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MOS:TIES and Indian English

I've got no problem with MOS:TIES per se but I do have a difficulty with people deploying {{use Indian English}} on India-related articles. I've no idea how Pakistan/Nepal/Burma etc would be treated but there is and never has been to my knowledge a grammar of Indian English, nor a dictionary. At best, using the template seems merely to give license to poor phrasing that appears fractured, ambiguous and sometimes even outright non-encyclopaedic (eg: use of "cops" for "police").

I think it safe to assume that English became widespread in India due to, erm, the English. It will have developed from the time of the English East India Company (as it was then, before the act of union with Scotland). Doubtless, as elsewhere in the world, things have changed over time and there is certainly a US English element visible now in publications and day-to-day life, just as there is in the UK and elsewhere. Similarly, with UK-style dmy dates.

I'm not going to go around removing that template from every article but can we not accept that it is inappropriate to continue deploying the thing when there are no guides at all regarding what constitutes the style that it instructs us to use? As things are, we may as well replace it with {{use Gibberish}} and have done with it, since that is effectively what is being advocated. I've never come across an editor from India who is unable to comprehend English- and US-English but even they quite frequently seem to have problems understanding what our articles say when more common variants of English are not applied. And the rest of us just cringe.

There have been past discussions about this at WT:INB. I'll try to dig some links out later. - Sitush (talk) 16:23, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

I've come across this in the past too, although more in the context of "Indian English" meaning we should supposedly look to using the "Indian English name" for cities when the names change, even if that name is not yet widespread in English language sources as a whole (that argument also seems to miss the point that there is often no universally used "Indian English" name and that, in fact, international usage is commonly ahead of the curve compared to actual local usage when city names change).
Anyway, I've never understood ENGVAR to allow either that or slang and dialect, whether American, British or Indian. It is about, as noted, minor differences in grammar and spelling, which fundamentally flow from the two main varieties of "American" or "British" English, where consistent distinctions are agreed and noted in formal guides and consistent usage. I agree there's a problem here with citing endless purported varieties of English and, in effect, slapping national ownership labels on articles; especially when it means we let what would universally agreed to be bad writing, at least in formal terms, creep in.
It might be helpful if somebody could point to what might make formal written Indian English – or indeed any other claimed variety – distinct and discrete from other varieties. I guess one thing would be the use of crore and lakh for numbers; but if that's all there is, it doesn't seem to warrant a whole label of its own and in any event such terms should probably best be avoided, as they would confuse many non-Indian readers, while by contrast Indian readers would no doubt understand millions and thousands. N-HH (talk) 11:33, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
There have in fact been a few past discussions at WT:INB. At best, they seem to have ended up with what might broadly be described as an "experienced neutral editors versus Hindu nationalists" lack of consensus. Most of the opponents to change seem to end up getting blocked or retiring frustratedly. FWIW, there have also been past discussions there about the numbering thing but right now I'm more concerned with the template I refer to above.
I can guarantee you that there is no recognised "formal written Indian English". Perhaps the philologists/grammarians/linguists etc among us can find some serious discussion of what constitutes the less formal variety. One feature sometimes seen is the use of archaisms from the Victorian/Edwardian eras, although I cannot for the life of me think of an example right now. Outside of quotes, I see no need for archaisms on Wikipedia, just as there is no other need to write "Hindoo". - Sitush (talk) 20:01, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
Hm. Perhaps I should ask this at some other venue. Anyone got a suggestion? - Sitush (talk) 08:12, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
en.WP is read internationally: it receives more than 40% of the hits among nearly 300 language WPs. English is the international language, and most readers are not native speakers. It is most important that the use of non-standard dialects—in lexical and grammatical terms—be restricted to contexts in which they are thematically necessary. We need to be readily comprehensible to as large a proportion of readers as possible. India-related articles, for example, are not just for readers inside India: far from it. Tony (talk) 08:50, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
  • I get the feeling that the {{Use Indian English}} tag arose out of the sense that {{Use British English}} ought not be applied to articles on Indian subjects. It has now got out of hand, with there now being templates for Singapore and Hong Kong codes of English amongst others, and hundreds (maybe thousands) of articles bearing those tags. The primary object and the origin of the tags are to ensure that certain spellings, such as "favour" and "jewellery", are used instead of their American equivalents. I would have no problem deprecating all those templates in favour of the more code-neutral {{EngvarB}}. As the immediate problem is Indian English, maybe the {{Use Indian English}} template should be put up for deletion? -- Ohc ¡digame! 09:03, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Well, if that is the history then I'm 99% sure that in the India case it will have arisen due to Hindutva nationalists, who have been allowed far too much influence on this project. I'm not sure of the utility of EngvarB, which is an obscure name if nothing else; however, if EngvarB is the way things are going then isn't a bot replacement of {{Indian English}} with {{EngvarB}} what we need first? Or would the TfD outcome cause that to happen anyway? - Sitush (talk) 17:48, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
A template can be redirected but I think a lot of people would have a strong issue with trying to pick off the template for one individual variant. The issues raised go much broader. And Indian use of English has been a sensitive subject on Wikipedia because often editors seem to ignore it in the spelling wars and also it has a much harder time in RMs related to renamings compared to, say, Australia as if some countries are allowed their commonnames for things in them but not others. Timrollpickering (talk) 18:53, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Things like renamings and page moves really are irrelevant to this issue. We're talking grammar and spelling here. Not WP:COMMONNAME etc but rather the absolute basics of writing an encyclopaedia. That there are issues relating to India's 26 or so official languages & umpteen other variants, and with the transliteration of all but one of those into English, is a different issue altogether. That people often "seem to ignore it in spelling wars" is probably directly related to the fact that people cannot understand the stuff & their eyes glaze over when they see most India-related articles. - Sitush (talk) 19:07, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
The above comments are WP:TL;DR. I have hardly read the comment posted by User:Sitush. As to what you said– a grammar of Indian English, nor a dictionary....., There are some dictionaries which is related to Indian English - Oxford Indian English Dictionary (ISBN: 0-19-569258-6) is an example.
Vast majority of Indians use unencyclopedic words "Police" instead of "cops" etc. In our point of view they are using unencyclopedic words. Although we are correct but they are also not totally incorrect, they were taught a similar English Language to that of UK and US but have some variations in type, style, tone, approach and grammar. What is uncommon to us might be common to them. Personally talking, You will get oppose from most of the Indian users in this topic. I prefer you might talk to some of the most experienced or daily Indian users what they think. Jim Carter (talk) 22:53, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
Jim Carter, to summarize, the issue at hand is whether Indian English counts as a national variety of English on the same level as Irish, British, American or Australian English. If so, then MOS:TIES should apply to articles whose subjects are closely related to India. If not, then not.
Is there a sub-issue here of whether British English should automatically be preferred over other undisputedly legitimate English varieties for articles about India? Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:11, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, actually, I'm not even sure that Irish English is substantially different to BrE but that is an argument for another day. Sure, these variants have different pronunciations but they do not affect the spelling or grammar etc. They may also have a subset of unique words but these, too, are very few. Lathicharge is one that comes to mind in modern Indian English but, as demonstrated, it is easily linked. I'm trying to do some checking on ISBN 0-19-569258-6 - it is new to me and hasn't been referred to in prior discussions. Oxford do have an "Oxford India" publishing operation. I'd need to see what it says regarding national differences because, frankly, I suspect they are very few. That certainly was the case with the Australian appendix to the OED edition I was given as a schoolboy in 1974. Just to set one aspects of Jim Cartar's comment in perspective: there have been plenty of very experienced contributors to Indic-related articles who have been involved in past discussions. I'm just one of them. - Sitush (talk) 01:43, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
I would support the deletion of these templates for the very, very compelling reasons stated above. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:15, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
@Jim Carter: That isbn belongs to the Oxford English Mini-Dictionary. There is no Oxford Dictionary of Indian English. Still, your point is well-taken, a standard for written Indian English does seem to be emerging (and keeping linguists busy; see, Indian_English#References). I'm guessing that most howlers Sitush comes across belong to non-standard Indian English (IE). In other words, what is non-standard BrE is quite likely also non-standard IE. Removing the template will not make the editors from India write any differently, so I wouldn't remove it. I know Sidney Greenbaum ha written about this eloquently somewhere ... Let me see if I can find that quote. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:56, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm confused. Although I support the change. But still 2/3 (Not accurate) of the WP users are Indian. That means they will continue using a different type of English (They might be similar but have variations). Although Indian English are not Internationally acknowledged like those of Australia, UK and US. But still Indian writers including nobel prize winner Rabindranath Tagore have used the so called Indian English in his poetry. We should not forget that the Official Language of I|ndia is Not English. So, another point might arise that instead of telling it Indian English or any separate type of English we can say they are using wrong or ambiguous English. The reason might be because they were not born English speakers they have been taught to speak, write, chat in English and ofcourse the English teachers are also Indian so there are possibilities that the early teachers have made some kind of mistakes (during 1850s i.e. British-India) and that mistakes are just overlooked. Hence, this mistakes are now termed as Indian English. BTW @User:Fowler&fowler I know it is something called mini dictionary; But it is published only for countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh; keeping in mind that Indian English is slightly different from UK and US. I don't know what to say at this point but if you all think that replacing {{Indian English}} by {{EngvarB}} is a good idea then I will not oppose it. Jim Carter (talk) 07:54, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Here it is:

It should also be pointed out that worries over international intelligibility do not influence the choice of norms in first-language countries. In any case, it is unlikely that the emerging national standards will diverge too far from other national standards. In practice, variability is not a major impediment to international communication in English. Those who want to communicate accommodate to each other's variations. Opposition to the acceptance of norms that reflect local educated usage arises from those who see divergences from British English as errors signaling a decline in standards. Complaints about declining standards are by no means new, and they are regularly voiced in first-language countries, too. As there is in Britain and other first-language countries, there is a continuum of competence in the use of English in India and elsewhere in South Asia. (Greenbaum, Sidney (1996), "Afterword", in Robert J. Baumgardner (ed.), South Asian English: Structure, Use, and Users, University of Illinois Press, ISBN 978-0-252-06493-7)

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:06, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

I just noticed {{EngvarB}}. I would be in favor of replacing {{Use Indian English}} with {{EngvarB}}, provided all the articles across Wikipedia that have {{Use British English}}, or other British Commonwealth national varieties of English tags, are also similarly altered. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:05, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Fowler, while any change of template will indeed be unlikely to cause most contributors from India to modify their general style of writing, it could encourage others to copyedit the problematic bits. As it stands, with little guidance on what constitutes InEng, it can be quite off-putting. I'm familiar with the issues, of course, and I'm not known for shying away from thorny issues but even I sometimes back off. I'm still trying to get my head round EngvarB and, if nothing else, I think it needs a name change because the current name is pretty meaningless. - Sitush (talk) 10:46, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
@Jim Carter: The fact that this mini-dictionary is published only in South Asia doesn't make it a dictionary of South Asian English. Not having access to it, I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing it is what it says it is, a smaller dictionary, smaller, perhaps, than a pocket dictionary. Again, standard written IE (as it has emerged thus far) is not significantly different from standard written BE. Poorly written articles are poorly written across the sweep of world Englishes.
@Sitush: I take your complaint seriously. I'm aware that you are the one in the trenches, daily having to correct poorly written articles on South Asian topics. I don't understand, though, why the "Indian English" tag would discourage you. After all, it could equally be seen as an advertisement for more vigilant monitoring. I believe you should edit the article in the way you know (and do) best. If an Indian editor disputes some issue of usage, then the burden would be on them to show reliably that their edit is standard written IE. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:22, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
PS I don't see also that the appearance of a dictionary of Indian English would make things different. There already are almost a thousand words of Indian English in the OED. There are also a number of descriptive grammars of Indian English (see Indian English#References), but people typically don't read them, not even when they are endeavoring to improve the article on Indian English. :) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:36, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
@User:Fowler&fowler Same here, I'm also not having any access to that dictionary, Just found about it somewhere so posted it here.
A well written IE article are just like finding a hair pins out of a garden. Anyways @Sitush I think changing the name-a tall order. :P Jim Carter (talk) 19:14, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, but the issue is not whether there is such a thing as Indian English, Jamaican English or whatever. We know English comes in various forms and dialects, both national and regional, especially when spoken. This is a specific practical point about formal written styles and whether we need multiple quasi-nationalistic labels of this sort to slap on articles. If there are, in effect, only two or three variants with substantive, systematic differences, we only need two or three respective labels which simply and clearly flag up for people whether, for example, they can expect to see and are expected to use -ise or -ize, colour or color, write my uncle or write to my uncle etc. Sure occasionally, in certain contexts, individual words may crop up from time to time that may be more familiar to English-speakers from one nation or area than those from most other places, but these can either be avoided or used, if appropriate, with explanations/wikilinks. That doesn't necessarily warrant a whole new label for every article where they might – or might not – happen to appear. Such labels should certainly not exist simply to claim national ownership or to act as a Trojan Horse for bad writing. N-HH (talk) 11:52, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
It wasn't a proposal - I was seeking feedback. I think a proposal would probably need a more formal process, such as RfC. Have you read the stuff that you link? They've never been mentioned in any prior discussion at WT:INB, as far as I can recall, which suggests that those with a declared interest in India-related articles don't use them/have never heard of them. What about the EngvarB thing that has been raised? And what the heck is Jamaican English? - Sitush (talk) 11:55, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
  • To reinforce the points made by N-HH, on the actual use of Indian English, the rules of Wikipedia mean that we should write in such a way as to be understood by all English speakers and not to cater for a specific minority, however large. We don't use Hong Kong words or Indian words where plain English words will do. As I explained above, the {{use [National] English}} tagging started as a project to eliminate the mixture of "British" and American spellings in any given article. It's purely a issue of spelling maintenance across WP.

    The use of {{Use Indian English}} grew "unofficially" out of that (ie it had nothing to do with me and the user of my scripts collectively) in no way endorses the wholesale adoption of an Indian vocabulary and grammar, even if there is such a thing. The various tags are now turning out to be divisive, and could be redressed with neutral tagging throughout. That's why I suggest deprecating the {{use [National] English}} series of templates and leaving {{EngvarB}} (the name I chose for the maintenance script) and maybe one called {{Engvar2}} for articles that use z-words like "realize". -- Ohc ¡digame! 12:49, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

  • Perhaps User:Dl2000, who does a lot of work in this area, might have some insights or other valuable input... -- Ohc ¡digame! 13:12, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
Answering Sitush, okay, well that's my feedback. :-) Regarding my personal reading habits, I use web-available resources as needed, and have read none of those books extensively. Regarding globally replacing {{Use Indian English}} with {{EngvarB}}, I think it should be separately and formally proposed before being undertaken. Regarding Jamaican English, it has a Wikipedia article; essentially it's a variety of English used in a country called Jamaica. Agyle (talk) 13:18, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree with some of the things said by Tony1, N-HH, Sitush, and Ohconfucius. I would prefer to let the national English tags remain. The written national standards are really only slightly different from each other, and the formal styles even less so. The differences might consist of a preference (as gleaned in the various English corpora) for "provide" in Indian English and "give" in British English. Or, a preference for "pelt him with stones" in British English and "pelt stones at him" in Caribbean- and Indian English. Or, "The US will likely respond" in American English and "The US will probably/very likely respond ..." in British English. We can't expect editors raised and educated in the various national Englishes to overcome those differences. The remaining differences can usually be chalked to poor or imprecise writing. That cuts across national tags and fixing it requires elbow grease. As for EngVarB, I doubt that it will fly. Editors from a dialect region, I would imagine, want to see their tag, not because they are looking to own the English language, but because they feel pride in their English (their standard English) and want to see it in print, especially in articles about their region. There's surely a way to root out the poor writing without also rooting out Wikipedia's aspired for diversity. I fear that doing away with those tags will cause some editors to bog down in arguments about taste in language, arguments unrelated to grammar or communication. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:43, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
Can anyone point to examples where attempted improvements were rebuffed due to poor writing being correct Indian English? The crore/lakh issue is an obvious wording issue, but compromises don't seem to be an issue (e.g., rupees given in crore parenthetically converted to millions of dollars, or populations just listed in millions). Agyle (talk) 15:27, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
Equally, can anyone point to where the use of the template has helped improve the content or settle a dispute? If we are going to maintain this proliferation of templates, we need to be clear, firstly, what the actual systematic and rigid differences are for each of these multiple claimed varieties of formal written English and, secondly, what the practical benefits of deploying the templates are in terms of how they might actually affect the writing process and how often. As noted, the original templates were primarily about consistent spelling (and the choice between ize & ise for example turns up pretty regularly). Does Indian English, to stick with that one, have different spellings or different combinations of spellings from either "American" or "British" English? If we're only talking about occasional subtleties of phrasing or the odd specialised word – considerations which apply within any national style as well and in the context, say, of science – we are, as noted, pretty much down to "pride", which shouldn't really enter into it, or to just having them for the sake of it. Maybe there's no harm but there's no benefit either. N-HH (talk) 16:06, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, Scotland hasn't yet left Britain, yet we have the rather absurd situation where I have been chastised for replacing a {{use Scottish English}} tag. If it isn't national pride, it would make you wonder... -- Ohc ¡digame! 16:31, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
@N-HH, @Ohc: I'd say there's some benefit. In addition to pride, there is also comfort. I don't have hard proof, but I'd guess it encourages contributors who might have both the knowledge and the motivation to contribute (relative to a geographical region), but not always the linguistic self-confidence, to do so without also worrying about sounding hyper-correct. This would especially apply to editors from second-language countries in which the standards are themselves emerging, i.e. not yet entirely codified in grammars and dictionaries, though much work has been done. (Australia and Canada codified theirs only in the 1970s and 80s.) Besides, if it really does no harm and no good, why not let that sleeping dog lie? Why spend our precious time in useless exercises, like the one on "logical quotes," or whatever, upstairs. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:47, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, as I said, I don't think we should be doing things for the sake of people's pride or, for that matter, providing comfort for anyone. In fact, I'd go so far as to say we should be discouraging a lot of the illiterate contributions that pepper WP – half of the content here is unreadable and stays that way for eternity, while talk pages often go round in circles because of people who seem not to grasp some basic essentials of English, and my suspicion is that these templates do indeed encourage that sometimes. That said, I'm not going to bang my head against a wall over the issue. There's unlikely to be a consensus for any rationalisation and I'm not sure it's that big a deal in the grand scheme of things anyway. N-HH (talk) 19:13, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
MOS:TIES was established on a per-nation principle, thus it seems appropriate to identify the variants of English an a per-nation basis where feasible. Indian English also seemed well-established, no fundamental WP:OR problems there, although that article could be fleshed out with more references and detail. Perhaps consensus can emerge to adopt UK spellings as the norm for Indian topics but there are the non-spelling issues such as currency (crore/lakh) and national wording exceptions (e.g. Australian Labor Party) that can be better monitored with national tagging. Migrating to {{EngvarB}} has apparent merits, but it could cause future complication when trying to monitor nation-specific non-spelling issues. Unfortunately the creator of {{Use Indian English}} has retired and is unavailable for comment about the rationale of that template. Dl2000 (talk) 20:45, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

@N-HH No disagreement about the surfeit of shabby articles. As for talk page posts, I do disagree. Your own posts above are both cogent and incisive. Yes, WP has a lot of problems, but as I get older, and look back at the time I arrived here (eight years ago), I'm struck by the progress. Even the traditionally POV-ridden India-related pages such as India, British Raj or Company rule in India have stabilized. No wild swings of content bedevil these pages any more. As for shabbiness (which is not just one of language, but also sourcing, POV etc) I think we are better off clamping down at the AfC (article for creation) stage of article development.

@Dl2000 Apologies for the poor state of Indian English. I recently slashed and burned the random lists of expressions there, and in the process may have done away with the numbering convention. Will reinstate that. I did add new sources. I have access to a couple of them. The others (which are newer) are unavailable for partial viewing both on Google Books or Amazon, and they cost a fortune ($150 or thereabouts). But, still, I'll try to add some content that makes Indian English better defined at least for the purpose of editing an article tagged with "Use Indian English." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

US and U.S.

The section "US and U.S." refers to "American and Canadian English", but not British English or other variants. In BE, at least, it is common to say "USA" (or "the USA"), so when writing in British English, about a British subject, we should be able to say, for instance, "he emigrated to the USA after retirement".

Also the note about other uses such as "US Army" are irrelevant when dealing with places and addresses in phrases like "he lived in Texas, USA", or in place parameters in infoboxes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:24, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Better to just use "United States". Abbreviations usually look amateurish in an encyclopaedia. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:25, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
My experience resonates with neither Andy's nor Necro's. Is there any evidence that the clunky USA is more prevalent outside the US? Also, wherever state or city is well-known internationally, you might consider dropping the country-name: "he lived in Texas". Sometimes infoboxes and main text seem to have the flavour of a postal envelope. Brevity can be a virtue. Tony (talk) 08:46, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
I disagree with omitting the country where this cannot be inferred from the context: it can lead to disputes about how "well known" the place is internationally (remember, the world is a big place); and omitting "US" in particular suggests a US-centric view of the world. —sroc 💬 23:27, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Nonsense, we use abbreviations often; especially in templates, where space is tight, and repetition tiresome. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:19, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
"United States" is an abbreviation. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:29, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Ditto "United Kingdom" __ E L A Q U E A T E 22:46, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Pedantry anyone? Abbreviations (by which I clearly mean initialisations in this instance, just in case anyone was confused) may be useful in tables etc, but they look amateurish in the extreme in the body of articles. We are meant to be an encyclopaedia, not a Facebook page. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:14, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
You mean like those amateurs at Britannica, seen here using "the U.S.S.R."? --Nat Gertler (talk) 12:16, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Good example - looks totally stupid. Radiopathy •talk• 12:19, 18 March 2014 (UTC)

The Oxford Guide to Style, Guardian/Observer style guides[1], etc. use 'US', and discourage 'USA'. There's no reason to introduce the longer abbreviation. __ E L A Q U E A T E 01:23, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Nonsense, we use abbreviations often; especially in templates, where space is tight, and repetition tiresome. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:25, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
I didn't say not to use abbreviations. I agree that abbreviations are often used, whether in the UK, in the US, or even at the UN.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:42, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Indeed; sorry; that was meant to be above your comment. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:19, 17 March 2014 (UTC)
Regarding US vs. USA in British English, both seem commonly used by The Register (e.g., google The Register's use of "to the US" vs "to the USA"), The Times and The Guardian. USA is commonly used in the US too, and I'd guess both abbreviations are understood/accepted throughout the English-speaking world; Wikipedia's guidance to use US seems like a harmless matter of consistency. Agyle (talk) 11:27, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Let's change WP:LQ

Allow WP:TIES to apply to punctuation in articles on United States topics; in other words, exempt articles on US topics from logical punctuation. Radiopathy •talk• 02:14, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Perennial proposal; never goes anywhere. Do you have anything new to say on the subject? Not saying you can't try again, even if you don't, but it sure is a bore. --Trovatore (talk) 02:29, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
That is a very POV comment. One could say that US English is the logical form of punctuation. Its a matter of opinion. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:30, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
I fail to see the "logic" of including something (comma or period) within the quotation marks that is not part of the material being quoted. The British/logical style is more accurate, in that everything between the quotation marks is actually quoted material - which is the point of using the marks. Mitch Ames (talk) 09:12, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
I think it is best to construe the "logical" part, not in the sense of "rationally desirable", but rather in the sense of "concording with the logical structure of the text". That is to say, a formal logician, looking ex nihilo for a way to mark the semantics of a sentence in its syntax, would note that the text in the quotation has a different semantic function from the rest of the text (see for example use–mention distinction), and would seek to mark as "mentioned" exactly the parts that are "mentioned", which does not include that terminal punctuation unless it was in the original. Such a logician might come up with LQ, but would almost certainly not come up with TQ.
Now, whether that makes LQ "logical" in the "rationally desirable" sense is another discussion (one that we are more or less having, though even an affirmative answer would not necessarily decide the issue, given that it's not WP's place to engage in reform efforts). But I hope we can understand the term LQ as not presupposing an answer just by the name. --Trovatore (talk) 09:45, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Mitch Ames, if British/L style is "more accurate," then can you point to American style causing any inaccuracies under actual use? The British style might look more logical and many people here find that appealing, but in real life, it doesn't perform any better or worse than American style. It offers no non-hypothetical advantage here, and therefore we have no reason to require it in all cases.[2] "This appeals to me a lot" isn't a good reason to make a rule that other people have to follow. American style appeals to me more, but it would be wrong to require that it be used in British English articles.. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:39, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Mitch Ames, if British/L style is "more accurate," then can you point to American style causing any inaccuracies under actual use?
I said that British/LQ is more accurate; I did not say that American style "caused more inaccuracies under actual use", nor did I say that the one style caused any more or less misinterpretation of the meaning than the other style. However I am of the opinion that the onus is on those who self-evidently misquote (by inserting characters inside the quotation marks that were not part of the original material) to demonstrate that it does not cause a problem, rather than the LQ proponents to provide evidence that such misquoting does cause a problem. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:58, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Then what's your basis for saying that it's more accurate? The American style doesn't cause misquotations. It is understood that the period or comma is there for grammatical reasons. That's like saying that "centre" is a misspelling. It is understood that the word is not pronounced "sen-treh."
Prove that it does not cause a problem? Okay, I have a source for that. I've already cited this a couple of times in this discussion, but here: [3]. 150 years. No major problems detected, according to one of the major American style guides. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
what's your basis for saying that it's more accurate?
With LQ, the characters between the quotation marks are a more accurate record of the original; all of the characters within the quotation marks are taken from the material being quoted. With American style that is not the case, because the process of quoting deliberately puts characters within the quotation marks that are not in the original. You might well "understand" that the inaccuracy is there, and it may not cause a problem, but inaccuracy is still there - the characters within the quotation marks do not accurately reflect the source material. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:57, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
Can you show a case of someone thinking that the American-placed period or comma really was part of the quoted material when it wasn't? Because if that doesn't happen, then this is a hypothetical advantage, not a real one. We could just as easily say that American spelling is more logical and accurate because "center"/"centre" is pronounced "sen-ter" and not "sen-treh," but almost no one actually misunderstands the word. Can you show a case of British punctuation providing a non-hypothetical benefit under actual use?
I've shown you a source saying that American punctuation does not cause such errors. Do you have a better source or perhaps an event from your own experience showing otherwise? 14:16, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
As I've previously stated, I'm not claiming that anyone misunderstands the American system. I'm merely stating that when quotation marks are defined as "punctuation marks surrounding a quotation" one might reasonably and logically deduce that all of what lies between the quotation marks is an accurate extract of the source material from which one is quoting, rather than including something extra inserted by the editor. Mitch Ames (talk) 14:38, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
Just like someone could reasonably and logically deduce that "centre" is "sen-treh." It's a rational, reasonable prediction that's not borne out in real events. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:26, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
And one could deduce that a straw man will fall over easily; we're not here to discuss the merits of spelling. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:36, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
How is "centre" a straw man argument? You argue that transposing two characters will cause confusion and I show you a case in which transposing two characters does not cause confusion. (Actually, I know of one specific case in which it confused a grade school student.) If spelling is different from punctuation, it is so in that it is more likely to cause confusion. If we were arguing against a ban on British spelling, then the LQ/AmE case might be a weak argument against that, but not the other way around. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:35, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
How is "centre" a straw man argument? - The discussion is about quotations and punctuation, not spelling. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:24, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
For the purposes of this conversation, how are they different? Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:02, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Support. We should follow the sources on this rule, and almost all the sources on U.S. punctuation says that tucking periods and commas in is correct and that leaving them untucked is incorrect. It's one thing to allow people to use British/logical style if they want, but it's another to forbid them from using American style. People should at least be allowed to do what they've been taught is required of them. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:05, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
It's not "American style". Sorry, you don't own it. My own newspaper, definitely not in the US, tucks. PS At first I thought your post contained rude words, but on squinting, my heart-rate eased. :-) Tony (talk) 10:55, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes it is American style, Tony. You don't have to take my word for it. Here are sources that say so: [4] [5] [6] [7]. Just because I drive past a sign in an American city that says "Town Centre" doesn't mean that "Centre" isn't British spelling.
Can you cite any sources that support your position that American style is not American? Can you give a reason why I shouldn't believe what the APA and CMoS have to say about this? If these sources are no good for some reason, that would be relevant.
I guess if you want to use your own newspaper as evidence, you might say "Varieties other than American English also allow American style." After all, British English has two forms of spelling, and we allow both here. However, the issue at hand is "Should American style be allowed in AmE Wikipedia articles"? In that case, the real question is, "Does American English allow British/L style?" According to the sources, the answer is "No." (I just realized what you were talking about. Yes, I am often tempted to tell people to go tuck themselves.) Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:39, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
@Darkfrog24:, your link to WP:V from "follow the sources" is inappropriate. WP:V would be appropriate if we were writing an article about a style of quoting, but we are not. We are defining our own style. Citing WP:ENGVAR here would be appropriate, but WP:V is largely irrelevant in this context. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:25, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
I disagree that WP:V is irrelevant. Because the MoS carries out into other articles, we should be careful to be more accurate, not less. However, if you like, think of WP:V as a yardstick, as our measure of reasonable doubt. Can it be proven that American English requires American punctuation and that American punctuation does not cause errors or miscommunication? Yes. It meets the customary Wikipedia threshold. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:35, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Oppose – mos:quote says: "Formatting and other purely typographical elements of quoted text should be adapted to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment; this practice is universal among publishers." This is wp:policy, and the "without comment" means that we shouldn't even be hearing this nonsense. Llot's of good editing time has been lost to once again debate this bright line. What is being called LQ – engendering pompous pride, under a guise of nationalism – is instead: simply what happens when you carry out a duty to reproduce quotes faithfully of the source. A commercial publisher would sooner terminate ones employ than to invest so much time and treasure to debate the aesthetic preference of a junior partner. It's a good thing that this concept is "universal among publishers", for it makes Wikipedia entirely proper for crafting her own – unique – Manual of Style. And ours doesn't follow anyone in the world's writing conventions 100%. We follow the one which built Wikipedia. This has nothing to do with what someone has been taught, it is about what someone is failing to learn; how it is done here, and why. If I were King I would have to decree: off with his head; and the rest, back to work writing.—John Cline (talk) 13:07, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
American style is used by some of the worlds best newspapers and other publications to reproduce quotes faithfully, and this has not caused any serious misquotation or misinterpretation in over 150 years of use.[8] As for the national divide, it's very real. No one here is making it up. As for "why it is done here," this rule is in place because, years ago, other Wikipedians decided to make a tradeoff between British and American style, requiring British treatment of quotation marks and American double quotes. This was based on the belief that British style requires single quotes under all circumstances (it doesn't). Should we keep following a rule that was based on a misconception? Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:23, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Your source for "has not caused any serious misquotation or misinterpretation in over 150 years of use" says:

Standard American usage, however, is based on the notion that placing commas and periods within the closing quotation mark causes no significant confusion or ambiguity.

That is, it introduces the notion that that placing commas and periods within the closing quotation mark causes no significant confusion or ambiguity. It does not claim, or provide evidence to support, that this notion is true. Dicklyon (talk) 23:41, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, they say, "there's an idea that American punctuation causes ambiguity, but we've been watching for 150 years and we haven't seen this happen." They say that in a century and a half, no one's seen any serious cases. It's safe to put this in the "not significant" column. However, this absence of evidence would be trumped by affirmative evidence of presence. Do you have any?
Look at it this way: If your car windshield will crack if you make a left turn during a hailstorm, but you're in a country where people say it has never hailed (and the past 150 years of meteorological records agree), do you make it illegal to make left turns, no matter what the weather looks like? Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:06, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
I am not able to find where your quote is from. So I guess you intended it as a scare quote, for sarcasm. Neither this nor the strained analogy are likely to be useful here. Dicklyon (talk) 00:14, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm paraphrasing if that's what you mean. Oh, I see. I didn't re-post the link.[9] Their actual words were "In defense of nearly a century and a half of the American style, however, it may be said that it seems to have been working fairly well and has not resulted in serious miscommunication." Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
@John Cline: I believe "without comment" means it's not necessary to annotate an article whose typography has been modified from the original in this way, not that we are not free to discuss changing the rule. AFAIK, there are no such "immutable" rules, nor should there be. I do oppose the proposal, though, if I understand correctly that means I want to retain the LQ style. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 10:44, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree that you are interpreting the prose more correctly than I; I've stricken the portion I wrongly assumed. While I also agree that there are no immutable rules – and shouldn't be – I do lament the unproductive channeling of editing assets to debate a perennial proposal that only rehashes the same point of view; hoping for a different outcome. Nevertheless, thank you for choosing a kind manner of expressing dissent; helping clarify a misnomer. Cheers.—John Cline (talk) 11:17, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
@AlanM1:, you do understand that no one has proposed banning British/logical style, right? This thread is about whether to permit American style. If the measure is approved, both styles would be allowed on Wikipedia on an ENGVAR basis. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:38, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
@Darkfrog24:Yes, that's what I understood. I prefer LQ and like that it is universal policy. It also seems, from a quick read of args here and elsewhere, that there may be disagreement as to whether LQ/not-LQ are/are not British/American, etc. I also don't relish creating yet another color/colour, DMY/MDY, etc. potential cause of action for people to argue in thousands of articles; better they should argue in just one place —[AlanM1(talk)]— 13:58, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
As long as you understand what it is that you're opposing. As to whether or not they are British and American, respectively, all the sources that have been offered are pointing to "yes they are." So, yes people question it, but not because there isn't an answer. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:19, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Support Comment - I prefer logical punctuation, but I also appreciate Wikipedia's policy on national varieties of English. If we change spellings or phrases to conform to a given nation's variety, we should also conform to that nation's punctuation (and yes, at this point in history, punctuation within quotation marks is "the American way". Radiopathy •talk• 17:24, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
Prefer what you want, but this perennial proposal is doomed; it just gives the Darkfrog more air to disrupt against the widely supported principle of consistent style in WP. I'd prefer this be closed and hidden forthwith, but how likely is that? Dicklyon (talk) 01:16, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Not at all likely but if it were, it'll be sure to come up again (even though consensus is clear as day). Jimp 09:12, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
This is an interesting case regarding consensus. Whenever this comes up, the majority of people say one thing but the majority of sources say the opposite. It's clear as day what most people like, using British style and requiring that everyone else do so as well, but it's also clear as day that this is not how the English language actually works. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:54, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - the clarity of WP:LQ is, quite simply, useful, not just in terms of some sort of pointless precision, but in case where it can set tone. To put closing punctuation in with a quoted subsentence phrase can put a tone onto the reading that may not have been in the original. --Nat Gertler (talk) 18:06, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
I've never seen someone argue tone before. Can you cite a case of that happening? Have you seen it on Wikipedia? Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:17, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
This UK book discusses tone relative to LQ, particularly for the less-logical convention of substituting a comma for a period at the end of quote (inside the marks) if the sentence continues with something like "said he". This kind of thing would not generally be discussed relative to the conventional (American) style, because the cue for whether the tone is sentence-final or not is generally lost in that case; the reader has to infer tone from the words alone when the punctuation inside may or may not be part of what is quoted. Several books, like this one use the example (which is not found in wp): "Now is the winter of our discontent." When we see this happening in WP, we generally move the period outside to fix it; to those who expect LQ style, this fixes the tone error caused by reading the quote as containing a full stop. To those who expect conventional style, it perhaps doesn't affect tone, but makes it look typographically unconventional. Dicklyon (talk) 00:01, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
This looks a lot like the "adding the period will make the reader think it's part of the quote"/"no, the reader knows that that is part of the quotation process" argument. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:14, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
The more the reader knows, the better. Knowing which system is in use can be important, which is why consistency is good. Knowing whether a mark is part of the quoted material or not can also be useful. Why fight that? Dicklyon (talk) 01:12, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
1. Because this doesn't give the reader more information, Dicklyon. The reader must always check the original text to see how that original text was punctuated. 2. Because it's not correct English. You might feel that it gives the reader more information to spell "lead" meaning the metal and "lead" meaning the opposite of "follow" different ways, but that's not how the language actually works. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:22, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
I just wish people could spell "led". Dicklyon (talk) 04:36, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
The reader must always check the original text to see how that original text was punctuated. - That's only because the American style changes it! If we used LQ, that would not be problem. (Obviously the reader must trust the editor to not drop punctuation from the the end of the quote that might change the meaning, but the same applies with words. For the sake of the discussion, the reader trusts the editor to quote accurately, without removing anything that changes the meaning, and without adding anything unnecessary.) Mitch Ames (talk) 13:38, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Actually, the British style usually just leaves it out. So yes, the reader must still check. No we're not giving them more information.
People keep arguing, "This is going to confuse people," but can you cite any cases of that actually happening? To me, it looks like "centre" would make people think the word is pronounced "sen-treh," but the only people I've heard actually do that are small children who were still learning to read. British spelling might seem illogical, but it works, so we don't ban it. American punctuation might look like it wouldn't work, but it does. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:44, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
the British style usually just leaves it out - WP:TQ explicitly says "place all punctuation marks inside the quotation marks if they are part of the quoted material and outside if they are not". If the punctuation in the original material exists and is important, the editor can and should include it. (If an editor does not follow the guidelines, that's the editor's fault, not the guideline's.) It's true that there is some editorial discretion - but that's no different to editorial discretion as to what words to include in the quote. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:09, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
So you're telling me that the sentence: The scene starts with "Now is the winter of our discontent,". would fly on Wikipedia? It doesn't look as though it would, but like John Cline, I'll ask: Does British style ever use [punctuation mark][quotation mark][punctuation mark]?
Actually, American and British English treat words the same. It's only periods and commas that are treated differently. If the original text was "We didn't lose big unless you mean we were completely pummeled" then both "We didn't lose big[period]" and "We didn't lose big"[period] are both misleading quotations. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:16, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
[punctuation mark][quotation mark][punctuation mark] - Generally I would think that the comma was unnecessary and so would not include it, ie The scene starts with "Now is the winter of our discontent". (Although if the comma was important in the context of the article, I would include it.) Mitch Ames (talk) 14:51, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
Certainly the way that an inclusion of a period following a word or phrase to indicate that this is the complete thought can be seen in exaggerated form in the verbal use of the word period, as in "I am not going out with you, period!" That added finality or completion could be seen if we put Roger Ebert considered the film "disappointing." when the review said The film was disappointing, but not without its charms. (Without the period in the quotes, it feels more like a fair excerpt and less like a full summary of the stance.) A different problem of tone arises if the original was The film was disappointing, to put it mildly!, and thus the inclusion of the period in the quote would be a false representation of tone. --Nat Gertler (talk) 17:08, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
Actually, in the example you give, it is clear that the Wikieditor is quoting only one word. The reader is equally as likely (or unlikely) to infer that it was a single-word review in British and American English styles. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:53, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
No, actually, in the example I give, it is not clear that the Wikieditor is only quoting one word, as they have put more than that one word in the quotes. That's sort of the point. You may choose to read it for just the one word, or you may be impervious to the impact on tone delivered by punctuation. You are not all people. --Nat Gertler (talk) 19:21, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
The example I'm talking about is "Roger Ebert considered the film 'disappointing.'" The one word being quoted from the original material is "disappointing." The Wikieditor is writing the sentence Roger-Ebert-considered-the-film-disappointing. In this sentence, it is clear that the period ends the Wikieditor's sentence, not necessarily Roger Ebert's. We don't see Ebert's tone, only one of his words.
As for "The film was disappointing, to put it mildly!" and "The film was disappointing but not without its charms," including only the first four words invites the same change in tone regardless of whether the British or American system is used.
The bottom line here seems to be that American punctuation does not make the claim that a closing period or comma belongs to the speaker being quoted. It establishes that it belongs to the person doing the quoting. It is like the quotation mark itself, part of the process, not part of the object of that process. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:59, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
The bottom line here seems to be that American punctuation does not make the claim that a closing period or comma belongs to the speaker being quoted. It establishes that it belongs to the person doing the quoting. No, it doesn't. It establishes nothing; the reader cannot tell whether the closing punctuation belongs to the speaker or to the person doing the quoting, which is a lack of clarity. --Nat Gertler (talk) 04:47, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes it does. Learning how punctuation works is part of learning how to read and write. It's in English classes. It's in the many style guides listed below, which explicitly state that the period or comma is placed inside regardless of other concerns.
To tell how a quote was punctuated, the reader must look at the original material. This is true regardless of whether the British or American punctuation system is in use. Look at those sources and tell me which one says, "When you place a period inside the quotation marks, you are claiming that it is part of the quoted material." That idea is not part of American English. You could just as well argue that the quotation marks themselves must be part of the quoted material. The period or comma is part of the process, not part of the content. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:54, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Saying "Yes it does" does not actually make it more true. If I write Ebert titled the essay "Who wrote this crap?", the question mark is not mine, as I am making a statement; it is Ebert's, as he is asking a question. And I am not advocating for the British or American systems; I am advocating for LQ. --Nat Gertler (talk) 05:12, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
You don't have to take my word for it. There are over fifteen sources listed below and yes they do show that the period or comma is part of the process. The claim that the punctuation belonged to the person quoted is made of question marks and exclamation points but it is not made in the case of periods and commas. As for "Hey, that's not his comma," the answer is "No one said it was."
"Logical" is another name for the British system. I don't like that people call it that, but that name is used by a large minority of the sources, so it's valid. The system you're advocating is indeed British. I can show you sources proving this if you like. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:54, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose - For the same reasons I gave six months ago. That formal request for comment is archived at Archive 143. The closing administrator said there was "fairly clear consensus" to not change style. How do people feel about adding this issue to Wikipedia:Perennial proposals? SchreiberBike talk 00:05, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
    I would support addition to Wikipedia:Perennial proposals. There should be an onus on editors who challenge a stable past consensus to make themselves familiar with the past consensus, and to adequately recount and show what has changed, not merely to rely on the others to pull them into line (or to give up due to sheer fatigue). —Quondum 00:59, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose – Flawed basis for the proposal.
    • As Darkfrog24 points out above, there is nothing linking it to the variety of the language, other that a slower adoption of newer trends by many American publishing houses. It would seem likely that actual modern American usage (not filtered for being formal writing) includes a substantial amount of LQ.
    • As per John Cline above, to allow multiple punctuation styles would be to go against the one universal that all American (and other) publishing houses appear to adhere to: having a uniform style within a publication. The exception to this principle, WP:ENGVAR, is now being used as wedge in an attempt to destroy the principle of a uniform style further. As we have seen, allowing what may be perceived as nationally linked rather than prescribed styles is very counterproductive. Dropping the uniformity requirement will result in wasted time for many editors, not only those who choose to engage in the debate here. —Quondum 00:59, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Quondom, that is not what I said. The current British practice dates from at least 1906. That isn't a "slow adoption of new trends." It's a non-adoption of an old trend. Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. We're not here to predict what the English language might do in the future, and hey, if American English ever does permit British style, we can always change the MoS to reflect that then.
As for "flawed basis," sources have been presented that American punctuation is required by American English. Do you have sources showing that this is not the case? As for uniformity, we're already not uniform. This rule has very low compliance, even in featured articles. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:22, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
To quote you: "What we do know is that both British and American English used to punctuate things the same way, the way that's currently called American style, until about 1906." This is sufficient to conclude that there is nothing American about the punctuation style, and it might be best to avoid calling it "American" here, lest some poor fool think that it is their patriotic duty to defend it. —Quondum 03:36, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Yes, they used to do it the same way, but for the past 108 years, Americans have punctuated one way and Britons the other. Yes, that means that American punctuation is American, but you don't have to take my word for it: The AMA, APA, CMoS, and many others all call this style "American." This more than meets WP:V. If these sources are wrong or insufficient or inappropriate, then say why you think so and offer better ones.
It's one thing if you don't find the evidence convincing, but you do have to acknowledge that it is there. I don't like that people call the British style "logical" "lest some poor fool" think that there's something logical about it, but I checked the sources and a large minority of them do use this name for British practice. This is one of its names whether I like it or not. If I can accept something like that, then so can you. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:11, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment – Wikipedia provides a solution for users who can not stomach our punctuation style related to quotes. Use <blockquote></blockquote> for quotations because it omits the quotation marks and resolves the aesthetic discrepancy of seeing it done by the MoS standard for quotes within running text. Problem solved.—John Cline (talk) 01:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
That would be nice if it were viable, John Cline, but say there's an article about an American singer or writer. Do we use block quotes to list the songs and other short-form works? What if the quote just works better in the paragraph? We shouldn't have to choose between punctuation and other aspects of good writing. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:22, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree and have stricken my suggestion that the "problem [was] solved." I have a question: Does the American punctuation style allow song titles to be enclosed within quotation marks? If it does not, should that be changed as well? If it does, is the following sentence written correctly by the American standard? Michael Jackson's first number one hit was "Ben." I suspect that even Americans would write that sentence with the punctuation outside of the quotation marks, and I suspect the reason would be to ensure the song's title wasn't wrongly thought to include the period. If it is tolerable under this circumstance to terminate a sentence with the period outside of the quotation mark, why is there so much umbrage with applying the same rule when the period is not part of the quote?—John Cline (talk) 05:10, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm glad you asked: Because no one's claiming that it is part of the quote. It is understood that the period or comma is part of the quotation process. If I use the British style and say, "Now is the winter of our discontent"[period], am I claiming that there was no punctuation immediately after "discontent"? No. I'm only showing where I decided to stop including material. Similarly, with "Now is the winter of our discontent [period]" it is understood that the period stops my sentence, not necessarily the original writer's. Regardless of which system is used, the reader must check the original to see how it was punctuated at that point.
Yes, you have that right with "Ben." The periods and commas go inside the quotes in American English. This is one of the system's advantages: It works the same way every time, regardless of what type of material is being enclosed in quotation marks or why. (EDIT: Almost every time. An exception is made for literal strings of characters, but those are rare.) That makes it easy to teach, learn, use and copy edit. The chance that the reader will think that the period or comma is part of the song title is even lower than in the case of quoted sentences. There's even less reason to require British/L style. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
No, the American convention would certainly keep the period or inside, as "Ben," or "Ben." See this book and this. No exceptions. Dicklyon (talk) 05:34, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose for consistency and accuracy. We don't have to blindly follow someone else's illogical notion just because some other style guide says so. Are there any horse bones left which haven't been beaten to a powder? Jimp 09:11, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. THis personal campaign shouldn't be brought into en.WP. Tony (talk) 11:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
How it is a personal campaign? Radiopathy •talk• 14:25, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Accuracy of the quote is more important than style. Anything, including punctuation, between the quotation marks must be in the original material. Changing the quoted material by adding punctuation purely for style reasons is not acceptable. Mitch Ames (talk) 13:44, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
It may be relevant that MoS has a section on when it is okay to change quoted material purely for style reasons. We're allowed to do that quite a lot, actually. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:50, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
Typography is not the same as punctuation. Mitch Ames (talk) 14:01, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
"This guy didn't say 'and' here! He used an ampersand!" We didn't say he didn't. "This guy didn't put a comma here!" We didn't say he did. In both cases, the change, if it can be called a change, is understood to be part of the quotation process. In both cases, no one can show that said process causes confusion or other problems of any kind. So why not be correct? Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:13, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
The fundamental problem here is that we disagree on what "correct" is. Let's concede for now that British/L and American style are equally unlikely to cause confusion. What remains is that I say it is more "logical" only to insert material between the quotation marks that is in the original - ie that the quotation marks encapsulate only quoted material. In particular, I say it is more logical not to make a change as part of the quotation process (even when that change causes no confusion). You say that it is "correct" to insert punctuation between the quotation marks that is not in the original material. While for some style guides that might be "correct", for others it is not. For Wikipedia, using the current MOS guideline of LQ, inserting extra punctuation inside the quotation marks is not correct at all. "Correct" is not an absolute term - it is relative to the style guide that applies at the time, be that American, British, or MOS - so there's not much point in us arguing about what is "correct". Mitch Ames (talk) 12:42, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
Correct is relative to the English language. If we are writing in American English, the tucking in periods and commas is right and leaving them untucked is wrong.
Because in the absence of any difference in performance, "this is more logical" boils down to "I like this more, this appeals to my sense of logic." That's a valid reason to like something, but it's not enough of a reason to tell other people that they have to do it your way too. People spend years learning how to write properly, but WP:MoS is requiring them to do it wrong ...because other Wikipedians just really like something else? That's pretty mean. We're all supposed to be equal here. What makes one group of people's arbitrary preferences more important than anyone else's and more important than what the sources say and do? Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:16, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
MOS:LQ states why we (ie the consensus of most editors, in the past, and in this current debate) prefer LQ - it is "more in keeping with the principle of minimal change". Mitch Ames (talk) 14:58, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
And it states falsely. Look in Archive 143. The most common reasons for preferring the status quo are 1. a belief that British style is logical and 2. a desire for cross-article consistency. One could also say that WP:LQ is here because early Wikieditors made a mistake: When making the MoS, they decided to split the difference between American and British punctuation. However, they believed that British punctuation always required single quotation marks (it doesn't). Their results were a MoS that requires "American" double-quotes-only and British comma placement.
As for the principle of minimal change, many editors here believe that AmE punctuation violates it, but there have been no sources or real-world examples offered. Wikipedia's been in operation for many years, and there is a lot of American punctuation on it, even though it's against the rules. If AmE violated the principle of minimal change, wouldn't the proponents of WP:LQ have at least one example to show us by now? Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:26, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
No position on the principle, but the "against the rules" cases are not so common in WP, and when I see one I just fix it. Like here; is this the sort of example you're seeking? No big deal, but might as well get it right and not include the period inside when it's not part of the quoted material. Dicklyon (talk) 06:32, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
I also occasionally come across violations of WP:LQ and fix them. Eg, the most recent two: [10][11]. A search through my contributions for "WP:LQ" in the edit comment (ignoring this debate of course) will probably find more. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:54, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
And it states falsely. ... WP:LQ is here because early Wikieditors made a mistake - Claiming that we are all wrong now because we were all wrong last time is not a very good argument - you need to actually explain convincingly why WP:LQ is wrong. I've expressed my reasons why I think British/L is better, but clearly I haven't convinced you. You've given your reasons, but you haven't convinced me. (I think I understand your reasons - that ENGVAR should extend to punctuation - I just don't agree with them.) I don't think we're introducing any new material now, just rehashing the same points over and over again. It's probably time to stop. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:54, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
The comment to which I was responding was "WP:LQ is here because." Yes it is here because early Wikieditors thought that British English required single quotation marks in all cases. It's here now because it keeps winning popularity contests.
Of course you should require proof that WP:LQ is wrong. I have taken the liberty of providing a little more than a dozen links below in the area marked "evidence." You don't have to take my word for it: We have newspapers, style guides, and professional organizations. Can you offer similar or better sources saying that WP:LQ is not wrong?
As for how common American punctuation is on Wikipedia, I checked every featured article for one year and I found 13 that consistently used American style and 54 that used both British and American. That's featured on the day of featuring. It is more common if one checks articles at random. American style is not rare on Wikipedia, even on very popular articles, to the point where if it caused the kinds of problems that have been cited, at least one of them would have been recorded by now.
Dicklyon, is your link supposed to be an example of an error in subsequent editing? It looks like someone is citing the term "community bus," in which case the period was placed correctly under U.S. rules. Could you explain further? Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:32, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
... proof that WP:LQ is wrong. I have taken the liberty of providing a little more than a dozen links below ... You've provided evidence that other American English style guides use American style quoting, not evidence that British or LQ is wrong. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:24, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
Have you looked at any of them? They say "In American English, do this and don't do that," and "In American English, this is done and that isn't," and "American practice is this and British practice is that." We have both 1. sets of instructions telling people what to do and 2. discussions of actual practice describing what people do. So yes, doing "that" is wrong.
If this type of proof doesn't satisfy you, then what would? Surely you'd agree that "centre" is wrong in American English. What if I needed to prove that to you? What kind of source would you want to see? Better yet, why don't you show me proof that it isn't wrong. Show me why you believe that you're right. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:17, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
why don't you show me proof that it isn't wrong
Because the vast majority of contributors to this discussion (as illustrated in the straw poll in this section) already agree that we should keep LQ, so I don't need to convince anybody to change their minds. You, being in the minority, do need to provide a compelling argument to change people's minds if you want the guideline to change. That's how things work here.
Show me why you believe that you're right.
I have previously explained why I agree with TQ. I don't think re-iterating it is going to make any difference. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:42, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
That only means that a lot of people are wrong in the same way. You know how else Wikipedia works? WP:V. Source after source keeps saying the same thing, and the only thing that anyone else has presented in favor of the status quo are personal preferences. No sources. No evidence that using correct English would cause a practical problem (as in our ban on single quotation marks). Nothing. I'm really starting to think that if there were any evidence in support of WP:LQ, someone would have found it by now.
You keep saying that my evidence isn't "compelling." Well, it matches Wikipedia's rules for sources perfectly. Tell me what you'd prefer. Show me that your position isn't just a personal preference that you want to push on other people. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:47, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. For all the same reasons as every other time. Time to drop the stick. Jheald (talk) 14:47, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Wikipedia logically follows logical quotations. Starting to use illogical quotation styles is illogical. --JorisvS (talk) 14:50, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Regardless of the usage arguments, it's a style choice. I see none of the reasons in favor of ever using "American punctuation" as having merit, even if it is <redacted adverb> used in American publications and style guides. (And, for what it's worth, I'm an American.) — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:29, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Let's change WHAAAT??? OPPOSE The "logical" notation is really the ONLY logical way forward and is based on very simple lexical principles, so much so that it is shocking that a community with such a strong computer background on average could even discuss the matter, and that anyone sufficiently literate to discuss the matter would press it after having the logic explained even once. Anyone who knows even one computer language that permits parentheses, or ordinary algebraic notation as opposed to Polish notations (and even those, really) should not even need the explanation once! JonRichfield (talk) 14:45, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
PS and having gotten over the shock and checked over the foregoing "Opposes", I couldn't find one that I disagreed with. My apologies for not being able to take a balanced view in this matter, but they most unfairly insisted on raising logical and valid points logically, validly and practically. Talk about inconsiderate... <mmbl, mmbl...> JonRichfield (talk) 14:54, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
If our readers were computers, I'd agree with you, but we write for humans. You (and others) keep saying "this is logical" "this is logical," but other than appealing to your sense of logic, does requiring British style in every article offer any observable advantage? Can you show proof comparable to the proof that has been given below? Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:15, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
Would allowing illogical punctuation offer any observable advantage? Jimp 09:09, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
It's called "American punctuation," and yes.
1. American style is required by American English, so it offers the same advantage that any other part of correct English offers: Correct punctuation makes Wikipedia look professional, neat, and consistent, even to people who don't understand all of the rules, and this inspires confidence.
2. American easier to teach and learn than British/l style. ("Where do the commas go?" "Inside all the time." "Got it.")
3. American style is easier to copy edit than British style because the subsequent Wikieditor does not need to re-check the source (which might not be available) in as many cases.
4. We've seen through these debates that the style that looks correct or looks better to the reader tends to be the one with which he or she is more familiar. About 60% of Wikipedia's readers are Americans, not British or international.
5. This rule already has low compliance on Wikipedia.
6. Permitting American style is consistent with Wikipedia's mission of valuing sourced over unsourced information and of treating everyone equally; it's consistent with WP:V and ENGVAR. Saying "We treat all varieties of English equally" and then not doing it is kind of hypocritical and we could stand to lose that. Several of the people who have commented on this issue over the years have shown themselves to be personally offended by the arbitrary nature of this rule. This would stop alienating those editors.
7. Permitting American style would be more scientific. Reasoned and calculated results are all well and good, but observed results must always trump them, and no one has observed American punctuation to cause any significant problems, on or off Wikipedia. Quite the opposite has been observed, and over a very long period: more than 150 years. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:54, 6 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose because  Dislike . However, I'd feel better about this if the Brits would, in turn, agree to let us drop "centre" (looks like it's pronounced "sent-reh") and "theatre" (ditto) altogether. Herostratus (talk) 16:53, 5 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose because quotation marks should actually denote what is being quoted, without extraneous punctuation mindlessly inserted. I'm native-born American, and have always thought that stuffing punctuation which was not initially present into quotations is a misleading and confusing practice. Time to drop the stick, already! Reify-tech (talk) 14:52, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose because the current approach offers precision that the American-style approach lacks, which seems befitting of an encyclopedia, and consistency (i.e. not allowing a choice between two contradictory approaches) enables the general assumption of that precision. (Noting, of course, that editors make do mistakes or fail to follow the guideline, so if it's really important a reader should still verify with the cited source). Agyle (talk) 09:38, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose, call for snow close and moratorium on asking again There is zero chance that this will pass, either this time or in the next 12 months, so WP:SNOW applies. I suggest making the moratorium until January 1st 2015, just so we can say "wait until 2015". --Guy Macon (talk) 14:36, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
I could get behind a time limit on how often the same person could raise this issue, but the fact that different people who don't know each other keep bringing it up is a big hint that this rule doesn't belong here. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:55, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Evidence associated with American punctuation (tucked-in periods and commas)

By now, most of us know what we do and don't like about the styles that the sources call "American" and "British"/"logical." Aesthetics is in the eye of the beholder. Two issues have been raised in this thread so far: 1. Does American English require American punctuation and 2. does American punctuation cause enough problems that it must not be used on Wikipedia? Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Evidence that American punctuation causes errors/misunderstanding/ambiguity

So far, none. Feel free to add to this section if you have a non-hypothetical example (Not a source that says, "This would happen"; one that says, "This does/did happen."). Examples of problems that occurred on Wikipedia, like errors in subsequent editing, should take precedence. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

:(Note: I am purposely not enclosing the following in quotes for obvious reasons. the quoted material is in bold.)

Slate gives two examples.
name your file "appendix A, v. 10".
and
The best way to grasp this is to look at an example, such as what Slate commenter Dean Hamer wrote under a recent article about PBS and NPR:
[I]ronically, given the anecdote about "Tales of the City", PBS is the ONLY widely available channel that has any serious LGBT content; e.g. documentaries such as "Ask Not" and "Out in the Silence".
"Tales of the City" and "Out in the Silence" are units—consisting of the words and the quotation marks. Insinuating a period or comma within the unit alters it in a rather underhanded manner.
I have seen the first example in real life, with filenames, and, back in the days when typing in code from a magazine into a C64 was popular, computer programs. I don't remember actually seeing it in the case of passwords, bit I have no doubt that it has occurred. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:28, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
No, Slate only gives one example, and it is hypothetical, and that is not evidence. The Ben Yagoda article that you've linked cites a fictional case of someone mistaking a file name, not something that he actually witnessed. So Ben Yagoda says, "This really looks like it would happen." He's not saying "This did happen." Also, American style already makes exceptions for raw strings of characters such as code—as this article shows when it cites CMoS 16—so allowing American style would not change the way these strings are dealt with on Wikipedia. Almost all uses of periods-and-commas-adjacent-to-quotation-marks on Wikipedia are words, however. Do you have any examples of someone making a mistake with those?
Your second passage has nothing to do with errors or functionality. Ben Yagoda does not maintain that someone thought that the comma was part of the title of "Tales of the City." The "this" in "The best way to grasp this" is why British style makes sense to him, why he thinks people like it. Consider crossing the second example out or moving it to a different section. Darkfrog24 (talk) 20:52, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Evidence that American punctuation does not cause errors/misunderstanding/ambiguity

Scanty. Feel free to add to this list if you have non-hypothetical evidence. (Not a source that says, "This wouldn't happen"; one that says, "This doesn't/didn't happen.") Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

  • Absence of evidence to the contrary and one affirmation by CMoS's 14th edition: "In defense of nearly a century and a half of the American style, however, it may be said that it seems to have been working fairly well and has not resulted in serious miscommunication." [12]

American English style guides that require American punctuation

Feel free to add to this list, which was copied from an archived discussion:

  • American Bar Association (contrary to an assertion in SMcCandlish's essay) uses the Chicago Manual of Style "for all style, punctuation, and capitalization matters in written text as well as general rules of book making," and cites The Elements of Style favorably as "the bible of the economical, careful writer." [13]
  • AP Stylebook [14] (general rule stated in excerpt at Purdue Owl; full online edition by subscription only)
  • Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.), §§ 5.11–5.16 [15]. Includes a specific discussion of "British versus American style" in quotation punctuation.
  • The Elements of Style (4th ed.), pp. 36−37.
  • Garbl's Style Manual [16]
  • Garner's Modern American Usage (3rd ed.) [17]. Specifically discusses the differences between quotation practices in American English and British English.
  • The Gregg Reference Manual (9th ed.) [18] [19]. "Periods and commas always go inside the closing quotation mark. This is the preferred American style."
  • MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (7th ed.), § 3.7.7.
  • Modern American Usage (1st rev. ed.), p. 248 [20]
  • Modern Language Association Style Guide [21]
  • National Geographic Style Manual [22]
  • The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage (Rev. ed. 1999), pp. 277–79.
  • Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.), §§ 3.34, 3.36, 3.37 and 5.13 [23]
  • Purdue Online Writing Lab [24]
  • Style Guide of the American Medical Association [25] 10th edition, p. 341
  • The Yahoo! Style Guide [26]. Purports to be a style book for "international" usage, adopts American style quotation practices, but includes a specific exception for "character strings." The linked page also includes a discussion of "American style" vs. "British style". (New link added [27] Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC))

American English style guides that do not require American punctuation

Feel free to add to this list, which was copied from an archived discussion:

  • Style Guide of the American Chemical Society [28] (req. Br/L)

ENGVAR violations

Could someone point me to the most appropriate place to report a user for repeatedly violating ENGVAR (after numerous requests and then warnings). It doesn't fall under edit warring, so not sure where to go. Thanks, Number 57 20:49, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I doubt there is one, nor should there be. Even on this side of the Atlantic (I'm British too), "whilst" is often considered rather affected. See the mentions of the Times and Guardian style guides in While#Whilst. I know WP:RETAIN says "An article should not be edited or renamed simply to switch from one valid use of English to another", but taken to the extreme that you are doing, it would forbid us to improve anything that is already grammatically correct, and that is absurd. --Stfg (talk) 00:44, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you're talking about Stfg. Number 57, could you give us more information on what kind of violation is going on? Is this person coming in and converting whole articles from one variety of English to another? Is he or she adding new material that doesn't conform to the prevailing style? Darkfrog24 (talk)
Apologies for having been cryptic. I'm referring to User talk:TJRC#Whilst. --Stfg (talk) 01:03, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Ah, I understand now. You were referring to a specific case, and not to the general matters that Number 57 raised here. Number 57, is this the violation of ENGVAR to which you are referring? If so, the issue at hand seems to be whether changing "whilst" to "while" in a BrE article violates ENGVAR and whether WP:Commonality justifies making an otherwise meaningless change. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:56, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I think COMMONALITY is sufficient, but not necessary, to justify the changes. Whilst is acceptable in British English, but it's not really of the desired encyclopedic tone, and that's a good enough reason to get rid of it. --Trovatore (talk) 03:34, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
WP:COMMONALITY clearly applies in the case of whilst/while, and it appears to recommend "while" over "whilst".
From COMMONALITY: "Wikipedia tries to find words that are common to all varieties of English." "While" is common to all varieties of English, according to the posts above and the posts on the Talk page linked above. "Whilst" is not.
"Universally used terms are often preferable to less widely distributed terms." "While" is universally used; "whilst" is less widely distributed. – Jonesey95 (talk) 04:51, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree that both WP:COMMONALITY and WP:TONE mitigate against the use of "whilst", which does not appear to add any meaning other than a somewhat archaic and affected atmosphere. Reify-tech (talk) 05:36, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Back to the original question that Number 57 asked: what I see over there is two highly productive editors with a difference of opinion on a language issue and on the interpretation of relevant guidelines, which both of them are citing. The concept of one of them reporting the other seems to me to be bizarre. What is needed in a case like this is other opinions, not reporting as if one of the editors were being disruptive. This talk page is a pretty good place to ask, really, since several people here actively reference style and usage guides. --Stfg (talk) 13:57, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
So here's an opinion. As a relatively elderly Briton, I find myself naturally writing "whilst" from time to time. If I notice, I change it to "while". It's old-fashioned British English, feels dated to me when I read it, and is unnecessary – any distinction that once existed between "whilst" and "while" has long disappeared for the great majority of readers regardless of their native ENGVAR. It's not a violation of ENGVAR to change "whilst" to "while". Peter coxhead (talk) 14:11, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Stfg summarized this nicely: it needs mediating and opinions, not reporting. While I agree with Number 57 that whilst is "perfectly acceptable British English", my opinion is that while should still be preferred because WP:COMMONALITY applies. Agyle (talk) 18:57, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Not sure how this is an ENGVAR issue. "While" is perfectly good British English and, as noted by several British contributors now, probably more standard British English these days than "whilst" – hence, to be preferred whether an article is supposedly following AmE or BrE conventions respectively, even without having to cite commonality. N-HH (talk) 22:30, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Non-exact quotes or refs

I just noticed [29] and thought "64 cores", I wish! What is right is "64-bit cores", but the source article doesn't use that heading. I assume I can't just change it (might say it is not a WP:RELIABLE source?). I tried to add sic but it doesn't work for references. Should/may it be added there? It might be possible with another ref (non-preferred, usually, format). See also here (off-topic part) [30] for other issues I have. Not sure where do discuss this, is here appropriate? comp.arch (talk) 09:27, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean here. The "64 cores" is part of the title of the article being referenced, and only appears as a phrase in the reference to the headline, not outside of quotations. You shouldn't change a direct quote of the title. If you have a problem with the content for other reasons unrelated to the headline, you could read WP:BEBOLD, change it, and if someone changes it back discuss it on the talk page there.__ E L A Q U E A T E 09:59, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Anyway, the title is accurate. The CPU has 8 ARM cores and 64 GPU cores. Pburka (talk) 12:08, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
The general issue still applies in but thanks, facepalm! I read 64 CPUs.. If you quote some article you can often just choose to not quote misspellings or say "something [rewritten] something" or "typo sic". Is this sic appropriate for typos/errors in refs? I could get around the technical restriction. And in case there are some errors in an article or it's title then it is not automatically deeed a non-RELIABLE source (in case what you are qouting or refering to in the article is otherwise ok)? comp.arch (talk) 15:52, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Question regarding MOS:ICON

I've asked a question at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Icons#Icons on opposite ends of a table cell entry, but I'm guessing that page isn't watched much since I haven't gotten any response after 3 months. If some people could take a look and comment it would be much appreciated. Cheers, Floydian τ ¢ 16:58, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style

Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style has been marked as inactive.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:44, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

MOS:FLAG at skiing articles

Need advice: I noticed that many skiing articles are awash with little flag icons. It's been pointed out to me that the skiing world championships are individual and don't recognise countries; what's more, the flags icons seem to be pervasive and mostly used to "flag [sic]" locations where the races took place. So today I've been working hard at removing the MOS:FLAG violations whilst at the same time aligning dates per MOS:NUM. However, I've just been reverted at two articles[31][32] by the same user without explanation. Is there a problem with my interpretation? -- Ohc ¡digame! 16:50, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

I agree you're right on the flag issue, but without comment from that user , they might be objecting to the date format change - even though yes, in both cases dmy makes more sense than mdy per nationality, the articles are more consistent (like, 90%+) in the latter and per DATERET, you probably should not change those without gaining consensus. The flag and link removal, though, seems spot on. --MASEM (t) 16:55, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
MOS::FLAG specifically allows flags in sports articles, so the editor is absolutely correct in reverting. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:17, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
I checked where the flags were and they were used not to identify the skier's nationality (which MOS:FLAG does allow for) but to indicate the nation where the various competitions were held, and that's a use strongly discouraged by MOS:FLAG. --MASEM (t) 20:28, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment Now OhConfucius and I have butted heads at the meaning of MOS:NUM and how it is applied, but this is one issue in which I am in complete agreement with him on. In my opinion, flags should be removed from just about everywhere they occur. It is true that MOS:FLAG allows flag icons in certain articles and in certain places, but it never allows them in the infobox. The fact that a few articles have survived this long with flag icons in the infobox is mostly a result of a few tendentious and very vocal editors who manage those articles on a daily basis. These articles are mostly F1, Ice Hockey, Golf, and Tennis. The rest of the sports articles on Wikipedia have pretty much done away with infobox flag icons altogether. --JOJ Hutton 16:05, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
  • Masem: "they were used not to identify the skier's nationality ... but to indicate the nation where the various competitions were held"—count me as one who was totally fooled until you said that. In any case, I think flags without country-names are a grand disservice to readers: what's that one with the thee red–white–red horizontal stripes? To insert just the country-name, or even an abbreviation of it if space is tight, provides direct information without the stained-glass-window effect. Tony (talk) 02:15, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Hyphens for dual nationality

An interesting discussion has arisen at Talk:Irish American#Redirect.

  • Tvx1 claimed that Irish-American "denotes someone holding dual citizenship of both the Republic of Ireland and of the United States of America" and should not redirect to Irish American "which... denotes an American citizen with Irish ancestry."
  • Pburka argued that MOS:HYPHEN requires that "hyphens are never inserted into proper-name-based compounds". The relevant section states:

Hyphens (-) indicate conjunction. There are three main uses.

  1. In hyphenated personal names [...]
  2. To link certain prefixes with their main word [...]
  3. To link related terms in compound modifiers: [...]
    • Hyphens can help with ease of reading (face-to-face discussion, hard-boiled egg); where non-experts are part of the readership, a hyphen is particularly useful in long noun phrases, such as those in Wikipedia's scientific articles: gas-phase reaction dynamics. However, hyphens are never inserted into proper-name-based compounds (Middle Eastern cuisine, not Middle-Eastern cuisine).
  • I noted that MOS:ENDASH provides examples suggesting that a hyphen is used in compounds formed by multiple nationalities when used as an adjective but not as a noun. I subsequently revised the relevant section to read as follows:

An en dash is used for compound nouns referring to mutiple nations or nationalities; use between nations; for people and things identifying with multiple nationalities, use a hyphen is used when applied as an adjective or a space as a noun.

  • Japanese–American trade;   but a family of Japanese-American traders or a family of Japanese Americans
  • an Italian–Swiss border crossing;   but an Italian-Swiss newspaper for Italian-speaking Swiss
  • France–Britain rivalry;   French–British rivalry
  • Wrong: Franco–British rivalry; "Franco" is a combining form, not independent, so use a hyphen: Franco-British rivalry

Is my interpretation of MOS:ENDASH correct? If so, does MOS:HYPHEN need to be revised to avoid this (perceived) contradiction or potential confusion? —sroc 💬 01:17, 21 March 2014 (UTC) [edited 23:05, 23 March 2014 (UTC)]

As a (hopefully) clarifying side note here, we've been trying to determine the appropriate way to provide a descriptive definition for the (apparent real-world usage of the) hyphenated noun Irish-American, specifically to describe someone with dual citizenship. It would seem inadequate to modify the WP entry to simply conform to MOS guidance, if that were actually inconsistent with the real-world usage. jxm (talk) 07:01, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
@Jxm: This may be a better discussion for Talk:Irish American#Redirect, but are you suggesting that Irish American and Irish-American should be treated as an exception to MOS:DASH and should have distinct meanings? Surely if this is treated differently from Japanese American (noun form)/Japanese-American (adjectival form) and other such cases where the presence or absence of a hyphen is used for grammar rather than any semantic distinction, this is more likely to lead to confusion. —sroc 💬 08:33, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
@Sroc: Hmmm.... I think I'm just trying to address the issue that Tvx1 brought up - i.e. that including the hyphen supposedly changes the meaning of the noun, rather than converting it to an adjective. (I suspect there may perhaps be a difference here between British and North American English.) Earlier this month, I tried to document this usage by inserting this text: The hyphenated term Irish-American describes a concept that pertains to both countries, as in Irish-American relations. When applied to an individual, it indicates that the person has dual citizenship. But that clarification got immediately reverted by Hmains for lack of citations, and Tvx1 has not yet identified any.
At the moment, dashed terms, such as Japanese–American, are not separately defined or redirected; I believe to try and do so probably would be an unnecessary MOS exception. But anyway, to be clear, I'm not at all suggesting that we remove the Redirect and establish a separate entry, as Tvx1 seems to be proposing. jxm (talk) 16:59, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Is the contradiction that you're worried about in the over-broad interpretation of "hyphens are never inserted into proper-name-based compounds"? It means don't put hyphens in when a multi-word proper name gets used as a modifier; it doesn't mean you can't put hyphens between different one-word proper-name-based terms like Irish and American. As for the dual citizenship question, I've never heard of that issue before, bit if a special term is needed to indicate both Irish and American symmetrically, then the en dash would seem more appropriate. Dicklyon (talk) 17:59, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I instinctively felt that an en dash was appropriate for cases such as Irish–American or Japanese–Australian (there's no such place as Ireland America of Japan-Australia), but MOS says otherwise.
If we did make a semantic difference between a dash or hyphen for dual nationalities vs a space for descent or ancestry, then I see three possible problems:
  1. A grammatical issue about what to do with our family of Japanese-American traders—do they still get a hyphen, and could this cause confusion by implying dual nationality when it might have referred only to ancestry? (Does omitting the hyphen imply the Japanese family sells Americans?)
  2. What to do of all those existing cases that universally use a space—do we need to set about checking each one to see whether a hyphen/dash is required?
  3. Edit-warring over individual cases whether a hyphen/dash or space is warranted and difficulties in obtaining sources to verify citizenship status. In many cases, this may be unclear or not supported by reliable sources—so what are we do then?
What is the problem we are trying to solve? If an article on Irish Americans covers "Americans who can trace their ancestry to Ireland" (as it states in the opening line), this would include those who enjoy dual citizenship and those who don't. If clarification is needed in particular cases, this would be more clearly expressed in words rather than requiring a mere punctuation mark to do the heavy lifting and relying on the reader to import all manner of assumptions about what this might mean. —sroc 💬 22:55, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
Your intuition needs a tuneup. Whether to use hyphen or en dash should depend on what you want to convey via normal grammar conventions. An American who is Irish (ancestry wise or otherwise) is an Irish American; the adjective form of that gets a hyphen. The en dashed Irish–American implies a more symmetric arrangement, such as a person of both Irish and American citizenship, which what the original poster was asking about. Dicklyon (talk) 01:26, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I really think WP gets this "hyphens and ethnicity/nationality" thing very very wrong. My intuition is exactly opposite to Tvx1's — to me, Irish American looks like someone who is simultaneously Irish and American, whereas, Irish-American makes the "Irish" part subordinate (just ancestry, not nationality). --Trovatore (talk) 04:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
All the more reason not to rely on punctuation to carry the meaning here. If a distinction needs to be made in particular cases, let it be expressed in words, not with a hyphen or dash or space that is liable to misinterpretation. —sroc 💬 05:55, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, that isn't my real point. The dual-national case is an exception; there, we can explain precisely. For the "American of Irish descent case", though, we should be using Irish-American, and that article should be moved there (and similarly for all similar cases). --Trovatore (talk) 06:18, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
That being the case, are you proposing that MOS:ENDASH be amended to hyphenate conjunctions of multiple nationalities in all cases, whether as a noun or adjective? —sroc 💬 07:30, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
I would certainly support such a move, yes. --Trovatore (talk) 07:58, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Would you care to start an RfC with a proposal? —sroc 💬 08:50, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Wow, I'd really want to have my ducks in a row for that. Not sure I have time to give it the attention it merits. But I'd certainly support it, if someone else did. --Trovatore (talk) 07:30, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

I do think that the debate is getting rather unduly complicated here. As sroc just mentioned, it's probably best resolved by simply expressing the distinction in words - at least in this case. I was hoping to address the specific issue that Tvx1 had brought up - i.e. that including the hyphen supposedly changes the meaning of the noun, rather than converting it to an adjective. I had suggested including this text: The hyphenated term Irish-American describes a concept that pertains to both countries, as in Irish-American relations. When applied to an individual, it indicates that the person has dual citizenship. But that was reverted by Hmains on the grounds that we had no citations. Tvx1 has not yet identified any, and so here we are.... jxm (talk) 05:33, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Irish-American relations would actually require an en dash (Irish–American relations) rather than a hyphen, in accordance with MOS:ENDASH (as with Japanese–American trade and France–Britain rivalry). I don't think this should change.
There is perhaps an argument that constructions such as Irish–American should have an en dash when referring to an individual (e.g., Francis "Frank" McCourt was an Irish–American teacher...), or perhaps using a hyphen (e.g., Francis "Frank" McCourt was an Irish-American teacher..., as Frank McCourt already reads now). A hyphen has the advantage that it can be used in conjunctions paired with an en dash (e.g., an Irish-American–Italian-American clash), although such phrases would almost certainly benefit from re-wording in any case. —sroc 💬 05:54, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
I would like to stress once again that this does not only pertain to the combination of Irish and American, but to any number of combinations of citizenships from all over the world.
Trovatore, are you tryin to tell us you don't know the function of an adjective. Let's get to the basics here. From the Community College Foundation: Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence. So now for our example: Irish American. Irish clearly is an adjective to the noun American here. It gives us a description of the noun; a description of what kind of American the subject is.
Regarding the multiple citizenships, I have to admit that it should be a dash rather than a hyphen. From the same source I cited earlier [33]: The en dash is also used to join compound modifiers made up of elements that are themselves either open compounds (frequently two-word proper nouns) or already hyphenated compounds
I would like to point out that this not simply a MOS issue and as a result not about Wikipedia Guidelines. This matter actually involves basic grammar rules of the English language which are, in fact, taught in primary school. Tvx1 (talk) 23:18, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
This is not a question of general grammar. Compounds that describe ancestry with the first word and nationality with the second are a well-defined case apart, and they have always been hyphenated. WP's style is an innovation, as far as I can tell. It's virtually irrelevant to argue whether this is consistent with the general case of adjective-noun.
Moreover it's not really adjective-noun anyway. It's a compound adjective, used as a noun. --Trovatore (talk) 23:26, 25 March 2014 (UTC)
Our MOS is not alone in treating it as a normal grammar/punctuation issue. See this blog or this book. Dicklyon (talk) 01:20, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Actually, on reflection, what irritates me most about the WP style does in fact relate to grammar, to an extent. The point is that an Irish-American is not Irish. He or she is American. If you say "Irish American" it sounds like an American who's Irish, but he's not Irish, so that's wrong. He has Irish ancestry, and that's the distinction encoded into the hyphen. --Trovatore (talk) 01:25, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
How does the hyphen convey that? Certainly "Irish-born American" or "Irish-heritage American" convey appropriate meaning, but does "Irish-American" convey the same connotation whereas "Irish American" does not? Would most readers discern a difference in meaning between "Irish-American" and "Irish American"? I wouldn't. —sroc 💬 01:43, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
The hyphen in "Irish-American person" merely conveys that here "Irish-American" is the adjective form of the noun compound "Irish American". That's all it does. That noun compound would normally be read as adjective Irish modifying noun American. If that's not the intended interpretation, one could attempt to clarify by using other punctuation, or by using words to indicate something different from what the default standard parse would imply. That's how English works; Trovatore doesn't seem to understand that. Dicklyon (talk) 01:50, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
OK, Dick's trying to get me upset again; I'll try not to fall into that. sroc: Yes, I think Irish-American as an adjective-used-as-noun, or equivalently, in the predicate-adjective position (Michael is Irish-American), does indeed carry a different connotation from "Irish American", which looks like an American who's Irish. It's not that it's a perfect way of getting the distinction across, but it is at least a conventional way. I would go so far as to say it's the normal usage, even if there are a few style guides that disagree. --Trovatore (talk) 02:02, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Dicklyon's interpretation here—or at least it is consistent with my interpretation of MOS:ENDASH (i.e., "Irish-American" as adjective, "Irish American" as noun phrase). You wrote "'Irish American'... looks like an American who's Irish"; but you haven't said what you think it means in "Michael is Irish-American"—couldn't this also mean that Michael is an American who's Irish? In both examples, the difference between whether or not to use a hyphen is based on grammar (adjective vs noun), not a semantic distinction (dual citizenship vs heritage). —sroc 💬 05:15, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I think "Michael is an Irish-American" means "an American of Irish descent", not "an American who is Irish". In any case, in my experience, the hyphen is used much more than not. "Irish American" really just looks wrong, and looks like it's trying to say that the person is Irish. --Trovatore (talk) 05:48, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
But many guides say not to use the hyphen, except in the use of the compound as adjective. Some go further and say never use the adjective. But since the normal rules of grammar work fine here, and are in accord with probably the majority of guides, there's really no reason to make up special-case rules here. Dicklyon (talk) 05:54, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, the recommendation of those guides has gotta be a new thing, and it's one I don't like. Of course, I lean conservative on language issues, so I don't like most new things in that area. WP should be conservative too, in the absence of a clear rationale otherwise. But in this case there's a very clear reason not to like it, which goes beyond conservatism, and let me try one more time to explain it.
Whereas, as I've said, "Irish American" seems to mean "American who is Irish", "Irish-American" (used as a nominalized adjective — note in passing that there are no actual nouns here; even "American" is a nominalized adjective rather than a noun in its own right) is sort of an inherent compound. The hyphen warns you that you can't just separate it into its constituent parts. Sure, if you use it to modify a real noun in the direct position ("Irish-American man"), then you lose that distinction, but used as a nominalized adjective or in the predicate-adjective position, it lets you know that something is up, that the two words are more connected than that. In this case, the connection is that "Irish" is not to be taken as meaning, you know, actually Irish, but just an Irish-sort-of-American. --Trovatore (talk) 06:05, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
No, if you say Micheal is Irish-American it means neither "an American of Irish descent" nor "an American who is Irish". It means that he is both Irish and American to an equal extent (i.e. holds both nationalities simultaniously). Tvx1 (talk) 11:55, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, no in turn. As a general observation, it means whatever the author was intending to mean or describe when they included the hyphen. The only thing that is certain from the bare phrase alone is that there is some mix there, or nationality/citizenship, ethnicity, both or whatever else. The use or otherwise of a hyphen is no definitive or universally accepted indicator of what type of mix might be involved. For some it might carry great and specific meaning, albeit of potentially very different things to what an individual reader might assume, while for others it will simply be typographical convention. And that's before we even get to the acknowledged adjective vs compound noun issue. If WP wants the use or otherwise of a hyphen, en-dash or whatever in this context to convey specific and consistent meanings, the MoS should probably say so, if people are that bothered. N-HH (talk) 13:18, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Right, there's nothing universally accepted, but in my experience, Irish-American is the usual formula for an American of Irish ancestry. Tvx1, a little less lecturing to native speakers, when you're not one, would be appreciated. --Trovatore (talk) 17:36, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree with N-HH. I would add that "[i]f WP wants the use or otherwise of a hyphen, en-dash or whatever in this context to convey specific and consistent meanings," the MOS should say so, however, it should not be assumed that the reader will innately understand this meaning without this being further explained in the text. —sroc 💬 22:27, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
So, Trovatore, are you trying to say that just because I'm not a native English speaker I can't know and understand the rules of English grammar? If you'd take a look at my contributions in Wikipedia's talk pages you'll notice my English is more than adequate enough. It's on near-native level. Believe me, if have spend more than enough hours of my life studying the rules of the grammar of the English language. And in all honesty, I found it quite astonishing that, as a non-native speaker, I had to explain basic grammar rules to native speakers of that language. Tvx1 (talk) 20:14, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
One of the biggest problems that a serious and competent student of a second language has is not being able to deal adequately with subtleties that seem in some way at variance with a general rule. Believe me, I have plenty of experience with that in Italian. After I had been living in Italy for the better part of a year, one of my instructors told me tu sei fin troppo bravo per essere stato in Italia un solo anno, ma il problema e` che vuoi essere di madrelingua, e questo non lo sei.
In this case, you've just flat-out missed a usage that, had you grown up in the States, you would have to have come across. --Trovatore (talk) 20:20, 27 March 2014 (UTC)
I grew up in the states, and what's clear is that there is no consistency to hyphen usage and omission. In books in the first half the twentieth century, usage was mixed, as it remains. But there's no evidence of any pattern more prevalent than the pattern of following the usual punctuation rules for compounds. The punctuation at least clarifies the structure, if not the exact intended meaning. Dicklyon (talk) 04:06, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
Oh, I disagree. The use of the hyphen for <ethnicity>-<nationality> is plainly more prevalent than for anything else grammatically comparable. For example, German-American, but not Protestant-American; I almost want to put an asterisk in front of the latter. --Trovatore (talk) 04:10, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

A question about guillemets 《 》

Hi, I've floated this question past WP:Reference Desk/Language, but I'm not convinced it's the best place to ask, because I'm basically asking a question about MOS conformity. Guillemets 《 》 come up a lot in articles about Chinese subjects (and elsewhere I'm sure), for example here. MOS:QUOTEMARKS indicates that straight quotes are the preferred quotation mark for articles, but I'm curious what the procedure is in a table like below, where we are noting the Chinese title. Do we use italics/quotations (as appropriate for major/minor works) or do we retain the guillemets?

Year Title Chinese Title Role
1988 A Magic Doctor in Suzhou 《姑苏一怪》 Ye Tianshi

Since my question appeared to cause a little confusion, here's a little background. I use the AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) and I was thinking of setting up some rules to automatically find and replace guillemets with straight quotes per MOS:QUOTEMARKS. This typically works fine when replacing "smart" quotes with straight quotes, but guillemets seem a little different.

In the English example above, we italicize the film A Magic Doctor in Suzhou because a film is a major work. So do we represent the Chinese title with italics (姑苏一怪) because it is a major work? Or do we use guillemets (《姑苏一怪》) because that is how the Chinese would present the work? Or do we use a plain translation (姑苏一怪) and skip the punctuation altogether? Or is there another preferred way to present the material? Thank you, and sorry for what is probably a weird niche question. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 01:53, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

MOS:QUOTEMARKS says: "Likewise, avoid using the „low-high“ or guillemets (« ») quotation marks that are common in several foreign languages." So why contemplate using guillemets at all? —sroc 💬 02:51, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Whatever you do, don't italicize the Chinese, unless it is customary to use Chinese italics for this purpose. We should not export our rules to Chinese. Peter Chastain (talk) 03:01, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
The guillemets are better than Italics in the context of Chinese names, but if such titles are sometimes represented in sources with neither, I'd go with that. Dicklyon (talk) 05:00, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Interesting mix of responses! Peter Chastain, Dicklyon, and sroc I'm perfectly fine with not using italics—they look kinda funky with Chinese characters anyway. I'm of the opinion that a straight substitution of guillemets with quotation marks is the intuitive fix, and the MOS seems to hint that this would be the way to go, but I'm hoping to get some definitive answers so I don't commit to a ton of AWB edits only to find out I've ruined the articles. :D Cyphoidbomb (talk) 05:55, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

FWIW, our Guillemet article does not mention Chinese as a language that uses guillemets.
I think we need to consider why we use highlighting (italics, quotation marks, etc.): to separate an entity from surrounding text, to identify material in a foreign language, etc. In your example of a table, the material is already separated and needs no further highlighting, IMO. Consider, for example, this bizarre sentence:

I ate some fromage and then sat down to watch 姑苏一怪 and eat 怪.

(Please forgive me: if I knew any Chinese, I could probably come up with something better!) I would think that:
  • The first italization is needed, because fromage is not an English word.
  • The second italicization is needed, because the term refers to a movie (?) and is in an English sentence. (I realize that I may seem to be contradicting what I said about not exporting our rules to other languages, but the key here is that it is in an English sentence. )
  • The third expression (怪) needs no italicization, because nobody would confuse it with an English word.
As to the whether we should use guillemets where they would be used in the foreign language, I am not sure, notwithstanding MOS:QUOTEMARKS. Consider Carlos dijo: «Tengo hambre» (Carlos said, "I'm hungry"). I would argue that, in the rare event that we quoted the sentence in en:WP, we should keep the original punctuation (the colon and guillemets), rather than imposing English rules (Carlos dijo, "Tengo hambre" or "Carlos dijo, 'Tengo hambre'") and thereby misquoting. And, of course, we use guillemets in the Guillemet article. Other than that, I cannot think of any cases where we need them. Peter Chastain (talk) 08:31, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
The more I think about this, I am coming up with "an interesting mix of responses" all by myself. Definitely don't put guillemets around the Chinese title in the table. If Chinese uses italics to indicate titles, then I would italicize it in the table, just as you italicized the English title. Peter Chastain (talk) 08:45, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

Chinese characters should not be italicized, whether for emphasis or any other reason, ever. It doesn't add anything for the user who understands Chinese, it adds no information for the mono-English speaker, and it can be made clear both in article text, A Magic Doctor in Suzhou (original title: 姑苏一怪), or in a table without adding typographic emphasis that isn't actually used in Chinese:

Year Title Chinese Title Role
1988 A Magic Doctor in Suzhou 姑苏一怪 Ye Tianshi

So for your example of You Benchang, I would strip the guillemets from the table, and I wouldn't introduce new quotation marks or italicization.__ E L A Q U E A T E 10:42, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

The reason we wouldn't italicize 姑苏一怪 is that we wouldn't use 姑苏一怪 as the main reference to the movie in an English sentence; we would use A Magic Doctor in Suzhou. We might reference 姑苏一怪 as the original title in Chinese, but as shown by things like WP:MOSQUOTE, we would treat it as an additional explanation of what we wrote in English. Wikipedia shouldn't have a sentence that requires understanding Chinese to read. We generally add the original non-Latin text only to expand on the English, not the other way around. This is the same treatment as for Korean, Arabic, etc. We wouldn't have a sentence like I ate some fromage and then sat down to watch 姑苏一怪 and eat 怪. because we wouldn't have the Chinese characters untranslated like that as if it's an understandable English word on its own. __ E L A Q U E A T E 11:17, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Elaqueate, thank you for clarifying that italics are not used in Chinese. And I agree that we should never have a sentence like She ate some fromage and then sat down to watch 姑苏一怪. We might use fromage, because maybe the fact that it was French cheese is significant, and the mono-English reader can sort of pronounce it, so I would change the sentence to She ate some fromage and then sat down to watch A Magic Doctor in Suzhou (姑苏一怪), if I thought the reader needed to see the Chinese. I think that agrees with what you have suggested. Cyphoidbomb, does any of this help you with your original question? Peter Chastain (talk) 13:03, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
So it seems like we're leaning toward no punctuation at all, just a straight non-italized, non-quoted representation of the Chinese characters? Ignoring the table above for a moment, because it represents an atypical scenario, my concern is that when this content appears in prose without explanation or translation (and this is a semi-regular occurrence when you're cleaning up random articles) removing the guillemets alone won't be too helpful because now we don't know what the text IS. Is it an animal? Is it a film title? Replacing guillemets with straight quotes would allow us to indicate that the text represents a title, while still adhering to the MOS. I don't particularly see a problem with having the Chinese conform slightly with English rules, since we are allowed to make minor edits and typographical fixes even to direct quotations, and since this is the English Wikipedia. It doesn't mean we don't love the Chinese. :) So a sentence as I propose it might look like: Ip's fourth book, "憤怒的雞" sold twelve copies. Thoughts on this take? (The Chinese text was a mechanical translation of "The Angry Chicken") Cyphoidbomb (talk) 15:43, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
(Sorry this is a longer response; it's an interesting question.) First, I don't think a sentence of the type Ip's fourth book, "憤怒的雞" sold twelve copies. is appropriate in English wikipedia per the helpful advice at WP:NOCHINESEITALICS. Article text should not rely on non-Roman text alone for user friendliness, accessibility, and browser compatibility reasons (Even a table should not be composed of Chinese characters alone). I think that would be revised as Ip's fourth book, The Angry Chicken (憤怒的雞) sold twelve copies. which also makes it clear it's a book title and is readable by a general reader. The Chinese should enhance an English sentence that can generally stand on its own. I think it's great to have more information than less, but adding quotes does not tell a user that it's describing a media title if it's unclear what it says in the first place. The two sentences from WP:NOCHINESEITALICS that seem to apply regarding Chinese characters are (for article text) They should always be put within parentheses, as if they were call-outs not part of the sentence. and (for tables) Chinese insertions to list and table entries can be done without parentheses because these items are seldom read like sentences. If you take a look at a different working example that lists a lot of movie titles (The University Days of a Dog) you can see that adding quotation marks around any of the non-roman film titles would not significantly help indicate it was a title, and would make it less readable and useful overall. I fully agree we should make an indication that something is a book or film, but quotes around Chinese characters isn't the way.__ E L A Q U E A T E 16:54, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
I also looked here and I think adding quotes in that situation would be messy and harmful to clarity. It would be nice to address your concern where content appears in prose without explanation or translation, but Chinese characters shouldn't be without explanation and translation in article text per this, and in direct quotes per this. If you have a more specific article example, I'd look at it.__ E L A Q U E A T E 17:47, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Elaqueate Okay, so fine, no quotations it is! I wish I had a better example of random Chinese text appearing in articles. My question was mostly geared toward smaller niche articles that are hastily assembled, and general maintenance of these articles, as opposed to ones that are well crafted and get a lot of editor traffic. My question also wasn't oriented ONLY on Chinese articles--guillemets come up in French and such. AWB is an automated tool, so I was hoping to give it some rules to easily process this recurring content, the way that I automatically change smart quotes to straight quotes. That's easy! I've removed the guillemets at You Benchang. I greatly appreciate the feedback from y'all, thank you. Incidentally, the prose at You Benchang reminds me of a Choose Your Own Adventure book. "You joined the Chinese Dramatists Association in 1980. You first rose to prominence in 1986 for playing Ji Gong in the television series Ji Gong. You drink the vial of liquid. Turn to page 12."

Russian also uses guillemets and I retain them when quote marks are needed, e.g.: "My Beloved Arctic" (Russian: «Я люблю моё Заполярье») is... Why do I do this? Because I like it that way. If a different person was translating the article and he wanted to use straight quotes that'd be OK too.

If another person came along and changed my guillemets to straight quotes, that'd be OK I guess but pointlessly substituting one person's aesthetic sense for another's, it's not recommended; instead a WP:ENGVAR-type ethos of "let it be" is much happier-making. I'd recommend that the editor do what he thinks looks and works and best that other editors respect that. Herostratus (talk) 14:20, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

As a reader, I would prefer that foreign language text not be redacted when it is quoted. In particular, I would prefer that the original punctuation be retained, including guillemets. The question is whether wiki policy has enough wiggle room to allow retaining them. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:21, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
OK. It's rare for quote marks to actually be part of a quotation. Only with something like Employing his usual atrocious Russian, Belvedev wrote "Если бы я был мужиком, я бы сказал: «К черту с тобой!» к каждому дворянину." (English: "If I were a peasant, I would say 'To hell with you!' to every nobleman.") I guess, which that sort of construction would be pretty rare. The outer quote marks were not written by Belvedev, they are our Wikipedia way of indicating that it's a quote. And the vast majority of quote marks are of that kind. (The inner quote marks should use whatever Belvedev used, since they're part of a quote,I think.)
In the example I gave above, "My Beloved Arctic" is not a quotation or part of the song name, the quote marks are there because that's how we designate song names. IMO either "My Beloved Arctic" (Russian: «Я люблю моё Заполярье») is... or "My Beloved Arctic" (Russian: "Я люблю моё Заполярье") is... would be OK. Anything that's not expressly forbidden is allowed here, I think. Herostratus (talk) 05:10, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

MOS:CAPS is slowly forking again

Most of the discussions at WT:MOSCAPS are dominated by confusion, misguided proposals that can't work, and general hemming and hawing for weeks over "issues" that would be settled in seconds at WT:MOS proper, because of the institutional memory of the regular participants here, and the sheer number of watchers, who are liable to rapidly detect missteps and overgeneralizations and bring them up. There seems to be a general trend at that sub-guideline to be more permissive than MOS itself is, usually on the perennial, false basis of misapplying the "follow the sources" maxim to try to reoly upon souces that are reliable for facts about a topic as if reliable for styling text in an encyclopedia. MOSCAPS in particular is arguably a consistent, perpetual problem in this regard, more so than most other MOS subpages, but definitely not the only problematic one in this "drifting slowly into a PoV-fork" vein; MOS:TEXT goes there often (see below), and MOS:NUM does it sometimes, too. There are other problems inherent in this divvying up of MOS into fiefdoms model. E.g., MOS:CAPS and MOS:PN overlap excessively (they could safely be merged, actually). But for the short term, I'd like to encourage more MOS watchers to either participate in discussion at WT:MOSCAPS and keep them on track, or better yet move them here for resolution when they become moribund or confused at MOSCAPS.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  07:17, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

MOS:TEXT veering off, too

MOS:TEXT#Uses of italics that are specific to Wikipedia now inexplicably says we do not italicize self-refs (e.g. instructions to the reader, like "(see also War of 1812)", but of course we consistently do italicize these; there are hundreds of thousands of such cross-references, almost universally italicized, including by a huge family of templates {{See also}}, etc.) that auto-italicize them. I've raised this issue in more detail at WT:MOSTEXT#Italicization of self-refs, and suggested specific clarifying examples.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  07:18, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Rough waters at Aadhaar

I have been having disagreements with an editor at Aadhaar, where I find my changes have been successively reverted despite discussion and my attempts at addressing his concerns. In the edit summary of their last revert, they say: "Reverting the non-value-add changes made without building consensus". I have invited them here to voice any further concerns, and to confirm that article-level consensus is not required to implement style guidelines. -- Ohc ¡digame! 05:14, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, I see a lot of bickering there, but it doesn't seem to be about this particularly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  07:34, 29 March 2014 (UTC)

Ellipses after terminal punctuation

Suppose we wish to quote George, who said, "I like cake. I always have. I also like ice cream." Should we write George said, "I like cake... I also like ice cream." or George said, "I like cake. ... I also like ice cream." or George said, "I like cake.... I also like ice cream."? We should include the answer to this question in the Ellipse section of the MOS. Peter Chastain (talk) 14:13, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I just re-read the section and noticed that elipses should be surrounded by spaces. So, I am guessing that the second alternative is correct. Should we put an example like this (i.e., where terminal punctuation preceeds the ellipses) in the MOS? Peter Chastain (talk) 14:20, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the full stop is omitted, and the right way is George said, "I like cake ... I also like ice cream." Note that the space before the ellipsis is non-breaking (&nbsp;), but the one after the ellipsis is ordinary. --Stfg (talk) 21:05, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
The full stop before the ellipses lets us know that the first part was a complete sentence, which might be useful to a reader who wants to know if something was completely taken out of context. I think I heard (in school 50+ years ago???) that the period should be kept, but I imagine that different style guides treat this differently, and I wasn't even aware that a space should be placed before the ellipses. Peter Chastain (talk) 22:15, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict)FWIW, I've read in style guides to use four dots it an ellipsis appears with a full stop and seven dots if omitting an entire paragraph. Not in our style guide!
My reading of MOS:ELLIPSIS is that there should be a space between the full stop and ellipsis:
Use an ellipsis if material is omitted in the course of a quotation, unless square brackets are used to gloss the quotation (see above, and points below).
  • Put a space on each side of an ellipsis ("France, Germany, ... and Belgium"), except that there should be no space between an ellipsis and:
    • a quotation mark directly following the ellipsis ("France, Germany, and Belgium ...").
    • any (round, square, curly, etc.) bracket, where the ellipsis is on the inside ("France, Germany (but not Berlin, Munich, ...), and Belgium").
    • sentence-final punctuation, or a colon, semicolon, or comma (all rare), directly following the ellipsis ("Are we going to France ...?").
  • Only place terminal punctuation after an ellipsis if it is textually important (as is often the case with exclamation marks and question marks, and rarely with periods).
  • Use non-breaking spaces (&nbsp;) as needed to prevent improper line breaks, for example:
    • To keep a quotation mark (and any adjacent punctuation) from being separated from the start or end of the quotation ("...&nbsp;we are still worried"; "Are we going to France&nbsp;...?").
    • To keep the ellipsis from wrapping to the next line ("France, Germany,&nbsp;... and Belgium"; not "France, Germany,&nbsp;...&nbsp;and Belgium").
None of the exceptions apply to the general rule: "Put a space on each side of an ellipsis" as none refer to an ellipsis appearing after terminal punctuation.
Thus: George said, "I like cake. ... I also like ice cream." —sroc 💬 22:19, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
It's poorly written. I take it that it says not to use the space with "sentence-final punctuation" that "directly follow[s] the ellipsis," but with the parenthetical about colons and so forth there, it's awkward and unclear that "directly following" still modifies "sentence-final punctuation." I think it should be re-written to more explicitly address periods.

Another point is that, technically speaking, if the ellipsis were to be in place of the underlined text here: "I like cake. I always have. I also like ice cream." then it would actually be correct not to include the space because the retained period would immediately follow the ellipsis rather than precede it. To be honest, I think this rule is a bit ill-advised for that reason (can't we just ditch the space since it doesn't actually communicate where the period was initially?), but I'm guessing the rule came from somewhere. AgnosticAphid talk 23:20, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

I think it's a bit far fetched to argue that the period immediately following "cake" is being elided rather than the one after "have"; it's evident that the second sentence ("I always have.") has been excised in its entirety. It makes no more sense than saying "I... always have" ("I [like cake. I] always have") instead of simply quoting "I always have.")
The rule does "actually communicate where the period was initially" because "I like cake. ..." faithfully leaves the period where it was in the original.
Anyway, the rule could certainly be better written for clarity:
  • any terminal punctuation, colon, semicolon or comma directly following the ellipsis ("Are we going to France ...?").
And move the "terminal punctuation" link from the subsequent bullet. —sroc 💬 23:32, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
 Done[34] —sroc 💬 23:38, 20 March 2014 (UTC)
So, if I understand this discussion correctly, the existing rule covers the case where there is an unelided complete sentence, with full stop, followed by an ellipsis. Can we clarify/emphasize this with an example sentence, such as This is a complete sentence. ... and some text after an ellipsis.? Peter Chastain (talk) 13:11, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
That's actually a bad example because the second sentence needs to start with a capital letter:
  • If the start of the next sentence is cut off, convert to uppercase with square brackets (This is a complete sentence. ... [A]nd some text after an ellipsis.)
  • If the start of the next sentence is included, quote as is (This is a complete sentence. ... Some text came after an ellipsis.)
I'm not sure that an example is needed though, at the risk of instruction creep. —sroc 💬 14:23, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree that instruction creep is bad, though I often perpetrate it. However, many (?) of us think we were taught that the correct form is "This is a complete sentence.... [A]nd some text after an ellipsis", which is why I opened this lengthy discussion in the first place. Rather than adding another instruction, can we just put an example like "This is a complete sentence. ... [A]nd some text after an ellipsis" immediately after "France, Germany, ... and Belgium"? Peter Chastain (talk) 03:20, 22 March 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Peter. This wouldn't be instruction creep so much as instruction clarification. I've been getting this wrong all this time, and would welcome this addition. --Stfg (talk) 10:48, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. How about this?

  • any terminal punctuation, colon, semicolon or comma, directly following the ellipsis ("Are we going to France ...?"), but include spaces where such punctuation comes before an ellipsis ("They went to France and Germany. ... They did not make it to Belgium").

—sroc 💬 08:22, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

👍 Like. Thanks. --Stfg (talk) 10:32, 23 March 2014 (UTC)
👍 Yes! Please! Thank you. Peter Chastain [habla, por favor] 06:32, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
👍 Like Helps clarity. Reify-tech (talk) 21:22, 30 March 2014 (UTC)

Due to

I thought I was learning to tolerate traditionally incorrect uses of "due to", but I'm having difficulty accepting this:

"Due to historical events, Germans are often called Hitler in a derogatory manner."

Could I get a second opinion? 86.176.211.10 (talk) 02:27, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Presumably you're referring to List of terms used for Germans#Hitler? Disregarding grammar, it's unsourced and, I think, unlikely to be true. I suggest deleting the whole line. Pburka (talk) 02:34, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
I deleted some irrelevant material there, and was tempted to delete the whole section, but my purpose here is to get opinions on the grammar. 86.176.211.10 (talk) 02:44, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
See User:Wavelength/About English/Expressions "because of" and "due to".
—Wavelength (talk) 02:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Font

I know it has probably been ongoing for a while, but please can someone give me a link to the discussion to change the font for Wikipedia headings (and probably articles)? Thanks, Matty.007 19:31, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Does this help? __ E L A Q U E A T E 19:38, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads up. Matty.007 19:48, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
Some nice voting here on the village pump. —Neotarf (talk) 08:22, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

Reference tags before or after punctuation

In WP:REFPUNC, it is stated that a reference tag should go after adjoining punctuation (e.g., period or comma), except that it should go before a dash and sometimes before a closing parenthesis. Should the tag also go before a colon, especially when the colon introduces a list that is not in-line? See, for example, the list in Waste hierarchy#Challenges for local and regional authorities. Peter Chastain [habla, por favor] 02:55, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

No. After a colon or semicolon. Dicklyon (talk) 03:13, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
Concur; after, for the same reason it goes after a period or comma. WP:IAR applies to any odd case in which it might be important to not do that, e.g. The counties of US states, called parishes in Louisiana[citation to source for "parishes" fact only]: Long list here, citing other sources for the data in the list inline or at end of list That is, there can be cases where the citation should go before the colon, just as there are such cases for placement before a closing parenthesis/bracket.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  11:54, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Single works of art

An editor just made a bold edit to say that individual works of art should be set off with quotation marks. I reverted it, since existing guidelines throughout the MOS say to use italics for all works of art.

Am I reading the guideline right that we use italics for all works of art, or is it a small/large work sort of thing, similar to songs v. albums? Are there standards in the art world for using quotation marks that we need to take into account? The other editor made a passing mention but didn't supply specifics; that's why I wanted to open discussion. —C.Fred (talk) 19:10, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I collect art and deal in it on a small scale. I'm used to italics for, e.g., paintings, drawings, etchings and sculpture (including reproductions, e.g. prints and bronzes). I think the complainant may be overly accustomed tothe imprecise usage of semi-pro sellers on eBay, signs in antique shops, and tags on the wall at local "galleries" (i.e. painting sellers, not museums). I have to think that such entities have about as much authority on such style matters as greengrocers do on use of all-caps, quotation marks and apostrophes. Actual style guides like Chicago Manual of Style say to use italics (CMoS 16th ed., 2010, sect. 8.2: "Chicago prefers italics to set off the titles of major or freestanding works such as books, journals, movies, and paintings.") I have an enormous number of art books, and virtually all of them use italics for this purpose, while most of the few I can find that don't italicize use boldfacing, one used small-caps mixed with real ones (it was basically a font where all the letterforms were majuscule, and only size determined which were real capitals), but none I've looked at so far used quotation marks, except a couple of lower-end auction catalogues (i.e. more "art greengrocers"). Our recommendation of italics for this purpose is very solid. Even people who want to try to make style matters be about what [usually specialized] reliable sources [that they prefer] do, rather than what reliable sources about English language usage say (to italicize) and what other encyclopedias do (italicize – Britannica and Columbia both italicize, as do the several art encyclopedias I have on hand), are going to have to concede on this one, because the italicization is nearly universal in art-related books, too.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  10:41, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks for thoroughly researching and confirming the above. The original editor has quietly acceded to the reversion, considers the issue closed, likely will be more cautious about bold edits in the MOS, and has resumed uneventful and constructive editing of articles. This is based on help messages I left on the editor's Talk page, responses, and observed behavior. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 00:44, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
I conflated two different editors with whom I had communicated separately (I was working late). Nevertheless, the issue appears to be closed. Cheers! Reify-tech (talk) 21:36, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Copy Edit of Lead

Flynn et. al., what are your objections to my copy edit? Duxwing (talk) 06:44, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

When you state "Flynn," with regard to this, this and this, I take it you mean me? Flyer22 (talk) 06:59, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
I retained any change that I didn't view as detrimental. Regarding the changes that I reverted:
  • "The goal" → "Its goal"
    This anthropomorphizes the Manual of Style. Wikipedians have the goal.
  • "Writing should be clear and concise." → "Writing should be clear and concise:"
    A period/full stop is more appropriate here.
  • "Plain English works best; avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording." → "Plain English best avoids ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily-complex wording."
    This alters the statement's meaning from "Do this thing instead of doing these contrary things." to the nonsensical "Doing this thing is the best way to avoid doing contrary things." It also introduces a hyphen after the standard -ly adverb "unnecessarily", which contradicts advice appearing on the very same page.
  • "Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason." → "Editors should not unnecessarily change an article from one acceptable style to another."
    This refers to an "acceptable style" instead of acceptable usage of a style. It also replaces "without a good reason" with "unnecessarily" (thereby failing to convey that good reasons can exist).
If a reverted change is not mentioned above, I simply believe that it resulted in weaker prose. —David Levy 07:57, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
Oops, I misread your name! Sorry! >_<
  • I'm relieved to know not all of my edit was reverted. EDIT: Nevermind, it was.
  • I used "Its" to be parallel with the first two sentences, which start with "the manual of style" and "it". I think we should keep this part because the sentences' seemingly describing a sentient article is an artifact of having read the previous version, which readers generally will not.
  • Agreed.
  • Saying "unnecessarily" implies the idea of necessary style changes because were none necessary, the sentence would read "Never change an article's style." "Unnecessarily" therefore is a shorter way of saying "without a good reason"; analogously, "unnecessary roughness".
Duxwing (talk) 08:13, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm relieved to know not all of my edit was reverted. EDIT: Nevermind, it was.
These changes have not been reverted.
I used "Its" to be parallel with the first two sentences, which start with "the manual of style" and "it".
Those sentences refer to the Manual of Style. The following sentence refers to our goal in writing it.
I think we should keep this part because the sentences' seemingly describing a sentient article is an artifact of having read the previous version, which readers generally will not.
The problem is self-contained. "Its goal" ascribes an aspiration to the Manual of Style itself.
Saying "unnecessarily" implies the idea of necessary style changes because were none necessary, the sentence would read "Never change an article's style." "Unnecessarily" therefore is a shorter way of saying "without a good reason"; analogously, "unnecessary roughness".
Firstly, your wording could be interpreted to mean that all such changes are unnecessary. (Shifting "unnecessarily" to the end of the sentence would reduce the likelihood.)
Secondly, a change from one English variety to another needn't be necessary to be justifiable. It need only be backed by one or more good reasons (and in the event of a dispute, it must reflect consensus). In some cases, it simply enables an improvement, not the repair of something broken. —David Levy 08:48, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
I didn't notice the "partially" before "reverted" until I checked the History again. I apologize for the clerical error. Also note that another editor removed more of my writing after you, perhaps the rest of it.
Want to therefore change "the" to "our"?
Not unless the "unnecessarily" were in a "which" clause, which defines the entire set of changes.
You seem to assume that what is justifiable not necessarily also necessary: do you? If you rightly do, then should we change "unnecessarily" to "unjustifiably"?
Duxwing (talk) 09:30, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
Also note that another editor removed more of my writing after you, perhaps the rest of it.
I linked to a diff showing the changes that remain after both my reversion and Dicklyon's.
Want to therefore change "the" to "our"?
I prefer "The".
Not unless the "unnecessarily" were in a "which" clause, which defines the entire set of changes.
Whether users should interpret a statement in a particular manner is immaterial. Your wording is relatively ambiguous, and even its intended meaning is inaccurate (as I explained above).
You seem to assume that what is justifiable not necessarily also necessary: do you?
Yes. That's my point.
It wasn't necessary to move Check (finance) to Cheque (thereby changing the English variety in which it was written), but this was justifiable because it enabled an improvement (the elimination of parenthetical disambiguation from the article's title).
If you rightly do, then should we change "unnecessarily" to "unjustifiably"?
We should retain "without a good reason". —David Levy 10:13, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
I am not complaining, just noting and explaining: I'm sure you meant well. :)
Why?
If we believe we cannot rely on users to reliably interpret grammar, then why do we write for them?
That change was necessary because the title contained word cruft, which should be eliminated. Duxwing (talk) 11:37, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
I am not complaining, just noting and explaining: I'm sure you meant well. :)
I didn't interpret the statement as a complaint. I addressed "perhaps the rest of it" by reiterating that some of your changes were not reverted.
Why?
A user reading "Our" might or might not interpret it as a reference to the Wikipedia community (including him/herself). This is a subtle distinction, but it's preferable to avoid fueling the misconception that the Manual of Style was handed down from above by some unspecified authority (such as the Wikimedia Foundation).
If we believe we cannot rely on users to reliably interpret grammar, then why do we write for them?
We just discussed the advice to avoid ambiguity and vague wording, which appears in the preceding paragraph. That principle applies to the MoS itself, which is intended to convey concepts as clearly as possible (including to users for whom English is not a native language). In my assessment, your wording is relatively vague and ambiguous.
That change was necessary because the title contained word cruft, which should be eliminated.
The title contained parenthetical disambiguation largely consistent with Wikipedia's standards. Its elimination was desirable, but I doubt that most of the community would regard it as essential. —David Levy 15:16, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
I have to concur with David Levy and DickLyon (in edit summary) on all of these points, except your suggestion to change "the" to "our". I actually prefer to remind people that WP is a project full of human beings, not some hive-mind AI with it's own ideas and goals and preferences. While I don't take every opportunity to do so, one such hint in the lead here would be a very good thing in my view. Anyway, your lead changes were none of them trivial and many of them subtly problematic for reasons that have been well explained here. Actually, I guess I don't necessarily (pun intended) disagree with changing ENGVAR's "unnecessarily" to something else, but is "unjustifiably" useful? "Unnecessarily" does seem a little hyperbolic, but every WP:RANDY is self-righteously convinced that every change they want to impose on everything is "justifiable". Absent a consensus on just what to change "necessarily" to, it should stay as-is because it's been stable a long time and has served us well.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:43, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
I actually prefer to remind people that WP is a project full of human beings, not some hive-mind AI with it's own ideas and goals and preferences. While I don't take every opportunity to do so, one such hint in the lead here would be a very good thing in my view.
I agree, but I think that it would be better to work in something a bit more explicit (such as a mention of the "editing community" or similar). My concern is that the substitution of "our" (without additional tweaks) could be misinterpreted as a self-reference by a higher authority. ("The is our goal, so we're telling you how to satisfy us.")
Actually, I guess I don't necessarily (pun intended) disagree with changing ENGVAR's "unnecessarily" to something else,
WP:ENGVAR doesn't contain the word "unnecessarily". If I understood correctly, Duxwing was referring to the instance of "unnecessarily" with which he/she replaced "without a good reason" in the lead (a change that I reverted).
but is "unjustifiably" useful?
I don't think so (for the reason that you described above). —David Levy 04:39, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
Agreed.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  06:35, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Jack Halberstam/Judith Halberstam title matter

Opinions are needed on this matter: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies#Jack Halberstam (more commonly known as Judith Halberstam) -- what to title the article. Flyer22 (talk) 19:30, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

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