurate in the case of Wikipedia:Manual of Style (U.S. state and territory highways). See that talk page. What language do we want? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:48, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
My personal preference would be to replace with {{guideline}} and make all WP:MOS and WP:NC links see alsos. But this may be too radical. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Need Help with this

I'm having trouble regarding this article: Kya Aap Paanchvi Pass Se Tez Hain?. Everytime I try and edit it I am confronted with the creator, who refuses to let the phone numbers etc. be deleted. Please give the article a quick glance and let me know if there is anything in this manual that can possibly help me with this --Maurice45 (talk) 19:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like spam to me. To report persistent spamming, see WT:WikiProject Spam. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Archive gone missing

For some reason this discussion appears not to have been archived! G-Man ? 22:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Cluebot never ran on this page, and it's commented-out. The last time Miszabot ran was Apr 28, and Miszabot has always had a lag of at least 10 days after the last comment in a thread; was it archived then? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:16, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Ah, it's in Archive 99. Check the archive directory now, I just added the next 8 archive links. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:33, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks. G-Man ? 23:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Euphemisms

I can't seem to find any sort of policy or guideline regarding euphemisms. In particular, when a person has died, is it appropriate for an encyclopedia (Wikipedia) to use "passed away" or equivalent? Is this spelled out somewhere or gone under previous consideration? Thanks, (EhJJ)TALK 01:23, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there's a guideline that says not to use "passed away" and other euphemisms, anyone remember which one? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:26, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it's addressed at Wikipedia:Words to avoid#Sadly, tragically. Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 01:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

New proposal on images

A tall image
A tall image

I think the current default widths for image thumbnails are hopelessly small - 180px for "thumb" tagged images and 140px for "upright" tagged images (the latter is actually hardly used).

These sizes may have been appropriate when most people browsed with 640 x 480 monitors, but with most people now using resolutions of 1024x768 or more, these sizes are hopelessly inadequate as these pixel widths appear tiny on most people's monitors. I despair when going to pages and seeing these tiny little thumbed images where you have to click each one to actually see what is going on. I know that people can adjust their settings, but this only works if you are logged in, and most people who view wikipedia aren't.

I think we need to create two new classes, portrait, and landscape, in addition to the thumb, and upright classes we have at the moment. I will illustrate this below:

  • Tall images

I think the upright class size of 140px width is OK for tall images such as the one on the left.

A portrait image
A portrait image
  • Portrait images

I think the upright class of 140px width is too small for portrait images, at least 170px should be used. We could create a new "portrait" tag with this 170px size.


A square image
A square image
  • Square images

I think 180px is just about OK for square images, but perhaps 190px would look better and that would still make it the same in pixel area as the other classes.

A landscape image
A landscape image
  • Landscape images

I think 180px is too small for landscape images, and we should use 230px. The size of the Obama flag image above is 227px (height) x 170px (width). The size of the Obama image on the right is 230px (width) x 156px (height) so these two images are roughly the same size. We should therefore create a new "landscape" tag to set all images such as this one to 230px default width.

Conclusion

I hope I have displayed above how the current system does not address the wide range of image shapes, and how we are perversly left with a large amount of landscape images that are much smaller in area than the portrait ones. Please vote whether you are for or against my proposal below with any appropriate comments in the discussion section. Thanks Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 20:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal vote

  • Support although I'm not sure default sizes are an MoS issue, and would like to see a more formal list of proposed actions and changes to the text. Johnbod (talk) 13:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal discussion

Yes, we very much need new bigger default sizes for image thumbnails. Even though I use 800×600 in screen resolution the current defaults are much to small. But instead of adding new thumbnail classes I suggest another approach. I think it would be easy for the devs to implement and that it would be much more flexible:

  • First of all set the default thumb size higher than now.
  • Secondly add a new parameter giving the size of the image in percent. That is, [[Image:Something.png|thumb|100%]] will be shown at the default thumb size, or if the user is logged in and has set another size at the users default size. While [[Image:Something.png|thumb|150%]] would show the image at 150% the default thumb size, or 150% of the size a logged in user has set.

This would allow the article editors to decide on an image by image basis what size the image needs, but still allow logged in users to configure their Wikipedia experience. Since some images with a lot of details need to be larger, while some images of a single object often don't need to be that big.

--David Göthberg (talk) 21:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your response David. If you had this percentage tool that you could use, it would not be necessary to increase the default size at all would it? At the moment the upright tag works roughly equivalent to 78% of default thumbsize. My proposed portrait tag would be about 95% and the landscape tag would be about 128%. These would work in exactly the same way as the upright tag so I don't think developing it would be a problem. I suppose the only problem with your method / possible advantage of mine is that it may save people arguing about what percentage an image should use and save people changing them round all the time? Against my proposal, and for yours, is that as you suggest, sometimes images of exactly the same dimensions may need to be a different size due to a more complicated scene in one than the other.Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 22:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes Gustav, you have fully understood my suggestion. But it would anyway be nice to have a larger default size since then we wouldn't have to add the percentage all the time. Making it simpler especially for new editors. And I think people will argue over image size almost as much if they have four types as if they have percentages, so that won't do much difference. And percentages might even make it easier to reach consensus since then you can more easily compromise. (At least I have seen that several times when we have chosen colours for templates. We often ended up choosing a nuance in the middle of the suggestions.)
--David Göthberg (talk) 00:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


A feature request was already submitted to the MediaWiki bug tracker for percentage thumbs, and it was rejected because it would make thumb caching much less efficient. I think a better option would be to stick with the fixed widths e.g. 120px, 150px, 180px, 200px, 250px, 300px, but support image parameters "bigger" and "smaller". For someone with default thumb size of 150px, "bigger" would step the image up to 180px; "smaller" would step it down to 120px. This approach would only affect caching inasmuch as it would need to support "smaller" at 120px, and "bigger" at 300px. Hesperian 13:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that info. I'm not sure what you mean when you say stick with the fixed widths? At the moment we have the normal "thumb" parameter which at the moment is set to 180px width default and the additional "upright" parameter which sets the image to 140px at default or roughly 78% of whatever the person has as their preferred thumb width. I think you are basically suggesting a similar thing to me, but replacing portrait, and landscape with smaller and bigger? Your smaller is similar to what upright is now (66% to 78%). I think that is too small for most portrait images (as illustrated above) so I would want either to be able to use thumb for portrait images or create a portrait parameter of approximately 95% of the standard thumb size. For normal landscape shaped images I think 300px may be unnecessarily large (and appear too big on 800x600), and to save server work, we could use a minimum of 230px at standard (non logged in settings) or 128% of a preferred thumb width, or perhaps go up to 250px or 139% as this still looks acceptable at 800x600. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 14:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
230px is fine for a single image on a page - but with many, I'd stick with 150. Note that low resolution - which makes the text taller - actually allows generous use of wider-than-present-default images. What looks fine on 800x600 will be a mess on 1600x1200. Users can change their default picture sizes at will, readers 'from the streets' will have to face this mess. NVO (talk) 00:57, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The majority of people who look at wikipedia pages aren't logged in so I don't see why we should neglect how wikipedia looks to these people. 140px is definitely too small for anything other than tall images (that is what the upright parameter gives, not 150px). Even for logged in users, at the moment the parameters we have availiable (thumb and thumb + upright) don't adequately cover the range of image shapes as I have illustrated above. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 01:16, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
No point in tiny images; people will find it irritating if they have to hit the image to find out what it is, and if they have a slow connection it will take even more time than downloading the original page. Let's dispense with postage stamps. TONY (talk) 02:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Where to discuss this

The fact that WP:MoS#Images goes into such detail means (if we want to be consistent) that we can't ask this discussion to move to WP:Images or WP:Picture tutorial. (And btw, why do we not link WP:Images from WP:MoS#Images? Seems like an offshoot page to me.) So: do we want to have this much detail on images in WP:MoS and continue to discuss image questions here, or hand off most of the content to WP:Images and WP:Picture tutorial and discuss these things there? (I have no preference.) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I think WP:IMAGES includes stuff that isn't about "style" but it should probably be linked. As to where to discuss my proposal, I'm not sure where is the best place. I could create a whole separate page if you think this would make things easier. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 21:15, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think anyone can say "You can't discuss this here" on any talk page as long as the project or article page covers the subject in some detail; that's what talk pages are for. (Although if there's an active discussion on the same topic somewhere else, it's better not to discuss the same thing in two places at once.) Unless/until we decide to move stuff, feel free. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Date-range question

(Note: this question was also asked at WP:HELPDESK here.)

Experienced editor here with a MoS question - is there a better venue to ask this? Let me know if so. Regarding this edit, where the editor changed the date range from "350-500,000 years" to "350,000-500,000 years". I've looked through the MoS for ten or fifteen minutes and can't find anything regarding this exact situation, either in the date section or number section. Anyone have any enlightenment for me? Tan | 39 15:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I answered this at the help desk too, but I'll copy it here as well. I would tend to agree that 350,000-500,000 would be more correct as its unambiguous. 350-500,000 could mean "(350 to 500)-thousand" or "(350) to (500,000)" -- ShinmaWa(talk) 16:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Please use an en dash: 350,000–500,000 years. Waltham, The Duke of 03:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure who you are talking to. However, if you are talking to me, I will be happy to put an endash on a talk page as soon as someone puts an endash on my keyboard. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
If you're on a Windoze box you can get an endash by holding down the ALT key while typing 0150 on the numeric keypad. Hesperian 03:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I can also click on the link below the edit box. However, I'm not going to do either on a talk page and it's ridiculous to even suggest it. I understand the endash debate is a hot button right now, but a) this is a talk page and b) this is a discussion regarding date wording not punctuation. Dragging that tired discussion into this section only distracts from the subject at hand. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Hesperian. Or click on the en dash below the edit box. Or use the Insert menu. Or use a desktop computer. Or a Mac. There is simply no excuse—unless you're PManderson—and his Grace is quite justified in asking Shinmawa to use en dashes here: for those who are used to proper punctuation, there's a short "bump" every time someone squibs on the practice and substitutes a tiny little hyphen; and we should be setting an example here to all users, not perpetrating bad practice. TONY (talk) 03:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Would "350–500 thousand years" keep everyone happy? Hesperian 04:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Since people are more than happy to tell you when they're not happy around here, I believe the silence means that people are happy. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm OK with 350–500 thousand years, but not 350–500,000 years. TONY (talk) 02:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Shinmwa: be sloppy, then, but (1) I won't be able to take you seriously on issues of style; and (2) please use an apostrophe in "it's" (your edit summary), also relating to (1). TONY (talk) 03:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
i koodent kare lez if ewe take me seriosly or nut, tonee. I have to admit, though, that I'm growing weary of your pedantic, nitpicky tone, which is bordering on incivility. (Making snide comments on typos in edit summaries??) Your treatment of PMAnderson is way over the line on incivility. I respectfully request you tone it down a little. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Nope. TONY (talk) 11:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Foreign terms

In the section Foreign terms there is a subsection No common usage in English

Use italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that are not current in English. However, in an article on a subject for which there is no English-language term, such terms do not require italics.

I think that the second sentence should be removed. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

In the section Foreign terms there is a subsection Spelling and transliteration. It says:

Use anglicized spellings; native spellings are an optional alternative if they use the English alphabet. The choice between anglicized and native spellings should follow English usage (Besançon, Edvard Beneš and Göttingen, but Nuremburg, role, naive, and Florence). In particular, diacritics are optional, except where English overwhelmingly uses them, whether for disambiguation or for accurate pronunciation (résumé, café).

Currently "Edvard Beneš" is used yet the English usage in verifiable reliable sources is for Edvard Benes. I suggest that ig we are to have examples that we replace the words where there is debate over common English usage in verifiable reliable sources with words where the use of accent marks is clearly the most common English usage in verifiable reliable sources. Replace "Edvard Beneš" with some other word. An unqualified use of the word Göttingen is not a good example because there are different usages for the word. For example a Google book search shows that "Gottingen poets" is more common than "Göttingen-poets", so I suggest that a different word is chosen where there is no ambiguity.

There is a problem with "or for accurate pronunciation". Now many English people but not all have learnt French so it is not unreasonable to include those examples. BUT what about Zurich? The Germans spell it Zürich this would suggest that we should not use Zürich because it would make the pronunciation less accurate in English. Further what about diacritics in languages less familiar than French? For example if "Điện Biên Phủ" helps with the correct pronunciation of "Dien Bien Phu" should it be an option? It seems to me that this paragraph needs re-writing using as a template the wording in WP:UE.

So I propose replacing the wording in this subsection with the following:

Names not originally in a Latin alphabet, as with Greek, Chinese or Russian, must be transliterated into characters generally intelligible to literate speakers of English. Do not use a systematically transliterated name if there is a common English form of the name; thus, use Tchaikovsky or Chiang Kai-shek even though those are unsystematic.

This Manual of Style neither encourages or discourages the use of diacritics (accent marks) on foreign words with articles, their usage depends on whether they are used in verifiable reliable sources and the constraints imposed by other more specific Wikipeda guidelines.

Within an article, use the name of the article rather than an alternative spelling unless there is a good reason to do so (such as showing alternative spellings in the lead section of an article) — For selection of the name of an article see naming conventions guideline. For other foreign names, phrases or words, within an article use the most commonly used English version, as you would find it in English language sources used as references on the subject of the article. If the foreign name, phrase, or word, does not appear in any of references on the subject of the article then use the most commonly used English version of the word or phrase as you would find it in other reliable verifiable English sources. If the foreign phrase or word does not appear often in English, then avoid using it (see Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms).

Sometimes the usage will be influenced by other guidelines such as national varieties of English which may lead to different usage in different articles depending on the common English usage in different national varieties of English.

comments? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:58, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

About diacritics: I think the default should be to use them, unless the form without is very widely used in English (like Zurich). Basically we're here to inform, and dropping diacritics results in loss of information (whereas it doesn't take much imagination to work about what a word written with diacritics is going to look like wihout them). Diacritics can also play a useful disambiguating role, avoiding the need for extra tags in article names, for example. Of course article names with diacritics should have a redirect from the equivalent name without (this is common practice in my experience); and searches for names without diacritics should also return results with diacritics (I've just done a quick check and this would seem to work, though not as perfectly as I would like - you get a link to the article but without the text extract you usually see. I searched for Sniezycowy if you're interested.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
It depends on the diacritic. We should use what our readers will expect and understand; WP:UE says to use most commonly used English version (and to include a local spelling which differs from this in the first line, so there is no loss of information). If we want a sentence: do what English normally does.
  • As for the examples; I would expect to see Edvard Beneš in carefully printed modern English works, like the New Cambridge Modern History (copyright 1968), although this may not have been true in the 1930's. Evidence is welcome; if an example is wrong, we can change it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:43, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
At WP:Naming conventions, PBS removed all of the example words that had diacriticals, implying that Wikipedia now disapproves of diacriticals. I compromised on Edvard Beneš, because that's not an example that the average user will find easily in dictionaries, and substituted a name we've got a slam-dunk for: Søren Kierkegaard. It's an FA on Wikipedia, I asked at WT:FAC to make sure there's still support for the diacritical, I looked it up in a variety of references, including the first several in a Google search. Easy. PBS reverted again, and again removed all the examples that had diacriticals, and again didn't give any argument for his position, other than being able to find examples of "Soren" in a Google search ... well, yeah, you'll find contractions in a Google search too, but that doesn't answer the question of whether they're suitable for WP mainspace. Per WP:NOTLEX, we have to look it up. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Dank55, please look carefully at the wording above and consider if the version I am suggesting is more or less friendly to your position. Also consider that we are not talking about article names here but the use of foreign words inside an article. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to rely on "the mob" here, because the general subject of anglicizing or not is a touchy one. It might take a while to get input from a variety of people, especially prolific editors and article reviewers. Many issues in the style guidelines can rub people the wrong way but IMO shouldn't; all we're trying to do is follow modern usage, and strike various appropriate balances. Stripping words, especially the names of people and places, of diacriticals represents an actual conflict; there really are opposing interests who need to be listened to. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:02, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
There's a good discussion of this topic at WP:VPP#Arguments. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:19, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

No one has commented on my first comment.

So I have removed it. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 07:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Dank55 are there any specific parts to my second part that you object to. I am willing to include examples (indeed would encourage their use) of foreign accent marks providing that they are examples where it is clear that common English usage (in reliable sources) favours them. I am not in favour of you suggestion of modern usage because one would have to define modern (and we have enough problems in this area without introducing another source of argument). --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 08:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

New proposal on images

A tall image
A tall image

I think the current default widths for image thumbnails are hopelessly small - 180px for "thumb" tagged images and 140px for "upright" tagged images (the latter is actually hardly used).

These sizes may have been appropriate when most people browsed with 640 x 480 monitors, but with most people now using resolutions of 1024x768 or more, these sizes are hopelessly inadequate as these pixel widths appear tiny on most people's monitors. I despair when going to pages and seeing these tiny little thumbed images where you have to click each one to actually see what is going on. I know that people can adjust their settings, but this only works if you are logged in, and most people who view wikipedia aren't.

I think we need to create two new classes, portrait, and landscape, in addition to the thumb, and upright classes we have at the moment. I will illustrate this below:

  • Tall images

I think the upright class size of 140px width is OK for tall images such as the one on the left.

A portrait image
A portrait image
  • Portrait images

I think the upright class of 140px width is too small for portrait images, at least 170px should be used. We could create a new "portrait" tag with this 170px size.


A square image
A square image
  • Square images

I think 180px is just about OK for square images, but perhaps 190px would look better and that would still make it the same in pixel area as the other classes.

A landscape image
A landscape image
  • Landscape images

I think 180px is too small for landscape images, and we should use 230px. The size of the Obama flag image above is 227px (height) x 170px (width). The size of the Obama image on the right is 230px (width) x 156px (height) so these two images are roughly the same size. We should therefore create a new "landscape" tag to set all images such as this one to 230px default width.

Conclusion

I hope I have displayed above how the current system does not address the wide range of image shapes, and how we are perversly left with a large amount of landscape images that are much smaller in area than the portrait ones. Please vote whether you are for or against my proposal below with any appropriate comments in the discussion section. Thanks Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 20:44, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal vote

  • Support although I'm not sure default sizes are an MoS issue, and would like to see a more formal list of proposed actions and changes to the text. Johnbod (talk) 13:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal discussion

Yes, we very much need new bigger default sizes for image thumbnails. Even though I use 800×600 in screen resolution the current defaults are much to small. But instead of adding new thumbnail classes I suggest another approach. I think it would be easy for the devs to implement and that it would be much more flexible:

  • First of all set the default thumb size higher than now.
  • Secondly add a new parameter giving the size of the image in percent. That is, [[Image:Something.png|thumb|100%]] will be shown at the default thumb size, or if the user is logged in and has set another size at the users default size. While [[Image:Something.png|thumb|150%]] would show the image at 150% the default thumb size, or 150% of the size a logged in user has set.

This would allow the article editors to decide on an image by image basis what size the image needs, but still allow logged in users to configure their Wikipedia experience. Since some images with a lot of details need to be larger, while some images of a single object often don't need to be that big.

--David Göthberg (talk) 21:46, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your response David. If you had this percentage tool that you could use, it would not be necessary to increase the default size at all would it? At the moment the upright tag works roughly equivalent to 78% of default thumbsize. My proposed portrait tag would be about 95% and the landscape tag would be about 128%. These would work in exactly the same way as the upright tag so I don't think developing it would be a problem. I suppose the only problem with your method / possible advantage of mine is that it may save people arguing about what percentage an image should use and save people changing them round all the time? Against my proposal, and for yours, is that as you suggest, sometimes images of exactly the same dimensions may need to be a different size due to a more complicated scene in one than the other.Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 22:37, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes Gustav, you have fully understood my suggestion. But it would anyway be nice to have a larger default size since then we wouldn't have to add the percentage all the time. Making it simpler especially for new editors. And I think people will argue over image size almost as much if they have four types as if they have percentages, so that won't do much difference. And percentages might even make it easier to reach consensus since then you can more easily compromise. (At least I have seen that several times when we have chosen colours for templates. We often ended up choosing a nuance in the middle of the suggestions.)
--David Göthberg (talk) 00:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


A feature request was already submitted to the MediaWiki bug tracker for percentage thumbs, and it was rejected because it would make thumb caching much less efficient. I think a better option would be to stick with the fixed widths e.g. 120px, 150px, 180px, 200px, 250px, 300px, but support image parameters "bigger" and "smaller". For someone with default thumb size of 150px, "bigger" would step the image up to 180px; "smaller" would step it down to 120px. This approach would only affect caching inasmuch as it would need to support "smaller" at 120px, and "bigger" at 300px. Hesperian 13:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that info. I'm not sure what you mean when you say stick with the fixed widths? At the moment we have the normal "thumb" parameter which at the moment is set to 180px width default and the additional "upright" parameter which sets the image to 140px at default or roughly 78% of whatever the person has as their preferred thumb width. I think you are basically suggesting a similar thing to me, but replacing portrait, and landscape with smaller and bigger? Your smaller is similar to what upright is now (66% to 78%). I think that is too small for most portrait images (as illustrated above) so I would want either to be able to use thumb for portrait images or create a portrait parameter of approximately 95% of the standard thumb size. For normal landscape shaped images I think 300px may be unnecessarily large (and appear too big on 800x600), and to save server work, we could use a minimum of 230px at standard (non logged in settings) or 128% of a preferred thumb width, or perhaps go up to 250px or 139% as this still looks acceptable at 800x600. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 14:04, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
230px is fine for a single image on a page - but with many, I'd stick with 150. Note that low resolution - which makes the text taller - actually allows generous use of wider-than-present-default images. What looks fine on 800x600 will be a mess on 1600x1200. Users can change their default picture sizes at will, readers 'from the streets' will have to face this mess. NVO (talk) 00:57, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
The majority of people who look at wikipedia pages aren't logged in so I don't see why we should neglect how wikipedia looks to these people. 140px is definitely too small for anything other than tall images (that is what the upright parameter gives, not 150px). Even for logged in users, at the moment the parameters we have availiable (thumb and thumb + upright) don't adequately cover the range of image shapes as I have illustrated above. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 01:16, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
No point in tiny images; people will find it irritating if they have to hit the image to find out what it is, and if they have a slow connection it will take even more time than downloading the original page. Let's dispense with postage stamps. TONY (talk) 02:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Where to discuss this

The fact that WP:MoS#Images goes into such detail means (if we want to be consistent) that we can't ask this discussion to move to WP:Images or WP:Picture tutorial. (And btw, why do we not link WP:Images from WP:MoS#Images? Seems like an offshoot page to me.) So: do we want to have this much detail on images in WP:MoS and continue to discuss image questions here, or hand off most of the content to WP:Images and WP:Picture tutorial and discuss these things there? (I have no preference.) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I think WP:IMAGES includes stuff that isn't about "style" but it should probably be linked. As to where to discuss my proposal, I'm not sure where is the best place. I could create a whole separate page if you think this would make things easier. Gustav von Humpelschmumpel (talk) 21:15, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think anyone can say "You can't discuss this here" on any talk page as long as the project or article page covers the subject in some detail; that's what talk pages are for. (Although if there's an active discussion on the same topic somewhere else, it's better not to discuss the same thing in two places at once.) Unless/until we decide to move stuff, feel free. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:31, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Bot is being developed to convert hyphens to en dashes

See Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DyceBot 4. Discuss here if you think en-dashes should die-die-die; that's not appropriate for a bot dev page. Discuss here if you're concerned (as I am) that changing hyphens to dashes when the editors aren't expecting that will mean that they can't find stuff they wrote with a search or assume that it's not there anymore, because the two symbols look similar enough that it will be easy for many people to overlook the difference. Discuss at the bot link if you have additional rules for when the substitution should or shouldn't be made. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:26, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Let me get this right: when you put a hyphen into a search engine, it won't pick up an en dash? And vice-versa? TONY (talk) 14:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking of local search in browsers and word processing software, and also regex searches; Google tends to largely ignore punctuation in searches. Btw I should add: the particular bot being proposed doesn't present this problem, because it's only going to change page titles, so the problem can be handled with a redirect. But as is pointed out on that page, it's likely that if people see this happening in an automated way, they might start using AWB on the same regex string to start automating this conversion in text. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it should be discussed here first, and then if we decide that's okay, editors should be notified that that happens, including in WP:MoS. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:39, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I do hope this happens for main text. Good, crisp writing in English requires the use of en dashes, whatever Anderson says. TONY (talk) 14:41, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm a bit torn on this one, because the difference between hyphens and en-dashes is not something that sticks in most Wikipedian editors' minds, until they become aware of the issues. So if someone types "2005-06" (hyphen) in some unwatchlisted articles, and it magically changes to an en-dash, and they later decide that they got the dates wrong, they are probably going to hit Ctrl-F (in Firefox) to search for "2005-06". When they don't find it, they won't assume that it was converted to an en-dash, they'll assume that someone else changed it, or that they misremembered the page. On the other hand, conversion to correct typographical symbols is the kind of thing that ought to be handled by software, at least some of the time. I haven't figured out what I think about all this, yet.
A separate point: I need to keep an eye on proposed bots that deal with style issues. I was only over there because I like to randomly wander to places I haven't been before in Wikipedia. The last time a style-bot was deployed without discussion first on style-guidelines pages, it caused a lot of grief over at WT:Layout. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:52, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

←(copied from Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DyceBot 4, in response to a comment) "Ah, who would have to search for something they wrote?" Everyone who writes for a living. As the saying goes among professionals, there is no writing, only re-writing. And I am not an inveterate anything, nor antagonistic, nor against en-dashes; I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear before. I completely support the current WP:MoS recommendation on use of en-dashes, and I have made the corrections at FAC's and GAN's. I support the idea of revisiting the discussions concerning all characters not found on keyboards roughly once a year, for the simple reason that all such characters are slowly dying out in "persuasive" (not sure what I mean by that) English writing, because so much content is migrating to the web these days as the primary place where it lives. We don't have to change our style the moment other publications do; we can and should be conservative. But we should keep an eye on developments.

And I agree with Tony that, if we're going to make these conversions, they should be done with a bot. But there needs to be discussion, and it needs to be done carefully, and people have to be notified. Notification is especially important when the proposed substitution is one that a majority of editors won't even notice or remember, unless they've been made aware of the issues. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:40, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Good, crisp writing in English requires the use of en dashes. (emphasis added). Does anyone else agree with this - or is it more of Tony's personal prejudices? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think Tony operates out of personal prejudice, including here, this is totally a judgment call. And btw, I agree with Tony's judgment call on this one, for now, and maybe for several years more. I still claim that many typographers characters are slowly evaporating online; but reports of their death are greatly exaggerated. Dashes are well-established in the publishing world, pleasing to the eye, and easy to learn. But the WT:GAU survey documented that people sometimes got grumpy when we insisted they insert no-break spaces or dashes, not because they cared, but because they didn't want to take the time, so I'm all in favor of bot development to help us conform GAs and FAs. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:24, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Please note that none of what you have said implies that endashes are required for effectiveness, which is the statement I question. I oppose any bot that would make stylistic decisions in text, since that is an editorial prerogative; I would oppose it equally if it replaced endashes with hyphens. A standard format for titles is more defensible. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:28, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I meant his judgment call on supporting WP:MoS#Dashes. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Obviously one should not convert ALL hyphens to ndashes. Some should remain hyphens and some should be mdashes and some should be minus signs. A style manual should prescribe which is which. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think a bot making substitutions of this type will do much more harm than good. The difference between hyphens and en-dashes doesn't warrant any complications that affect the substantive work of creating an encyclopedia. JamesMLane t c 06:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the bot is being developed to modify only page titles, not page content. Changing page content to use ndashes in place of hypens, besides being a bad idea to begin with, is a task laden with false positives, so it is not suitable for a bot. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 06:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Replacing hyphens by en-dashes in article titles is rather counterproductive. I do not expect anyone ever to type an en-dash in the entrybox when looking up an article. So a redirect from the name with hyphen would always still be required. So why not keep that as the only entry? −Woodstone (talk) 08:34, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that automatically changing the hyphens in the text is a task fraught with difficulties, but this is not what we are talking about here. This is a discussion about changing the titles of articles, and there are virtually no false positives here. A couple of categories of titles with hyphens instead of en dashes between numbers have been identified, and these titles—rather few anyway—will be, of course, discounted from the substitution. Therefore, as far as the process is concerned, we are covered.
The technical background exists to ensure that the usage of en dashes or other non-ASCII characters in titles will not adversely affect searches or navigation, as has already been mentioned in the bot-approval discussion. As an encyclopaedia, it is our duty to offer accurate information to our readers, in a clear and presentable manner; using en dashes and other characters to this effect is most desirable, and when the Manual of Style—written by consensus and with knowledge of the proper usage of the English language—recommends a certain usage model for such characters, then it becomes obvious why it is a problem that there are thousands of article titles deviating from our established guidelines. Changing these titles, as I can tell you from personal experience, is slow and tedious, and to move all of what are essentially misplaced articles by hand will waste time and resources better utilised elsewhere. If approved, a robot which, as has been explained, will remove a great part of the problem with a near-zero possibility of error, will successfully conduct a long, repetitive, and necessary task, improving the encyclopaedia while placing no burden on the shoulders of our editors, and showing even more to our readers how professional and well-written Wikipedia has the potential to be. Why succumb to the inferior linguistic standards of much of the rest of the Internet when we could be a beacon of high-quality written English? And this logic applies, or at least it should, to the entirety of the Manual of Style (so I reserve the right to re-use the whole, or part, of my speech here :-D). Waltham, The Duke of 10:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • There appears to be ignorance and hysteria at the thought of bringing all article titles into consistency WRT a basic punctuation mark that is a hallmark of good, crisp writing. If you don't know how to use an en dash and how it operates to make the reading experience easier and clearer (even among those who don't quite understand its function) you should read about how to in MOS. Take no notice of guerrilla warfarists such as Manderson, who seem to have a frenzied fear of anything but dots and hyphens—or if they don't, seek to weaken our stylistic guidance at every turn out a simple hatred of centralised cohesion. TONY (talk) 12:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that ndashes should be used, and I even think that the bot is probably a good idea, but mixing a detail of orthography that has virtually no effect on the flow of reading with completely unrelated words such as "good, crisp writing" is unlikely to help this discussion. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:14, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Orthography has everything to do with the flow of reading. TONY (talk) 13:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Therein lies the nub of the subject. Reading is not writing. Orthography is not composition. Most editors on WP have only the most rudimentary understanding of orthography, yet we regularly use software that does a reasonable (if imperfect) job of it. We should seek to understand if there are many special cases in which the choices between hyphen, en-dash, and em-dash are not amenable to being automated. If it is sufficiently rare, then by all means unleash the bots to correct the wikitext. Otherwise, should we use suggest-bots and a task force? LeadSongDog (talk) 15:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
It is a hard task in prose, but a relatively easy one in article titles, which follow very specific conventions and fall under strict limitations. Also, I do not know whether there are any em dashes in article titles, but to the extent of my knowledge, there should be none whatever. Waltham, The Duke of 02:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Date-range question

(Note: this question was also asked at WP:HELPDESK here.)

Experienced editor here with a MoS question - is there a better venue to ask this? Let me know if so. Regarding this edit, where the editor changed the date range from "350-500,000 years" to "350,000-500,000 years". I've looked through the MoS for ten or fifteen minutes and can't find anything regarding this exact situation, either in the date section or number section. Anyone have any enlightenment for me? Tan | 39 15:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I answered this at the help desk too, but I'll copy it here as well. I would tend to agree that 350,000-500,000 would be more correct as its unambiguous. 350-500,000 could mean "(350 to 500)-thousand" or "(350) to (500,000)" -- ShinmaWa(talk) 16:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Please use an en dash: 350,000–500,000 years. Waltham, The Duke of 03:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure who you are talking to. However, if you are talking to me, I will be happy to put an endash on a talk page as soon as someone puts an endash on my keyboard. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
If you're on a Windoze box you can get an endash by holding down the ALT key while typing 0150 on the numeric keypad. Hesperian 03:18, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I can also click on the link below the edit box. However, I'm not going to do either on a talk page and it's ridiculous to even suggest it. I understand the endash debate is a hot button right now, but a) this is a talk page and b) this is a discussion regarding date wording not punctuation. Dragging that tired discussion into this section only distracts from the subject at hand. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:34, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Hesperian. Or click on the en dash below the edit box. Or use the Insert menu. Or use a desktop computer. Or a Mac. There is simply no excuse—unless you're PManderson—and his Grace is quite justified in asking Shinmawa to use en dashes here: for those who are used to proper punctuation, there's a short "bump" every time someone squibs on the practice and substitutes a tiny little hyphen; and we should be setting an example here to all users, not perpetrating bad practice. TONY (talk) 03:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Would "350–500 thousand years" keep everyone happy? Hesperian 04:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Since people are more than happy to tell you when they're not happy around here, I believe the silence means that people are happy. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm OK with 350–500 thousand years, but not 350–500,000 years. TONY (talk) 02:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Shinmwa: be sloppy, then, but (1) I won't be able to take you seriously on issues of style; and (2) please use an apostrophe in "it's" (your edit summary), also relating to (1). TONY (talk) 03:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
i koodent kare lez if ewe take me seriosly or nut, tonee. I have to admit, though, that I'm growing weary of your pedantic, nitpicky tone, which is bordering on incivility. (Making snide comments on typos in edit summaries??) Your treatment of PMAnderson is way over the line on incivility. I respectfully request you tone it down a little. -- ShinmaWa(talk) 03:49, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Nope. TONY (talk) 11:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Monthly update of style and policy pages: April 2008

It was a complicated month, so I hope I've captured, as simply as possible, the substantive changes. Please notify any issues on the talk page. TONY (talk) 16:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Interesting how Tony's tags are included, and nobody's else are. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
What are tags? Seems like a personal attack. Aside from that, I won't bother to respond to this attempt to smear my efforts with accusations of POV. TONY (talk) 10:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

New category

I'm trying to carve out some kind of monthly job (several of us have volunteered, but more are welcome!) of patrolling some of the style guidelines pages and talk pages, answering questions, and especially, doing monthly summaries of changes for the benefit of article reviewers. We're not going to be able to cover the 68 pages in the "style guidelines" cat, but then, we shouldn't; we have no business fiddling with most of those pages. I've created Category:Manual of Style, and I don't have a strong preference for what goes in the category, but I have some ideas about which style-guidelines pages stay out:

  1. Pages that don't read like style guidelines. WP:Article development is a great page, but it reads much more like pages in the "editing guidelines" and "how-to" cats than like WP:MOS, WP:Layout, etc. People expecting something prescriptive would be disappointed; other people might stay away from it thinking that it's another boring MoS page (in their view), when it's really very helpful. [None in this category now]
  2. Subject-specific pages. Really, what business do I have looking at a style guideline for anime? The question of whether a new style guideline for film was official or not just came up in WP:VPP here, and my feeling is, it's as official as it needs to be, until and unless someone suggests that it's not. We can't be running around vetting every style guide that pops up, because we don't have time for it, and we won't know as much as the subject experts do. If there's a contradiction, if a problem comes up, we'll deal with it then.
  3. Pages that have a flavor of being policy-related or controversial. It's not hard to pick these out: just look at the talk page and see if there's a lot of yelling. WP:Avoid Neologisms is an example. That page is in three different cats, and it will certainly live on, but I don't think we actually need it in our core MoS-cat, and it would be more trouble than it's worth to maintain it. It will be good enough for day-to-day work just to tell people which dictionaries, glossaries and style guides are helpful.

All of this is negotiable; feel free to add or delete pages from the new cat. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Rather than monthly summaries, which I'd hoped would be covered already in my initiative earlier this month, I think we urgently need to gather information relevant to rationalising the jungle of MOS subpages, to underpin a strategy of gradually, bit by bit, merging some of them and addressing conflicts between them. TONY (talk) 08:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I was talking about your initiative; let me rephrase. I meant that I'm trying to carve out some kind of role for myself (and anyone is willing to join of course) that involves participating in your initiative, plus watching style guidelines pages. I'm happy to follow your lead on that; you know what article reviewers need. On the jungle of MOS subpages, one editor has made a good start on that and will be ready to present his findings by the end of the week. (Can you feel the drama?) As for merging and addressing conflicts, one technical problem is that renaming or moving sections breaks links. I asked several related questions about this over at Wikipedia:Bot requests#Does anyone know of a bot that fixes links to sections as the sections get archived?, and the only answer so far is that Cluebot III may be useful. Anyone have any advice? This has been one thing making me hesitant to do any heavy lifting. [Solved by ClueBot III] - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:06, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


Okay, I finished the walkthrough for everything in the style-guidelines cat. The theory in adding CAT:MOS to some of the style guidelines is that we want editors to feel like CAT:MOS is a learnable amount of material, the material is intuitive and not terribly controversial, it's not too much of a burden to watchlist everything in the cat (for those who care), and everything in the cat reflects well on Wikipedia. Here's the key to the following list of articles that I left in the style-guidelines cat but didn't add to CAT:MOS:

  • S (example: WP:Stubs): "subject-specific" pages. For instance, most editors won't need all the information on stubs categories in WP:Stubs, and if they do, they'll know where to look; they don't need to read it before they need it.
  • P (example: WP:Avoid weasel words): these pages aren't "policy", but they concern policy in some way. For instance, WP:WEASEL helps people comply with WP:NPOV. It's important not to lead people to confuse policy with guidelines.

Some pages were a judgment call. I think WP:Manual of Style (pronunciation) is a little scary for some editors, and it's not something you have to learn ahead of time; you can wait until you want to learn IPA (if ever!) before reading it. So I marked it with "S". None of my judgment calls are intended to "demote" or "promote" a guideline.

  • S Wikipedia:Articles on elections
  • P Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms
  • P Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms
  • P Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words
  • S Wikipedia:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board/Style guide
  • P Wikipedia:Citing sources [much of the "style" content in this is also in WP:Footnotes, which is in CAT:MOS]
  • S Wikipedia:Conservation status
  • P Wikipedia:External links
  • S Wikipedia:History standards for China-related articles
  • S Wikipedia:Lists [WP:Embedded lists is in CAT:MOS]
  • S Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists) [should probably be merged into WP:Lists]
  • S Wikipedia:Lyrics and poetry
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ireland-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Japan-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Korea-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Latter Day Saints)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Macedonia-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (anime- and manga-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies) [about biographical articles; the WP:BLP policy covers any material of a biographical nature]
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) [this page is linked from many CAT:MOS pages, in order to focus on specific helpful sections]
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (flags)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (music)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (use of Chinese language)
  • S Wikipedia:Music samples
  • P Wikipedia:Pro and con lists
  • S Wikipedia:Proper names [diacritics, transliterations, capitalization of animals]
  • S Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines
  • S Wikipedia:Simplified phonetic transcription for Lithuanian
  • S Wikipedia:Spoiler
  • S Wikipedia:Stub
  • S Wikipedia:Style for U.S. presidential election, yyyy
  • S Wikipedia:WikiProject Films/Style guidelines
  • S Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide

I removed the "style guidelines" cat from:

  • Wikipedia:Avoid statements that will date quickly (it may become historical soon)
  • Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style (it's a how-to guide, and disputed)
  • Wikipedia:Disambiguation and abbreviations (this was already marked as a content guideline and has much in common with naming conventions)
  • Wikipedia:Hatnote (Since WP:Disambiguation is a content guideline rather than a style guideline, this should be too)
  • Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles (moved to content guideline)
  • Wikipedia:People by year (it's a spinoff of the editing guidelines page WP:Categorization of people, so I moved it to that cat)
  • Wikipedia:Soft redirect (editing guideline)

If all this is okay, we need to un-redirect the style-guidelines template (it's currently redirected to the MoS-template), and re-assign the templates. (If anyone has a problem with this, we can certainly leave them as they are, but currently, these pages more or less randomly begin with either "This page is part of the Manual of Style" or "This page is a style guideline". I don't feel strongly about what it says at the top, as long as people who patrol style guidelines reach consensus on how to deal with the various pages.) See WP:Village pump (policy)/Archive 44#Style guides for how I propose we deal with new pages that people use to develop new style guidelines. The items in the Style template also need to be changed, and the Duke has suggested that the last sections should be collapsed, which is a great idea. I had to remove the entire (uncollapsed) Style template from WP:Captions because it didn't leave enough room for examples. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:32, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Style template

There are a little under 400 pages that list the Style template, which gives that long blue sidebar. Almost all of them are either style guidelines or User pages. Is there any general objection to removing that template from pages that aren't? Some pages look a little bit like style guidelines pages but aren't, such as WP:NAME, which is policy, and WP:EDIT, which is a how-to page. I think a sidebar is more likely to stick in someone's head than a cat at the bottom of the page, and it seems to me it would be best not to confuse people about the nature of the page. If people argue after I remove the style template, I'll report back. I don't see this as necessary, just potentially helpful. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with a user having the template on their page. They likely put it there as a reference for themselves, and I don't think we should mess with it. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 19:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Besides, restricting WhatLinksHere to the WP namespace only is more manageable; it looks like I'll finish today. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

←I did finish today; here's the report.

Added to "Wikipedia style guidelines" cat:

  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Ethiopia-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Islam-related articles)
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters) [also added to CAT:MOS]
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (command-line examples)
  • P Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes)
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)

See above for what S and P mean. I don't think it means anything in particular to add the cat, it just makes articles which clearly already claim to be style guidelines easier to find than having to sift through Special:WhatLinksHere. However, if people are watchlisting these pages and they've had problems with the contents, this would be a logical time for them to speak up, and I'll report here if any conflicts arise. To play it a little safer, I left messages on the talk pages of the following pages that also claim to be guidelines:

  • WT:Record charts
  • WT:WikiProject Hawaii/Manual of Style
  • WT:Manual of Style (poker-related articles)
  • WT:Manual of Style (U.S. state and territory highways)
  • WT:Manual of Style (Portuguese-related articles)
  • WT:WikiProject Novels/Style guidelines
  • WT:Manual of Style (Iceland-related articles)
  • WT:Manual of Style (chemistry)
  • WT:WikiProject Aviation
  • WT:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Style guide

I removed the Style sidebar from 3 pages that considered themselves naming conventions instead, and since they dealt with article titles, I think they're right:

  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (U.S. state and territory highways) [in Naming conventions cat]
  • Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Indic) [added Naming conventions cat]
  • Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian [in Naming conventions cat]

I also removed the Style template from a number of pages that were historical, proposals, etc, to reduce clutter in the "WhatLinksHere" page.

Feedback on any of this is welcome. Tomorrow, I'll hit the "Template:Style guidelines" pages that haven't been covered yet in this sweep, with the same goals: ask first, then add the "Wikipedia style guidlines" cat to make them easier to find. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:23, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

One change; moving WP:Words to avoid out of CAT:MOS. It probably deserves a "P" label (see above). - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Update on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (U.S. state and territory highways): there are 3 pages worth of stuff that could be distributed between a "naming conventions" page and a "style" page; input on how to tell the difference between these two types of pages and how to sort the material would be welcome. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Recommendations from sweep of style guidelines

Okay, all done. I looked at "WhatLinksHere" in the WP namespace for {{style-guideline}}, {{style-guide}}, {{style guide}}, and {{style}}. I have now change the {{style-guide}} and {{style guide}} pages to {{style-guideline}} pages. I also looked at what's currently in the {{style}} sidebar, and I previously looked at Category:Wikipedia style guidelines. I have moved any page that used one of the above templates into the cat, unless it had very little activity or it seemed to fit better in a different guidelines subcat (see CAT:G). The main goal is to allow people to quickly find all the pages that claim to be style guidelines.

I've been a little surprised not to see any friction or reversions, but then, most of the style guidelines pages are like that: lots of civil discourse, not a lot of drama. The notable exceptions are the pages where material foreign to the page, generally policy-related, is being dragged in to support a fight somewhere else, which suggests a fix: don't let that happen. You can see what may or may not be a current example at WT:Layout#"References and notes" or "Notes and references". I'll wait and see what response I get in this thread, and then go back and look at WP:Layout and other CAT:MOS pages to see if there is consensus for moving some of the policy-related material on to other pages (such as moving material on citation to WP:CITE).

The point of the new cat CAT:MOS is to identify those style pages that that don't seem to be restricted to a specific kind of article or wikiproject, and that don't regularly struggle with policy-related issues. I hope that a lot of people will watchlist these pages; they don't see a lot of action, and when they do, there's generally a good reason for it. I suggest we shorten the "Style" sidebar to the pages in CAT:MOS, plus style-guidelines pages I've marked with "P" in this section, plus possibly a few additional pages, plus links to the style-guidelines cat and the editing-guidelines cat. The {{Style}} sidebar is already so long that we can't include it on some of the style-guidelines pages (such as WP:Captions) because it gets in the way. Sure, WP:Summary style is important, but not more than the other editing guidelines. Sure, Ethiopia-related articles are important, but do we really want to be in the business of saying which subjects and wikiprojects are important and which aren't? Let's back as far away from being "the man" as we can, and let any battles fought over inclusion/exclusion in the "Wikipedia style guidelines" cat be fought page by page. Most of the people who take it on themselves to maintain styles guidelines pages are doing a very good job and have a good sense of whether a page is ready to be called a style guideline.

Report of recent activity

Removed "style-guideline", "style-guide" or "style guide" template because of inactivity on the page, left msg on talk page:

  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Numismatics/Style/Currency article
  • Wikipedia:Portal guidelines

Moved to editing guideline:

  • Wikipedia:Article message boxes

Added Wikipedia style guidelines category:

  • S Wikipedia:Colours
  • S Wikipedia:Taxobox usage
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Philippine-related articles)
  • S Wikipedia:Captions
  • S Wikipedia:Profanity
  • S Wikipedia:Manual of Style (legal)

Added Wikipedia style guidelines category and Manual of Style category:

  • WP:How to copy-edit

- Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:35, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I propose that we use an infobox that says something like "style guideline supporting the core-content policies" for the pages I've marked with "P". (To get why I think these pages should be denoted differently from other style guidelines pages, read the talk pages. These pages have a different constituency with different priorities.) The CAT:MOS infobox might say "general style guideline" or something similar; as long as no one is confused, I don't think it matters. There are so many pages that have "Manual of Style" in the title that it doesn't mean much, and I don't see any reason to ask anyone to move their pages. But I don't think "Manual of Style" in an infobox is helpful, because the phrase means different things to different people. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC) [tweaked 23:54, 10 May 2008 (UTC)]

Okay, unless I missed something, the {{Style}} template in the WP namespace has now been removed from pages which are not in Category:Wikipedia style guidelines. (No one has reverted me on this yet, but we'll see. The idea is that a graphic sticks in people's heads more than words do, so it's important that the graphic not be misleading.) Pages recently added to the cat after leaving messages on the talk pages are:

  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (poker-related articles)
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Portuguese-related articles)
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels/Style guidelines
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Iceland-related articles)
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (chemistry)

- Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:30, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Church or church

The article Roman Catholic Church has a vote going on at present regarding the proper use of capitalization. It appears that in reading the MOS that it is confusing as to what is proper on wikipedia. As a result, the majority of editors feel that it is most appropriate to vote in support of referring to the RCC as the Church when not using the proper noun. Could you please clarify the proper usage and if anyone would like to add a vote it would be helpful. Thanks.--Storm Rider (talk) 00:39, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

See WT:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Church.2C_when_used_alone.2C_is_usually_lowercase for what the American style guides say. I like the fact that people are trying to be as sensitive and respectful as possible, but the style guides seem both stable and unanimous on capitalizing less often in the current editions, and there are many reasons to try to keep our style guidelines not radically out of line with what professionals do. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think a vote is the way to fix this problem. If users feel the MoS is ambiguous on this issue, or flat out wrong, or if users are in conflict on what style to use, they shouldn't vote on an article by article basis, but have a centralized discussion to deal with these matters. I propose that we tackle that here and now. Let's re-examine how we discuss the capitalization of institutions in the Manual of Style. Let's here new proposals. Let's dig out style guides and figure out what we can agree upon and what needs to change to make the MoS more clear. We have already started discussing this on the Capital letters subpage. Is there a better venue for this discussion, or is it ok if we continue it there? Is anyone opposed to trying to open this dispute up into a site wide discussion?-Andrew c [talk] 14:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I am really looking forward to this, but not now. Always seek to reduce urgency and heat in style guidelines discussions. Increasing urgency and heat is a sometimes useful technique in policy discussions, because everyone likes to talk about what's hot, and policy needs wide discussion to be worth anything at all. Style guidelines are sometimes harmed when people feel that they need to get in a response to every point that's made or risk "losing" on some urgent matter. The current WP:FAC for Roman Catholic Church is urgent; let's make sure that this isn't a make-or-break issue in that WP:FAC before we discuss it here. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
WT:MOSCAPS now has two sections on the subject. If we are going to discuss this in general, we should do so there; but should we? The RCC question involves so many essentially theological issues not shared by other organizations (What is a Church? What is the Church? What is the effect of caps on these?) that I doubt this is good occasion, or sufficient reason, to consider caps in general. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:31, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

My practice has been that when the phrase "the Church" is used as a abbreviation of the name "the Roman Catholic Church" or of the name of some other church, then it's a proper noun and should be capitalized, but in other contexts it's a common noun (e.g. "The church to which John Smith belongs practices infant baptism."---lower-case since it's not an abbreviation of the name of any particular church). Michael Hardy (talk) 22:43, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

That is a reasonable position. Our examples, however, say much more. We need a new section.

University

We can, I hope, agree that we should write:

The University of Delhi was founded in...

but

Any university offers courses in the arts and sciences.

Some of the discussion on the RCC would suggest that MOS is being read as requiring:

The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. The university has a distinguished alumni body and faculty.

This is less than persuasive; both instances of University refer to the University of Delhi, and so both are proper nouns. This is a violation both of common sense and (at least in my university town, which is not Delhi) of idiom. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I follow that it seems easy, but it turns out it's not easy. Again I ask, can we put this off so that it doesn't become a sixth thread in a very long discussion in a current FAC? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
It would be just as well not to have this become a theological argument, so I am willing to postpone definitely. Our errors should not be used to darken counsel while we wait, however. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Good call on the "disputed" tag. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:35, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

"both instances of University refer to the University of Delhi, and so both are proper nouns." What a strange thing to say! Here's another example: "I'd like to introduce you to my friend Bill. He is an engineer." Would you say "My friend, Bill and He all refer to the same person, so all are propor nouns"? Hesperian 23:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a better example: "Fleet Street is the street on which the British press were located until the 1980s." Would you say: "both instances of street refer to Fleet Street, and so both are proper nouns"? Hesperian 00:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

  • No, it is a different example. Fleet Street being treated as an element of the class of streets; one cannot substitute one for the other. (This may in fact serve as a decent test: One can say The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. The University of Delhi has a distinguished alumni body and faculty. with no problem but repetitiveness; Fleet Street is the Fleet Street on which the British press were located until the 1980s. is nonsense. )Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Then I would be required to capitalise all occurences of street in "Fleet Street is where the British press were located until the 1980s. The street is a location on the London version of the Monopoly board game"? How about "I live on Fleet Street; sometimes my children play in the street"? Hesperian 05:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Can we say I live on Fleet Street; sometimes my children play in Fleet Street, with no change of meaning? No. The second street does not mean Fleet Street, the geographical entity; it means the pavement. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
The church does not become a proper noun just because it is used in place of the actual proper noun. Where did this assumption come from? A proper noun is a proper noun; it is never a generic noun used in the place of a proper noun. This surprises me that it is so often repeated. The the Chicago MOS is clear that capitalization has become the exception and is often discouraged. I don't have a problem with arriving at a new policy, but whatever the policy is it should be observed by all. More importantly, no article should be held up as an example if it blatantly ignores MOS policies. --Storm Rider (talk) 00:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
No, the CMOS chooses to make a recommendation, a rule of thumb, which will serve as one possibility when no complication arises. (The section above, where Church and church by idiom denote different objects, is a perfect example of the complications which may arise.)
But the defenders of this ill-arranged exercise in dogmatism face a fork. When the matter is simple, their recommendation is simply wrong; when the matter is complex, any simple recommendation is wrong. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:25, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I notice that Anatolian Shepherd Dog contains the text owners of dogs of this breed must determinedly socialize the dogs to turn them into appropriate companions. I suppose you advocate correcting this to owners of dogs of this breed must determinedly socialize the Dogs to turn them into appropriate companions? Hesperian 05:47, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

No. Again, it's a matter of sense; dogs in dogs of this breed means members of the species (which is why it needs the defining qualifier), and is so a common noun; the second dogs means the same thing, and therefore inherits the capitalization of dogs of this species. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
  • There are doubtless many examples, however, where it is idiom to write dogs and no such explanation is available. I do not think we should say or imply Dogs is always right; but at the moment, we imply that Dogs and University are never right. This is not what English does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

But the problem is ever more clearly that we are imposing a simple rule on a complex situation, and are therefore wrong. I would modify to make the example Any university and be silent on the matter at hand; if we do discuss it, we should add something like:

"When the noun is being used as a short form of the proper name,

The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. The University has a distinguished alumni body and faculty.

then it is usually capitalized; when it is being used of the organization as a member of the class of organizations of the type,

The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. This university, like most universities, offers graduate courses in the arts and sciences.

it should be lower case. The distinction between these is often more one of mood and emphasis than of meaning; one test is whether the proper name of the organization can be substituted for the noun without change of force."

Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:57, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Clarity is an important issue here too. Church can have several meanings, and capitalisation helps distinguish these. An example from the article in question:
"According to canon law, one becomes a member of the Catholic Church by being baptized in the Church. Christians baptized outside of the Church or those never baptized may be received by participating in a formation program such as the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults."
Without the capitalization of Church, confusion would soon arise as to whether one was being baptized inside or outside of a building or the mystical institution. Xandar (talk) 23:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


With regards to the capitalisation of the second occurence of university in The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. The university has a distinguished alumni body and faculty, there are three positions you can take:

  1. university is a proper noun in this context; the MOS should mandate capitalisation.
  2. university is not necessarily a common noun in this context; the MOS should not mandate anything; and
  3. university is a common noun in this context; the MOS should mandate lower case.

With regards to the first position, I think it is refuted by the fact that one could replace university by school, and this would be indisputably a common noun. I cannot see how changing school to university necessarily changes the may in which the sentence must be parsed, merely because its referent has University in its name. Fortunately this may now be a straw man, because if I have read Septentrionalis' most recent missive aright, he has now adopted position two.

I am more comfortable with position two, but I still don't think it is correct. What it boils down to is "it depends on the author's intent. Having already referred to University of Delhi in the previous sentence, the author is free to refer to the same in any of three ways: by repeating the full name University of Delhi; by use of the common noun the university i.e. "the previously identified definite article of class university"; or by use of the proper noun the University, being an abbreviated form of the full name." My objection to this is that University of Delhi has an accepted abbreviation, DU. This being an encyclopedia, I would surely be reverted if I decided to refer to it by UoD or UofD or UDelhi or any other novel abbreviation. Why then is it permissible for me to abbreviate it to University on a grammatical whim? I think that to use such an abbreviation would be wrong, if not in general then at least for an encyclopedia. I am therefore of the view that only the common noun interpretation is correct.

Hesperian 00:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Perhaps not the best example, considering that "university" and "school" cannot be exchanged in this way in British, or I think Indian, English. But in any case your objection to "abbreviation" does not really stand up. Consider any biography; is it necessary to refer to Charles Darwin with his full name at every mention? Perhaps it is a British/US thing, and perhaps spending too much time with things saying the likes of "Foo Company (hereinafter "the Company")", but position 2 seems correct to me. Johnbod (talk) 00:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Yes, I concede the point with respect to Charles Darwin/Darwin; I didn't think of that. Hesperian 01:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Changing The University to The school changes the force of the sentence, even in those dialects in which university would be a subclass of school. Therefore (2), which I have always held: The University has a distinguished alumni body and faculty and The university has a distinguished alumni body and faculty are saying slightly different things, only the first being exactly equivalent to The University of Delhi has a distinguished alumni body and faculty. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Come again? How are they saying slightly different things? In both cases the [Uu]niversity is an unambigous reference to the same entity. Hesperian 01:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
        • They (probably) have the same truth value, but one denotes DU by a proper name, and the other as this member of the class of universities. Much the same difference exists between
          • This was observed by Charles Darwin; Darwin wrote... and
          • This was observed by Charles Darwin; the naturalist wrote....
        (Not quite the same; but posit that the article has already said Darwin was a naturalist.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:55, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
        • Okay. Clearly neither of the above sentences can be declared to be wrong, or even stylistically inferior to the other; it depends on context, personal preference, and subtle nuances of meaning. I'm not 100% convinced that our University example maps perfectly onto our Darwin example, but the correspondence is more or less there. I'll concede the point that mandating against capitalisation of that example in the MOS would be "imposing a simple rule on a complex situation, and therefore wrong." Hesperian 02:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
          • Thanks. I hope this conversation will be as clarifying to somebody else as it has been to me. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I do not know what the idiom is for DU; I merely quoted our article. Some universities do have multiple short forms, the equivalent here of the University, DU, and Delhi (for example, Berkeley and UCB', or Princeton, PU and the University). Some of these are of course only appropriate in certain contexts; Delhi would only be useful if it is clear that the University, not either of the cities, is meant. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:40, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

What, therefore, do we do? I made two proposals above; one is a rule of thumb, the other is to change our present examples to Any university... (desirable) and Any University... (undesirable) leaving the issue Hesperian and Johnbod and I have been talking about drowned in silence. We could also say The Vice-President of India is the Chancellor of the University of Delhi. The University has a distinguished faculty. depends on context, personal preference, and subtle nuances of meaning. Suggestions? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

My suggestion is that it's possible that we would be saving a lot of time if we were content to use style guides to help with this one, so let's have a larger discussion about that, whenever people are in the mood. I would prefer to finish up some other stuff first, but it's not a strong preference. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:27, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Kingdom of Gwynedd

What's the MOS's take on the current lead setup in the Kingdom of Gwynedd article? --Jza84 |  Talk  10:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

The paragraph on Nennius and Cunedda is not a summary of the rest of the article; it should be worked into a section on history or mythical history.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:51, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Accessibility and images

Is WP:MOS#Images out of sync with Wikipedia:Accessibility?

* Avoid floating the table of contents if possible, as it breaks the standard look of pages. If you must use a floated TOC, put it below the lead section for consistency. Users of screen readers expect the table of contents to follow the introductory text; they will also miss any text placed between the TOC and the first heading.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:37, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I made this change to keep WP:MOS in sync with WP:Accessibility. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:23, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I completely support the change. DrKiernan (talk) 12:34, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I added back in the word Exception as this was not discussed here. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:58, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Strong objection to the encouragement of gender-neutral language

I seriously and strongly object to the section of the article which suggests that users should "consider using gender-neutral language where it can be done without loss of neatness and precision." This policy is pointless adherence to political correctness which contributes nothing but convoluted sentences an gratuitous indulgence of minority group's requests. It encourages neologisms and assumes fact which just plain don't exist. Most importantly, it is arguably incompatible with other sections of the manual of style and policies.

1) It's political correctness. This is apparent from the very definition of PC (i.e., "language, ideas, policies, or behavior seen as seeking to minimize offense to racial, cultural, or other identity groups."). Why is political correctness inappropriate for an encyclopædia? Quite frankly, it is censorship for the protection of others, taking away the preferred style of writing for ages on end (English has had genders, in one form or another throughout its entire lifespan, it's only recently that we've lost the vast majority of said genders) to satisfy the will of a specific group of a specific agenda. No one would here would agree to support a PC motivated style change such as changing all instances of "homosexual" to "person who condones a different lifestyle choice without thinking less of other lifestyle choices" simply to avoid the chance that someone may be offended, yet that is the only reason I see here for using gender neutral language in inappropriate places. In summary, it's a pointless change that is nothing but indulging specific groups, and has no place on Wikipedia.

In answer to your spin on "political correctness", I'd call it "political inclusion". TONY (talk) 15:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

2) It's against precedent and policy. We have a diverse group of people on Wikipedia, each with his own customs and beliefs, as a result, we see clashes of customs and cultures. In the vast majority of these circumstances we choose the path based on the rules of the language and on common usage, not on avoiding offense to particular groups. An instance of this, particularly applicable to me, is the capitalization of pronouns for God out of respect. Wikipedia does not condone this, even though it is a simple change that would take little to no effort and serve to avoid offending Catholics and Christians in general. This is relevant in that it is a specific example of how proper academic usage is stressed over protecting a group from offense. Another specific example is the removal of "peace be upon him" from articles dealing with Muslims. Once again, this change is done in spite of the fact that it may offend some readers. What is the moral from all this? On Wikipedia, by precedent, avoiding offending people is not a valid reason for policy. This is in direct conflict with the first sentence of WP: Gender Neutral Language, "Gender-neutral language avoids constructions that might be interpreted by some readers as an unnecessary reinforcement of traditional stereotypes."

3) It encourages neologisms. Avoiding common and valid words like "chairman" or "fireman" and replacing them with words which haven't existed for any period of time, and which have been custom-created for this very purpose is silly. The gender neutral components, "chairperson" and "firefighter" respectively are awkward and unnecessary, and, as above, only serve to avoid offending a specific group. In order to avoid accepted an common words, which only have gender as a result of the nature of the language and no specific attempt to make a statement one way or another, we are often forced to use new and unaccepted words which have no place on an encyclopædia. For an extreme example, see this.

Er ... Adair, Red, American firefighter - that's the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Not that we have to do what they do, but at least the argument that the word has no place in a respectable encyclopedia is clearly wrong. --GRuban (talk) 03:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

4) The offense is imagined. Languages have gender for specific words, often arbitrarily. This is a fact of life. No one among us would think it reasonable or even sane to replace all occurances of gendered nouns within Latin, for example, with their neutral gendered companion, and no one among us would take offense that iudex is male and argentaria is female as we know that this isn't a statement of the suitability of a given gender for a given role, but an arbitrary construction of grammar serving only as a result of convention. Similarly, in English, it happens that "man" both means a singular male human and the whole of the human collective. It's only because specific groups are looking for the offense that it is received.

In the end, what do we have? A pointlessly politically correct convention that results in awkward prose and ridiculous and irregular neologisms, stemming from the will to avoid an imaginary offense to a group of people in blatant violation of the precedent set by Wikipedia policy. This doesn't belong on Wikipedia. Let's be sane.--Liempt (talk) 02:30, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I am in complete and total agreement with Liempt. This has no place on WP at least until the point when it becomes common usage in the english language. I especially stress his point 2. It is definitly against precedent and policy as he explains. Chris M. (talk) 03:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh dear. I see on Liempt's page this announcement, among many others—"ANAL 5: This user is incredibly stringent with professional grammar". Could I suggest that you work on your writing technique before you start claiming such stringency? TONY (talk) 10:04, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Hi Tony. You know what, you're right. Perhaps I was exaggerating my prowess with grammar on my talk page. I have, after reflecting on your comments, removed the aforementioned userbox. The point I was trying to make was not that I was an excellent writer (I'm not) or even that my grammar is flawless (far from it), it's simply that I have taken the time to learn the rules of grammar on a theoretical level more than the average person. I think my main downfall is that I'm too hasty to post and thusly fall on my face as far as application of the rules goes. Thanks for the constructive criticism, even if it wasn't particularly related to the matter at hand.--Liempt (talk) 10:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Formal style guides are beginning to encourage more gender-neutral language, but the fact stands that English is not currently well-equipped with widely-agreed upon facilities to write in a gender-neutral and natural way. If and when the publishing world decided to move towards a specific type of gender-neutral language (I personally am a big fan of singular they), I would encourage following in their footsteps - meanwhile, it's just a source of stilted prose that distracts from the topic under discussion. I'm particularly annoyed by attempts to use female pronouns for gender-neutral subjects for the sake of "compensation." Pronoun usage should be something that fades into the background, not pops out of the page to make a political point. Dcoetzee 04:00, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
So many answers come to mind, but the only relevant one is: take it next door. You're mistaking WP:MoS for a policy page; we didn't say "use insane language to appease minority groups", and we didn't mean that, either. What's wrong with saying "Every student knows they should study" instead of "he should study"? Use a gender-neutral pronoun when you don't know the gender of the person and if it doesn't sound awkward; what's radical about that? There's nothing terribly wrong with saying "chairman", and the word still has many valid uses, but we would be misinforming our editors and readers if we told them that that word is preferable to "chair", because "chair" is much more common these days. If you want an NPOV fight, take it to WP:NPOV where it belongs. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Hey Dan, I appreciate the comments. I'll give you a bit of my rationale as to posting this here. The manual of style is used by many, many Wikipedians. I'd be willing to bet almost as much (if not more) as some policy pages. Many Wikipedians take it's word as gospel and use it as their primary guide. As a result of this, I believe this is just as important as any policy page, and faulty information here is just as dangerous as a faulty policy. That being said, I believe that it's also easily fixable, and I wanted to go ahead and change it, however, since I figured this would be a touchy issue so I decided to discuss it and gain community consensus before making any changes, bold as I may be.
As for what's wrong with it, I'd say, in the context of an encyclopædia, my four main points above. Saying "they" as opposed to "he" is gratuitous indulgence to prevent offense, which is against the no censorship policy. Sure, it's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is a matter of principle. As to your "misinformation" point, we wouldn't be misinforming our editors by telling them to use "chairman" any more than we are misinforming them by telling them to properly use "whom", as it's way more common nowadays to improperly use "whom" (if at all).
In my mind, it's not about what's common, it's about what's right. --Liempt (talk) 05:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the discussion above, Wikipedia is not here to put a political agenda, and encouraging gender-neutral is nothing but a political agenda for equality. Not a bad one, by my feelings, but still a political agenda. SyG (talk) 10:01, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I think that gender neutral language should have the same policy as English variants. Then we can have it both ways. The person who starts the article decides whether it will use the "language of the oppressor" or not. ;-) Gimme danger (talk) 11:39, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I still think it would be a bad idea if we allowed the creator of an article to specify that the article should use the gender-neutral "co" or "ey". The "they" would be reasonable, but the term "gender-neutral pronouns" encompasses a wide variety of terms and blanket allowing all of them is not a good idea. If the singular "they" is to be found acceptable, which is probably fine, then that specifically should be listed, instead of all gender-neutral terms. Chris M. (talk) 11:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
No one is forcing anyone to use or avoid anything. It says "Consider using GNL where this can be done with clarity and precision". Even where it can be done with clarity and precision, no one is forcing you to un-man yourself. (Of course,consistency is required within articles, or we'll look like fools.) The fact that the guideline doesn't say "Consider not using GNL ..." is testament to the movement in the English-speaking world over the past god-knows-how-many decades towards the avoidance of exclusivity. The important thing is that our readers not perceive exclusivity; your or my rationalisation of gender-neutral or gender-specific language is less important that being exclusive where possible. But again, if you want to use gender-specific language in an article, all you may run up against is objections from other editors—not the MoS. TONY (talk) 12:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
My biggest concern is that using it at all, or advocating its use at all is nothing more than censorship for the prevention of offense, something which wikipedia is explicitly aligned itself against, as I have written in detail above. As such, I don't think leaving it up to the author is justified. If, in fact, we encourage singular they, we should also probably start adding buffer pages so innocent users don't see naughty pics and we don't alienate the extreme right, and spoiler tags for plot details (maybe even buffer these too). Of course, I'm being extremist, but that's simply an attempt to demonstrate my point. --Liempt (talk) 12:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
It's not censorship, though; censorship is the removal or concealment of content. Quotes, of course, are to be left alone, and refactoring existing (non-quote) prose into a gender-neutral form simply isn't censorship, it's just refactoring. The meaning should never be lost. If a sentence is male- or female-specific because the subject is definetely male or female, then it's incorrect to change to gender-neutral language, as is made clear on the actual page giving advice on GNL. SamBC(talk) 14:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
The Chicago Manual of Style advocates a form of invisible gender-neutral language that avoids "nontraditional gimmicks". I feel their guidelines make sense. We aren't asking people to write 'womyn' or 'grrrl', we aren't saying use 'sie' and 'hir', or even s/he . Our guideline is not encouraging neologisms, and all the talk about political correctness is alarmist at best. I think striving for "invisible" gender-neutral language is a good thing, but I think we could improve the section here in the MoS by specifying that neologisms and awkward constructs ("nontraditional gimmicks") should be avoided.-Andrew c [talk] 13:34, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I think the current wording ("Consider using gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision.") is perfectly adequate and does not encourage silly use of artificial constructs. I suppose it could be reformulated to better express the intention, which I take to be "Avoid inaccurate or imprecise implication of gender due to use of terms that some might understand as gender-specific (even if only subconsciously). Nothing to do with censorship, everything to do with clarity, being understood, and not distracting from the information you are attempting to convey, in my opinion. As regards use of the singular they, it might not often be appropriate in a Wikipedia article but I don't think it should be implied that it is some new-fangled PC thing to avoid giving offense. It has been a normal part of the English language for centuries. It seems to be only recently that people have started objecting to it.--Boson (talk) 14:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
On review the current wording seems reasonable. The important thing is that the language is "invisible" and does not detract from brevity or the focus of the article; as long as this is the case, word usage is unimportant. Dcoetzee 18:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

What's this! We encourage "gender neutral" language?! Sounds like a feminazi conspiracy to me. Speaking of which, when are we going to move Flight attendant back to Stewardess? Kaldari (talk) 15:54, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

This is why there is no consensus for anything stronger than consider. Considering alternatives to one's prose rarely hurts, and there will be occasions when a gender-neutral phrasing will be stronger and clearer than the original, aside from all claims to virtue on the part of the unco' guid. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Liempt, you write: I have taken the time to learn the rules of grammar on a theoretical level more than the average person. Splendid, splendid. I hate to boast, but I have done the same. I wonder which route you took; my own was Radford's English Syntax, which, like every theoretical book on the rules of English grammar that comes to hand, ignores the syntactically uninteresting matter of gender-neutral phrasing. If, however, we turn to atheoretical, descriptive books on English grammar, I can think of no better than CGEL -- and sure enough, within its eighteen-hundred-plus pages there is room for this subject, particularly on pp.484–97, "Gender and pronoun–antecedent agreement". Of particular interest, and short and easy to read, are pp.492–94, which deal with "Purportedly sex-neutral he", "Purportedly sex-neutral she", "Disjunctive coordination", "Composite forms", "Singular they", and "Avoidance". What's most interesting here is the treatment of "singular they", which leads up to three samples for the reader's consideration: (i) Let me know if your father or your brother changes ___ mind; (ii) Let me know if your father or your mother changes ___ mind; and (iii) Either the husband or the wife has perjured ___ (in all three, the object coindexes with the subject).

As a theoretician, you may have bypassed this necessarily expensive book. Not to worry, you can read up on "singular they" right here.

Incidentally, I'm surprised by: This policy is pointless adherence to political correctness which contributes nothing but convoluted sentences an gratuitous indulgence of minority group's requests. It encourages neologisms and assumes fact which just plain don't exist. The policy (for policy it is, other than as "policy" is more strictly defined by WP for its own use) is not pointless, it's pointed. (The point may of course be one with which you disagree.) Which minority group, which requests? (My own group -- minority? majority? -- is one in favor of clear writing.) How does the policy encourage neologisms? (Or are you saying that they or the singular use thereof is a neologism?) What is the fact that doesn't (or what are the facts that don't) exist? (And is the term "political correctness" anything other than a rallying call for the conservatively or retrogressively inclined?) -- Hoary (talk) 02:38, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Hoary makes some good points here, especially the one concerning neologisms. (I don't recall ever running across a stray neologism in a WP article, but I'll keep keep my armor on just in case one ever leaps up and attacks me.) My view is that the current wording in the MOS is satisfactory. It might be helpful for Liempt to give specific examples of awkward phrasing encouraged by the current wording, but I find the generalized argument unpersuasive for several reasons, chiefly that the English language has been evolving since its birth and continues to evolve, and WP usage should respect that. The concept of what's "right" or "correct" is a shaky one when it comes to usage, to say the least. Incidentally, I'm sure the situation varies around the English-speaking world, but I must say I haven't heard or read the word "fireman" in many years. Rivertorch (talk) 05:49, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh yes, neologisms. Liempt seems most worried about them. He starts by linking to Wikipedia:Neologisms, which is not a warning against the use of neologisms but instead a warning against articles on neologisms, and a warning that starts The use of neologisms should be avoided in Wikipedia articles because they are not well understood, are not clearly definable, and will have different meanings to different people. He gives two examples, "chairperson" and "firefighter", which he says "are awkward and unnecessary", but which, he surprisingly adds, "only serve to avoid offending a specific group". If these two words really did serve to avoid offending a non-trivial group of sane, sober people, that would elevate them above, say [pauses while he looks around messy desk], "chewing gum", "CD-R" and "glue", good workaday terms that don't serve this sterling end. But I'd have thought that "chairperson" and "firefighter" also served to put across meanings: unlike the neologisms that the WP page discusses, they are well understood (as long as your English is up to snuff and your name isn't Rip Van Winkle), they are clearly definable [remarkably so, as, famously, many non-neologisms are not clearly definable], and they have the same meanings to different people. But whatever you think of their alleged awkwardness, they're hardly neologisms: they've been around for years. Liempt leads to a finale in which he says that [f]or an extreme example we should see Gender-neutral_pronoun#Neologisms. It's an odd section of an odd article, with a table that presents such freaks as "Xe" and "spivak" (most of which I'd never heard of, let alone felt myself forced to use in WP articles), but one that also presents, a little way after "he" and "she", "singular they", which is the subject of an article that's longwinded but that proves the word used in this way is no neologism, and instead used by excellent writers (and successfully pushed by them past copyeditors and other busybodies) for well over a century. If "singular they" was good enough for Jane Austen and her publisher, it's no neologism; and as it's an integral part of every lect of English I know of, it's good enough for me. -- Hoary (talk) 08:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
John Boddie and I were talking about gender-neutral language today, and I suggested he should comment here. He immediately replied, "Oh, I see how it is, you want me to be the fall person." - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Tony raises some interesting arguments. Upon reflection, I agree she has a point. DurovaCharge! 04:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Given that you want to make a point it is correct to use "she". It however does not follow that your point is correct; you know Tony is male and you know the convention is to use "he" to be gender inspecific. The convention is that you can use "he" when it is unclear or arbitrary. The convention also holds that when you explicitly know, you should use the correct form. Thanks GerardM (talk) 07:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Shorter or longer comments in the edit summary

I think it depends a lot on the page, but on this page, I tend to paste a phrase from my first sentence in the edit summary. I figure that people probably know whether they're interested in a topic or not, and if I give them enough to go on, they can save some time by skipping the comment. This would be overkill in the typical article, of course, because that's more a process of construction than of debate and providing links to past discussions. Should I follow the crowd and make my edit summaries shorter? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:16, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You can give a descriptive summary, I guess... After all, the box is titled edit summary for a reason, and that is not necessarily restricted to the main namespace.
I often use a plain Comment when I'm too bored to write anything else (or my comment is simply humorous), or Reply, especially in my talk page, but I often give a brief summary of my argument, or, when in a poll, a simple "Support" or "Oppose". Waltham, The Duke of 09:15, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
A chance to be rude or humorous. TONY (talk) 11:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Not towards me, I hope. :-D Waltham, The Duke of 02:24, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Initial bolding

"Everybody knows" that the title word or title phrase is set in bold at its first appearance in the article. This manual says:

Equivalent names may follow, and may or may not be in boldface.

When an article begins by saying

The very important thing (VIT) that this article is about has been known since time immemorial....

I usually change it to

The very important thing (VIT) that this article is about has been known since time immemorial....

Is that explicitly considered entirely optional?

Also when it says

The very important thing (VIT) that this article is about has been known since time immemorial....

I also change it as above, so that the parentheses are INSIDE the bolded part. And I do the same with quotation marks, so that if it says

The "very important thing" that this article is about has been known since time immemorial....

then I change it to

The "very important thing" that this article is about has been known since time immemorial....

I've been doing this for about five years and no one's ever said a word to me about it. Have pros and cons of these sorts of things been discussed here, with the result that they've all been declared optional? Michael Hardy (talk) 20:09, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Regarding bolding VIT, WP:MOSBOLD says "...(including any synonyms and acronyms) in boldface", so yes. Regarding bolding the quotation marks and parentheses, I haven't noticed that anyone said one way or another. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, I have noticed something in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles): "The quotation marks should not be bolded in the lead section when the title of an article requires quotation marks, as they are not part of the title". That makes perfect sense to me—we should only bold the subject's name, not extraneous elements. Not to mention that not bolding the parentheses does not allow one to easily see that these are two names and not one. This is repeated in Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Punctuation, under "Article openings". Although certainly well-intentioned, I fear that your edits were mistaken, Mr Hardy. (I feel a sudden urge to say "You are the weakest link. Goodbye!")
This revelation is yet another indication of the urgency of the rationalisation of the Manual of Style. It needs quite a search for a non-insider to find that passage in the Manual... Poor Laurel stood no chance.
Sorry, I meant "Hardy". :-D Waltham, The Duke of 23:54, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

"Duke", I think you are guilty of an error. If the article is titled Book, it can begin by saying

Books were invented by...."

including the letter s in the bolded portion, and if the article is called impossibility, it could say

Things that are impossible don't happen very often.

...the form of the word being different from that in the title. That is appropriate and can cover quotion marks and parentheses in some cases. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Still wrong; books is a different form of book and impossible is a different form of impossibility. You can, within limits, alter a title, but that does not mean that you may add other elements to them. Quotation marks and parentheses are allowed when they are part of the title, which is rare; the acronym of Very important thing is VIT, not (VIT), and the subject itself is not called "Very important thing"—the quotation marks are added because of the form of the sentence, and could be substituted by italics. Waltham, The Duke of 18:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
the use of the parenthesis is a convention to separate the acronym from the title, and is widely expected. The virtue of putting it in bold is that , especially for an organisation, it will usually be referred to by the acronym later in the article, and it helps to spot it. DGG (talk) 14:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
What does bolding the parentheses help in this? The acronym is bolded, that is what matters. On the contrary, an unbolded parenthesis helps divide the acronym from the name proper, and show that they are two independent ways to name the subject. Waltham, The Duke of 21:13, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I also prefer "The very important thing (VIT)". —Remember the dot (talk) 03:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Hybrid article names

Attempts to please rival national sensitivities sometimes lead to article names consisting of two different local names for the same thing (such as Sněžka-Śnieżka, which is the Czech name of the mountain followed by the Polish name). Whatever you may think of this "solution", what do people think should be the format of such names? I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be a hyphen in the middle. A slash is probably ruled out on technical grounds, right? So should there be an en dash there, or what?--Kotniski (talk) 14:52, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

"Sniezka" gets 3.7M Google hits, "snezka" gets 2.2K. It might be important that there are 1700 times as many hits on the Polish name as the Czech name. "Snowtop" doesn't seem to be a common English name for the mountain; is there some common English name? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:49, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I think you must have mis-Googled - I get more hits on Sniezka, but not an order of magnitude more. No, there isn't any other English name. Go up it from the Polish side and you know it as Sniezka; go up on the Czech side and it's Snezka. I don't want to start another cross-border war, I just don't like the hyphen there and I wondered if there's any precedent for dealing with this sort of thing from a punctuation point of view.--Kotniski (talk) 17:09, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I might be wrong, but from a quick read of the article, there does not seem to be any reason why the mountain in question would be known enough to the English-speaking world for a common English name to exist. (I reserve the right to denounce this statement if a cult worshipping Sněžka or Śnieżka surfaces and makes threats against my life. :-D) Waltham, The Duke of 17:15, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Go and read some of the past discussions on the article's talk page if you want to learn something about cults... No, there isn't an English name like Snowflake or anything; it has to be either Śnieżka or Snezka or a combination of the two (or conceivably Schneekoppe, if you're of German inclination). Another example is Babia Góra-Babia Hora, where the hyphen (and possibly the capitalization) seems even more out of place.--Kotniski (talk) 17:26, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I have not studied such cases, but the inclusion of both names, hyphenated, looks like a terrible idea to me. An article's name should be as close to the subject's name as possible, and if there are more than one then a selection should be made. Combinations of two or more different names are unacceptable. Waltham, The Duke of 17:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
The number of Google hits is right, but Sniezka also appears to be a city or region in Poland. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
?I don't think so; maybe it's a commercial name. Anyway, I get 100 times more hits on Snezka than you claim to; and in any case we ought to add a search term like "mountain" to restrict to English texts. Sniezka does come out on top but it's not an overwhelming difference.--Kotniski (talk) 17:45, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

You probably want to bring this up at WT:NCGN; questions of article title are naming conventions. It disapproves of multiple names, as a result of one of our lamer discussions (should the name of Bolzano be Bolzano-Bozen or Bozen-Bolzano? Twice; no, I'm not making this up). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

New MOS

I want to establish a new manual of style for television-related articles. This is the current page that informs us how to write about television programs. It's only specific to the main article on the show, it's vague, and most importantly it is not an official MOS page. I have written a new page, which I hope will take the place of the other one, but in an official capacity. While not perfect, I think it embodies more of the television-related articles as a whole than simply the main article on a TV series. I also think that it is more informative about what to do. I've had a few editors give feedback and tweak wording, though I'm sure it can use more. Anyway, the point is that I'm at a loss for what I need to do next. I know that I would like the page name to be moved to Wikipedia:WikiProject Television/Style guidelines, as it is more professional, and appropriate for the broader range of coverage, but I don't know what I need to do get to the ball rolling on getting it made official. Could someone help, please? Much appreciation.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 16:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

OK, it's long overdue that we establish a consensus-driven approach to accepting new MOS supplementary pages. Rather than the nefarious system until now, in which no one quite knows how pages suddenly become part of the MOS or indeed any kind of styleguide (I suspect that some have just self-announced it), I propose that a formal process be established on this page for the purpose. Having announced an intention to be accepted as either styleguide or MOS-supplementary-page status, there might now be a process of providing feedback and improving the page at least for a few weeks. The formal consensus gathering might then be launched here. TONY (talk) 17:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Style guidelines seem to develop a following in one of two ways: either everyone looks at them, or people in a wikiproject or something like a wikiproject look at them, so we're really looking at different results and even different goals. The pages that I put in the "general style guidelines" cat were the pages that seemed to get lots of eyeballs and apply equally to all kinds of pages. (It was formerly the "manual of style" cat, but after seeing how many pages put "manual of style" in their title, I decided that's not a useful phrase.) I'm happy to help with anything that needs doing. For pages that have, so far, only been examined by members of a wikiproject, we can always take the position that it's as official as it needs to be until someone points out a problem. Just because someone puts "manual of style" in the title or slaps a cat on a page doesn't mean that I suddenly have a new ongoing obligation. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:26, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
We've always used this "nefarious process"; indeed, Tony's proposal is another form of self-announcement. If anybody actually wants to improve matters, the way to do so is to stop giving any special weight to WP:MOSXXX pages, at which point it won't matter.... Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:20, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Excellent idea, Mr Anderson. Just now I was thinking that the best way to make Wikipedia completely neutral is to delete articles with NPOV problems. All of them. Talk about improvement there, eh? Waltham, The Duke of 22:45, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Your Grace's wit ignores a small detail: I didn't propose deleting anything. It would be enough to redirect {{style-guideline}} to {{guideline}}, and tweak some mentions of this page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, to stop giving weight to a guideline is almost as good as deleting it—what use does a guideline have if people don't look at it? In any case, I believe the template in question should remain as it stands; it would be confusing for many to have tens of pages tagged simply as guidelines while in reality being part of one body, the Manual of Style. It would detract from the other guidelines. Use {{guideline}} less so that it has more value, is what I think. Waltham, The Duke of 00:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
An irrelevance; how does this answer a proposal not to give MOSXXX any extra weight over other guidelines? Where is the case that the ill-assorted and self-appointed collections of original research and revert warring (see the history of WP:MOSNUM) deserve any? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Response to Anderson's personal attack above: I don't need to self-announce. Perhaps you assume that people do, including yourself? Again, you're on your anti-MoS crusade. The stadium is empty, my friend: no one's watching. TONY (talk) 07:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Image question

Is it really necessary to place this image on the left? Do people really instinctively follow the eyes of praying mantises? And where is the mantis looking anyhow? Hesperian 00:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Is it really necessary to place this image on the left? Do people really instinctively follow the eyes of praying mantises? And where is the mantis looking anyhow? Hesperian 00:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

It has come to my attention that the guidelines of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Images can apply to animal articles in ways that make life a tad difficult and I'd love some clarification. How important is this rule Images of faces should be placed so that the face or eyes look toward the text..., and how should it be applied to images of entire animals? When it refers to portraits does that mean images only of a bird's (or other animal's) head, or does it mean any photo where the alignment of the image is portrait? I ask because I am currently working on two bird articles and image placement is somewhat tricky, particularly for trogon, which by virtue of being long, straight birds, tend to have long images that can often only really be situated on the right hand side of the page (thanks to the other new(?) rule about not pushing headings around). I don't want to have to stop using images because of the above rule, for example the image of the Black Throated Trogon, particularly as good images are hard to find for many species/genera/familes. How much digression do we have in these situations? (lots I hope). Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:07, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you brought this up, as this has been bothering me too. I hope this 'rule' is interpreted with a bit of flexibility. At the very least, I should think it would only be enforced for facial profiles, as opposed to full-body profiles; and then only for people, and perhaps animals that are easily anthropomorphised. Hesperian 00:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Or, if anthropomorphism is a bit much to stomach, how about applying the rule only to animals that have forward-looking eyes. The mantis on the right appears to be looking straight out of the screen at you... because it is. Hesperian 00:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
The "face looks towards text" rule is a good one to follow when everything else is equal, but it really shouldn't be allowed to interfere with more serious layout issues. Having a portrait face away from the text is at worst slightly distracting — it's not going to make an article unreadable, whereas trying to force an image into a position where it just won't fit can indeed do that. Don't take it so seriously. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 00:38, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Cheers. I agree with Hesperian, incidentally, most birds don't have binocular vision quite like people do and a bird with a side on view is actually looking at the picture taker as a rule. Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:29, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Mr Karonen's view on the matter; we need to put our priorities in the right order here. It matters little if an image looks away, it is disconcerting for our readers to change the entire standard page-top layout, and it is unencyclopaedic to reverse images or to use none at all. Waltham, The Duke of 02:13, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes it's more of a guideline, it's fine to use "common sense" in my opinion. If it's a person for example, standing with the back turned towards the text/reader it looks kind of bad and it might be good to switch side. Or if it's a cheetah looking like it's running into the side ("wall") of the page it also might look a bit odd. It's usually clear when you look at it, Choose what makes most sense overall. Also it's much easier to see where a human is looking because of our clearly visible eye white. (I've heard that one possible reason why humans have such a clearly visible eye white is because there might be some evolutionary advantage to be able to see where others (in the group) are looking?).
— Apis (talk) 03:18, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Interesting...
I've heard, on the other hand, that it makes us more expressive (although eyebrows would seem to be more effective in this respect, and they also have a practical utility). Waltham, The Duke of 03:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
That sounds plausible as well, maybe it's both? =)
—Apis (talk) 07:22, 30 May 2008 (UTC)