Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

See also
Wikipedia talk:Writing better articles
Wikipedia talk:Article titles
Wikipedia talk:Quotations
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/quotation and punctuation

Capitalization of definite article in musical group names

Respected U.S. and British authorities agree that the definite article should not be capitalized before names of music group, such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Who. Wikipedia articles are all over the place on this. A consistent policy in accord with the leading English-language stylists would be an improvement for Wikipedia.

The Chicago Manual of Style has an online Q&A forum in which this question has been asked and answered (the editors go for "the") (see http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/CMS_FAQ/CapitalizationTitles/CapitalizationTitles34.html).

The Times (of London), on its online style guide (see http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2941-561,00.html), asks and answers this question (specifically, it happens, in reference to the Beatles), and goes for "the". Here is an excerpt: "Beatles, the, no need to cap the unless at the start of a sentence; similarly the Rolling Stones and the Manic Street Preachers etc."

The Guardian newspaper's online style guide, also coming out in favor of lowercase for bands (and, again, using the Beatles specifically as an example). An excerpt: "lc for newspapers (the Guardian), magazines (the New Statesman), pubs (the Coach and Horses), rock bands (the Beatles, the Black Eyed Peas, the The), sports grounds (the Oval)...." See http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/page/0,,184833,00.html and scroll down to "the." McTavidge 02:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it depends on the band. Yes, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, but clearly The Who. The difference is whether the the is properly part of the name or not. --Trovatore 02:48, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Note by the way that The Times agrees -- here's the full entry on "Beatles" from your link above:

Beatles, the, no need to cap the unless at the start of a sentence; similarly the Rolling Stones and the Manic Street Preachers etc, but prefer to keep cap “T” with The Who and The The

--Trovatore 02:58, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Not sure how clear it is that "the" is any more part of the/The Who's name than it is part of the Beatles' name. Certainly the latter isn't referred to as "Beatles." Take "Wings," for instance, though never the Wings. Would it be The Band? This "rule" seems to have to do with whether the noun is plural -- the Rolling Stones, The Who. It's almost as if, for a plural-name band, you're adding up the individual members of the group and implicitly referring to each as a little Rolling Stone, an individual Beatle, a lone Manic Street Preacher, so that when you put them together, you have a collection of rocks, bugs, priests. Whereas if it's a singular name, the collective is indivisible, a monolith -- it's The Who, not a collection of little whos (from Hooville or anywhere else). (I'm just trying this out, thinking out loud.) Not striking me as a sound rationale. McTavidge 03:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think it's not so much whether the name is plural, per se, as whether the name makes sense as a noun phrase. "The Who" doesn't, so "The" seems more like part of the name. But there may not be a general rule, and there doesn't have to be a rationale -- it's case by case, depending on how the band's name is used or perceived. To answer your specific query, yes, I'm pretty sure it is The Band, which doesn't fit my rule of thumb, but does illustrate why it's case-by-case. So basically I'm opposed to treating the question in the MoS at all. Let the writers fight it out on the individual articles; they're the ones most likely to know which usage applies to a particular group. --Trovatore 03:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Right. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

McTavidge, I think you've inadvertently nailed it for the most part (Trovatore's caveat applying). Paul McCartney is in fact commonly referred to as "a Beatle", but Roger Daltrey is never referred to as "a Who". For whatever reason, if the band name is plural, it's usually just treated differently. I agree with Trovatore that The Who are The Who, The The is The The, The Band is The Band, but the Beatles are the Beatles. It's not WP's place to figure out why, it just is. I wouldn't say it's a 100% hard-and-fast rule, but certainly a general one. Exceptions would be made for extremly contrived names like The Presidents of the United States of America. I'd capitalize the "The" in that, and the band members are not actually Presidents of the United States of America, after all, nor referred to as such. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm warming up a little to the notion that the definite article preceding a plural band name would not be capitalized whereas it would be for a singular one. However, the case-by-case thing will probably not work, as a practical matter; that is, it often won't result in consensus. In many instances, no particular usage has been agreed out there, and proponents of capital "t" and lowercase "t" will each find plenty of usage out there to support their positions. The Beatles are case in point. McTavidge 02:51, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Referring to ships as "she"

An archived discussion was mentioned but not linked to. Maybe Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive (ships_as_"she"). I point out Gender-specific pronoun#Ships and countries. I find it odd that article Ship does not mention this terminology. (SEWilco 04:09, 26 June 2007 (UTC))

I found where the previous discussion of this has been archived, and I'm going to dig it up again. Not because I'm trying to start trouble, but I'm sorry, the current usage that Wikipedia has chosen to adopt is simply grammatically unsound.

First, I should probably give my credentials on this topic - I served 20 years in the Navy and Naval Reserve, and today I'm a civilian working for the Department of the Navy. My professional background is journalism and communications (what the government refers to as public affairs); currently I'm a Navy base public affairs officer. So I think I'm qualified to discuss what ships should be referred to as.

It is true that according to naval style, "she" and "her" are acceptable (and even preferred) terms for describing a ship; however, naval style also dictates that ship names are to always be written in all caps, i.e., USS NIMITZ, which is a style you rarely see outside of official naval correspondence (which is the only documents naval style applies to). In the Navy public affairs arena, we instead use the Associated Press Stylebook, which is the main guide used by print media outlets throughout the United States; that guide dictates "it" over "she", and as such, we the official communicators for the Department of the Navy, use "it".

Frankly, I see Wikipedia espousing all sorts of guides and sources for what it dictates to be good grammar, and of course the extremely vague "standard English practice". Most outlets that wish to be taken professionally, such as newspapers and magazines, prefer to adhere to a single source for their style, whether they make it up locally or borrow one that already exists. The one most used by media outlets is the Associated Press Stylebook, and it happens to be my personal favorite as it was the one that was taught to me in journalism school and which we've used throughout my career, but there are others and all are good. My point being is that Wikipedia can't be trying to fritter around and use this style source for this and that style source for that and then just say "standard English practice" when they don't like any of the style out there. It's simply unprofessional. You've got to pick one and go with it. Nolefan32 04:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

FYI, I failed to mention that under the current Wikipedia policy, which is based on a tradition to when ships were named after women, we now have the potential for such head-scratching phrases as "Ronald Reagan and her air wing departed for the Mediterranean ...." Since when is "Ronald Reagan" a "her"? Nolefan32 04:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The MOS doesn't usually -- and in my opinion, shouldn't -- get this detailed about word choice. It's a little bit similar to the British-v-American things; individual articles should be consistent within themselves, but we don't need to have a WP-wide policy. By the way, I would be really surprised to see the phrase you quoted -- it should probably be "the Ronald Reagan and her air wing...", which with the "the" and the italics, is not at all strange. --Trovatore 05:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

This gets even more complicated when one considers that in Russian ships are "he" if they are refered to by gender. Begs an interesting question on how we would refer to Russian ships on English Wikipedia, doesn't it?--LWF 05:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with using "it" to describe inanimate objects? It strikes me that referring to countries and vehicles as "she" is getting rather outdated. Exploding Boy 05:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure would make things simpler for us all.--LWF 05:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for you comment, Nolefan; you might have announced at the start that you were referring to the US Navy, because this is an international site. For that reason, among others, WP needs its own MOS. Within a few weeks, I'll be proposing an addition to the Usage section of this MOS concerning gender-specific language, which will contain a strong recommendation not to use "she" for ships and "men" for chess pieces, and the like; it will also map out the options for minimising the use of the generic male pronoun in our articles (i.e., to refer to people in general). Aside from any ideological issues, it's just a matter of being inclusive of all our readers, as the plain English people point out. This addition will, of course, require consensus before implementation in the MOS. Tony 05:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that "she" should be used for ships, (as does the Royal Navy (Google on [Royal Navy victory she site:mod.uk]) and would object to being told to write "it". Prohibitions on this sort of thing will probably cause more edit wars than they solve. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't care what your royal navy uses, and I note your implied threat to engage in edit wars. Tony 11:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Tony, that is your Inference, it was not my intention to imply any sort of threat, and I think you should have assumed good faith. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Lloyd's List is as good a guide to British English in the field of maritime matters as the Senior Service: it uses "it". Physchim62 (talk) 12:55, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems that you were misinformed see " BBC: Business: The Economy The tug of tradition" July 24, 1998 --Philip Baird Shearer 18:40, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

In good faith, WP is no longer a child, and should have its own authoritative MOS now. We don't need to lean on external references. There are very good reasons for not using gendered pronouns for ships or machines. Tony 13:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Tony, you and I appear to be on the same page on this. I do agree that it's best for WP is to develop its own exhaustive style. It doesn't work when every page has to be debated as to which particular existing style needs to be followed, and I'm seeing that happen on several of the pages I've visited. WP needs one source, one rulebook. I had suggested AP, that's the one I'm familar with, but you were right to remind me that WP is international (and I apologize for my myopia) and so they probably aren't the best for use here. For a starting point for the WP style, though, I would still recommend a journalistic style as they are the most universal (whereas, for example, a particular navy's style would only be suitable when discussing naval issues). Since we're international, Reuters might be a good one. Ultimately WP can develop its own style, sure, but you've got to start somewhere and that might be the place to begin. By the way, I would be careful about going with "by committee" style too much; one style guide I hate is the GPO styleguide, used by the U.S. Federal Government, it constantly contradicts itself because over the years, people have made additions here and subtractions there without considering there might be other entries that run parallel to the ones being changed. I would hate to see the WP style end up like the GPO.

And back to my original point, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who is bugged by the use of genderal pronouns for inanimate objects; I didn't consider the international implications, such as, for examples, some countries using male pronouns to describe ships while others use female. It just strikes me that there's a lot of good, verifyable reasons why to use gender-neutral pronouns for inanimate objects, and the people opposed have only their personal preference to submit as their argument. Nolefan32 14:06, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Journalistic is not particularly suitable for an online encyclopedia, which has its particular mode, methods, role and readership. Nor is Reuters, for the same reason, although our MOS might coincide in certain respects with external MOSs.

If we're going to get into the gendered pronoun thing now, the reason it's undesirable to many readers is that it's a vestige of a period when males felt it was natural to let their images of control over machines and vehicles seep into the language; this builds on constructions of male “superiority” that WP should not be touching in the 21st century. I realise that it's hard to kick the habit of calling ships "she" if you've done it professionally all your life, but ... it's unacceptable to too many people in this context. Best to be neutral, yes? Tony 14:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Whatever the WP MOS decides about pronouns, the MOS on quotations should require as close as possible to the original phrasing. I am aware that translations of quotations complicate the issue. (SEWilco 16:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC))

I don't think this needs to be decided at the MOS level. If Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships comes up blue, you might take it up there.

I'm afraid I disagree that what Tony is promoting is "neutrality". It sounds to me like a political agenda. I'm against using the MOS to promote a political viewpoint. --Trovatore 18:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh heck, everythings' political, if you want to see it that way. It's certainly political to alow sexist language on WP. I intended "neutrality" in terms of gender neutrality. Tell me, are you advocating a return to the days of specifying someone's race when it's irrelevant to the context? Tony 01:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Your approach to this has been rather explicitly political. I do not agree that referring to ships as "she" is in fact sexist; I think your claim that it has to do with male domination is unproved and should not be codified here. (Note that I'm not in favor of codifying the reverse, either.)

It's not political to leave something out of the MOS. On the larger score, I'm opposed to your whole project of expanding the scope of the MOS, which I see as disruptive and unnecessary. It's useful to have a consistent organization for articles, to indicate the desired tone (formal and high register), and a few other miscellaneous things when necessary. But we get by just fine without a style book of the sort that a commercial encyclopedia would have. We aren't that sort of encyclopedia; volunteers don't appreciate having word choices dictated to them by people who aren't paying them. If we can stand one article saying "color" and another saying "colour" (which we can), then we can also stand one article saying "it" and another saying "she". --Trovatore 03:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Nope, both omission and inclusion can be political. I note the assumption that "political" is bad, bad, bad, and that politicians themselves have a history of framing this word as an attack on the rights and freedoms of individuals. I presume that Trovatore's reference to "expansion" refers specifically to the she-for-ships issue (can you specify in this respect whether it's just that or the whole non-sexist thing or something wider still?). Tony 04:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

No, "expansion" does not refer only (or even mainly) to she-for-ships. It refers to what I see (based on my browsing of comments in this talk page; please correct me if I got it wrong) as your desire to make the MOS, in general, a larger and more prescriptive document, and to aim for a greater stylistic uniformity to WP as a whole. I see no need for such an expansion, and I think that in the absence of necessity, instruction creep is a bad thing.

I also think that, when detailed stylistic choices are to be made for a group of related articles, the best forum is the relevant WikiProject, not the WP-wide MOS. For much the same reasons that you don't put speed limits in your country's constitution. The math WikiProject has worked especially hard on this for the math articles; I don't see why other WikiProjects can't do likewise. --Trovatore 04:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying to make it more succinct, and indeed, in the parts that I've already collaboratively copy-edited, have done so, with the notable exception of hyphens and dashes, which was virtually a non-section before we got to it. What you say about the role of WikiProjects has already come up in relation to capitalisation (birds, etc); it requires case-by-case negotation to arrive at where the boundaries should be between a centralised, uniform guidelines for particular matters of style, and the role of the dispersed WikiProjects in this respect. I welcome your input, and wonder whether you'd like to specify any changes that have been made over the past few weeks where you have qualms about the MOS's scope. Tony 05:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, OK, this much is sensible. I may have had you mixed up with another discussant a little. I do still object to attempts to legislate PC through the MOS. There's a perhaps-reasonable argument to be had that she-for-ships just isn't used much anymore and should be dropped for that reason. But to ban it for the reasons you've expressed is to take a position in favor of a claim of fact made by a particular ideological tendency. --Trovatore 05:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm interested to see what people think when I present the proposed text for gender-neutral usage here; mostly it will deal with the generic male pronoun when it stands for people in general, and ways of avoiding this. (If you're going to object to that, we'll need to fight it out here: need to avoid the male generic is now widely accepted, both within WP and more generally by English-speakers.) I'd be inclined to make the ship, country, chess-piece issue a recommendation to avoid the use of a gendered pronoun, rather than a "ban" on that use; however, if enough people support it, I'm happy with a stronger guideline. Tony 09:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, we'll see how the discussion goes. It's not clear your "generic male pronoun" is "male" at all; it's the unmarked form. It's also not clear that's particularly to the advantage of males anyway (who wants to be undistinguished?).

I am fairly shocked to see the chess article refer to all chessmen as "pieces". Pawns are not pieces; they're pawns. That's why you need the term "chessmen" to cover them both. Again I don't see how this is sexist; the Queen is a man, but so is the Rook, and the Rook is not even a human figure at all, so it's obviously just jargon and I don't see why it can't be left alone. --Trovatore 09:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I prefer "chess pieces", as it sounds more 21st century. We have to evolve our language to avoid sexist or racist terms, not due to political correctness, but due to the rise of these groups as equals to white males (plus, the plain language gods say so). For instance, "fireman" should be "firefighter", "waiter/waitress" should be "sever", etc. I'd laugh if someone actually got offended by these terms, but you'll be surprised what a child will think after hearing sexist/racist terms as a kid. — Deckiller 15:22, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you seriously think "chessmen" is sexist? On what theory? And what exactly do you say to mean "a piece other than a pawn"? But I'm not a chess expert and I don't see even any discussion at the chess article, so I won't fight that one. I don't object to "firefighter" and so on, and I do find that I tend to reword to avoid unmarked "he", when reasonable.

But there's a limit to how far I'll torture language to do it. For example, when discussing the functions of the president of the US, what can you do? I refuse to call the president "they", to say "he or she" seventy times, or to reword everything in the plural ("presidents of the United States have the authority to..."). At some point one just has to say, look, this is the language: In this context the word "he" does not imply male sex, it's just the unmarked form. And that is not sexist. --Trovatore 19:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

(Indents getting too large) Yes, I do think "chessmen" is undesirably gender-centric, and I don't need a "theory" to come to this conclusion. The queen is a chessman? The king is a chesswoman? And in any case, "chess pieces", and after the context is established, just "pieces", sounds nicer to me. Why not use inclusive language where there's no reason not to?

The use of "he" as the unmarked pronoun for everyone is sexist in itself. How old are you? 105? Yes, I agree that it's sometimes awkward to avoid gender-biased language, but there are a number of ways to achieve this, and good writers seem to manage. WP should try too, IMV. It's the 21st century. Tony 02:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

For the chessmen, as I say I'm not a chess expert so I won't fight about it, but the reason is what I said: Pawns aren't "pieces". When you talk about "losing a piece", you don't mean a pawn.

As for the claim that unmarked he is "sexist in itself" -- prove it. I say it's not sexist unless you intend it to be. Otherwise it's just a feature of the language -- sometimes "he" implies male sex, other times it doesn't. There is no need to read any claims about male domination into this. --Trovatore 04:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I went through several assignments in Business Writing on writing non-sexist language; it's not difficult, and we weren't even allowed to use singular they or "he or she". Plus, most FACs roll in with little sexist language. There's also the matter of formality; calling a ship "she" sounds informal and may confuse the reader, especially since a ship is a thing; therefore, "it" is used. — Deckiller 05:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a combination of "the ship", "it" and the name (e.g., "HMS Iraq"). Works just fine. Tony 05:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Deckiller, in calling the language "sexist", you're assuming facts not in evidence. Tony, yes, certainly, calling ships "it" is workable. I have never argued that it is not. --Trovatore 05:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm? I always thought it was logical to assume that the term "sexist" includes using gender pronouns where they don't belong, because it can be implied that way. It's how I've been instructed in college as well as on Wikipedia (by people like Tony, who make a career out of this sort of thing); thus, any evidence has been sold at textbook buyback or is on Tony's guides/in Wikipedia articles. Since we all agree that ships should be "it" not "she", this tangent is probably unnecessary now. — Deckiller 05:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

"Because they can be implied that way?" Pretty much anything can be construed pretty much any way. That's not a sufficient standard. And who says they don't belong? Sometimes "he" or "she" implies biological sex, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, some want to say, there's a sexist subtext. But I say, prove there's such a subtext. Otherwise it's just part of the language, inherently neutral; if the terms don't imply biological sex then they just don't, and it doesn't have to mean anything else. --Trovatore 05:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Choosing one of the two genders to be the unmarked form is a fundamental assymetry that privileges that gender. So why do it? The whole idea of avoiding the generic male pronoun is to avoid the assumption that male is natural, and female needs to be specially marked. Tony 05:27, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

One of the genders, in the strict grammatical sense -- not one of the sexes (nor one of the "gender identities", whatever those are exactly). Grammatically masculine pronouns often denote a male referent, but here they don't. So you haven't shown there's any "assumption that male is natural" involved, because the masculine pronoun does not refer to maleness in this situation. --Trovatore 08:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

You can assert that he is gender-neutral all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that it is jarring to a lot of readers and is becoming increasingly rare. People just don't use he that way anymore—they use singular they. It is the unconscious, natural choice, whereas "gender-neutral" he causes readers to dart back and look for a male antecedent. Strad 14:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course it's not gender-neutral -- it's grammatically masculine gender, which has nothing necessarily to do with sex. It can be used in a sex-neutral way. Let's at least keep our terms straight. As for singular "they", you're right about it being the natural choice in casual speech. It's not the natural choice for highly formal writing such as an encyclopedia; in that register, singular "they" is far more jarring than unmarked "he". --Trovatore 18:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Pity the poor Germans, whose language forces them to assign linguistic gender to nouns. Perhaps "das Baby" (the baby) will not be traumatized by assignment of a neutral gender, but what is the lasting psychological damage to "das Mädchen" (the girl)? And "das Auge" (the eye) of the bewildered lass is masculine, but "der Mund" (the mouth) is feminine! English is, of course, a Germanic language (with massive incursions from Latin and French, which also use gender), so perhaps we can be excused for our horrible hidebound (inadvertent) sexist speech. Wikipedia refuses to censor images to avoid offending delicate sensibilities, yet we are being asked to censor our pronouns, and for dubious reasons at that. A reader who cannot distinguish deliberate face slapping from accidental toe stepping will be endlessly offended; shall we stand still to avoid the risk? --KSmrq^T 19:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for raising that interesting point, KSmrq. (1) There's a clear difference in those languages between grammatical gender for all nouns and their use of the generic male pronoun to stand for people of both genders. (2) WRT "she for ships", the seemingly arbitrary classification of all nouns by gender in many foreign languages—even neuter in German for "the maiden" (das Mädchen)—is a very different phenomenon from the isolated examples in English of using "she" for mechanical objects and vehicles that are typically used and controlled by males, where the very rarity and specificity of this usage marks it out as having an underlying purpose. Tony 02:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

(Outdent) Tony, I see that now you're at least arguing that there's an "underlying purpose", rather than merely asserting that the usage is "inherently sexist". That's a step in the right direction.

Here's what I think: We're not going to be able to settle the question of whether there's such an underlying purpose. What I hope I've demonstrated is that that is the central question; the usage itself is not inherently sexist, as there's no inherent reason that "he" must refer to maleness. However I acknowledge that readers have rational grounds to suspect that it does.

So I would be on board for a guideline that encourages rewording to avoid unmarked "he", on a few conditions: (1) that it provide enough wiggle room in cases where the rewording is just too awkward, (2) that it not encourage singular "they", and (3) that it not present as fact, or otherwise assume as fact, ideological social theories regarding the role of language in group domination. --Trovatore 23:56, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

You may be interested in reading this WRT your second point. Tony 08:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• In the specific case of Chess, "Man" and "Piece" are technical terms with well established and non-equivalent meanings. A piece refers to a King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, or Rook/Castle. A man is a piece or a Pawn. Anyone writing in a serious chess publication who used "piece" to refer to a pawn would be taken about as seriously as one who used "cleric" in place of "bishop" to avoid religious discrimination. The original reasons for this distinction may be due to the sexism that existed when chess terminology was codified. That doesn't matter. What matters is that this is the common usage among serious chess player and publications, and Wikipedia should therefore use it until and unless it changes. Wikipedia should describe the world, not attempt to change it. DES ^(talk) 23:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Well ... why not call them pawns? Pieces and pawns—simple. Tony 00:46, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

In many cases this can be done. But since the field of chess traditionally and commonly uses "men" as the collective for pawns and pieces, Wikipedia should report this fact. Not to do so may confuse someone who reads a work on chess that assumes this distinction, and so is a disservice to our readers. Moreover, it is a violation of WP:NPOV -- not to report the terms used, because our editors, or some of them, disapprove of them as not being gender neutral, is to try to impose our viewpoint on the world at large, which would be wrong. It would be the same sort of thing (although not as blatant) as to fail to mention that some religions routinely use language such as "God the Father" because that language is not gender neutral. Wikipeida must report the facts accurately, whether we approve of them or not, and it is simply a fact that in chess "men" is the collective term, and "pieces" is a more restricted term. It may be silly, it may be sexist on the part of chess-players, but it is the fact. DES ^(talk) 02:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course these things must be reported. That doesn't mean that they have to be infused into WP's language. Tony 02:26, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

You absolutely need a single term for all the -- let's call them "objects" -- that the players move on the chessboard. The traditional term is "men". I think that to call this "sexist" is frankly a major major reach; you have to stretch really hard to explain how this usage has anything to do with male superiority.

However the current article calls all chessmen "pieces", and there doesn't seem to be any recent controversy about it in the history or on the talk page. So not being a very serious player, and even less of a chess historian, I personally figure that one is not my fight. If a dispute did come up, I would definitely state my view that there is no perceptible sexism in the traditional usage. --Trovatore 05:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

National varieties of English and divergent vocabulary

I think we should consider a guideline for national varieties of English and divergent vocabulary. Specifically, sometimes different varieties of English use completely different terms, and this can be quite confusing in articles. Yes everyone knows that airplane/aeroplane are the same thing, but what about sedan/saloon? I think in such a situation we should have a strong preference for region-nonspecific vocabulary in articles. See Talk:2007_London_car_bombs#Mercedes-Benz saloon?. Thanks.--Pharos 22:27, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

... assuming such even exists. Would this the the death nell of football for "soccer"? Jɪmp 01:41, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Pharos, you'll just have to look it up. Tony 01:45, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I myself have no problem looking it up and I even find such regional vocabulary differences personally interesting, but I think we should be careful not to use the wikilink as a crutch. Our articles should be understandable to as broad an international audience as possible even when printed on a page in black ink. So, I think sometimes it might be necessary to use slightly awkward region-nonspecific or disambiguating language (like association football for football or four-door car for sedan/saloon).--Pharos 02:27, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course, you can also look things up on pages in printed black ink ... whilst I do symphathise somewhat with your idea, I fear that, taken too far (& we should assume that any rule appearing here is liable to be taken too far), this could lead to awkward and unnatural prose. For example, whilst association football is not too odd (being the official name of the game ... in fact I find this preferrable to the football (soccer) we often see), I'm not too sure that people would find four-door car to be natural English. Also, where an article has strong ties to a particular dialect the vocubulary of that dialect should be preferred regardless. Jɪmp 04:56, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Should not be a reason to link. Tony 04:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

In some ways I just feel the current guideline, under "Opportunities for commonality", is utterly backwards on this subject. It recommends terms of commonality mainly for article titles, and gives the horrible example of fixed-wing aircraft. Now surely, any reasonable person can see that either "aeroplane" or "airplane" is a far superior title; "fixed-wing aircraft" has been chosen only as a silly "international compromise" of sorts between the two. I don't think it's healthy to focus on such disputes in article titles as the "official" arbiter of the correct term, especially when we have terms that are equally intelligible (if not equally natural) to all English speakers. What we should distinguish is between the "aeroairplane" words and the "lorrytruck" words. I see nothing wrong with having any sort of term (but especially "aeroairplane" words) in an article title because it makes no difference except for pride, but in articles I think potentionally confusing "lorrytruck" words should be replaced by commonality terms, or at least somehow qualified.--Pharos 05:33, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I did raise this a little while ago, with most of the opinion favouring continuing to use national words. I agree that a some common words are just made up to please everyone, and sound awkward. Fixed wing aircraft is actually not one of these, as this is in common usage amongst pilots! I think the original point here about sedan/saloon is quite a good example of what we should try and avoid. I think we should use the prevailing variant for items such as soccer/football (i.e. soccer in US articles and football everywhere else, association football as the main article title) where they are widely known, but actively try and avoid words which appear here, here and here. Owain.davies 06:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

A really minor point but "football everywhere else" ... how about Canadian articles, ... Australian articles, ... New Zealand articles, ... how about football in British/Irish articles and soccer everywhere else? Of course, I'm going off on a tangent and really should shut up about it ... I would agree with using association football as the main article title ... in fact this is probably the best term all round (except in region-specific articles). Jɪmp 07:13, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, it was a broad generalisation for brevity, of course it varies by country, but the principle remains the same. Owain.davies 07:55, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

This discussion is starting to make me think that the "Opportunities for commonality" subsection should be removed altogether. It's kind of wishy-washy and doesn't fit with the preceding sections, which are nice and logical and cogent. Tony 09:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it should be removed, but strengthened to be clearer. I think it's clear that we should avoid terms that aren't used in other language variants (as in the lists i posted above), but accept that some words will have to be country specific. Using words which are common between languages can work well, without looking forced. Try looking at Ambulance if you'd like an example - it contains very few words in there which would be contested between languages, and it's GA rated, and probably suitable for FA soon. You could easily strengthen to section to make it clear where you should look for commonality (titles, global articles like 'association football'), where commonality is acceptable (more or less anywhere unless it ruins the flow), and where there is no need for commonality (in writing your own prose on a country specific article). I might have a go at rewriting the section and post it here later. Owain.davies 09:59, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, I propose the following text to replace the existing section - it's not properly spell or grammar checked at the moment because i'm at work and having to use IE : - ( so it will need tidying up, but i think it gives the appropriate weight that you should write normally, but just avoid words that might confuse people. Comments please....

In order to try and make Wikipedia as accessible as possible, the prose should be easy to read, regardless of the dialect used. In the vast majority of cases, so long as the article is consistently written, most dialectal variants can be used ('organization' rather than 'organisation' for instance). However, in order to increase readability, in some instances, it is preferable to use words which are not contested between languages.

Using words which are not common worldwide should be avoided wherever possible, except where it is used in an article about its use, or is in context for a regional article. For instance, references to 'grid iron' would be suitable in articles regarding American Football, but would not be appropriate in a biography or list of sports. Other examples include headings such as 'Etiology', which is only widely used in North America.

More examples of words to avoid can be found at:

• List of words having different meanings in British and American English
• List of American words not widely used in Great Britain
• List of British words not widely used in the United States

The use of international terms is especially important in naming articles, especially where contested words occur. For instance, 'Grid iron', should redirect to 'American football' or a similar title.

There are also contests over nouns where there are slight differences between countries, such as 'airplane' and 'aeroplane'. In cases such as this, a common substitute (such as fixed-wing aircraft - a term often used by professional pilots) is favored over national varieties (“fixed-wing aeroplanes” (BrE) and “fixed-wing airplanes” (AmE).

When using a common word, or where no common word exists, editors should redirect the alternate spellings to the one main article, such as Artefact and Artifact, where one points to the other, there being no suitable alternative available. This helps to stop article proliferation, with repetition, and confusion for readers.

It is acceptable for editors to change regional words to internationally recognized words as long as it does not affect the cadence, flow or quality of the prose. However, editors whould not generally replace international words with regional ones, unless it is necessary for the article.

Anyone got any comments on this? Owain.davies 10:23, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

You've worked hard to make this work (sorry about the repetition!), but I don't like a lot of it. Far too long, questionable goal, these differences are not "contested", they just exist. I'd get rid of the current commonality section or leave as is. Tony 14:12, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I've gotta say I'm with Tony on this. Instead of strengthen it, I'd rather ditch the section. How, for example, does one judge what is universally acceptable? An example you give, Owain, is organisation/organization dictionaries might prefer -ize but outside North America what people prefer is -ise. It seems to me that this would be best dealt with on a case-by-case basis on article Talk pages. Jɪmp 20:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe i didn't write it well enough - the idea is to encourage the use of organisation or organization, depending on the overall language of the article. I'm only suggesting that people don't use words which appear on those three lists, and the gold standard is words which are common. On a minor point, BrE dictionaries all use 'organisation'.

How about a shortened version then for conciseness:

Whilst editors should attempt to write in the article style (for instance, American English or British English depending on the first major editor) and use the correct syntax and spelling related to this, the use of words which are specific to one dialect, or ambiguous between dialects should be avoided. Examples can be found on:

• List of words having different meanings in British and American English
• List of American words not widely used in Great Britain
• List of British words not widely used in the United States

It is acceptable for editors to change dialectal words or spellings to internationally understood ones, as long as it does not affect the style, syntax or quality of the article, but editors should avoid changing internationally known words in to regional variants, unless it is important to the article.

Is this any more acceptable? I can't believe that anyone would want to have words included on this encyclopaedia which aren't understood worldwide (going back to my previous example, Etiology and Grid Iron are just two) - the key is to keep natural english (of whatever variant) except where it suddenly makes your article less readable to some of your audience. I know someone referred in the previous discussion (although i can't find it in the archive right at the moment) that navigating this was an essential Wikipedian skill, which i think completely misses the point that Wikipedia is not just for Wikipedians but for any member of the public who wants information. This is especially true with huge english speaking contingents such as in India. English is the most widely spoken language in the world (not as a first language before anyone starts) and people mostly learn an international mixture. For this reason, we surely can't continue to use regional dialect words, or words with different meanings in different languages? Owain.davies 05:49, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

As a trivial point, I believe The English dictionary (which happens to be British) uses organization. — The Storm Surfer 00:31, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

As I've said before, the differences are superficial for readers, who can, by and large, easily recognise the odd word/spelling from another variety; they're a little harder for writers, but that's not what matters. Tony 06:55, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I rather like your second version—it puts the issue forward quite concisely. The important thing in my opinion is the distinguishing of superficial differences like spelling preferences (Tony seems to be misinterpreting this point here) and genuinely divergent words (as in the lists you link to), which are often totally unfamiliar to people of another region.--Pharos 08:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad someone seems to understand! I am all for people writing to make the article consistent, so use "pediatric organization" or "paedatric organisation", whichever suits the given article style, but we should just avoid the words that cause the most confusion, and it should always be acceptable to say 'society' rather than organization (or any other variant which might apply). Owain.davies 08:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

People here seem to assume that there are just two beasts. No, you'll have to account for Australian, South African, NZ and Irish varieties, not to mention Indian and Singaporean English and ... where does it stop? Finding commonalities becomes a minefield. Tony 12:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't that mean we shouldn't try? The point is still to avoid where possible, and accept them being changed. Nobody is expecting it to be perfect, but starting with AmE and BrE is a good place because virtually all the others are based on and draw from these two. Owain.davies 15:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

There are more problems in trying than leaving it as is. I can't quite see what the problem is. The language is, probably more than any other, big and baggy. It's expansive, a borrowing language, in a state of constant flux. This "avoid lexis that isn't common to all English speakers" is a rod down the writer's back. The differences are superficial, and the language is cohesive enough to admit regional differences into its soup. You seek to impose an entirely new set of regulations on WPians that is bound to fail. And I should point out that at least the first article proposed for inclusion as a link above appears to be in a state of chaos. There's a tag as long as an essay at the top warning of issues; and I found several errors during my flick down the table. This idea is impractical and undesirable. Tony 15:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

In that case we should probably stop trying to make each article read in one variation; lets mix BrE, AmE and all the others in together. For that matter, why bother with an MOS at all? OK, that's flippant, but nothing written here in MOS will gain 100% usage, and in the end, it's only a request that people try and consider it with words which cause others the most difficulty - it's no different to encouraging editors not to use archaic 20 letter words which fell out of usage in the 17th century. Make it as accessible as possible - why should a reader have to start looking up words when it could easily be avoided. You will note that my second proposed version says effectively to write in the article style (certainly to me actually MORE difficult than writing in internationally understood words!) and if you can, then use international words. It just seems that you'd like to keep WP elitist. Owain.davies 15:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we should avoid national regionalisms specific to one country whenever possible for exactly the same reasons that we avoid local regionalisms specific to one city or county. An international English encyclopedia should just avoid those words (and there aren't many of them, really) that will not be understood internationally.--Pharos 23:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

(1) "avoid national regionalisms specific to one country"—Maybe couched as a recommendation? I can't see how this can be a hard-and-fast rule.

(2) You don't see WP as a key agent in familiarising English-speakers with the odd word from another variety they've not noticed before?

(3) "I believe The English dictionary (which happens to be British) uses organization" (Storm surfer). Yes, it's a source of amazement that the old farts at OED who sit around over cups of tea nattering about how to update the dictionary still haven't reversed the first and second orders of z and s to reflect widespread usage. Bizarre. Tony 04:45, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe i'll add couched to my list of words not to use.... i've had to look that up in my OED, and it still seems like an odd phrase which doesn't make much sense - almost proving exactly my point. I still think we're not suggesting that everyone can or will follow the guidance, but then again, not everyone can or will follow any of this MOS.

As for point 2, no, I don't think a primary purpose of WP is to introduce people to other languages. Some individual pages might do that, and i'm all for adding multiple phrases in articles ("American football, also known as grid iron"). The primary function of WP is for people to find information in the easiest way possible. It is incredibly elitist to 'prescribe' vocabulary expansion to people who are trying to find information about a generalist subject. Personally, I love learning new words (so thanks for couching), but i'm considerate enough not to use them during everyday speech or when writing in WP because I think it's bad manners to deliberately confuse people, just to prove i'm the better wordsmith!

As for point 3, you're quite right (although it gives -isation as an appropriate alternative), but I thought we'd moved on from this - we are happy to accept spelling variations of commonly used words, so long as it is in article style. It's just words not frequently used in other languages which are a problem. Owain.davies 05:46, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

links rather than parenthesis can often be used to explain details that traditionally would have been placed in parenthesis, (please see this essay meta:Wiki is not paper#Style and functionality for examples). --Philip Baird Shearer 09:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm feeling controversial now – how about we use only OED spellings throughout Wikipedia? That would be great having one set of English used throughout, and as you point out, many of the spellings they use tend to the AmE versions. We could set a couple of bots on the task, and the whole of the mainspace could be converted to a single standard that everyone could use! Just a thought... Owain.davies

I'll pass on that last one. And as for "couch", well, here's what the US Encarta Dictionary (conveniently on my desktop) says:

"verb [ trans. ] 1 (usu. be couched in) express (something) in language of a specified style : many false claims are couched in scientific jargon."

It's a common item in all major varieties of English. Which planet? Tony 07:31, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Earth.

Tony you wrote "avoid national regionalisms specific to one country"—Maybe couched as a recommendation?. I do not think so. The whole point of "National varieties of English" is to allow people to read and write articles about their own nation in an English familiar to them. For example if I was to add a sentence to the article on Birmingham "Most of the housing stock between the inner and outer ring road consists of council blocks of flats" the links take care of any words which might not be immediately understandable to a non Brit while keeping the English simple and non convoluted for those who understand British English. Similary I might write about Birmingham, Alabama (althought it is not true, I am just making it up to make a point) "Most of the housing stock between the innner and outer beltways consists of public apartment blocks" --Philip Baird Shearer 08:50, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Naturally, because only people from England could possibly want to read about Birmingham! If you read up the discussion, my argument is that writing in BrE, AmE or any other variant is acceptable in a nationally focused article (especially as in your example above 'council housing' is the only really widespread use in the UK), but best practice on generalist articles or articles relevant across the world is avoid terms like this. For instance, on an article about 'Housing', it wouldn't be acceptable to say 'council flat'. But again, if someone wanted to replace 'council flat' with 'housing owned by the local authority' that would be acceptable, because it is more widely understood, and not detrimental to your 'target' reader. Wikipedia is not about writing just for people who live where you do, or write the same way. It is a project to offer knowledge to ANYONE, even those without english as a first language. Owain.davies 09:30, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

• Nor am I thrilled at the idea of linking every word that might not be familiar to every reader. There's enough blue spattered over WP already, and I'm keen not to dilute the high-value links. Tony 11:33, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Are you realy suggesting that terms link "beltway" and "ring road" should be replaced in every article with expressions like "a road that follows a circular route around [place entity here]". I think not. Imagen removing every mention of Gasoline or Petrol and replacing them with "a petroleum-derived liquid mixture consisting mostly of hydrocarbons and enhanced with benzene or iso-octane to increase octane ratings". As to the comment that the project offers knowledge to anyone well yes a German can read about an article in German etc. There is also the Simple English Wikipedia --Philip Baird Shearer 18:49, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

No. Evidently you missed the piece of this whole thread where this is used in sensible places. You are clearly exaggerating a limited example to make an argument out of it. What is suggested is clear - continue to write in BrE if that's the language of the article, but where it does not affect the cadence, flow or quality of the article, international terms are always acceptable and may be preferable. You can always going to have to use some words where you are going to have to make a decision (gasoline vs petroleum for instance) and the answer is clear - follow the article style. The argument is to avoid words specific to limited portions of the language where possible (use American Football rather than Grid iron for instance). It is just about trying not to confuse people deliberately (and also not covering your entire article in wikilinks). Owain.davies 21:13, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

PBS is right---except of course for the phrase public apartment blocks, which don't mean a thing in American English ;-P People, the vocabulary of the English language is complex---put up or shut up; this ain't simple.wikipedia.org. And btw, gasoline is not petroleum, gasoline is petrol.

But what about a notation like

...proposed a policy that would reduce gasoline/petrol consumption...

to use whenever it would "not affect the cadence, flow, or quality of the article," and especially in articles with no "strong regional ties"? ---The user formerly known as JackLumber 23:30, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Something I noticed. It is not always immediately clear which is the local language used for an article. Would it be an idea to consider putting up a series of templates that can be added at the discussion pages to make this clear. I am thinking of things like:

This article is written using British English. See the Wikipedia Manual of Style on spelling.

Netherlands Arnoutf 22:07, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

This has been proposed in the past, but I don't remember the name of the page it was on. I think the main objections were either to the wording of the templates or that there are too many templates on talk pages already (which I can certainly agree with the last... stupid WikiProjects.) — The Storm Surfer 02:11, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok fair enough , I thought this might save some discussion for certain pages. But I fully agree the tal pages are swamped in templates.... Arnoutf 09:22, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm about to be late for something offline, so I don't have time to go look, but something has been bugging me for months. Last I looked (wikitext being in flux all the time...) the current recommendations on this topic, here or perhaps at another project page, were pretty flatly and inflexibly that if an article started with UK English, it stayed that way, and same with US English. I strongly feel that this needs moderation for topicality, specifically that if it is a US-centered topic, it gets US English, and more broadly vice-versa – if it's a UK, Irish, British Commonwealth, or former British colony topic, it gets UK English, and if it's a Canadian topic it gets Canadian English (which is a real thing; in short, it's mostly US vs. UK vocabulary, but with UK vs. US spelling, though this is not a 100% universal, as for example with "tire" vs "tyre"). That is, if the Tony Blair article had been started by an American in US English, it absolutely must switch to UK English, just for simply sanity. Where there's not particular US/UK distinction, as at Tree or Cue sports, then the "whatever came first" rule should apply. I might be barking up a dead tree (if I may mix and mangle some metaphors), as the guideline details in question may've already been modified to address this. I sure hope so. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:07, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

This was and still is covered. Tony 01:49, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I could be wrong (happened once before, back in 1985!), but i think we could be close to near consensus here. I don't think anyone disagrees that the article should stay in the language in which it was first written (not always easy to tell). I still stand by the use of international terms (1) where they exist (2) where they don't affect the cadence or flow of sentence. These should be preferred over regional only words in all articles if the author is able to do so - this is easier to do than a Brit trying to write American English for instance.

Does anyone object to this being written up? It could look something like this (i'll give it another go)

Whilst editors should attempt to write in the article style (for instance, American English or British English depending on the first major editor) and use the correct syntax and spelling related to this, the use of words which are specific to one dialect, or ambiguous between dialects should be avoided if possible. Examples can be found on:

• List of words having different meanings in British and American English
• List of American words not widely used in Great Britain
• List of British words not widely used in the United States

It is acceptable for editors to change dialectal words or spellings to internationally understood ones, as long as it does not affect the style, syntax or quality of the article, but editors should avoid changing internationally known words in to regional variants, unless it is important to the article.

One last go, eh?

• They're hardly dialects; varieties, yes, and the differences are so superficial. These articles have been judged to be problematic. Aren't there huge tags at their tops? I noticed errors myself when I had a look a one. Are people still edit-warring over this issue? Aren't the guidelines practical and realistic as they are now? There is mention of the advantages of choosing common items. And finally, won't problematic words be ironed out by editors in the longer scheme of things? Can you provide examples that demonstrate a significant deficiency in the current subsection? Tony 11:25, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

You know, folks, this has always struck me as much ado about minutiae. We really can’t require the average editor to be familiar with all of the varieties of English – we’re doing well enough if they can recognize American from British usage and spelling, much less Canadian from Australian from Indian and so on. It seems to me that any resolution should follow three clear and simple rules (in descending order of priority):

1. As a matter of priority, use the variety of English “native” to the subject of the article, if there is one. E.g., British English for Birmingham, England and American English for Birmingham, Alabama.
2. If the subject has no “native tongue”, follow the usage of the creating editor; if that editor did not display a clear preference, then follow the precedent of the first editor to do so. (Said editor should note their introduction of a particular usage in their edit comment.)
3. Strive for consistency throughout.

IMHO, much more than that requires too much sophistication for the average editor. Askari Mark (Talk) 20:49, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Copyedit tag

Can WP really tolerate the embarrassment of having a copyedit maintenance tag (which, frankly, seems deserved) on its Manual of Style? It has been there May 24, 2007. Finell (Talk) 04:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

You seem ambivalent. I posted the tag, and I don't mind if it's removed, because the overhaul is clearly going to take longer than just a few days or weeks. Tony 04:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

To the contrary, as I said, the tag is deserved. The fact that it has remained this long indicates that the many Wikipedians who vet this project page agree, or at least do not disagree with sufficient conviction to remove it. Removing the tag would not bring the page up to Wikipedia's aspirational standard. I don't understand why the tag, if not its cause, has not prompted serous work to improve the page. Perhaps it is because the prospect is so daunting. For a start, the passive voice throughout the page makes the writing weak and vague: "Headings and subheadings are changed only after careful consideration ..." should be "Do not change headings without strong reasons and careful consideration ..."; "and subheadings" is surplusage, by the way, because all subheadings are headings. A manual is nothing if it is not prescriptive. There is no consistent style for examples. The writing is really embarrassingly poor—especially, and ironically, for a style guide. Finell (Talk) 05:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

On the contrary, there's been major work over the past month—mainly copy-editing, but notably entirely new sections on hyphens and dashes, laboriously negotiated here. I have driven these changes with major major contributions from people here. I removed the tag just a few hours ago after your first message, perhaps because I misunderstood your intention; but in any case, I was coincidentally feeling that it's not necessary to have it there for months, when people are generally on-side about the need to overhaul the manual. I don't mind, however, if it's reinstated.

On the passive voice: yes, I discourage incautious use, especially by scientists, who seem to love it. But here, it's one of the ways of constructing clauses that are not orders or instructions; pre-copy-editing, there's an inconsistent use of imperative and descriptive tones that is still evident in what we haven't yet touched. The change in tone did receive consensus (archived now), because a friendlier, more inclusive tone is reckoned to be more likely to garner cooperation among WPians than orders. Thus, I feel that some use of the passive is appropriate here and on similar policy pages (FAC, FU, etc). I don't feel that it's "weak" or "vague" as you suggest. If you disagree, I'm happy to engage in a discussion here; convince me that we should go back to the ordering tone.

"Writing is embarrassingly poor"—Well, I hope not the stuff we've done recently, but fresh eyes to scrutinise that are welcome (as is another collaborator in the larger task of overhauling this central manual and its daughter manuals). My practice has been to post links on this page to draft sections that involve substantial copy-editing and/or substantive change in policy. Smaller edits I've sometimes risked without doing so. I think you're right about "subheadings", so why not take the plunge? Tony 07:02, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

RIAA certifications

I didn't get any reply at MOS:CL, so I thought I'd bring this up here. Should RIAA certifications for albums such as the "P" in "Platinum" or "G" in "Gold" be capitalised (e.g. 2x platinum or 2x Platinum)? It's an adjective (which means it shouldn't be capitalised) but at the same time, the RIAA capitalise it, so it's also a trademark. If we treat it as a trademark, then it should be capitalised per WP:MOSTM. Spellcast 05:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe capitalization is the way to go here, via your reasoning. — The Storm Surfer 01:05, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Many organisations capitalise erroneously in their publicity material. Unless it actually IS a registered trademark, or there is precedent in professionally-edited publications for capping these terms, I think we should stick to lower-case. Barnabypage 12:34, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

http://www.riaa.com/aboutus.php says: "The RIAA® also certifies Gold®, Platinum®, Multi-Platinum™, and Diamond sales awards". So yes, it does qualify as a trademark and should thus be capitalised. Spellcast 19:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Barnabypage 19:52, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, this is a proper name for a specific award. They aren't certifying the record element 79. — The Storm Surfer 00:18, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Full stops (periods) after abbreviations with periods

I think the following should be added regarding abbreviations and puntuation: "When a period is used for an abbreviation at the end of a sentence, a second period is not needed to end the sentence. The one period serves both purposes." LaraLove^T/_C 05:26, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Precisely my thought when I noticed this very phenomenon after I pressed the button on a recent edit of that section. Do you think that Dr and St need to be mentioned? Tony 06:20, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

My problem was when editing an article which had "U.S." at the end of a sentence. I've seen text (not in WP) that used a period after the abbreviation, i.e. "John traveled to the U.S..", but I never thought it looked right. Searching through the MOS gave no insight. I then googled. I think using U.S. and St. as examples would be appropriate. Most countries don't use periods in their abbreviations, however, because US is also a word, U.S. should be used when referring to the United States--I believe this is mentioned in the MOS. I don't see "Dr." often being at the end of a sentence, however "St." often is. LaraLove^T/_C 06:31, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Simple solution WRT US is to ignore the old-fashioned incantations of some US guidelines (as do many Americans) and not use the dots at all. Looks much nicer. But if you insist on retaining u dot s dot, indeed, avoid double dots at the end of a sentence. On "Dr" and "St", I was raising the issue of whether there should ever be a dot after them. Tony 00:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you are saying. I think they should include a period after. As far as US, the guide recommends using "U.S." considering "us" is a word. LaraLove^T/_C 04:35, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Now tell me, who is going to confuse "US" with the personal pronoun "us" (to start with, the upper- versus lower-case is in your face; second, the grammar would be palpably silly in every context I can think of). This is an international site, so while US styleguides are useful reference points for deciding on WP's policies, they have no special status. I could drag out the Australian Government Publishing Manual on the opposite side WRT to you dot es dot. Tony

No periods at all is a uniquely British thing, and one that just looks awful. The period is there for a purpose, and removing it make you look like you don't know that it's not a real word and only an abbreviation. If you want to use that style on articles that default to British English, fine, but it's absolutely inappropriate elsewhere. And stupid. DreamGuy 21:47, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Human readers do distinguish between US and us, but computer systems often don't (e.g. when searching)---that's why U.S. is written with periods. The British tendency to avoid all periods is fairly recent. ---The user formerly known as JackLumber 22:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Periods have clearly fallen out of almost all US abbreviations (PBS, NASA, and thousands more); indeed, they're now quite rare. In the unlikely even that you need to search for the abbreviation of the United States, tick the "match case" option in your finder. Tony 01:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Passive Voice and Vague Attribution

Wikipedia articles contain an enormous number of lines that begin with, "It is believed...", or "It is thought...", or "It has been said...". Who is this mysterious IT? I am no grammarian, but passive wording like that changes the nature of what is being communicated because such wording is intended to be accepted at face value.

I could decide that I think the sky is lime green. I could then write a sentence in the Sky article that accurately states, "It is believed that Earth's sky is lime green." However, this does not mean that the sky is green. Such a statement only means that somebody (could be 90% of the world's sighted people, could be just me) thinks that the sky is green.

I think the manual of style should call for logical, clear structure that informs the reader just who it is that thinks this, believes that, or said such and such.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.203.171.248 (talk • contribs) 07:59, July 7, 2007 (UTC)

This belongs in the usage section, which I believe is ripe for expansion. But we'll need to be very cautious in doing so, because it will be easy to be accused of imposing one usage over others. Suggestions for inserting subsections should probably be raised here first for a week or so, to gather feedback and consensus. Tony 00:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

And just as many articles contain phrases like "Critics contend..." or "Researchers claim...". The passive voice does not exist so people can make vague attributions; it exists to allow constructions where the subject is the semantic patient. Discouraging the passive voice is as ridiculous as discouraging the active voice.Strad 06:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

You might take a look at Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words and Wikipedia:Words to avoid. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:02, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I strongly agree with Strad. Andre (talk) 07:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Dashes

Per discussion above, I have merged the only content that was in MOSDASH but not here, and then redirected MOSDASH to here. The article on dash is much better than what used to be in MOSDASH, actually. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:24, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

When you hit the MOSDASH link in the box at the top of MOS, it still takes you there. Tony 01:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I must have missed that. If you didn't actually click the link, try doing that and see if you get redirected back to the right section here. If the link should be deleted, I'll do that instead. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:13, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, if the page doesn't exist, functionally, it should be deleted. Are you quite sure that all unique info has been retained in dash article or here at MOS? If so, remove the link from the box here and put a speedy delete notice at the top of the MOSDASH article. I suppose that it would be proper to announce your intentions on the talk page of MOSDASH for a ?week? I can't imagine anyone will object—it's such a bombsite and there's the messy duplication of information as is. This is the first step towards a properly organised hyphen and dash article in addition to what we now have here on MOS. Tony 01:41, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I'll remove the link from {{style}} which is the box on this page. There has been an announcement on this page for a long time, so I think anyone who was following the pages would have noticed what was going on. The article on dash looks better than what was in MOSDASH, and the style guidelines have been rewritten here and MOSDASH was lagging behind them. Rather than deleting the MOSDASH article, I have made it redirect to the proper section of this article. That has the benefit of preserving the edit history there. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:53, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I just happened to go to WP:MOSDASH a few minutes ago, and for reasons I can't begin to guess I am redirected to the top of MOS rather than the relevant section. Hopefully someone can figure this out? — The Storm Surfer 03:05, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

That's odd - contents of the redirect are right [1] and when I just tried it it worked. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:10, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

It certainly is odd. I tried it in Opera 9.20 Mac OS X and Firefox 2.0.0.4 Mac OS X, and it worked, so it must be some sort of Safari 2.0.4 Mac OS X bug or sensitivity. Even more strangely, if I go to [2] and click on the redirect link, that works like a charm. Oh well, curious, but not of great importance. — The Storm Surfer 18:00, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The support of anchors in redirects is a relatively recent feature, and apparently still buggy. It's not a surprise that the link works correctly when click on directly, and not a surprise that the two-step method of getting to the page anchor via redirect fails on some browsers. Dicklyon 18:10, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Question about categorical lists

Are there any guidelines about categorized or hierarchical lists, specifically "Unsorted", "Miscellaneous" or "Other" headings? IMO this is far worse than a trivia section in an article, as the whole point of a categorized list is to organize by topic. For a specific example, I would like to point out List of vegetable oils (a featured list), with an "Other oils" section. This section will not be interesting for people to read. Just glancing at it, I see that further headings could be made for "Medicine", "Cosmetics" and "Insecticides".

These sections can make the article look unreliable (see:List_of_edible_seeds#Miscellaneous), and can also mean that the item does not meet the requirements of the list (see:List_of_fruits#Unsorted). I did put the Template:expert in those, which I know makes it look worse.

Could some guideline be made about this? I would love to have an unsorted template (like Template:Trivia) to put into such lists. My basic idea is this: if an item cannot be categorized it does not belong in a categorical list. JohnnyMrNinja 19:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

If there is, or is to be, guidance on this, it would be in one of three places:

• Wikipedia:Lists
• Wikipedia:List guideline
• Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists) (Manual of Style)

I've not looked at any of these, but if none address your question (I suspect none do), I suggest reposting your comment at one or more of the talk pages for these three guidelines. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:00, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, will do. JohnnyMrNinja 19:31, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

New edits to en dash section

"The en dash was the traditional typographic symbol for this operator, but now that unicode defines a character for this specific use, the minus is preferred, except in fonts where it is too short. In contexts such as code, where the text is intended to be copied and executed or evaluated, the ordinary hyphen works better and is preferred."

Issues:

• • "operator" and subsequent singular number—it's two roles, isn't it? Operator and negative sign.
  • Why introduce the complication of fonts? Doesn't WP use just one font? Likewise, what exactly is "code", and do WPians normally use it in their contributions to WP?

Thanks for the edits, by the way. Tony 06:34, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. I think both the unary operator and the binary operator are the same use, same glyph, same mathematical symbol and meaning, and both can be conveniently referred to as operators. But if you'd like to treat them as distinct, feel free. Fonts are not chosen by wikipedia, I think. I'm not sure what the problem is, but in my browser the minus comes out as short as the hyphen for any fonts that I've chosen; so my comment is probably moot, or wrong, or irrelevant. There is a tag for code that makes text look like this: 3 - 2 = 1; it uses monospaced fonts, which don't have such a narrow hyphen, and is used where computer code is displayed. Dicklyon 16:10, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

My guess would be that the fact that there can be drawn a distinction between the two roles is being overlooked here. Doesn't WP use just one font? ... Go to "my preferences", go to "skin", click on some of the previews. No, not only one, but I still wouldn't bother introducing this. Code here would be refering to the type of stuff you find at m:Help:Calculation (which I'd mentioned to you, Tony) and it is used (it's very useful in templates). However, it is possible to keep the hyphens within the code and convert to minuses for display (I might just write the template if it doesn't already exist). Jɪmp 16:00, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I do think it's a pity that the text has bloated in a way that isn't going to help your average WPian. Tony 13:43, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

So be bold, and prune back to just what is useful, if you like. Dicklyon 15:52, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm a technical dummy, so I need consensus among you people to do so. What's the disadvantage of removing the font/code stuff? Can't it be in the dash article? Tony 17:09, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I took out my font clause; the rest I think is OK, but I'll entertain edits by others. I think the code comment is more useful than the previous weasel words about "many scientists insist" or something like that, which was really about code. Dicklyon 18:04, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Tables and trivia

I noticed that some MoS pages like Wikipedia:When to use tables and Wikipedia:Avoid trivia sections are not even mentioned or linked to from this main MoS page. Shouldn't they at least have an entry? heqs ·:. 03:16, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

MOSNUM: structural issue

In starting the job of overhauling this important submanual, I've realised that the main MOS is absolutely silent on numbers and dates. This is inconsistent with other aspects of style in which the information in submanuals is summarised in the main article. Apart from this inconsistency, there are two disadvantages in this situation: (1) there's nowhere in the main text here that links to the submanual; (2) it looks to the casual observer as though WP doesn't care about numbers and dates; and (3) style WRT numbers and dates doesn't fall under centralised scrutiny as a fully integrated part of style policy.

I suggest that as part of the process of overhauling MOSNUM, we arrive at a summary and post it here for feedback. Is that a good idea? Tony 09:36, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Header

"This page is part of the Manual of Style, and is considered a guideline for Wikipedia." I thought that was funny, since this artice IS the MOS. Shouldn't it be "This is (not "is part of") the Manual of Style, and is considered a guideline for Wikipedia."? --PostScript (info/talk/contribs) 11:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Edit:'I am aware that, we use the same template throughout the various pages of the MOS, where it is justified to use that template. However, we ARE writing about the MOS, so shouldn't we use proper grammar? --PostScript (info/talk/contribs) 11:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe that this page, like those pages, are only part of the manual of style. And I don't see your improper grammar. — The Storm Surfer 00:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

punctuation—interesting link

User:Colin alerted me to this interesting entry by language guru David Crystal, on the faddish "zero tolerance" for variations in punctuation.

We do need a little more in the MOS about punctuation, don't we? Tony 00:22, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Speaking of punctuation . . . rather than sift through all the archives and such (I'm pressed for time currently), is there a reason why WP's style is to leave the period at the end of the quotation on the outside of the quotation marks? Thousands of sentences end with (".) instead of (."), leaving thousands of periods just dangling outside. I don't understand why the style says to do this, when surely in school we're taught that if a quotation comes at the end of a sentence, to place the period on the INSIDE of the marks.

On a humorous note, I'm surprised how much poor punctuation and its support by Wiki upsets me.Stanselmdoc 21:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Surely in school we are so taught ... if we're American. Would it be any worse having "thousands of periods just dangling outside" than having thousands of inverted commas just dangling outside? But, no; yes, there is a reason for WP's style; they do not just dangle: they belong there. If the full stop is part of that which in quoted, it goes within the inverted commas; otherwise it goes outside. Think about it—it's the simpler style—what logic would dictate in the absence of that arbitary rule to put all other punctuation marks within the inverted commas. This is how the rest of us are taught. Jɪmp 03:43, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess I'm going to have to live with being unhappy about it. But please, don't argue that it's the "simpler style" when the only reason you think that is because you were brought up with it. I happen to think it's an illogical style, because apparently, as an American, I was taught a different set of logic. Stanselmdoc 13:46, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not at all because he was "brought up with it". It's called the "logical" style with good reason: the final punctuation is either part of the quote or, on a different structural level, it's part of the large sentence in which the quote sits. Some US usage is good (I like your single els in "traveling" etc—it's simpler), but some is silly, like the issue you raised. Tony 14:55, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, there is a separate logic behind it, which is why, even in regions where the ." style is taught, some groups have independently adopted the ". style instead; and why Wikipedia has adopted it despite having more US than British editors (and, despite the fact that ." is also the traditional British style and is still perfectly acceptable in Britain). Eric S. Raymond writes in the Jargon File:

Hackers tend to use quotes as balanced delimiters like parentheses, much to the dismay of American editors. Thus, if “Jim is going” is a phrase, and so are “Bill runs” and “Spock groks”, then hackers generally prefer to write: “Jim is going”, “Bill runs”, and “Spock groks”. This is incorrect according to standard American usage (which would put the continuation commas and the final period inside the string quotes); however, it is counter-intuitive to hackers to mutilate literal strings with characters that don't belong in them. Given the sorts of examples that can come up in discussions of programming, American-style quoting can even be grossly misleading. When communicating command lines or small pieces of code, extra characters can be a real pain in the neck. [3]

The reason why the 'British' style has been chosen by Wikipedia over the 'American' style is because it's in line with our general overriding principle about quoting, which is never to modify the contents of quotes. In the American style, if, say, you are quoting "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1, NIV) - and you were at the end of a sentence, you might quote "In the beginning was the Word." The problem with this is that a full stop has been inserted into the quote, even though it isn't part of it - the sentence doesn't end there, but the full stop inside the quotes gives the impression that it does. Wikipedia's quoting style ensures that nothing is ever included inside quote marks which isn't part of the quote. TSP 15:09, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

... which is inherently simpler. Stanselmdoc, what makes you think that the only reason I think this is the simpler style is because I was brought up with it? As for what I was brought up with: I read British, American, Australian, etc. authors as a kid. The fact of the matter is that I don't even recall ever having been taught one style or the other. I certainly was never taught that strange American rule. In the absence of that rule I found myself naturally using the logical style—'tis only logical. This side of the pond (the Pacific in my case) we have one rule fewer. The fewer the rules, the simpler: this is the basis of my argument. Jɪmp 09:05, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Look, I have no problem going with the non-American style. If that's what Wiki has chosen to do, I follow and accept that. The point I was trying to make is that SOME of us editors DON'T see placing a comma or period inside quotation marks as "modify[ing]the contents of quotes", since we're so used to doing it that way. And just to point out, Jimp, you're again using your own background (that of "not having been brought up with any particular style") to call the American way not as simple. Just like I, as an American, use my own background to say that it IS simpler. It's a moot point anyway, since I'm guessing there are far more editors on Wiki who are not American, and the opinion of the greater amount of editors should be observed. Stanselmdoc 15:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I disagree on two counts: most WPians are North American; and it's not the case that the largest number win, or indeed, the loudest voices. Policy evolves according to a number of patterns and structures, some of which transcend nationality. Good thing, too. Tony 15:27, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Well it was just a guess anyway. But it doesn't really matter how the policy was created, because the point is that the current policy doesn't use the American style. Which is fine. I just get defensive of the version I like because grammar and punctuation are pet peeves of mine, and I'm so used to having to correct my fellow Americans that it often carries over into subjects which "transcend nationality" ;). Stanselmdoc 15:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Stanselmdoc, I am using my own background ... as an example. However, the basis of my argument I believe is independant of this. We have one rule fewer: that's my point. But, you're right, it's something you'll probably have to put up with (I don't think it'd be an easy policy to overturn). I understand your getting defensive, though. Jɪmp 17:08, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Italics and foreign titles

A somewhat off-topic request, but a formatting and style question. What should be the standard for italicizing foreign terms, especially in songs? Foreign terms in common usage should not be italicized, and several style guides suggest that only "phrases" or "unfamiliar terms" should be italicized, but that would leave lots of room for inconsistency. The country infoboxes and the articles on the anthems themselves vary wildly on this topic, as do sources on the Internet. La Marseillaise, "La Marseillaise," and La Marseillaise have all been seen; and if italicizing for being a foreign word is correct, "La Marseillaise" may well actually be the correct form, despite appearing practically nowhere. I was thinking of editing in something approaching a standard at least for country infoboxes... but I've seen absolutely no response at all on talk pages for a while now, and I'd be nervous about such an undertaking without input. Since I am no expert on the subject, I'm coming to a more heavily trafficked talk page, since going to the more specific Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Foreign Books didn't get any responses. Anyway, input at Template talk:Infobox Country#Anthems: Italicized, quoted, or nothing? would be appreciated. SnowFire 17:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

• Foreign? The definition of foreign usually signifies from another country. But English Wikipedia covers many countries. "Other languages" would be safer term. Canuckle 17:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Foreign was meant in the sense of "foreign language" which is the same thing. SnowFire 17:38, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

To add my twopence worth: I'm strongly on the lower-case side here. Let's leave typwriter-based highlighting behind and make our text smooth to read. It's irritating to see the caps again and again through an article on animals. The grey hawke—well, just reword if it's ambiguous with a species of that name. Tony 00:51, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Common names of animals

Somewhere, we need to address the fact that common names of animals are not capitalized proper names. The entire article gray wolf is a hideous case in point. After reading that Article I was tempted to go pet my Cat and eat Dinner while watching Television. We're supposed to be using English, not German. This Germanization of nouns really needs to be nipped in the bud, and the problem is especially, terribly rampant in articles on animals. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:59, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I strongly support this view. I suspect that the scientists can't even agree among themselves—am I correct? Tony 02:50, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Professional writers are pretty united on this style point: the common name for an animal is never capitalised except for components taken from "proper" nouns like places and people. E.g. "Bengal tiger", not "Bengal Tiger". This is pretty universal in publishing, scientific or otherwise. I don't know why Wikipedia has taken a wishy washy stance on this. Bendž|Ť 11:55, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Definitely the right thing to do to make sure capitals are not overused through the article. We should strengthen this in the MOS Owain.davies 12:02, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

But if you look at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(fauna), it supports use of capitalization. I think it looks out of place from what's conventionally done, e.g. "bald eagle" is not capitalized in the New York Times. Andrew73 12:44, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The handful of people behind that particular page jumped on one particular system they were familiar with, that chosen by professional biologists who certainly aren;t know for their grammar and style rules. It wsa a bad decision from the beginning, completely against the whole world and common sense. A bunch of us tried to change it a while back but a couple of very opinionated people with no justification other than "that's how we serious people do it" fought it tooth in nail. It's about time a group of people just came in and changed it and forced them to deal twith reality. DreamGuy 21:43, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Is a bald eagle a Bald Eagle, or a generic type of eagle, which has lost its feathers? Is a black redstart a Black Redstart, or a Redstart which is melanistic? Andy Mabbett 12:56, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

From the context, it's clear that "bald eagle" refers to Haliaeetus leucocephalus and not to an eagle that's gone bald. In the same way that it's clear that "red snapper" fish refers to Lutjanus campechanus and not snappers that are red. The readers and editors of the New York Times don't seem to take offense at the lack of capitalization for this bird (or should it be Bird) or for example the National Audubon Society [4]. I'm not an ornithologist, but I'm not sure why Wikipedia is adopting this unconventional capitalization scheme. Andrew73 13:28, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Let's not be silly; a redstart that is melanistic would be a melanistic redstart, not a black redstart, and a golden or whatever eagle that had lost its feathers would be a featherless eagle. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Your first error is assuming that it's "unconventional". Andy Mabbett 13:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

It may be conventional in certain narrowly-defined contexts (e.g. bird guides), but not conventional in more general venues. Andrew73 13:44, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Andy, it is wildly unconventional in general, modern, formal English, which is what this and every other English-language modern encyclopedia are written in. WP:NOT a biology textbook. And your unspoken assertion that zoologists conventionally do this is not supported. While I have, as others have, sometimes seen this done in the scientific literature, it is by no means a majority practice even with biology. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I was not aware of this idea that wikipedia allows common names to be capitalized. Can someone point out the basis for it, or a link to previous discussion. Nobody immediately above has pointed out any source or authority for this "unconventional" view; where is it conventional? Dicklyon 16:02, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree, there needs to be a written policy against things like "Gray Wolf" and "Bald Eagle". They are jarring, and it is quite easy to tell from context whether "gray wolf" refers to a wolf that happens to be gray, or to Canis lupus. Strad 20:19, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes but there is a written policy, and it says that both "Gray Wolf" and "gray wolf" ar acceptable, due to some unspecified unresolved hot debate. I just noticed there's a main article link there, so apparently there's a better place to have this discussion. I'll follow it. Dicklyon 20:40, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

See also Wikipedia:WikiProject_Birds which endorses "Bald Eagle." I wonder if this also reflects an American v. British English split, as the people supporting "Bald Eagle" tend to be British. Andrew73 21:23, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

We have three options, as I see it:

• Common names of animals are spelt with an initial lower-case letter
• Common names of animals are normally spelt with an initial lower-case letter [this would leave a little space for the cap fanatics, and would allow for rare cases where disambiguation is necessary]
• Leave the wording as it is. Tony 02:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
• First option, obviously. Common names of animals are not proper names, period (except inasmuch as they contain one, e.g. Texas blind salamander, etc.) This is a no-brainer, and Wikipedia does not exist to further the ungrammatical nonsense of a minority of people in a narrow field. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

None of the above, because that's all dealt with elsewhere. I edited the section to try to more clearly deflect people to where the policy is, taking out the bit about a hot debate and compromise, since this is not the page where those are relevant. Dicklyon 05:26, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

What, links to projects and submanuals? Can you be explicit, or at least provide an example? On such a basic issue, don't you think the main MOS should provide explicit guidance? Very happy to remove the fluff about hot debate etc. Makes us look like fractious fools. Tony 08:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

The section on "animals, plants, and other organism" has a main link to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna). I don't care if you'd like to push for a reorganization. Dicklyon 02:04, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tony. Why do we need to debate this on a sub-guideline page? This is the main MoS, and this is a pretty big issue (or is that Big Issue?). — Brian (talk) 02:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, looks like we're pretty united, should we go ahead and implement de-capitalisation in this MoS and let it trickle down to the wikiprojects? Bendž|Ť 09:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

No. We're not united; and such a change would need to be discussed with the projects concerned - some of whom will, rightly, oppose it in the strongest permissible way. Andy Mabbett | Talk to Andy Mabbett 10:30, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Concur with Brian, Tony, Dicklyon, et al. WP:MOS should definitely be clear on this, and the grammar-ignoring renegades at the sub-guideline need to get with the same program as the rest of the darned world. WP:MOS trumps WP:MOS*; if the entrenched capitalizers want to push for their pet Germanization Of Simple Words thing, they have to convince WP:MOS, not just go write their own "guideline". If that were a valid approach, all hell would break loose. We'd pretty soon have a WP:MOSBRIT declaring that all American spellings should be changed to British, and a WP:MOSUSA saying the opposite, etc., etc. Every vocal minority would soon be promulgating its own conflicting style manual on whatever it was collectively obsessed with. No way. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I think we need to make a decision here on the main WP:MOS, and then move that down to the specific fauna page. I have placed a note to this effect on the talk page of naming conventions (fauna), inviting any interested parties to come here and join the debate.

By my count, at this time there are 8 people in favour of moving to using only lower case letters, and only one against. Obviously, WP is not a democracy as such, but this shows clear preference for one style as it stands. I suggest we give it a week or two to allow any contributors from the sub page to come and join the debate here, and then make decision on this basis. Owain.davies 10:47, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I have also left notes inviting input at WikiProject mammals (who after a fair amount of debate on their talk page, seem to predominantly favour and use lower case). Owain.davies 11:02, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The logic given at WP:BIRD is fairly clear and logical. At the very least, there is good reason to use capitalization for bird articles because that is how ornithologists write their books. Other groups of biologists have found the logic appealing and have also begun capitalizing the official common names of other species. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I have something to say....

• Well, looks like we're pretty united, should we go ahead and implement de-capitalisation in this MoS and let it trickle down to the wikiprojects? User talk:Bendzh United as in we haven't talked to anyone one of the editors involved in these wikiprojects, so lets make some changes and hopefully they might not notice and or make a fuss?

• By my count, at this time there are 8 people in favour of moving to using only lower case letters, and only one against. Obviously, WP is not a democracy as such, but this shows clear preference for one style as it stands. User:Owain.davies Had you elicited the thoughts of those that contribute to animal articles, and who might not keep MOS on their watchpages, yet might be interested in this subject? Or do we minority of people in a narrow field not really matter? After all, we only write articles, which aren't nearly as important as guidelines.

Thanks to UtherSRG to bringing this to the attention of WP:BIRD, otherwise the changes might have happened without being able to oppose them. Which I do, strongly. The rest of WP:BIRD would too, most likely. Sabine's Sunbird talk 12:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

As I understand it, the proposal above is that we move to lower case for names of species, on the basis that names of species are not proper nouns. The definition of a proper noun, as I understand it, is that it relates to something which exists in the singular, as opposed to non-proper nouns which are for classes of things. However, species are singular entities, are they not? So when we are talking about a species, we should use initial capitals, but when we are talking about a group of species, we should use lower case e.g. Ruby-throated Hummingbird, but hummingbirds. Try transposing to other fields of study if you're having difficulty with this e.g. the Ford Escort vs. cars, the King James Bible vs. bibles SP-KP 13:02, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Before the entire of WP:BIRD descends here, we know there is a clear reasoning to the naming of bird species with an upper case first letter. However, there is a general disagreement on the use of this across all animal species. It's not specifically about birds, or technical notation, but making a usable encyclopaedia for everyone. Owain.davies 14:08, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I concur most strongly with the anti-capitalisation folks. With all due respect to the bird folks, they just have this wrong, I think. Over on one of those pages, during a previous incarnation of this discussion, I quoted a search I did on Google that revealed literally dozens of bird articles that went against the WP:BIRD direction. (The response I received at that time was that those articles were not field guides and may not have been written by ornithologists but WP also is not a field guide nor is it destined to be read exclusively by ornithologists.) Additionally, no other encyclopedia (and I consulted six of them including Britannica online) uses the methods of WP:BIRD. None of the various external style manuals I consulted support the capitalisation of species names. Now, the liberal in me would want to say that the bird folks should have a right to do as they please but I also find the argument in favour of consistency across faunal divisions to be persuasive. Some of the contributors, above, have said that projects other than WP:BIRD have opted for capitalisation. Well, I'd like someone to compile a list of which ones do and which do not. I know there are a vocal group of people in WP:MAMMALS who are attempting to enforce capitalisation but there is no consensus to do that. WP:FISH has officially come out against caps. Now, someone is sure to trot out at least a dozen times how we need to be able to tell the difference between a Grey Jay and a jay that happens to be grey. What strikes me as interesting is that no other publication in the popular press seems to have this trouble. Readers of the London Times and of the Encyclopedia Britannica and the grade 9 science students using my son's textbook -- all of these appear to have some sort of superhuman ability to discern the difference between a Grey Jay and a grey jay without being hit over the head with initial capitals. I agree that this discussion needs to be settled once and for all. If we're voting, I vote strongly that WP:MOS come out in favour of sentence (lower) case. The simple fact that we're having this discussion over and over and over again proves, to me, that the caps thing makes no sense because the pro-caps people need to convince every new cohort of editors who come along that initial caps is correct. If initial caps makes so much sense, wouldn't new (or even not-so-new) editors simply use it without having to be "corrected" and convinced year after year after year? As a professional biologist (but not an ornithologist) and as a published writer, I've read thousands of papers and articles and I've also written for the primary, secondary and tertiary literature and I can say that nowhere, other than here, have I encountered this discussion. I'd really like to know if anyone here, other than a birder, came to the project with an initial caps preconception and did not need to be swayed into the initial caps camp? Finally, in a somewhat tangential vein, I think it's also important to note that reading comprehension studies have shown that capitals used in unusual places slow the reading process and damage reading comprehension. "The Dog is the natural antagonist of the Cat. Dogs and Cats seldom sleep together except when a Horse, a Grey Jay or a Blue Shark is nearby." Let me ask you, seriously, if you re-write those sentences without the initial caps, what meaning is lost? Why are we adopting what is clearly a stilted writing style that damages reading comprehension if there is no value contributed by our style. Style is meant to be unobtrusive. The simple fact that people come here again and again and again to argue this point suggests to me that the initial caps style is anything but unobtrusive to most readers... — Dave (Talk | contribs) 16:04, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Another birder and author of bird articles here. My impression of the conventional usage (I think I'm the person whose response Dave mentions above) is that journalistic writing and literary writing don't capitalize official common names; ornithology, field guides, and serious birding writing capitalize. (By serious birding I mean not "You might get Carolina chickadees at your feeder" but "Carolina Chickadees have gray edges on their secondaries".) The current policy at WP:BIRD follows this: capitalize in bird articles but don't expect articles on other topics to do so.

Dave, you have not encountered this discussion elsewhere, but I think that in ornithology there's nothing to discuss; just about everybody capitalizes. I once sent a letter to Birding magazine arguing that there's no grammatical reason to capitalize species names (sorry, SP-KP) and we do it only for clarity, but I don't recall much disagreement on capitalization itself. If my own searches are any guide, finding dozens of ornithology articles that don't capitalize would have required looking through hundreds or thousands that do. See for example the SORA archive, which is American. (I know of no difference between American and British usage here; both capitalize.)

You don't see the advantage in clarity, but I've been brought up short by the ambiguity of such phrases as "American goldfinches" and "desert larks". Of course I figure out quickly which possibility was meant without using my, ahem, superhuman powers, but I see no reason to "throw" the reader even for that moment. I imagine you agree that giving readers pause is undesirable even if you disagree that uncapitalized common names will do it often.

You suggest that the number of people who question this convention shows that new editors are constantly encountering it for the first time and disliking it. It shows up maybe once every two or three months at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Birds, I'd say. If we didn't capitalize, I can't tell you how many people would say, "Why don't you capitalize Helmeted Hornbill? That's how it is in all my books." But I'll bet it would be at least comparable to the number who question the present convention. In light of this and the previous paragraph, I'd say capitals not used in expected places also damage comprehension, so either way will be obtrusive and annoying to some readers.

I see no particular reason for a fauna-wide standard. I recognize the problem with "Stoat", "Donkey", "Lion", and a few others, but the mammal people can decide how to deal with that (keeping in mind the problem with "black bears of various colors"). I'd like to add some facts, though, that Neale Monks brought up in a recent discussion: "I took a look through some journals. Some, like Journal of Zoology, explicitly forbid capitals of common names completely. Others, like Copeia, insist on them where *recognised* common names exist. The split seems (at my first pass) to be between the US and everyone else, with the US journals favouring capitalised common names. Interestingly, and for no reason I can explain, the leading tropical fish magazine in the US forbids capital letters for common names while the leading magazine in the UK prefers them! So maybe it isn't so simple." (That's here.)

Your best point, in my opinion, is that other encyclopedias don't capitalize. But I think Wikipedia articles on birds have a lot in common with what you find in field guides and monographs (indeed, some may be too technical), so I think the style should be the same for the same reason. —JerryFriedman 00:29, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

• First off I wish to apologise since I guess my earlier post was rude. I was really sick last night when I typed it, but that is no excuse. I was also really angry - there seemed to be a lot of barbs intented for tree of life participants, allusions to renegade grammar-ignoring renegades, entrenched capitalizers, a couple of very opinionated people with no justification (!) other than "that's how we serious people do it". But I shouldn't have bitten. Anyway.

To address some points - the use of caps for common names of species is not yet universal. No one is claiming it is. But it is strongly moving that way. Most of the world's ornithological scoieties do this (The AOU, BOU, etc) and a good chunk of the avian biology journals and handbooks (like Hanzab of Birds of North America). When WP:BIRD started we used Handbook of the Birds of the World as the taxonomy and source of standardised common names. HBW is recognised as one of the largest ornithological literature projects of the last 50 years. Since then we have moved a bit from those roots but only with good reason, and mostly in the region of taxonomic advances and to pander to some regional variation (some New Zealand bird articles use the New Zealand names, derived from Maori, rathar than the standard name (Kereru instead of New Zealand Pigeon for example.) There has been some suggestion that we move towards BIRDS OF THE WORLD Recommended English Names" By Frank Gill And Minturn Wright, published in 2006 [5]; which is the result of 16 years of work undertaken for the International Ornithological Congress to create standardised common names. This makes it pretty much the offical bird name standard (it is being adoped as such. On the subject of capitalisation they say... An important rule adopted at the outset was that the words of an official birds name begin with capital letters. While this is contrary to the general rules of spelling for mammals, birds, insects, fish, and other life forms (i.e., use lowercase letters), the committee believed the initial capital to be preferable for the name of a bird species in an ornithological context, for two reasons.

• • It has been the customary spelling in bird books for some years;
  • Because it distinguishes a taxonomic species from a general description of a bird. Several species of sparrows could be described as "white-throated sparrows," but a "White-throated Sparrow" is a particular taxonomic species.

From my perspective, the strongest argument for capitalizing the English names of birds is that we now have a single, unique name (see below) for each of the biological entities that we call bird species. These names must be regarded as proper nouns (thus receive capitals in all English publications), rather than as common nouns (vernacular names).

[6]

The article goes on to offer further justification for the move. A parallel that might be worth considering is the capitalisation of family names; (Rallidae,Hydrobatidae etc), orders (Procellariformes) etc. Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:50, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Default image size question - 180px

I've been removing forced pixel counts from a number of articles per the MOS recommendation. It points out that the default size is 180px unless otherwise specified. This seems a little small. Is there are reason for this? Can it be changed? It seems many editors (let alone readers) don't realise they can change viewing preferences and this is the reason, i presume, they specify pixel counts. Perhaps if the default was bigger they would not feel the need to specify pixels. Any thoughts? Am I asking in the correct place? Merbabu 12:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

180px is ridiculously small, especially for horizontal images, which should be approaching twice that width. DreamGuy 21:41, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Revised opening

I've copy-edited the template at the top, without substantive change in meaning. However, there was still tension between "should be followed in Wikipedia articles" and the second paragraph of the lead, which went wobbly at the knees by seeming to say "Don't take it too seriously, ignore it if you please." The second para appears to undermine the whole reason for having the MOS.

Furthermore, the guidelines proper didn't start until the third section, “Article titles”. The first two sections—“Which style to use” and “Disputes over style issues”—seemed to concern more general things that sit better in the lead.

So I've been bold in subsuming the first two sections into the lead and dumping the problematic second para. If there are reasonable objections, I'll revert it. Tony 13:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

• Relationship between this manual and the submanuals. It's unsupervised and has led to discrepancies. The animal names look to be a current instance of tension between this page and the submanual. Therefore, I propose that we add (to the lead, I guess):

• Where a discrepancy arises between the text of this manual and that of a submanual, the former will prevail.

At the very least, this will encourage better coordination.

Comments? Tony 02:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree, the main WP:MOS should have primacy, because more people will come here looking for answers. It may be worth adding notes to this effect (or an infobox?) on the sub articles to encourage authors to approve here, before changing sub-pages. Owain.davies 11:04, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The use–mention distinction: apparent formatting inconsistency in MOS

Can someone clear up my confusion on this issue. The MOS appears to use variously quotes and italics to mention words, yet explicitly states in the section on Italics:

Words as words

Italics are used when citing a word or letter (see use–mention distinction). For example, “The term panning is derived from panorama, a word coined in 1787.” “The most commonly used letter in English is e.”

The linked-to use–mention ariticle (which appears to use quotes wrongly in the first occurrence of cheese), starts as follows:

The use–mention distinction is the distinction between using a word (or phrase, etc.) and mentioning it. In written language, mentioned words or phrases often appear between quotation marks or in italics; some authorities insist that mentioned words or phrases always be made visually distinct in this manner. Used words or phrases (more common than mentioned ones) do not bear any typographic distinction.

For example, the following two sentences illustrate use and mention of the word "cheese":

• Cheese is derived from milk.
• Cheese is derived from a word in Old English.

The first sentence is a statement about the substance cheese. It uses the word cheese to describe its referent. The second is a statement about the word cheese. It mentions the word without using it.

There are many quote marks used around examples in the Manual. Does this mean that they should all be in italics? Critically, does the rule apply to single items only, or to whole sentences as well? Tony 11:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

No one seems interested. So should I go ahead and change all of the quote marks around single items throughout the manual? Should I leave whole-sentence examples in quotes? Tony 05:28, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Action: bit by bit, I'm changing the quoted single items to italics as per the "Words as words" guidelines; I'm not touching the quotes around whole phrases, clauses and sentences. It's nominal groups only, as I understand it (= nouns and noun phrases), that should be italicised rather than in quotes. Tony 03:33, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

One could differentiate between mention (italics) and quote (marks), but in reality most people don’t, won’t or can’t follow that convention. Some style guides recommend single quote marks for mentions instead of italic formatting, which they reserve for emphasis or something else, and double quote marks, which they reserve for quotations. In linguistics, however, italics are the standard for indicating words and phrases spoken about. Christoph Päper

Alphabetization

Question about alphabetization. Is there any guideline about alphabetizing titles that begin with numbers? To my knowledge, in any encyclopedia, or in a library, numbers go in their alphabetical location (64th Street: A Detective Story would be under S for Sixty-fourth). I don't think I've seen a volume 0-9 of an encyclopedia. Putting numbers first is only common because that's what a computer automatically does, but it seems pretty common on Wikipedia. ~ JohnnyMrNinja _{talk} 22:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Or if you can mention a better place to ask, I'll go there. ~ JohnnyMrNinja _{talk} 07:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Capitalisation of titles

The 'Titles' section under 'Capitals' is currently self-contradictory:

When used generically, such items are in lower case: “De Gaulle was the French president” and “Louis XVI was the French king”. Similarly, “Three prime ministers attended the conference”, but “The British Prime Minister is Gordon Brown”. (A rule of thumb is this: when the modifier is the specific article the, we use Prime Minister; when the non-specific a applies, we use prime minister).

The 'rule of thumb' in brackets sets a different standard to the rule it comes after - if the deciding matter was 'the' or 'a' it would be “De Gaulle was the French President” and “Louis XVI was the French King”.

Which is correct?

Looking at previous versions of the page (e.g. [7]) it looks like the 'rule of thumb' was originally intended to only apply to the title 'prime minister'; but this seems somewhat bizarre as well - I don't see why this title wouldn't obey the rules that others do. TSP 12:53, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Can you fix it? Tony 13:26, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Only if I know what we want to fix it to :-) I'd be inclined to just remove the 'rule of thumb' and leave the rest as it is, but I wanted to know what other people thought.

Actually, I'll do that - there's no sense leaving it as it is - and if people think the rule should be more like the rule of thumb and less like the rest of it, it can go back. TSP

I like the rule of thumb better than the rest of it; I'd use the capitals only when the title modifies a proper name. "As of this month, Prime Minister Brown is the British prime minister; in the G8, he joins President George Bush, the American president, and six other presidents and prime ministers." --Trovatore 16:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that isn't the rule of thumb, now that I re-read it. In fact the whole thing is confusing. Why does it say "the British Prime Minister" but "the French president"? If this difference is specific to the title or the country, it should say so.

I'd amend my formulation slightly: capitals only when the title modifies a proper name or is used as a form of address ("Mr. President, would you come with me?" "Yes, Prime Minister") --Trovatore 16:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Mmm. But that seems to end you with such things as "Elizabeth II is queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth Realms", which definitely looks wrong, to me at least. I think the distinction it's trying to make is between official titles - "President of France" and descriptions - "French president" - but I agree it doesn't do it very well, and doesn't seem to provide a way of establishing what is the formal title, particularly for foreign-language titles.

On a slight tangent, 'Prime Minister Brown' is a construction I don't often hear in the UK; I think it's mostly a usage that's come from the US by analogy with 'President Bush'. We'd usually refer to him just as 'the prime minister' (or 'the Prime Minister'?) or just 'Gordon Brown'. TSP 00:12, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Well I would definitely prefer to say that President Sarkozy is the president of France, not the President of France. If you wanted to carve out a special exception for HM the Q, I wouldn't object; we Yanks understand that y'all aren't completely rational about her :-).

This wound up being an issue at prime minister of Italy -- there was a move debate that settled on the lowercase "m", then someone got around to moving it to "President of the Council of Ministers of Italy", which (without the "of Italy" part) is the actual official title, but one almost never used in English, and only in rather restricted contexts even in Italian. Personally I think it was better at "prime minister", with the minuscule "m". --Trovatore 00:22, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Talk here, don't edit war

There's an edit-war brewing, I see, concerning the removal of advice on how to make external links visually neater.

Storm surfer, please explain here why you're so adamant that this advice be removed. External links are a lighter blue than internal links, so are already identifiable. Who cares all that much, anyway? What I do like is not having to put up with that lumpy arrow thing that, by default, accompanies external links.

You're the one who wants to change the status quo, so you should justify the change before edit warring over it. Tony 05:26, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

DreamGuy has been edit-warring on multiple guideline pages. For example, WP:LAYOUT. I suspect it will soon be time for a User WP:RfC. He hasn't been discussing on the talk page there either. Just so everyone is aware. IPSOS (talk) 07:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

That's nothing but a personal attack. I'm not surprised you'd stoop to such tactics based upon the harassing and deceptive comments you've left on my talk page. No edit warring is going on here, it's just you objecting to the edits of multiple editors and trying to create a guideline to meet your own person whims. I think you need to just lay off and try to stick to the actual issue... oh, wait, but if you do that everyone can see that you are completely wrong. Gotchya. DreamGuy 07:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, no. Multiple editors are objecting to your edits. I'm aware for the Arbitration case that was filed against you, which was not accepted because the step of filing a user RfC had never been taken. The issue is, that you are attempting to change the order of the appendices which have been fixed and accepted for some time, and that if I'm not mistaken, this is not the first time you've tried to do so unilaterally w/o discussion on the talk page. IPSOS (talk) 07:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not the status quo, the status quo is not to screw with the code for external links. Sometimes people sneak nonsense into guideline pages that simply have no reason to be there, and that's certainly one of them. If there is an edit war it's only if you insist on putting that nonsense back after multiple editors have removed it. I don't particularly care if *you* like not having to "put up" with the standard code for external links, it's how everyone always does it here, and it's absolutely insane to claim that people can just up and decide to do it completely differently if they get it into their head that they want to.

And your recent edit to try to claim that this page overrules the submanuals is nonsense. In fact if a statement clarifying what to do over conflicts is necessary, common sense says the submanual, where people more into the specific topic discuss it in greater detail, should overrule this page. But instead of specifying one or the other we need to let Wikipedia editors handle these things through the normal process.

You have real WP:OWNership issues, and I think you should tone done your attitude here and start editing in good faith. DreamGuy 06:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

If you objected, why didn't you respond when I raised the matter on this page? That was a courtesy that you haven't extended everyone here over the current issue. I don't like your aggressive attitude, talking of the need to "tone down".

Now, to take your substantive issue, by example, at the start of this MOS, you'd rather stop peopple from turning this (as it was a while ago):

Chicago provides an online guide, The Chicago Manual of Style Online. The The Guardian Styleguide, the Mayfield Electronic Handbook of Technical & Scientific Writing and the CMS Crib Sheet are among online style guides that are accessible gratis.

into this:

Chicago provides an online guide, The Chicago Manual of Style Online. The The Guardian Styleguide, the Mayfield Electronic Handbook of Technical & Scientific Writing' and the CMS Crib Sheet are among online style guides that are accessible gratis.

I don't see why people should be stopped from removing the arrow thing when the text looks more attractive and reads more smoothly without, and the fact that the links are external is obvious. Tony 07:23, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Now that I don't agree with. All external links should be made obvious. IPSOS (talk) 07:25, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind if you remove the extra code that removes the arrow, as long as no one objects. Tony 07:29, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

You are quite gracious. That's how I thought these discussions were supposed to work. I'll wait for more input. No hurry. IPSOS (talk) 07:38, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Can I say that the difference between light blue and a lighter blue isn't that great to a lot of people with vision impairment?

Also, most people probably won't even think to look for a difference, and won't notice it unless an internal link and an external link are right next to each other. And it requires people to have their own prior knowledge of what the difference is between two slightly different colors of links. They have to click on this kind of link to find out that it is an external link, which is just as bad as easter eggs.

I personally cannot stand external links within articles, except in the External links section, as I have to disable CSS for my Treo to be able to use Wikipedia, and that makes all links look the same to me. ~ JohnnyMrNinja _{talk} 05:34, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with most of what DreamGuy said about the status quo. External links should look like external links. If you want to change the way external links look (which seems to be your goal), you should do so at the source, not by suggesting that people include HTML code that is confusing to readers and editors. — The Storm Surfer 21:10, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

This discussion has changed my view somewhat. I wonder whether the raft of external links in the lead should be removed or relocated to a less prominent position in MOS. I'm sensing that people want to reinstate the arrow icons wherever these links end up. Tony 03:03, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the standard practice in situations like this to link to the Wikipedia article about the publication, with the idea that readers can go to the external link from there? Not that I'm sure that's what we should do, but I thought it was what is typically done. — The Storm Surfer 01:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

MOS central prevails over daughter articles

Now, as for this storm over the "MOS central prevails over daughter articles" clause, which no one bothered to respond to when I discussed it here earlier, can the parties who object to it say here why they feel that it should be impossible to tell what WP's real policy is on an issue when two MOS pages declare different policies? Is that not an unsatisfactory situation? The plea for a structural environment for discussion that I see in the edit comments means nothing to me. Why should that discussion not happen here if there's a discrepancy?

My reason for initiating this change, apparently without objection at the time, was that there is insufficient coordination between MOS central and the submanuals. The additional clause functions to ensure that a policy prevails at all times, and to encourage discussion and coordination between the pages. Not enough of that happening, IMO. Tony 15:15, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I've acutally been wondering the same thing myself. People go in and unilaterally change a lesser watched page. It gets missed and stays there for a few days, weeks or even longer, then the editor pretends it was like that all along. There needs to be better monitoring of these changes, and IMO anyone who edits policy or guideline pages w/o even posting on the talk page should simply be reverted. IPSOS (talk) 15:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The MOS is not a policy document it is a guideline. This guideline does not take precedence over other guidelines. You should seek a broad consensus with the editors of the other MOS guidelines before implementing such a radical shift from consensus to prescription. Today at least two editors have reverted the suggested change so until the change has been widely advertised and a broad Wikipedia:consensus emerges this should not be implemented.

IPSOS you wrote above "then the editor pretends it was like that all along". Yet when I reverted an edit that changed a section called "Submanuals" you reverted to the new text with the comment "revert revision 145914551 by Philip Baird Shearer (talk) - no post or discussion on talk page prior to change)". So now that I have posted this here I hope you will wait until a consensus emerges before reverting my change to the status quo again. --Philip Baird Shearer 17:18, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Or you could be more gracious and allow the change to stay while it is discussed. So far there is no consensus either way, but at least the topic was brought up on the talk page in advance. IPSOS (talk) 17:40, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this page, and it's been like this ever since I started editing, is that it's edited by too many people, many of whom add their own ideas without having any background in the subject. The result is that the page has veered from the sublime to the ridiculous and back again (I'm thinking of issues like Maltese English). I see that Tony and others seem to be getting a grip on it, so perhaps in future it'll be stable and more sensible. Until we see that stability, we can't give the MoS, itself just a guideline, authority over any other guideline. You could argue that it only wants authority over its own subpages, but we'd first have to give the subpages a chance to declare their independence, as it were, and I'm guessing many of the editors on those pages would rather hoist their own flags than be subject to a huge MoS that's difficult to follow, unstable, and sometimes nonsensical. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 17:58, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Tony is one of the ones CAUSING the ridiculous nonsense, by adding new bits of info that completely go against common sense and suggesting people just adopt Britishisms as the default. We can't give one guideline any authority over any other guideline, and we certainly cannot give a couple of editors who are not working at all within how the encyclopedia as a whole has been operating for years as a sane consensus way of handling things a blank check to change whatever they want. DreamGuy 04:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I've not looked at Tony's edits, but he's an extremely good editor, and one of a small number of users I'd trust to get this page in order. This guideline has been one of the most problematic on Wikipedia, because everyone thinks they understand style issues, plus people have their favorite ways of doing things, and they firmly believe this page can only benefit from hearing about them. As a result, we've had the Thirty Years' War over whether the serial comma should be called the Oxford comma, and otherwise sensible editors manning the barricades in defence of Maltese English, which no one was ever able to give an example of. That's not to mention the lives lost over whether to write U.S. or US. I take my hat off to Tony for trying to put an end to it. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:00, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I see your point, but in my experience the daughter articles are just as unstable and prone to the same issues you bring up, probably more so. Are we going to simply be stuck with shifting sand? Case in point, one editor keeps trying to change the order of the standard appendices in WP:LAYOUT. The great majority of article comform to the current order. People don't seem to consider the huge amount of work they would create by making such a major change. And their reasons seem to boil down to "I think it would be so obviously better that no one could possibly disagree with me." I'm not sure how to counter such an attitude. Any suggestions? IPSOS (talk) 18:25, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you in principle, and if this page ever becomes stable (and gets rid of some of its sillier advice), I'd strongly support having it as a main page with its subpages deriving their authority from it, rather than standing as independent guidelines.

I can help you out at WP:LAYOUT (though I've not looked at it yet), but in general the only advice I can give is to work hard to get this page fixed up and stabilized. Easier said than done, I know. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 18:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I've protected LAYOUT and left a note on talk. One thing we should do is reinforce the idea that policy and guideline pages must not be changed without discussion, unless they're nonsensical or inconsistent with other key policies and guidelines, but neither seems to be the case with LAYOUT. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 18:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I very strongly agree with your last statements. When something is long established and changes would require that many article be changed, the reason had better be good enough to convince a consensus of editors that it is such an improvement as to outweigh the makework it produces. That's not the case with the undiscussed changes which were being made at WP:LAYOUT. IPSOS (talk) 19:17, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

SV, thanks for your input. You appear to agree in principle with the idea that MOS central should prevail, but only after it becomes stable. My argument for explicitly giving MOS central priority over the daughter articles, as I expressed it originally, is a way of dealing with instability. That is, the daughter articles exist primarily to set out the guidelines in greater detail, not to be an alternative little empires. Thus, whenever a significant change is proposed at a daughter article, it needs to be checked with this page, and if it would lead to inconsistency with it, should be argued out here. This process should occur now, but often doesn't, which is a recipe for chaos. The recent abolition to the ban on using en dashes in article titles is a point in case. There, the proponents had a good grip on what this article said (nothing), and the issue was thrashed out and voted on in isolation at the now-defunct MOSDASH. The result would normally not have been communicated to this page. Under the codified relationship between this page and its daughters, the arguments and voting should probably have occurred here. Tony 02:28, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I do agree in principle, and I appreciate the predicament. It's a question of trying to work out which is the cart and which the horse. I think the daughter articles become their own little empires for the same reason that the MoS in general is such a mess (or was when I last checked), and that's too many editors writing about issues they're not really familiar with, or adding their own idiosyncracies, or whatever they were taught in school, on the grounds that if it was good enough for Mrs. Palmer in Grade 3, the rest of the world ought to fall in line and stop whining.

The ideal thing would be if a small group of knowledgeable people (preferably professional editors) took hold of the page, got it in shape, then focused on keeping it stable. I don't know how likely that is to happen. You're doing a magnificent job, but you'd need more people behind you to fend off unwelcome changes.

Which are the daughter articles exactly? Are they the ones listed under "supplementary manuals," and is that a complete list? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 20:22, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

User:IPSOS's edit comment when he reverted: " no post or discussion on talk page prior to change" is just nonsense, as there is discussion here, and the version he put in there was the new one that goes completely against the longstanding consensus on the page. If you're going to make that argument that it absolutely does not belong there and the revert did the exact opposite of what it should... but then that particular editor doesn;t really have an opinion, he's just playing his typical "I don't know what's going on, but DreamGuy wants it the other way so it must be wrong." thing. DreamGuy 04:03, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, yeah, that's right, I forgot. DreamGuy is so important and always right that no one could possibly disagree with him except out of spite. Go read WP:NPA, or as you prefer to shove down other editor's throats, WP:DICK (see DG's edit history). IPSOS (talk) 00:39, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

When I initially saw the precedence comment, I thought it was a good idea. If two places say to do two different things, one of them should have priority over the other. But then I realized this is Wikipedia. If two places say to do two different things, we should decide what the correct option is (usually the third option in my experience) and change them both to say that. — The Storm Surfer 21:14, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

And just when does that happen? And where? And how long does it take? There have been (and no doubt still are) discrepancies for which there's insufficient motivation to reconcile. The "prevails" clause forces that issue, where it arises. It's not intended to be a mass takeover by this page of the whole concept of style guideline; rather, it's intended to encourage contributors of both MOS central and its daughter manuals to reach consensus about what's on their pages, probably here. I envisage that, as often as not, MOS central will change to reconcile its text with that of a submanual; after all, submanuals attract specialists. Tony 02:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC) PS Slim Virgin, yes, the submanuals are listed under the section of that name here. I presume that it's an accurate list. Tony 03:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Hyphens

The Manual of Style uses U+002D (-) for hyphens. This is Unicode's hyphen-minus character, which is there for compatibility with ASCII. Unicode also has a character for a hyphen, U+2010 (‐), which is preferred when legacy compatibility is unnecessary, and which i believe looks better. Would it be reasonable to change the MoS to encourage the Unicode hyphen, or is there good reason to continue using the ASCII hyphen? Foobaz·o< 01:25, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Is there a good reason to use the Unicode hyphen, aside from your assertion that it looks better? Investigating further, I found that only 69 of the fonts on my computer include this character, compared to over 300 for hyphen-minus. — The Storm Surfer 01:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It unambiguously means hyphen, and never means a minus sign, en dash, or em dash. It's available in about 44 of 151 of the fonts on my computer. If the user's font doesn't have it, i believe most web browsers will fall back to a font that does have it. We should use it for typographical correctness, the same reason we use en dashes and em dashes. Foobaz·o< 12:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe browsers do not fall back to another font in that case. (How would that work? Would it fall back for just that character? Or for all characters?) That said, I doubt all of those 151 or 300 fonts are relevant. It would be more interesting to know what support for this character exists in the few fonts that are likely to be used (Wikipedia's default fonts and other common fonts). --PEJL 13:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

You certainly have a point that a lot of my fonts may not be relevant. That said, Arial didn't seem to have it, which someone said was Wikipedia's default font once. Of course, it's possible I just have a lousy version of Arial (assuming there is some other kind). — The Storm Surfer 02:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Browsers actually do that sort of fallback all the time, except for Internet Explorer (at least until version 6), which is the reason for the existence of {{unicode}} etc.

Anyhow, I believe recommending the correct minus character (U+2212) and the dashes is enough, hyphen-minus will then mean hyphen. Also I’m not aware of a font that features different glyphs for U+002D and U+2010, but many feature a special glyph for U+2212 (which looks like + without the vertical stroke). Christoph Päper

Presumably we should encourage whichever is produced by the the hyphen character on the keyboard, since any improvement in looks is unlikely to be worth the extra effort. Christopher Parham (talk) 16:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to add to MOS a summary of MOSNUM

The draft of six new sections comprising guidelines on chronological items and numbers is now available and under discussion at MOSNUM talk.

The proposal is that these new sections will be inserted into MOS central and will, at the same, form the basis for improving the text in the related sections at MOSNUM itself.

Contributors to this page are welcome to scrutinise the proposal and to provide advice and feedback at MOSNUM talk during the next two weeks. Several improvements to the draft have already been made on the basis of feedback. Tony 07:43, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Proposed guideline: Plagiarism

I would like to propose a formal policy or guideline on plagiarism, and this seems like the best place to put it. I'm also posting a link to WP:VPP pointing to this discussion.

Background

In an article I'm involved with (fully protected article Battle of Washita River, it was discovered that there were a lengthy quote from a copyrighted source that was not in quotation marks (which has since been removed by an admin as a copyvio); but also that there was also an lengthy quotation from a public domain source with no quotation marks that had originally been sourced, but its source removed through sloppy editing during an edit war. Subsequently, I've been in discussion with the editor who originally placed the public domain text who researching maintains that it is unnecessary to put a quote from a public domain source in quotation marks so long as the text is cited. He particularly maintains this to be the case for published public domain information from the U.S. government. I maintain that "Quotation marks are always necessary when it's not your own writing. Otherwise it's plagiarism. This is the case whether it's in the public domain or not." The discussion continues at Talk:Battle of Washita River#Copyvio & misquoted footnote text removed; plagiarism discussion.

I agree: word-for-word quotes are theft unless within quote marks. The situation is less clear when some of the wording is changed (easy, since it's usually possible to improve the text from a source, or trim it for encyclopedic use). Tony 02:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I also agree with this proposal. There are a few editors who add material directly from old encyclopedias without rewriting, which is plagiarism regardless of the copyright issue. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:17, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Indeed: this has been the elephant in the living room for some time. I'm keen that users' awareness be raised on this habit of copying other texts in verbatim. Tony 07:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Present policy on plagiarism

Presently, references to plagiarism in Wikipedia policies/guidelines are scattershot and incomplete. As of this writing, what I've been able to find:

• WP:CITE#When you quote someone: "You should always add a citation when quoting published material, and the citation should be placed directly after the quotation, which should be enclosed within double quotation marks — "like this" — or single quotation marks if it's a quote-within-a-quote — "and here is such a 'quotation' as an example." For long quotes, you may wish to use Quotation templates."

• Problem. Does not make it clear that all published material, regardless of whether it is copyrighted or in the public domain, must be set off as a quotation.

• Yes it does; it says '"published material"; that means ALL published material, whether copyrighted or not. Tony 03:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• I would advice to take this further. Every verbatim quote should be between "quote signs" and be referenced. I.e. I would include verbatim sentences taken from interviews, radio broadcasts, songs, etc. Arnoutf 08:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• WP:PD: "For all practical purposes on Wikipedia, the public domain comprises copyright-free works: anyone can use them in any way and for whatever purpose. Proper attribution to the author or source of a work, even if it is in the public domain, is still required to avoid plagiarism."

• Problem. While it makes it clear that proper attribution is needed for public domain material, it does not make it clear that quoted public domain material must be marked as a quotation.

• Doesn't need to. Tony 03:21, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• Again I would say that if you use a verbatim copy of PD works, although no violation of copyright is still plagiarism. Thus to avoid plagiarism use the quotes. Arnoutf 08:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• WP:COPYRIGHT#Using copyrighted work from others: "Note that copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia. However, it would still be unethical (but not illegal) to do so without citing the original as a reference. See plagiarism and fair use for discussions of how much reformulation is necessary in a general context."

• Problem. Addresses only copyrighted works, & that incompletely.

• Copyright (according to some European laws I know of) comes into existence at the moment of creative expression of the ideas. The creative expression is related to the verbatim copying of texts. Citing the original authors of the work may not be essential for plagiarism, but is essential in the light of the WikiPolicy avoiding original research WP:OR; in other words, we are not allowed to put our own ideas into articles (original research), the only way to show we don't is by very strictly adhering to referencing guidelines.Arnoutf 08:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

• Currently, the very few mentions of plagiarism in policies/guidelines point to the mainspace article on plagiarism -- which is not a policy or guideline, so editors may not feel bound by what that mainspace article says.

Prior discussion

I posted about this issue at WP:VPP#Quoting public domain sources on 19 July 2007; to avoid losing that discussion through present VPP archiving policy, I copied that discussion over to Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Quoting public domain sources & plagiarism where the original VPP can be read as well as more discussion from more editors. Consensus of editors who have so far weighed in on both pages is that any quoted text, whether it's copyrighted or in the public domain, needs to be both sourced and set off as a quotation (through use of quotation marks, are as a block quote). (So far there hasn't been any response at Wikipedia talk:Public domain#Plagiarism in quoted public domain sources, but I just posted it today, so we'll see.)

The problem of plagiarism in Wikipedia articles has been mentioned in previous discussions, such as at WP:NGR#Miscellaneous. It appears to be a common topic in discussions of proposed feature articles, where some editors seem to be confused about what plagiarism is, e.g.,

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/October 2004#Chesapeake and Delaware Canal (where an editor apparently equates plagiarism with copyright violation, hence, "Look at the definition of public domain. It literally can't be plagarism").
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sydney Riot of 1879/archive1
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Zambezi
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Basics of quantum mechanics, where an editor claims that not referencing sources, even if all if it was original writing (by an editor claiming to be an expert on the topic), is plagiarism -- i.e., equating inability to verify sources because no sources were given with plagiarism.

While I've made proposals at both Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Quoting public domain sources & plagiarism and Wikipedia talk:Public domain#Plagiarism in quoted public domain sources about language to clarify guidelines about plagiarism, it seems to me that a more unified, clear, and coherent statement about plagiarism is desirable, which wording changes at WP:CITE#When you quote someone, WP:PD, WP:COPYRIGHT#Using copyrighted work from others, and probably as well WP:MOS#Quotations.

Formulating a policy/guideline

I've never proposed a new policy or guideline here, so I don't know fully the process. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. But I do know it involves discussion. I believe that at the very least, a policy/guideline on plagiarism should incorporate the following points:

• A clear definition & description of what plagiarism is, basically: "the practice of claiming, or implying, original authorship or incorporating material from someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgment." (from the plagiarism mainspace article).
• Examples to illustrate what plagiarism is.
• Why Wikipedia doesn't want plagiarism.
• Quoted text must always (1) be cited to its source; and (2) be identified as a quote, regardless of whether the source is under copyright or is in the public domain. Particularly if element 2 is missing, it's plagiarism.
• A claim of original authorship is implied by the lack of quotation marks, even if the source is attributed. Without quotation marks, it is assumed that the facts or arguments presented in a passage are based on the source, but that the authorship of the passage belongs to the editor who placed the text.
• I.e., if a fact or argument from a source is rephrased into the editor's own original words, sourcing the reference alone suffices; but if the fact or argument is a verbatim quotation, it must be also marked as a quotation through the use of quotation marks or by setting it off as a blockquote using the <blockquote>...</blockquote> tags. --Yksin 00:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Discussion

Okay, any thoughts? --Yksin 00:50, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

1. . instead of the words "original authorship" say, a claim that it is one's own original wording. (to avoid confusion with WP:OR)
2. following the GFDL is one of the reasons--it requires us to track where everything came from.
3. dont get hung up about single or double quotes. Thats a UK/US variation, and whatever was in the article is OK.
4. something about specifically indicating the exact part taken from the PD source when all or almost all the article is used is necessary also. But this is an instance where quotes or block quotations does not seem to be always necessary, and perhaps a footnote indicating the extent is more appropriate.

DGG (talk) 01:56, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Practical question: Yksin are you planning to take leadership on the actual drafting of this document? Are there others who have agreed to do the "legwork" so to speak? You mentioned: "I've never proposed a new policy or guideline here, so I don't know fully the process."

Have you considered drafting an essay? (See Category:Wikipedia essays). An essay would be a good foundation upon which to build your case that there is a need for a new guideline or policy. dr.ef.tymac 02:28, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Leftymac, I'm willing to take leadership on it, since after all it was my idea. But of course need lots of input, including how to really do the process; and also of course input on issues such use of the 1911 encyclopedia, & GDFL, & all that stuff. Unfortunately I came down sick & I can barely sit up & look at a screen right now, much less parse all the thoughts & opinions in any kind of cogent manner right now, so I'll have to come back after I am feeling somewhat better, in a day or two. --Yksin 22:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Credit the sources but quote only when someone's exact phrasing is relevant. Copyright expires for the benefit of the public so it can be reused. Once public domain prose is added to Wikipedia it is just text and can be altered as needed. For example, this edit is mostly verbatim and sourced. It is quite usable but style preferences are for descriptive prose so someone may rewrite it. There is no need to mark a block of editable text as being special. (SEWilco 03:31, 24 July 2007 (UTC))

You seem to be advocating plagiarism. Do you understand that plagiarism and copyright violations are two separate issues? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 03:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm only against a blanket "must be quoted" rule. I understand there are several separate issues. For public domain text, identification of the source is not legally required. I stated the sources should be identified so as to give credit to the author, which is the ethical issue behind plagiarism. Identification of the source of information, per WP:CITE is only a Wikipedia matter, but is also satisfied by naming the source even if the text is later altered beyond recognition. (SEWilco 04:20, 24 July 2007 (UTC))

But why would you be against quoting if the text has been copied from elsewhere word for word? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 04:22, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Because it may be editable text rather than a supporting quotation which should not be altered. We don't put quotation marks around 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica text and forbid its alteration. We credit the source, perhaps with {{1911}}, and sometimes with {{1911POV}} actively encourage its alteration. We can reuse text but it is at most unethical to not credit the source and at the very least polite to credit the author's work. But quotation marking should be used for text which should not be changed, such as an individual's statement which supports a topic of the article. H.G. Wells wrote a history book but is it proper to take anything in the book and wrap quotation marks around it as if he said it and it should never be changed? If you want easy access to the origin of every word, you'll have to wait for m:WikiRose. (SEWilco 16:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC))

Athough I'm pretty sick right now & can hardly sit up to read, I do understand this, that some kind of allowance or whatever needs to be made for uses such as that out of the 1911 Britannica. The particular case that got me going on this was an article that was sourced to multiple sources, with presumably new writing all the way through it except for that which was in quotation marks -- until it turned out that one person had been making long verbatim quotes of a PD source without marking it as a quote. As at that point the article (Battle of Washita River was being heavily edit-warred over, sloppy editing led to the source being altogether removed. Additionally, in a long paragraph where the source was given only once (at the end of the paragraph), new text could have been inserted in the middle; thus, the P.D.-source material above it would become severed from its source unless the editor inserting new text thought added a new footnote for it ahead of his/her new insertion. S/he is much more likely to do so if s/he sees through quotation marks that all that long para was a quote.... And now that I am aware that GFDL is also an issue with this, it makes it even more important for some kind of attention to be given to this problem.... Hope any of this makes sense, as I mentioned, I came down sick & it's not really easy to express myself well at the moment. --Yksin 22:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

In articles derived from the 1911 Britannica, the PD-sourced material may be present at random locations throughout the article. In some such articles, there isn't much identifiable content left from the original Britannica. I think there's nothing wrong with this, provided the article as a whole is clearly marked as containing material from the PD source. If you want to know which parts of the article, use the history feature.

I do think it would be reasonable to make a guideline that says "if you copy sections from a PD source, you should start by copying them verbatim and noting it in the edit summary (in addition to making a notation in the References section). Then you can modify the text in subsequent edits." That would make it more feasible for a reader to find out which text came from the PD source, and which didn't. But let's be clear -- this is not a plagiarism issue. Plagiarism happens when you don't give credit. --Trovatore 23:04, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

There is no requirement for PD material to be credited, much less being marked as special with quotation marks. It is ethically preferred to give credit to the original author, and WP:V can be satisfied with a proper citation. Incidentally, giving the source of text can also avoid an erroneous copyvio claim; when I web search for phrases in some of my PD books I find published texts which are reusing the original material, so someone might later think text from a PD source was taken from a more recent publication. Later edits can make it awkward to figure out the sources of components (that's what m:WikiRose is addressing), but as text gets increasingly altered from the original it also becomes less important what the original was. Also, WP:V can also be satisfied if one uses verbatim PD text and adds references to other supporting material. Don't worry too much about the PD text, worry about what it says. (SEWilco 14:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC))

why GFDL matters WP itself is not PD! WP is copyright, available under GFDL license, and the licensing is enforced--we insist on attribution when our material is used, and take appropriate action when it isn't. People downstream from us need to know what they can use freely and what they can't. We therefore need to indicate the source of our material. Unless we went to PD status entirely--which we cannot now do because our contributors made their contributions relying on our license--we have no real choice but to indicate the material. DGG (talk) 04:12, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I see a problem with actually insisting on quotation marks in all cases. As I understand it, it is of the esssence of GFDL (and public domain; possibly with some restrictions) that a work can be taken and edited to form a derivative work. The problem arises when a GFDL or public-domain work is copied, with proper attribution and with a statement that the whole text has been copied (and possibly with quotes). If someone then edits the text, this is perfectly legal and I see no reason why it should be regarded as unethical (even if it might be better to completely rewrite the text). It would, however, be unethical to leave the quotation marks, because the text has been altered. In this case, it should be permissible to remove the quotation marks and add a note indicating that the text was originally copied.--Boson 06:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

In cases like that, the text should remain as it is or be completely rewritten. Complete rewrites are probably almost always the way to go, anyway. — The Storm Surfer 06:26, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The presence of quote marks is a signal to all not to tamper with it. Deserves an instant revert. That principle is now expounded in the lead to the MOS. Tony 07:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Public domain material should be freely sliceable and diceable any way we like. That's what the public domain is for. You can do it with Hamlet, and you can do it with the 1911 Britannica. Intellectual honesty demands that we say when something is not entirely our work, but that's it -- there is no requirement to keep the material in quotes, or not to modify it. --Trovatore 07:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

However I do certainly agree that if it is in quotes, and attributed to a particular source, then it should say verbatim what that source said (possibly with ellipses, etc). But if it's public domain, or GFDL, then as Boson says, we can strip off the quotes and modify it, taking care to note the text's mixed provenance.

I'm not totally sure what should be the rule about translated material that appears inside quote marks -- "verbatim" is a concept that doesn't directly apply. --Trovatore 07:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Trovatore, you've brought up an important point that I failed to cover when inserting the "don't mess with quotes" clause right up the top, last week. When a quote is translated, there may be scope for tampering with it in ways that are highly unlikely to alter the substantive meaning (e.g., re-formatting 2.45pm to 2:45 pm). Let me think about how to word something extra, which I'll post under a new section soon. Tony 06:09, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Could you point me to this clause? I'm not quite sure what you're talking about here. --Trovatore 07:26, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's the third sentence of the MOS: "An overriding principle is that style and formatting should be applied consistently throughout an article, unless there is a good reason to do otherwise, except in direct quotations, where the original text is generally preserved." If WPian A translates a foreign-language quote into English and inserts it into an article, can WPian B tweak it to conform with the MOS in ways that are unlikely to affect the substantive meaning? Tony 10:22, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, off the top of my head, I think if B is competent to translate from the original and is willing to look back at the original while making mods, then there's no problem. Otherwise I'd be careful because B might miss some subtlety while translating English-to-English. But I wouldn't want to put a flat ban even then -- maybe A is not particularly competent in English, and B just wants to fix some blatant error of spelling or grammar. --Trovatore 17:23, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it is important to distinguish 3 issues here

1) Copyright violation; using unauthorised bits of copyright protected works. This is simply illegal (theft of intellectual property) and should be avoided at all times (if only for Wiki's liability)

2) Plagiarism; although strictly not always illegal, in the academic society this is regarded highly unethical (and may lead to the ending of your tenure). Plagiarism is the verbatim inclusion of parts of other works without making clear that it is a verbatim copy. Whether this is copyrighted, public domain, Hamlet, a songtext, bits of an interview by a public person, or whatever does not matter. Verbatim use of existing text without proper treatment (quotes and reference) is plagiarism.

3) Use of sources. When sources are used to inform a text but the actual text is a rewording of the used source, this is not plagiarism but considered normal use of source. Even so it is considered unethical to use ideas without proper referencing, and in the light of Wiki leaving out sources would almost always inevitably clash with original research policies

I would support fairly strong guidelines against plagiarism for Wiki. Arnoutf 08:11, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you are using someone's words verbatim. You could paraphrase text so that it has not a single word in common with the original, and it's still plagiarism if you don't give credit. On the other hand, if you do give proper credit, then it's not plagiarism, even if it's a verbatim copy. --Trovatore 08:22, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Plagiarism vs copyvio

SlimVirgin suggested that someone, up above, might have been "advocating plagiarism" and asked if he knew that plagiarism and copyright are separate issues. I'd like to say a few words about the differences here.

Copyright is a legal matter, an artificial property right intended, in the long run, to enrich the public domain by encouraging writers and other creators to produce material that will eventually be added to it. We are very careful about copyright because we don't want the WikiMedia foundation to get sued (whether or not we individually agree with the theory behind it). The essence of copyright is whether you are using the words that others put together in a certain way, not their ideas.

Plagiarism, on the other hand, is not a legal matter at all, but a question of academic ethics. Its essence has nothing to do with whether you use someone else's words, but only with whether you give credit.

Now, in cases where text is taken directly from a public domain or GFDL source and modified, there is no copyright issue for the PD text, and there is no copyright issue with GFDL provided we comply with its terms (which require attribution).

Is there a plagiarism issue? No, as long as we give credit. As long as you properly acknowledge the creators of the material, you are not plagiarizing (though you may be committing a copyright violation, but not in the cases discussed).

Some contributors seem to be talking about a different issue, what in Europe is called "moral rights of authorship" or some such, the right to control modifications of a work. But that's a copyright issue, and we're talking about cases where the copyright has expired or is licensed to us. Making such derivative works is not plagiarism, nor, in the cases we're discussing, is it a copyright violation. --Trovatore 08:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Copyright is not a Style issue. Giving credit is a Citation and Verifiability issue (in the Wikipedia environment; these also help with the ethical environment). Cut-and-paste may include unusual styles to be ruthlessly edited. (SEWilco 16:32, 24 July 2007 (UTC))

What is a Quotation

I see the MoS suggests styles for Quotations but does not define what is a Quotation. (SEWilco 16:32, 24 July 2007 (UTC))

Why quotation marks are not the real issue

Let me use a specific example to illustrate why I have major reservations about the way this proposal is headed. In the article XanGo, I added the following: Mangosteens are harvested from all over south-east Asia and are pureed before they’re shipped to the United States; there the drink is produced using proprietary techniques. The juice is then sold in the U.S. and (as of mid-2007) exported to Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore and Sweden. That was a minor rewrite of several sentences from the source, which I cited, a [Malaysian newspaper article. First, note that the sentences are absolutely factual, and facts cannot be copyrighted. Second, suppose I'd used exact wording from the article (instead of what I wrote), and had put that in quotation marks. Now suppose (as happens on more than one occasion at Wikipedia) that a subsequent editor decides to revise the sentences slightly, for better readability, succinctness, whatever. Should the quotation marks be removed? (I hope the answer is NOT "No, because the sentences should be left as is.) And, assuming that the answer is "Yes, it's no longer a direct quote", then why are we obsessed with quotation marks when they're going to disappear anyway.

In short, I think that it's very important (a) that information added to articles cite a source (in fact, I'd support a proposal that any addition of more than a sentence or so of text MUST be supported by a citation; failing that, it should be reverted on sight), and (b) that Wikipedia articles should only contain a limited amount of information from any one source not in the public domain (so, for example, no more than a paragraph or so from a newspaper article). It's these two points that I think are at the heart of the problem of plagarism, NOT the failure to put quotation marks around one or two (paraphrased?) sentences from a cited source. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:12, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Let's try an example which is closer to what is being discussed. The Mangosteens sentence above is not from a public domain publication, and we've been referring to public domain material. Here is an example involving public domain text, from a copyright-expired book published in 1900 by Keeler, where a significant amount of the Wikipedia article text is from that book. In this edit to Aralia spinosa I added material from Keeler, marking sections of text with a reference to the source. Most of this is statement of fact which can be easily confirmed through various means, so it does not seem required to quote this as being Keeler's opinion (unlike her opinion of her dogs). Rewriting was encouraged and was discussed so alteration is expected. The densely phrased description of characteristics of specific parts of the plants is still useful and relevant to the article, and should be accurate except where biology terminology changed since 1900. Some other Keeler material had to be changed, such as referring to Oklahoma by that name instead of its 1900s territorial name. (SEWilco 20:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC))

• Because we're discussing style here, is there anything wrong with the style of the Aralia spinosa article? It hasn't had many alterations since this edit despite some discussion about it. Prose is preferred to the bulleted list style, but rewriting the detailed items requires an editor who is familiar with the topic, as mentioned in the "was discussed" item above. Would putting quotation marks around sections of the article would improve it? (SEWilco 20:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC))

I'm not sure this is the best example. I read the Keeler when this issue first came up in discussion, and the material you used is clearly marked to its source, and has been extensively rewritten. In addition, because what you added from Keeler were botanical descriptions of the plant, I checked another source to somewhat verify that a similar description was still attached to this plant, and since it's not a Scroph, I wasn't too worried. If I felt that you had taken a substantial amount of material solely owed to Keeler, even though Keeler is in the public domain, I would have asked you to include a note in the article, the equivalent of the "this article incorporates text from the 1911 Britannica which is in the public domain." I apologize for any confusion, however, as I thought this was a specific article we were discussing, that it neede 21st century anglified, and the text included, from Keeler, is actually from a botanical description of the tree, which is generally the botanical description used today. I can't verify the accuracy of my own words here as I'm rather busy, but I don't think this article is the example. I think that when an article incorporates text from the Public Domain it should always be clearly marked as such, because plagiarism isn't the same thing as copyright violation, and we must guard for both, not only the latter. The article SEWilco cites does not, as far as I remember from my original look, incorporate any original text clearly attributable to the creation of Keeler, without seriously rewriting it. Should any of this be incorrect, I take the blame for not being clear.

Copyright violations and plagiarism are both concerns. KP Botany 21:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if I'm behind on this debate, but I'm still not sure that I see why plagiarism is a concern. Copyvio is a concern. Lack of sourcing is a concern, because of verifiability. But plagiarism? To me, plagiarism is an academic concept - claiming something is your original work, when it is not. In Wikipedia, we make no claim to originality - indeed, it is discouraged. We are not being marked on our work, or paid for it. Where a public domain source text is available to us - 1911 EB for some articles, Catholic Encyclopedia for others - we should take from it what is useful, without feeling the need to put entire paragraphs in quotes. Except where it is in violation of copyright, or where no source is given at all (violating sourcing requirements), I don't see why plagiarism per se is something we need to worry about. TSP 22:38, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

As someone who fought plagiarism for three decades (as a college teacher), I find that this idea has a certain seduction. For an editor to claim authorship as her own in Wikipedia, no matter whether that is true or false, perverts the sense of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. And it seems clear that Wikipedians who are academics are much more often students and tenured faculty, rather than those whose career rests on having publications clearly attributable to them, for that very reason.

To me, the issue of quotes is much more serious. In any venue, misquotation is at least as serious as plagiarism, and in Wikipedia more so: Wikipedia makes no claim for originality, but it aspires to accuracy. A number of times I have reverted well-meaning "copy edits" to quoted passages. I think it behooves us all to protect and cherish quotations, and when that is no longer possible, to remove the quotation marks, and worry only about copyvio, not about plagiarism.--Curtis Clark 14:38, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

There are many reasons, first and foremost of which is you don't claim you created something that you didn't. I can't actually get around seeing why anyone thinks it is okay to claim that you created something that you didn't, so I can't go much further with that one. However, there are tertiary issues with claiming something you didn't write. First, if there are problems with it and it gets copied from Wikipedia, and Wikipedia becomes known as the source of the problems, what then? Then you own up that you're not to blame, because you didn't write it, you just claimed to? Second, not falsefying your ownership limits issues with copyright, and established your credibility. The more you lie, whatever it is about, the more likely to lie you are perceived to be. So, the suggestion that Wikipedia should create an atmosphere of being the creator of multiple falsehoods has serious disadvantages and no advantages. There just really are not many advantages to lying about your creations, whether you are getting paid and lying, or whether you are lying for free. It simply doesn't do anything for the project. At all. KP Botany 04:18, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with KP as far as he (she?) goes. We should always acknowledge the source, even if it's in the public domain. Where I differ with what some here have seemed to imply is that we have to make the acknowledgment so detailed that you can tell, just from the text, which sentences in the article came from which specific source. This is desirable when reasonably feasible, but is not a necessary condition for avoiding plagiarism -- a mere once-per-article notice suffices for that. --Trovatore 04:30, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you on this, I like the notices on the bottom of the page that simply say this article incorporates material from a public domain source. I wish I could find one, they stand out from the regular references, and they seem to cover just what is need, acknowledgement that some portion of the article comes from a public domain resource.

Ah, here it is this nice little tag, {{1911}}KP Botany 04:39, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

First contributor example

The gasoline/petrol war was eventually decided based on the first contributor rule, after all other arguments were exhausted without any consensus. Should we mention it as an example? — Omegatron 04:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Do we need an example? — The Storm Surfer 04:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Dashes

Which dash should be used here: "the 2006-07 football season"? Epbr123 11:12, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

En dash. See WP:MOS#En dashes. --PEJL 11:48, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

See the proposal for overhauling the "years" section at MOSNUM. Tony 00:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Archives are a mess

I can't find anything in there. What happened to the old system of just using chronoclogical order? Marcus Taylor 01:50, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

You beat me to it: I tried to look for something I remembered from around December 2006, but it was hopeless trying to find it. Tony 03:17, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

The person who used to keep the archives insisted on doing it according to subject, which meant no one could ever find anything. I've been thinking for some time of going back to the beginning and re-creating chronological archives. Let me know if you think that would be helpful enough to justify the work. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 05:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Slim, I think that' s a good idea (without knowing how much work it would be for you). In addition, filing by subject means that someone has to tend to it continually into the future. Not a good prospect. But let's see what other people think. Tony 06:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I think I'll make a start. It's probably not a huge amount of work (famous last words). It's really only a question of copying the page every 100-200 kilobytes or so. Onwards and upwards ... SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 07:24, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

That would be excellent. I concur that the current topical archives are non-helpful. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

"We" in mathematical examples should be discouraged

I think it's a bad idea to use the term "We need to find.." in mathematical articles because it usually allows the "textbook syndrome" to kick in once someone uses it. For instance, in the example "To normalize the wavefunction, we need to find the value of the arbitrary constant A." would be much better as "To normalize the wave function, the value of an arbitrary constant, A, must be determined.". From the mathematics articles I've edited here, the term tends to encourage the use of "imagine a.." or "suppose we have" which make articles sound more like textbooks than encyclopaedia articles. ♥♥ ΜÏΠЄSΓRΘΠ€ ♥♥ ^{slurp me!} 23:34, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Concur, per WP:NOT which specifically says we should not be emulating textbooks or other "guides". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Textbooks may well use active voice in places, but that doesn't mean that that ascribing agency and bringing in a personal/human element is a device that is owned by or characteristic of textbooks alone. It might well be that a WP articles share with textbooks an audience of non- and semi-experts, which is a good reason to temper what otherwise can be a tiresome use of the passive voice throughout (which I hate).

So rather than relying on the tarring of this practice with snobbery about textbooks, can we think in more linguistic terms? Tony 01:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Minestrone here. "We" just doesn't sound like something you'd ordinarily read in an encyclopedia. That's an aesthetic judgment on my part, but Tony's dislike of the passive voice seems to be primarily an aesthetic judgment as well. To me the passive voice connotes dispassion (ah, there's an Italian word, distacco, which would be perfect here; I don't quite know how to translate it -- detachment, maybe?), which is pretty much what one wants in an encyclopedia. --Trovatore 03:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Interesting: I'd have called it "neutrality" rather than "detachment". WP doesn't need to be detached/disengaged from the reader, does it? I'd like to think that some of our articles can inspire and delight readers as well as informing them. In any case, is "we" all that personal when it's used to avoid the passive? My preference is not to use one option throughout an article, but to be more flexible: not passive unerringly. There are linguistic/psychological disadvantages to it. Want me to explicate? Tony 03:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not calling for a hard ban on the word "we", but I haven't really seen an example where I thought it was an improvement. By the way, in math articles, it's not usually a choice between "we" and the passive. The other choice is to make the mathematical objects themselves the subjects of the sentences -- the objects act rather than are acted on. That's the solution I usually prefer -- I think it comes out more descriptive, less didactic. --Trovatore 03:47, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

As a side note, I find myself concurring with Trovatore again, on all counts, and further I think that WP should be detached, in several senses. That's just kind of how encyclopedias are. I have a dreadful time with the people who work on bio articles within the scope of WP:CUE but who are not members or even regular wikipedians. The general urge is to write in a "directly engaging" style, with the result that many, many of these article end up with a {{Magazine}} slapped on them. There's a huge difference between "John Doe, then a resident of Florida, won the 1999 WPA World Nine-ball Championship, defeating John Q. Public, 11-2" and "In 1999 we saw the Floridian youth take the pool world by storm, trouncing hardcore favorite "Pistol John" Public in an 11-2 spanking". I don't even really exaggerate at all here. The "we" issue to my mind has quite a lot to do with this "journalistic" style that many, many newbie and even not-so-newbie editors bring to Wikipedia, requiring more experienced and encyclopedianism-grokking editors to revise and revise. It's a major pain the [insert body part of choice here]. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, so is it worth inserting a "recommendation", carefully worded? Time is ripe to do this, by changing the subtitle in the MOSNUM draft of text that will end up soon here at MOS-central, from "Common mathematical symbols" to "Mathematics", and adding to the subsection a summary of the most important linguistic guidelines. If that's something you favour, we'd need to move quickly. What do you think of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(mathematics)#Writing_style_in_mathematics? Tony 05:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The "we" issue is beyond math articles, though. Hmm... — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 05:27, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Good point, although I can see that it's a particular problem in maths articles. Should we, then, put this off until the "Usage" subsection here is overhauled and significantly expanded (can't be long now)? I'm itching to make people think twice before writing quite a few things, such as "Note that". Tony 05:42, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

New subsections on times and numbers being finalised!

As advised twice in the past week on this talk page, the folks at MOSNUM have been working hard on a summary of the most important information in their submanual, to insert here. This information will probably also be the basis of an overhaul of the text at MOSNUM itself, which will continue by providing greater detail and covering a wider range of topics.

I'm hoping that the text will be finalised and the insertion made into MOS-central early next week. Please speak up now if you have suggestions or improvements, here. Tony 05:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Which dash?

Which dash should be used at Toronto Raptors' Accomplishments and Records? Thanks. —MC Snowy · (talk) 00:26, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

You've currently used dashes in two ways: a spaced hyphen and a spaced emdash. Neither is correct. Also, mixing styles is incorrect:

• (spaced hyphen) Morris Peterson (rookie - 2001; sophomore - 2002)
• (spaced emdash) NBA playoff record for most three-point field goals in one half with 8 — Vince Carter, Toronto vs. Philadelphia Sixers, May 11, 2001.

You can use either spaced endashes or unspaced emdashes. Some sports editors prefer spaced endashes:

• (spaced endash) Morris Peterson (rookie – 2001; sophomore – 2002)
• (unspaced emdash) Morris Peterson (rookie—2001; sophomore—2002)

whichever you choose, you should use it consistently throughout. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:40, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. —MC Snowy · (talk) 01:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

commas inside quotes

wow I'm kinda shocked about WP:PUNC's commas & quotes stuff. I distinctly remember reading a Barron's grammar guide that said precisely the opposite. What authority was referred to when coming to this conclusion? Thanks Ling.Nut 11:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

You're referring the so-called logical style of placing punctuation outside quotes if it's structurally part of the external sentence in which the quote exists. Have a read of it again. We don't need outside authorities for justification, although they play a role in the policy we make here. WP's MOS serves its unique mode, readership and function. Tony 11:35, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I understood that the "non-logical" style was based on the typographical aesthetics of the printed page, which are of less relevance to Wikipedia. The logical style is normal in British English and is also preferred in IT circles, where punctuation can be critical. Even though the Chicago University Press continue to use the "American style", they also say (in the Chicago Manual of Style) that the logical style is used in linguistic and philosophical works; textual criticism is another field named as presenting problems for "American" style. The Oxford University Press use the logical style and they point out (in the Oxford Guide to Style) that the ambiguity of the "US practice" can lead to problems when material from US and British sources are mixed. This could be an issue for Wikipedia. --Boson 19:17, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

How about consistency across related pages or sub-pages?

I understand the principle that the same style of spelling, terms, etc should be used in the same article. However, what about if there is a main page that uses say BC, whereas a sub-page uses BCE. Specifically the pages I'm looking at are History of Japan and Japanese Paleolithic. The former uses BC, as indeed do the other historical sub-pages, but the latter has used BCE since the start.

So can one see the consistency rule as applying to such similar, related pages such as in this case, or does it only apply to individual articles even if they're part of a series? John Smith's 14:16, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• This is a worthy consideration, but one that is cirumscribed by the fact that articles that start out as "daughters" of one article often attain a life of their own and may be closely related to more than one article. Where there's no resistance, consistency should be a goal, I think; but let's not raise blood pressure about it. Tony 14:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• In principle, using the same datation method for "related pages" sounds nice, but the application would call for endless arbitrations:

-If two pages are related, which one should have primacy over the other?

-What is the definition of "related" (endless discussions about pages which are related in a fundamental way and those which are not... keeping in mind that basically all pages are related on Wikipedia).

-In the very case of Japanese Paleolithic, since the History of Japan thus starts with a BCE/CE article, an argument could be made that the rest of the Japanese history should follow suit, especially as Japan is fundamentally not related to the Christian cultural area.

So I am afraid that going into considerations of relatedness would only complicate the matter. The fundamental issue is that Wikipedia uses two datation systems, a traditional religious one (BC "Before Christ"/AD "Annus Domini") and a more modern, more neutral, one (BCE "Before current era", CE "Current era") used by most scholars, and that one day opinions will have evolved enough to make the latter the obvious choice for an International and culturally-neutral Encyclopedia. PHG 01:43, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

You don't have to a be overly religious to use the more common BC/AD and people should not be overly offended by their use (or lack of use) either. After all, both eras use the birth of "someone" as its ending/starting point.

And PHG, it is ANNO Domini— not ANNUS Domini (I wonder what you were thinking about... :) ) and it's Common Era— not CURRENT era. And most "scholars" are... —MJCdetroit 03:13, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction, but "Annus Domini" is also used, being the nominative, as a Google search will show (see also Annus horribilis for a parallel). What you seem to be alluding to has one "n" less. And "The Common Era, is also known as the Current Era" as explained in that very Wikipedia article. PHG 14:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I see no problems in switching from CE to AD as the subjects change emphasis. Keeping what is immediately in front of the reader consistent is enough of a goal, and quite difficult enough. DGG (talk) 04:23, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

• PHG, I'm only raising this issue because the page in question is a sub-page of one created much earlier (History of Japan), as well as it being part of a series. It was also created after the other pages in the series. So it is obvious what should take precedence. Your argument that Japanese history starts with a BC/CE article is rather ridiculous. If matters were more unclear, a discussion could be held but once again the first version used would stay until a decision was made. There's nothing wrong with a case-by-case basis.

Also I dispute most scholars use BCE/CE. I would say that most use BC/AD and that there is no longer anything non-neutral about the latter term. If one wants to say the latter imposes a "religious" slant, then someone else can retort the former imposes a "secular" attitude. John Smith's 10:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe BC/AD is not adequate for articles not specifically related to Christian matters, especially as a neutral alternative is available with BCE/CE. In this case (Japan), or in the case of Buddhism for example, BCE/CE is the obvious culturally-sensitive choice. Saying that BC/AD is neutral is not credible, as it is equivalent in nature to the Hijra (even the Wikipedia:Manual of Style describes "the overtly Christian associations of AD and BC"). This is another debate though, but I maintain my objection to using the coherence between separate articles as a pretext to push the BC/AD point of view, especially as it comes from a notable "BC/AD date-warrior". PHG 14:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Yet it is widely used for non-Christian matters, and I see no real complaints from most users. Even the article Shinto uses BC/AD without any problems. It is not insensitive to use BC/AD in Japan-related articles at all - you're imagining things.

I would advise you to not make comments such as "a notable BC/AD date-warrior". Maybe I should suggest you are the reactionary who is out of tune with the majority and seeks to maintain his own sense of "neutrality" despite the obvious common-sense in ensuring commonality between pages in a series and parent pages. John Smith's 15:11, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

C’mon, BCE/CE is just old wine in new skins; it’s nothing more or less Christian-based than BC/AD, just a bit more disguised than that bit of Latin does. That being said, a lot of people feel more comfortable with disguise than with actually adapting their point of view. Christoph Päper 01:04, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

A few comments:

• 70% of the world is not Christian. This is indeed the large majority, and to them there is a difference between mentionning "Christ" and "Dominus" every time we talk about history, and just saying "Current era".
• The last time there was a wide-ranging debate on the BC/AD-BCE/CE issue, the vote came out 50-50. The claim that "BC-AD" would be the "majority view" is therefore totally untrue. The reality is that Wikipedia users are deeply split on the subject.
• Going back to the subject of Japan, if Japan-related articles are to be coordinated with the same date system, it would definitely make more sense to adjust all articles along the BCE/CE system. Japan itself never mentions "Christ" or "Dominus" when it uses the Western Calendar. It just says 西暦 ("Seireki", Western Calendar), and for BC says 紀元前 ("Before the start of the current era") and for AD 紀元後 ("After the start of the current era"), hence chooses secularity.
• Actually, the History of Japan article was started in April 2002 with the BCE/CE date format: here, which fundamentally renders nil the proposal being made here. An early date warrior changed the date format to BC/AD, and now it is claimed that all related articles should be changed to BC/AD as well for consistency??? This is reason enough to return the History of Japan to its original BCE/CE format, and the only kind of harmonization between articles that could be warranted would be along the BCE/CE line, as is only natural for non-Christian related articles. PHG 01:40, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice try PHG. It's reverting to the first NON-STUB. The version you've listed is clearly a stub. So we don't revert to that.

70% of the world couldn't give a fig about BC/AD. I'm sure some people do care, but I don't think it's that much. John Smith's 10:42, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Appart from your light-handed dismissal of 70% of the world, where does it say that the date format is only taken into account from the time an article reaches non-stub status? Could you give me a link? Thanks. PHG

Or maybe your rather malicious portrail of 70% of the world being so intolerant as to be unhappy with the use of two letters. I think they're much more flexible than that.

Under "National varieties of English" there is a recommendation to use the first non-stub. Under the more specific "Dates and Numbers" there is no recommendation to using the first verion, either non-stub or stub. However, the main MOS page says "Where in doubt, defer to the style used by the first major contributor." First major contributor would indicate the first non-stub. John Smith's 12:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you, but you cannot have it both ways: I am the creator and the first major contributor of the Indo-Greek article, and I chose early in its history (as I was de-stubbing it) that it should be BCE/CE. Your edit warring to BC/AD is therefore inadequate.
• In the case of the History of Japan article, the facts are that this article was started as BCE/CE, and, to your point, de-stubbed using BC/AD.
• However I still strongly dispute the validity of BC/AD datation for a non-Christian subject such as Japan, and it seems the MOS covers this sort of case:

"it is inappropriate for an editor to change an article from one style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so (for example, it is acceptable to change from American to British spelling if the article concerns a British topic, and vice versa)."

MOS here makes a point that cultural affinity or the lack thereof can be a substantial reason to change a style (including a datation style). This clearly applies to our case (which is even more crucial and sensitive than the British English/American English example given): Japan or Buddhism etc... are totally non-Christian topics, whereas MOS recognizes "the overtly Christian associations of AD and BC". This translates into quite a few people actually being offended by the usage of BC/AD on these pages. In full confomity with the spirit of the MOS there is therefore substantial reason to adopt a non-Christian datation system such as BCE/CE for non-Christianity related topics.

In particular, I am afraid there is no legitimate ground for your edit warring trying to establish BC/AD on such pages as History of Nepal, History of Japan or History of the Americas. Regards. PHG 01:24, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Again, nice try. But it doesn't say anything about "cultural affinity" - it merely acknowledges there is a Christian link. As MOS also says, BC/BCE or BC/AD is acceptable to use. It does not say either is inappropriate. Also I did not change from one style to another in the case of the HoJ page. It was not consistent across the article - I made it so. John Smith's 09:25, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

You seem to overlook the part that voids your argument: MOS does say a change in style can be made when there is a substancial reason to do so, and gives as an example of a substancial reason the coherence between article content (British topic) and article style (British English). This very sensible rule covers all elements of style in MOS, including date formats. It is obvious in that case that for non-Christianity-related articles a non-Christian dating system (BCE-CE) is the most coherent with article content, allowing to avoid "the overtly Christian associations of AD and BC" (per MOS). And the MOS allows to pro-actively change to the style that best fits article content. This is only common sense, and we have the responsibility to implement it for non-Christianity related articles. Regards. PHG 01:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

And I would once again contend the article being "non-Christian" is irrelevant. Check MOS where is says that BOTH styles are acceptable. There are no caveats to that. John Smith's 05:58, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Claiming "irrelevant" the fact that an article has no link whatsoever with Christianity is really only your personal opinion: a lot of people would disagree with such a statement, and I have not seen it anywhere as fact or policy. What is indisputable is that the MOS acknowledges "the overtly Christian associations of AD and BC", and that it has a policy of consistency between topic and style: forcing an "overtly Christian BC/AD" dating format in articles which have nothing to do with Christianity, or would rather even take their distance from it, is just contrary to this consistency rule. I agree both styles are acceptable, but when challenged in such articles, the only sensitive thing to do is to adopt the more neutral BCE/CE. PHG 07:15, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

It isn't my personal opinion. MOS clearly says that either term is acceptable. It is for you to prove that there are caveats attached to that. You have repeatedly failed to do so - stating the bleedingly obvious (Christian links to BC/AD) doesn't help your argument at all. If that's all you have to say, I'm not impressed at all. John Smith's 07:18, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Please kindly respect Civility rules. The caveat is that the MOS promotes consistency between topic and style (introduction). And rest assured, I believe not forcing the usage of BC/AD on others actually agrandizes Christianity. PHG 07:15, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I am being perfectly civil - you appear to have overreacted. Why does consistency between topic and style mean BC/AD cannot be used? You're not making any sense. I also couldn't care less about whether Christianity is agrandized or not - that wasn't why I started this topic. Anyway this discussion isn't going anywhere. I had hoped that this talk page could clear things up, but there hasn't been enough 3-party discussion. John Smith's 18:58, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi John. I don't know how it could be clearer: MOS promotes coherence between topic and style (like British-English for a British Topic). In that case, it is only natural for a non-Christian topic to use a non-Christian datation method. Imposing a "overtly Christian BC/AD" (MOS) on non-Christian topics fundamentally goes against MOS policy. It is a very simple, commonsense and sensible policy: your argument against it doesn't stand. Regards. PHG 01:39, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course on a different note, the use of BCE/CE is technically more accurate, because it is unlikely that Jesus was born in 1AD, and was picked arbitrarily in the year 532 based on some historical guesswork, which is most likely slightly inaccurate (by a few years in either direction). This means that AD as 'year of our lord' is probably inaccurate, making CE not only more acceptable from a secular point of view, but also a better descriptor. I support the use of CE/BCE in all pages discussed here, and would go so far as to say it should go in to the MOS as the standard except for specifically christian focused articles. Owain.davies 10:31, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

We're not talking about Jesus - you have the wrong page, I think. John Smith's 18:58, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

???? I can't say i really understand your comment. You are talking about measuring units of time in relation to his alleged birth, and i'm just pointing out that it's probably an incorrect measure - making common era more relevant. Owain.davies 20:58, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

• Sigh*, it isn't used anymore as a reference to his birth. It's just an old way of expressing time - the fact it was alleged to be to do with his birth is not relevant to the actual measuring of time itself. John Smith's 21:20, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly right, it isn't used a reference to his birth by most people, making it redundant, and CE/BCE more appropriate as a terminology. Owain.davies 21:37, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

MOSNUM

The summary of WP:MOSNUM that was recently added by User:Tony1 is much too detailed. All rare cases and exceptions – often clearly marked as such by signal words – should be left to the subpage, as should explanations. (Of course, with stricter, logical rules that section could be shortened that much it perhaps wouldn’t need its own page any more. Ain’t gonna happen, I know.) Christoph Päper 00:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• All rare cases and exceptions ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Why don't you provide examples of details that you think are inappropriate here? I thought, perhaps, of "Centuries and milliennia", but it's only one point in the whole section; hardly seemed worth excluding. Pleased to hear specific recommendations here. Tony 00:53, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I thought the hint about keywords was obvious. Stuff like “Rarely, a night may be expressed in terms …” or “… exceptions are performance averages in sports …” needs to be cut.

In other places the text is overly verbose, e.g. nobody – or at least too few people to be worth being considered in a generalised rule – would put any suffix after a 24h time (except maybe ‘h’), which actually is an example where there could be even firmer shortenings: just describe the format of the 24-hour clock, leave the exceptional 12-hour clock to MOSNUM.

Sorry for not being more constructive, but I have already put more time in this again than I promised myself. Christoph Päper 01:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Christoph, look elsewhere in MOS and you'll find fine details. Here are examples: "The Latter Day Saint movement has particular capitalization and naming conventions." and "In periodic table groups, use the IUPAC names (these use Arabic numerals, not Roman numerals or letters)." If there's consensus for the removal of fine details, sure. It should be done systematically, and raised at MOSNUM talk, too. Tony 09:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

When other sections that consist of an outline of a subpage have details too fine, those should obviously go too. The talk about what to keep should rather be done on this page in my opinion, because it is here where the trimmed content is featured. Christoph Päper 16:48, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

City Names

Maybe an edit war can be resolved here. Over at Talk:Stargate SG-1, there's a discussion centering around the formatting of the show's city of origin - should it read "Vancouver, Canada," "Vancouver, British Columbia," or "Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada"? (Or any of the other possible combinations...) Thank you! =David^(talk)_(contribs) 14:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Vancouver, British Columbia seems the most natural to me, but then, I am American, so tacking on Canada might not be a horrible idea. — The Storm Surfer 15:57, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

That seems to be consensus among Americans, but most agree that it wouldn't work as well internationally, and we are trying to preserve NPOV.=David^(talk)_(contribs) 15:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)